The attempt to wed live action with a two dimensional style is strongly reminiscent of Sin City. Sometimes it's really awkward, like the first shot of John Cho smoking, in which it seems like his arm was digitally moved about to fit the timing. Though I'm surprised they're actually portraying him smoking.
The original opening for comparison:
The obvious difference is the lack of the fourth lead in the Netflix trailer, Edward. Edward had previously been announced as appearing in the Netflix series but for some reason Netlix has been coy about her. Her actress hasn't been named and no pictures published.
A lot of negative reaction on the internet has been generated around Faye, played by Daniella Pineda. Despite the costumes on Spike and Jet hewing very close to the anime, Faye's costume is notably more conservative and generic. It covers more of her body and also aesthetically looks more like Guardians of the Galaxy than the tweaked 1950s style of most of the characters in the original series. Pineda added a lot of fuel to the backlash by posting a video in which she mocks the fans for their dislike of her costume as well as mocking the idea that she physically doesn't match the animated Faye in the bust department, something I don't remember seeing anyone complain about.
The fact that the makers of this show and many others feel women need to be more covered now makes me feel more sad than outraged. The change in her aesthetic, though, seems like a sign they really didn't understand what the original series was trying to do.
Recently, more images of the supporting cast were released:
Julia and Vicious, on the top left and right, look pretty much the same as they do in the anime. Ana and Gren, on the bottom left and right, make me think that if I ever need to go into witness protection and look inconspicuous I should hope Netlix wouldn't be in charge of giving me my new look. Ana was an apparently ordinary woman working at a corner drugstore and now she's another badass in a leather coat. Gren was a man whose body started to take on female attributes against his will. He was a saxophone player in a small dive bar and dressed in plain slacks and a button down shirt, unsurprisingly inconspicuous given he lived on a world populated almost entirely by men, and dangerous men. Now it looks like he's a flamboyant cabaret performer, which makes me wonder if they're drastically changing his whole story. This seems like a sign of either the clumsiness of wokeness or a clumsy pretense at wokeness (depending on whether you consider "woke" a good thing). Someone trying to show a more positive portrayal of a transgender character clumsily put one in a more stereotypical role in the process.
I'll certainly be watching this show. But so far the boldest things about it are things it directly copies from the original series, which is not a good sign.
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