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Original Cowboy Bebop Cast Reprise Roles for Japanese Dub of Live-Action Series

Netflix announced on Wednesday that the Japanese dub of the live-action adaptation of Sunrise's Cowboy Bebop anime will feature the original anime's cast reprising their roles. Taiten Kusunoki will replace the late Unshō Ishizuka as the voice of Jet Black. Other new cast members include Masako Isobe as Mao, originally played by Kazuaki Itō, and Romi Park as Shin, whom Nobuyuki Hiyama voiced in the original anime.

The Japanese dub cast includes (pictured above from left to right starting on top row):

• Kōichi Yamadera as Spike Spiegel
• Norio Wakamoto as Vicious
• Megumi Hayashibara as Faye Valentine
• Gara Takashima as Julia
• Taiten Kusunoki as Jet Black
• Tsutomu Tareki as Punch
• Miki Nagasawa as Judy
• Takaya Hashi as Teddy Bomber
• Kenyuu Horiuchi as Gren
• Masako Isobe as Mao
• Romi Park as Shin
• Hikaru Midorikawa as Lin

Netflix also revealed that it will stream the original anime worldwide outside Japan starting on October 21. The anime is already streaming on Netflix in Japan.

The live-action series will premiere on November 19. The series will have 10 episodes.

Netflix describes its Cowboy Bebop series:

COWBOY BEBOP is an action-packed space Western about three bounty hunters, aka “cowboys,” all trying to outrun the past. As different as they are deadly, Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) 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.

The series stars John Cho as Spike, Mustafa Shakir as Jet, Daniella Pineda as Faye, Alex Hassell as Vicious, and Elena Satine as Julia.

The cast also includes:

• Geoff Stults as Chalmers, Jet's ex-partner
• Tamara Tunie as Ana, Martian club owner
• Mason Alexander Park as Gren, Ana's right hand person
• Rachel House as Mao, White Tigers Capo
• Ann Truong as Shin, one of Vicious' twin henchmen
• Hoa Xuande as Lin, one of Vicious' twin henchmen

Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop anime's composer) is composing the live-action series. The live-action opening credits brings back Kanno's "Tank!" song from the original anime's version.

Netflix posted a "Behind the Scenes" video on October 2019 to mark the start of production. The production on the first season was on hold in New Zealand after lead actor John Cho's on-set knee injury in October 2019, followed by a shutdown due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In July 2020, New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment began allowing the series' crew to enter the country for filming in the next six months, even as most countries are still dealing with COVID-19.

Writer and executive producer Jeff Pinkner teased in April 2020 that the show's staff is planning a second season. Pinker said that the project's one-hour episode length allows them to "really tell stories set in that world in a way that hopefully will not only delight the fans of anime but expose a whole bunch of new people to the world of Cowboy Bebop, the awesome work of Yoko Kanno."

The series is a co-production between Netflix and Tomorrow Studios, with Netflix handling physical production. Tomorrow Studios is a partnership between producer Marty Adelstein (Prison Break, Teen Wolf, producer for the live-action One Piece project) and ITV Studios. Shinichiro Watanabe, the original anime's director, is serving as consultant for the project. Andre Nemec, Josh Appelbaum, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg of Midnight Radio are credited as showrunners and executive producers.

Tomorrow Studios' Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements; Yasuo Miyakawa, Masayuki Ozaki, and Shin Sasaki of Sunrise (the studio that animated the original series); and Tetsu Fujimura and Matthew Weinberg are also credited as executive producers. Chris Yost (Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok) is writing the series, and is credited as executive producer.

The original anime series follows the motley crew of the spaceship Bebop as it travels throughout the solar system in search of the next job. The anime inspired Cowboy Bebop: The Movie in 2001. Funimation released the series on Blu-ray and DVD in North America in 2014, and screened the film in the United States in 2018, the 20th anniversary of the original series.

Source: Press release