Imagine a dystopian far-future where a faceless megacorp harvests and replicates everything in its path, until every frazzled citizen drowns in content. Here’s the Black Mirror twist: that’s actually the present, as Netflix strives to either acquire or remake everything you ever loved (including Black Mirror).

This week, the streaming behemoth announced plans for a live-action remake of Cowboy Bebop, the eccentric 1998 sci-fi anime series about sarcastic bounty hunters scratching a living on the fringes of society. Shinichirō Watanabe’s creation was cancelled midway through its first and only 26-episode season, but has enjoyed a cult-like afterlife, developing a cross-cultural following in Japan and the US. The remake reveal is presumably intended as a 20th anniversary present to long-standing acolytes around the globe, but is it a gift they really want?

Dig a little deeper into the episodes and the influence of classic noir increasingly becomes apparent

Cowboy Bebop might seem like an absurd title, but it is pretty accurate: the show is a jazzy, freeform tale of life on the cosmic frontier. It is set in the cluttered, but recognisable future of 2071 where humanity has fled from a shattered Earth and dispersed across the local solar system. There are sci-fi staples – stargates and cyborg arms – this is no Star Trek post-scarcity society where a replicator will fulfil your every desire. This is still a universe of cup noodles, battered packs of cigarettes and scuzzy petrol stations where you fill up your spaceship, a sci-fi milieu of relatable shabbiness beautifully rendered in the kinetic, exaggerated style of Japanese animation.

If the thought of cyborg arms leaves you cold or you have simply never felt any particular desire to sample anime, at least check out Cowboy Bebop’s dazzling title sequence: a lurid, hellzapoppin’, bongo-powered freakout that feels like some long-lost 1960s ITC show, as if they fired The Persuaders into space. Skim through a few episodes of the show and all seems quite the energised hoot, an action comedy built around the bromance between the skinny-tied former hitman Spike and burly ex-cop Jet, two capable bounty hunters who chug around the galaxy in their slightly ungainly ship, the Bebop.

Stand and deliver: Spike Spiegel. Photograph: Allstar/Columbia Tristar

While collaring criminals and dodging the many-tentacled Red Dragon crime syndicate in brisk 20-minute adventures, Spike and Jet pick up some waifs and strays: fast-talking conwoman Faye, youthful hacking prodigy Ed and, perhaps most importantly of all, a genetically-altered corgi called Ein, who snuffles about the less fragrant corners of the Bebop with a faintly quizzical expression. There is the bickering, bonding and badinage you might expect from any self-respecting sci-fi series about a found family rubbing along in close quarters, but while the enhanced skillsets of the main characters means the Bebop crew are hardly ever bested in dogfights or bar brawls, they rarely succeed in ways that bring them much happiness or riches.

Dig a little deeper into the episodes and, among the many nods to classic US westerns and blaxploitation flicks, the influence of classic noir increasingly becomes apparent. (The Atlantic called it “[something] John Wayne, Elmore Leonard and Philip K Dick came up with during a wild, all-night whiskey bender”.) Behind the late-capitalist junk and clutter, this is a stark, morally compromised universe that seems irrevocably stacked against our anti-heroes. Their pasts are full of vengeful ghosts, institutional corruption is rife and innocents routinely get chewed up on the sidelines. What initially feels like cocky banter between Spike and Faye begins to resemble a last stand against bone-deep desperation, even nihilism. Come for the jazzy soundtrack but stay for the existential funk.

The richness of these characters, perhaps even more than the aesthetic of the universe, means that a live-action version of Cowboy Bebop could actually work. So far, Netflix have been putting their best foot forward by confirming that Watanabe will be involved in an advisory capacity and Christopher Yost – one of the writers of Thor: Ragnarok, that recent technicolour lodestone of fizzy intergalactic quips – will oversee the pilot episode. As with the UK version of House of Cards, Netflix isn’t even trying to overwrite memories of the original, currently offering the 1998 Cowboy Bebop to their vast global audience of subscribers (a move that will make early adopters who tracked down pricey import-only DVDs in the 2000s weep with either joy or anger).

Some fans will joke that a live-action Cowboy Bebop already exists. Joss Whedon’s equally one-and-done Firefly, which spun similarly smart-mouth tales of outlaw life in a frontier future, bears more than a passing resemblance to Watanabe’s inventive original, right down to the silhouettes of their titular ships. But, rather than use Firefly as a guiding light, I hope the producers embrace the weirdness of the source material.

The original Cowboy Bebop features breathtakingly stylised sequences that two decades ago could probably only be realised via animation: wild dream sequences that smear and blur and crackerjack action scenes that seem both heightened and impressionistic. There is also an aggressive but effective use of sound effects, music and silence. The temptation in 2019 might be to smooth some of that experimentation out but after Legion, Hannibal and Netflix’s own Maniac, it feels like audiences are more receptive to fantasy or warped reality than ever. The best thing Netflix could do? Keep Cowboy Bebop wild.

The original Cowboy Bebop is available on Netflix now