Nobody told me Netflix was so great.

[Paul le Fou]

Spike Spiegel is Jewish, Faye is Chinese, Jet is at least half-black, Ed is... Ed, and Ein is Welsh. I hope they respect the diversity on display in the original, but I have a loooot of hopes about how they pull this off and yet few expectations.

[WisteriaHysteria]

Originally Posted by Paul le Fou

Spike Spiegel is Jewish, Faye is Chinese, Jet is at least half-black, Ed is... Ed...

??? Citation required?

[Becksworth]

Originally Posted by Paul le Fou

Spike Spiegel is Jewish, Faye is Chinese, Jet is at least half-black, Ed is... Ed, and Ein is Welsh.

It’s my head canon that Ein blasts Manic Street Preachers while the rest of the gang are out bounty hunting.

[Octopus Prime]

Originally Posted by WisteriaHysteria

??? Citation required?

Surnames and general appearance.

Faye I always presumed was Italian, however, so make of that as you will.

[Red Silvers]

Redubbing Evangelion does not seem right to me. Thank goodness for my DVDs in storage I guess.

[Meditative_Zebra]

Originally Posted by WisteriaHysteria

??? Citation required?

Well, Spike is rocking a modest jewfro.

[Alixsar]

Originally Posted by Paul le Fou

Spike Spiegel is Jewish, Faye is Chinese, Jet is at least half-black, Ed is... Ed, and Ein is Welsh. I hope they respect the diversity on display in the original, but I have a loooot of hopes about how they pull this off and yet few expectations.

Originally Posted by WisteriaHysteria

??? Citation required?

Jet's last name is Black, so the part of him that's black is his name.

Spike is Jewish...there's that entire Hannukah episode I guess you forgot about? There's even that line where he says "Oy vey, I'm Jewish!" and shrugs at the camera?

Faye's last name is Wong, so that probably means she's Chinese I guess? There's a ton of evidence for this, including that 1) Paul said so and 2) I dunno *shrug* I mean Wong? That's...ya know, I guess so?

Ed is definitely Ed

Ein is German for the number one, and Corgis are WELSH Corgis, but this is tricky because there's also that scene where Ein says "Oy vey, I'm Jewish!" and dog-head-tilts at the camera, so he's actually Jewish

[Büge]

Originally Posted by Paul le Fou

Faye is Romani

[Becksworth]

Serious answers:

Spike is Jewish is a popular fan theory based on his surname, appearance, and his preferred choice of sidearms most of the time being one of the Israeli Arms pistols. His love of pork and shellfish would seem to indicate either Reform or non-practicing. The creator has mentioned he was modeled after both a Japanese actor and Lupin the III I believe too though. Maybe Jewish-Asian?

Jet’s voice actor in the English dub is an African American man, leading people to feel the English dub codes Jet as black. He does have a large, detailed nose though, which I usually see reserved in anime/manga as visual code for a non-Asian person.

Faye is even more ambiguous, having green eyes, but also describing herself at different times as both Romani, and a stereotypical Asian beauty in one of the mangas. Apparently some people think the video tape of her past is depicting Singapore, but I haven’t seen the evidence.

Yeah, your guess on Ed’s family background is as good as mine.

[Octopus Prime]

Ed’s pretty near impossible to pet down to any given hemisphere, let alone specific race. But, of course, given that she grew up on Earth and given the state of the planet during the series it’s pointless to even try.

Ed is Ed.

[Paul le Fou]

Heh, yeah, I was referring to the fan theory about Spike being Israeli or half-Israeli. Jet mostly comes from the voice acting theory, but it doesn't not make sense. Faye I can't remember where I got that from, but the video absolutely depicts Singapore - the Merlion is a very distinct iconic thing from there -- so ethnically Chinese and/or Malaysian are the most likely, with possible English and Indian strains as well.

More seriously though, I think pretty much anyone in Bebop's world is going be mixed-race from our present-day understanding of it. Considering that the surface of Earth has been pretty much destroyed and humans are spread out throughout the solar system, the ethnicities that we know have likely been mixed and diluted beyond recognition, possibly settling down into whole new ethnic combinations by colony. But even then, space travel is relatively common, and people can intermix and mingle freely and don't have the long history of their nations to tie them down as solidly to their locations and identities. I think it'd be really cool if they had a cast of mostly or entirely mixed-race actors for these roles.

[Bongo]

Originally Posted by Becksworth

As for Bebop, screw it why not try it? Worse case scenario it sucks in a boring, unfun way and we go back to watching the Anime. It might wind up being actually good, or at least hilariously bad.

What? No, that's ridiculous, making advice like this. Nobody in the history of the world, except for me, has ever been able to ignore an inferior adaptation of a beloved classic.

