Cowboy Bebop

[Peanutbutter]

Not surprised at the cancellation. Haven't seen it myself, but that one clip of Faye shouting from her ship is even worse than the ones I've seen of Ed. 

[Dr. Insomniac]

I have to admit, I'm slightly surprised. It sounded like this was at least a hit, and some people did actually like it.

I don't trust the numbers Netflix gives for their originals. They keep saying Red Notice was one of their biggest movies, yet I haven't met anyone who watched it.

[Daxdiv]

I have no idea what Red Notice is & at this point, I'm too afraid to ask. But yeah, I remember people saying that Netflix employs the old Facebook plan of watching a few seconds of something counts as a view. Just even hovering over the icon & the footage start playing is when your view counts.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I have talked to people who've seen Red Notice and really liked it, but it does still feel disproportionately popular considering how little I hear about it compared to say, Squid Game. The audience for it just must be a niche we just don't crossover with much on our social media bubbles or daily lives.

Netflix started tracking their top 10 most-watched shows by total hours watched, which is a better metric, but obviously weights things in favor of media with longer runtimes over others, so it's still not the most helpful gauge of popularity. I was still a little surprised about the cancelation because it was watched a lot according to the total hours metric, but considering how poor the reception was and how quickly that watch time tapered off between the second and third weeks I can see why they were quick to confirm they weren't doing more. Hopefully the One Piece show fares better...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

One Piece is a series that's very identity is in it's absurd character designs and locations. Like, actual aspects of the story and world building can only exist specifically in the medium of hand-drawn images. Trying to make it live action quite effectively makes it something entirely different, and at that something substantially less interesting with how much it would have to compromise to even make sense in live action.

It's clear that the producers see that One Piece is a fantasy epic at it's core and are trying to capitalize on that, but the whole draw of it's appeal to most people is that it's a world with story and lore on par with The Lord of the Rings populated with characters and running on physics that feel like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. You literally lose half of that by bringing it over to live-action. The choice to do so still baffles me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, and One Piece isn't alone. There are so many live-action adaptations of anime/manga that lose its charm in the medium transition and become either bland or horrifying because the adaptation didn't put in the pragmatic effort to reconfigure what worked in manga panels or animation cels into live-action shots, like the recent Jojo's Bizarre Adventure movie.

[Daxdiv]

One Piece is a series that's very identity is in it's absurd character designs and locations. Like, actual aspects of the story and world building can only exist specifically in the medium of hand-drawn images. Trying to make it live action quite effectively makes it something entirely different, and at that something substantially less interesting with how much it would have to compromise to even make sense in live action.

It's clear that the producers see that One Piece is a fantasy epic at it's core and are trying to capitalize on that, but the whole draw of it's appeal to most people is that it's a world with story and lore on par with The Lord of the Rings populated with characters and running on physics that feel like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. You literally lose half of that by bringing it over to live-action. The choice to do so still baffles me.

I just want to see how awkward Luffy stretching is & how Zoro is gonna justify having a sword in his mouth without it looking goofy as hell. One Piece is the most westernized anime/manga I have ever seen as far as an original Japanese production goes. Also the fact that we're getting 10 episodes in the first season & the first 5 Straw Hats have been casted, it does make me wonder how fast/broad strokes they're gonna progress through the East Blue saga. The fact that the same production studio that made Bebop is handling OP, does make me worry more.

There's also the fact that I was reminded that Death Note sequel is still in production. Which still also make me wonder why Death Note getting a sequel is OK, considering the only good part people liked about that William Dafoe's Ryuk (I'll admit, that was my favorite part in the movie. also, name me one other aspect of the movie that wasn't criticized to hell and back) but Bebop getting cancelled after a season is baffling to me. Maybe because it's a movie and all & you don't have to devote much time, but still.