Beloved anime “Cowboy Bebop” has found its live-action lead.
Saying that people are psyched is a dramatic understatement.
Mustafa Shakir, best known for depicting Bushmaster in “Luke Cage,” will play Spiegel’s partner Jet Black. Danielle Pineda of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” will play amnesiac thief Faye Valentine, and British actor Alex Hassell has been cast as Vicious, Spiegel’s former partner who’s out to kill him.
The series follows Spiegel and his crew of bounty hunters, who are “on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system’s most dangerous criminals,” Netflix said.
Cho’s casting has been making waves. The actor inadvertently became the face of the Asian representation movement online when digital strategist William Yu launched #StarringJohnCho in 2016. With the help of some photo editing magic, Yu reimagined Hollywood blockbusters like “Jurassic Park” with Cho in the leading role.
Since then, Cho really has starred in several films, including “Searching” and “Columbus.” And now, he’ll portray the lead in a television series.
Cho’s role is also significant after the whitewashing of other live-action adaptations of anime series.
Scarlett Johansson notoriously played the Major in the film adaptation of Japanese manga “Ghost in the Shell,” and Netflix cast white actor Nat Wolff as the lead and Willem Dafoe as death god Ryuk in the live-action adaptation of the iconic Japanese manga “Death Note.”