and the alternate manga Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star. In the PlayStation Cowboy Bebop, players control Spike as he pilots the Swordfish II during aerial battles through pre-set courses. Spike appears as one of the playable characters in the PlayStation 2 action/beat 'em up video game Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Serenade, a game set within the continuity of the series. John Cho portrayed Spike in the live-action series for Netflix released in 2021. For the role, Cho grew out his hair to mimic Spike's look from the anime. Creation and conception During the first work by Shinichirō Watanabe on Cowboy Bebop, the first image that came to him was of Spike. Prior to that, Watanabe had the character of Spike in mind for a long time beforehand. From that point on, Watanabe "tried to build a story around him, trying to make him cool." Watanabe created Spike as a mirror image of himself: in Watanabe's words, "I don't smoke or drink or fight, but I want to – so Spike does." Spike forms the main focus on the series, with the central theme being his past and its karmic effect on him. Spike was portrayed as a "typical old-style Japanese man", who would simply do what he wanted and expect others to follow his lead and watch him from the sidelines. Spike's artificial eye was included as Watanabe wanted his characters to have flaws. He was originally going to give Spike an eye patch, but the producers vetoed it. In order to portray him as cool, Toshihiro Kawamoto designed Spike to look "uncool": when he stands still, he has a hunched appearance. This meant that when the character was moving vigorously, he came across as "extra cool". Spike's appearance was primarily based on the main protagonist of Tantei Monogatari, portrayed by famous Japanese actor Yūsaku Matsuda. Although Yamadera was a fan of Matsuda's, he avoided imitating his distinctive manner of speaking, noting that it "wouldn't have sounded right" for Spike. Spike's Swordfish II spaceship was created by mecha designer Kimitoshi Yamane. Yamane liked the English biplane torpedo-bomber Fairey Swordfish, which led him to name the Swordfish II after the bomber. The conclusion of Spike's story and his final battle with Vicious were planned by Watanabe well in advance, with each episode featuring them meant to shadow their final confrontation. Some of the staff were unhappy about this approach as a continuation