[Bongo]

Anyway, I'm so down for Carmen Sandiego.

[BEAT]

Fuck Bebop

Fuck Eva

Fuck Netflix.

[Egarwaen]

Originally Posted by Bongo

Anyway, I'm so down for Carmen Sandiego.

Where in the World is Lupin III

[Zef]

Originally Posted by BEAT

Fuck Bebop

Fuck Eva

Fuck Netflix.

Marry Voltron, Kill Death Note?

[Pajaro Pete]

I guess Spooky Sabrina did really well since Netflix has already announced the release date for part 2. Compare and contrast with other Netflix Originals, which usually exist in a limbo or a vague "sometime next year" quote

[Pizzarino Sbarro]

Weren’t they filming both parts at the same time? Or sequentially, anyway. There was always gonna be a season/part 2.

[BEAT]

Originally Posted by Zef

Marry Voltron, Kill Death Note?

Kill em all.

KILL EM ALL

[WisteriaHysteria]

I am more than a little flummoxed that a person's hairstyle and choice of firearms is apparently what determine's one's ethnicity. I guess Lupin III is a Jewish Nazi? I guess I'm Jewish too???

Originally Posted by Becksworth

Serious answers:

Way too serious answers:

This is honestly the best reading of the situation:

Cowboy Bebop is like 100+ years in the future. Spike is from Mars. He's tall and lanky because he grew up in 40% Earth-normal gravity. His hair is green. He's got a German name, and grew up in a Chinese-ish crime syndicate. This is a world where people don't blink an eye at someone being named "Vicious". Categorizing people along old, destroyed national lines is utterly meaningless in this world. The only character where we have any real evidence of their ethnicity is Faye, on account of being the only pre-disaster character who hails from Singapore. And even then, IMO it's meaningful to Bebop's post-ethnic setting that she's from a country whose national identity is one of cultural/ethnic synthesis. It's also meaningful that she at first identifies herself as Romani - another ethnic group defined by cultural/ethnic synthesis and being transnational.

This is an issue that may reflect more of my own personal hangups more than anything else, but it's something that's very important to me personally. People in general, have this pathological need to explain and compartmentalize things and slap labels on them. An understandable desire, but it becomes beyond problematic when it's applied to people. You see it all the time with the way people get confused and then hostile surrounding the labels of gender and sexual orientation. And to those of us whose ethnicity doesn't neatly line up with the preconceptions of others face similar issues. "No, what ARE you?" is a line I've heard way too much in my relatively short lifetime. Hi, I'm a human being. And my family origins have no bearing on this bus we're riding together, or this party we're both at, or our ability to relate to one another - why do you care so much about putting me in a box? About making me choose narrow definition of myself, or worse yet, you choosing for me.

So when I see these lively debates about pegging characters who - it seems to me at least - are very intentionally ethnically ambiguous, it's something that hits home pretty hard. Like Jet. Jet was born on a moon orbiting another planet, 100 years from now. He flies through inter-dimensional space on rocket ships for a living. He has less in common with any of us than any of us do with each other. And yet people feel compelled to put inapplicable, antiquated labels on him just to fit their small and narrow worldviews. It's kinda crazy! Race is a social construct. And society in Cowboy Bebop has been completely smashed and everyone has moved on. I'm of the mind that you can make any of the characters from Bebop into anything, and it doesn't matter/won't change anything. But if you want to follow the spirit of the show, make them as ethnically ambiguous as possible. Because your oldtype labels don't apply to these future-people from the stars, so you might as well fuck with the heads of oldtypes as much as possible.

[WisteriaHysteria]

Originally Posted by Octopus Prime

Ed’s pretty near impossible to pet down to any given hemisphere, let alone specific race. But, of course, given that she grew up on Earth and given the state of the planet during the series it’s pointless to even try.

Ed is Ed.

In Watanabe's own words, Ed transcends humanity. Labels of race and gender are meaningless for Ed. Ed is an alien.

[Pajaro Pete]

Originally Posted by Pizzarino Sbarro

Weren’t they filming both parts at the same time? Or sequentially, anyway. There was always gonna be a season/part 2.

There was always going to be a part 2 but compare and contrast: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Arrested Development both aired half of their seasons last May and neither have an actual release date for the back half. Castlevania was confirmed to have a second season shortly after the first aired, but the release date was TBD for a loooong time. Same with Dear White People and The Get Down. But Spooky Sabrina already has it's second season release date nailed down half a year away.

[Paul le Fou]

The problem is that if making a TV show today, they must necessarily cast actors with Today ethnicities, and that will create issues of clashing ethnic expectations and disappointment no matter what angle they approach it from.

