Summary
Bandai almost canceled Cowboy Bebop before it aired due to concerns about toy sales. Bandai Visual, a separate division, saved the show by taking over the sponsorship, not focusing on toy merchandise. Ironically, Cowboy Bebop toys and figures are now selling well, proving Bandai's initial concerns wrong.
Cowboy Bebop widely considered to be one of the greatest anime of all time, but early in its production, the entire project was nearly canceled for an absurd reason. The decision was made by the show's original backers, a company that almost everyone in the anime fan community is familiar with: Bandai.
Cowboy Bebop, as many fans know, was originally funded with a cynical goal in mind: selling Bebop spaceship toys. Bandai commissioned an anime series featuring spaceships, and gave series creator Shinichiro Watanabe little to no feedback during development, essentially giving Watanabe carte blanche to design the series however he wanted. That's how the series came to be, but when Bandai saw what Watanabe was actually doing, they immediately lost faith.
Bandai attempted to halt production of Cowboy Bebop, nearly killing the series before it even aired.
Cowboy Bebop Almost Killed Because “It Couldn't Sell Toys”
The series was scrapped by toy executives.
In a 2023 interview with Watanabe held on Forbes, Watanabe spoke out about the situation at the time and gave a rather candid answer. When discussing the near-cancellation of Bebop, he said, “So as long as there are spaceships, We can do whatever we want. However, when I started doing whatever I wanted, Bandai responded and said that plastic models of this anime wouldn't sell.“Bandai withdrew its sponsorship of the series, leaving Cowboy Bebop in dire straits. Without the sponsor, production could not move forward and the series would not be completed,” he added. “It also shows that Bandai didn't have the foresight to fund successful anime at the time.”
If Bandai were only interested in selling toy ships, it's not hard to see why they might have lost faith in Bebop; the series didn't have a lot of ships and wasn't really aimed at young children buying toys. Luckily, another division of Bandai, Bandai Visual, came to the rescue. “At the time, Bandai Visual was pretty new and they were looking for new anime, which led to us talking to Bandai Visual and them taking over the role of sponsoring the anime.” Bandai Visual is a studio, not responsible for making the toys, and therefore doesn't have the same interest in merchandise.
Ironically, Cowboy Bebop figures and toys were produced and actually sold quite well to this day, something that Watanabe seems very pleased with. Ultimately, Cowboy Bebop fulfilled its intended purpose despite the many problems Bandai encountered with it, and has become one of the most unique and iconic anime series in history. It would have been an unbelievable tragedy if Cowboy Bebop had actually been canceled right then and there over something as silly as toy sales.
Cowboy Bebop overcame some very difficult situations to get made, and in some ways it's a miracle that fans got the show they did. However, despite all the hardships, Cowboy Bebop has become one of the most influential anime series of all time – and a pretty good seller of spaceship toys, too.
