Netflix‘s ambitious and much-hyped anime adaptation ‘Cowboy Bebop’ has been cancelled after just one season. The show, a space western, featured ten episodes and aired last month. The Netflix original was in news the past few weeks owing to its storyline as well as its lead cast, including John Cho, Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda. The show, based on the popluar 1996 Japanese anime series by the same name, failed to capture audience’s imagination and was cancelled by the streaming giants less than a month after it aired. Netflix originally announced the project in 2018. 

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The show revolved around the tale of a three bounty hunters who, with the help of a starship, travelled into space to hunt down demons from their respective pasts. According to the show’s description, “They form a scrappy, snarky crew ready to hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals — for the right price. But they can only kick and quip their way out of so many scuffles before their pasts finally catch up with them.”

In its first three weeks of release, the series brought in about a total of 74 million hours of viewing. However, the viewership plunged by about 59% from November 29. The reduced viewing hours accompanied with a huge host of negative reviews, are deemed to be the main reasons for this decision. 

The critics were also not quite impressed with the series. Its rating by the team of experts is mediocre at best. The audience too give an impression of mixed emotions. Although the cast and tone of the show was widely appreciated, its translation from an anime perspective was seen to be a rather failure on part of the director and the actors. 

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The news was indeed a shocker to all the fans of Cowboy Bebop especially because the season ended on a cliffhanger and Radical Ed, the fan-favorite character was held back for the second season. Moreover, Nemec and Yost had already put across plans for the second season even before the first chapter of the show aired. In any case, the renewal for another season of the series is now out of the picture.