[WisteriaHysteria]

Originally Posted by Paul le Fou

The problem is that if making a TV show today, they must necessarily cast actors with Today ethnicities

You know, mixed race people exist all over the place today, often in plain view in the media even! You just wouldn't know because the media works really hard at keeping you from knowing that.

[Galadrome]

Spike could be literally any ethnicity, just make sure Spike's actor is actually good at martial arts or the character will be hamstrung. Spike's personality and real ass feelings are, imo, best expressed through his physicality. The playful vigour he embodies but also the seriousness/affection that the show subtly hints toward that he has in martial arts. If the actor doesn't know the meaning of fighting it won't work. If the choreography doesn't reflect the heart of martial arts it won't work. Something so strong about the original Bebop is its portrayal of martial arts, Watanabe is a true fan.

[Alixsar]

Originally Posted by Galadrome

If the actor doesn't know the meaning of fighting it won't work.

This summer, Goku is Spike Spiegel

[Positronic Brain]

Originally Posted by Alixsar

This summer, Goku is Spike Spiegel

Uh. So what's the cast of the Dragon Ball Z movie doing these days? Maybe they're looking for a job.

(my only consolation is that even if they botch the Bebop adaptation, it can get worse than this. Hopefully)

[SpoonyBardOL]

I recently watched Final Space on Netflix (it's originally TBS or something? It has the Netflix branding now so maybe they adopted it? I dunno) and I enjoyed it quite a bit, for the most part. But I kinda feel like the show didn't know what it wanted to be? Sci-fi adventure drama? Comedy? Episodic? Serial? This show kinda threw a lot of things in the proverbial blender.

Yet despite that, it mostly worked. And the first season has one hell of a cliffhanger. I liked (most of) the cast, and was kinda stunned to see that the big bad was played by David Tennant, I never would have picked that up. Guy has more range than I thought.

There was one performance I really couldn't get into, though, and unfortunately he's the main character. Gary, my god. If you look up the definition of 'trying too hard' you'll just find a link to any one of his scenes. All of the issues of inconsistent tone with this series can be traced to him, he honestly feels like he doesn't belong in this story. I don't mean in that he has no connection to the plot or the stakes, he does, but he feels way off. It's like....

It's like if we had the cast of the original Teen Titans, except for Robin who was replaced by his Go! incarnation and everyone is still trying to play it straight. Gary feels like he came from a slightly different incarnation of Final Space that leaned heavier into the 'comedy' than the version we're actually watching did.

Despite that, though, I'm still looking forward to season 2.

On the opposite end of the animated spectrum from Final Space is Hilda. This show is charming as hell and I love the visual style. I'm only a couple of episodes into this, but I already got a good feeling. This is yet another show on my 'cartoons I wish I could send back in time to young-me' list.

[Octopus Prime]

Originally Posted by SpoonyBardOL

I recently watched Final Space on Netflix (it's originally TBS or something? It has the Netflix branding now so maybe they adopted it? I dunno) and I enjoyed it quite a bit, for the most part. But I kinda feel like the show didn't know what it wanted to be? Sci-fi adventure drama? Comedy? Episodic? Serial? This show kinda threw a lot of things in the proverbial blender.

Yet despite that, it mostly worked. And the first season has one hell of a cliffhanger. I liked (most of) the cast, and was kinda stunned to see that the big bad was played by David Tennant, I never would have picked that up. Guy has more range than I thought.

There was one performance I really couldn't get into, though, and unfortunately he's the main character. Gary, my god. If you look up the definition of 'trying too hard' you'll just find a link to any one of his scenes. All of the issues of inconsistent tone with this series can be traced to him, he honestly feels like he doesn't belong in this story. I don't mean in that he has no connection to the plot or the stakes, he does, but he feels way off. It's like....

It's like if we had the cast of the original Teen Titans, except for Robin who was replaced by his Go! incarnation and everyone is still trying to play it straight. Gary feels like he came from a slightly different incarnation of Final Space that leaned heavier into the 'comedy' than the version we're actually watching did.

Despite that, though, I'm still looking forward to season 2.

That sums up my experience with the show perfectly as well; I really, really loved it all the way through, despite the fact that the main character is just... just so excruciating every step of the way. He seems to be the only one who is treating the show as a comedy and he wrecks it every time.

[Gunther, an Otter]

Final Space's total failure to be funny while still being quite good is kind of incredible on its own. But also its quite good and has a neat escalation of stakes.

Possibly Gary's "TRYING TO HARD" is a nuanced desperation on the part of his character and it sometimes works to that end... but at no point is he ever funny.
BUT its still interesting to see someone that frenetically stir-crazy from isolation so on that level its neat.

I think its only on Netflix in Canada and other non US places though which creates a weird situation of scarcity in watch ability maybe.