Live actions are often created based on manga and anime. They also often fail at it, and we want to know why.
Is there any anime you would like to turn into a live action movie? A lot of people have one, but anime is a special type of media, just like manga, and translating a story between media is challenging. Here, we want to take a look at different live action movies made from anime or manga and figure out if there is something to be learned from them.
An action movie is usually around two hours long, and that sounds like an issue when you are trying to fit multiple arcs of manga and a few series of anime into that amount of time. For example, The Promised Neverland seems to often suffer from rushed plotlines. The second season of anime was disliked by many fans for trying to fit too much content into a limited number of episodes. Naturally, the live action movie with its meager two hours could not escape this curse. A lot had to be changed to make the story fit into the runtime, but you can argue that they managed. After all, the ratings of the movie is fine, with an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes. This time the pitfall was avoided.
Anime also tends to have stylized drawings that are adored by fans. For example, Kakegurui, the compulsive gambling anime, has a very specific, almost extreme visual style that is meant to be unsettling. The live action movie tried to recreate the style, too, and it is not clear if that was to the benefit or detriment of the production. In either case, the actors and actresses definitely deserve praise for acting out something that, quite possibly, should not have been translated to the live action medium.
But do you even want to watch the same thing over and over again, though? How about changing things up? Well, there is the 2017's Death Note movie. Almost universally hated, regardless of Willem Dafoe doing his best as Ryuk, this Death Note is supposed to have been adapted to American settings. Instead of Yagami Light, it has Light Turner going on his own murderous rampage with the same goal of ridding the world of criminals. In the end, even though it can be argued that “Death Note but in the US” is a valid premise, the divergences from the source material caused watchers to dislike the movie.
Do keep in mind that Death Note got more than one live action recreation. The 2006 movie was generally praised, with some people even suggesting that it was more watchable than the anime. With an 85% of audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is a relatively well-received movie. In other words, it is possible to do it right when remaining quite close to the source material! Right?
The 2017's Ghost in the Shell, has just barely over 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. It is not a terrible score, but for a movie starring Scarlett Johansson, you would expect a better performance. There were concerns about whitewashing, which may be fair for a movie based on Japanese sci-fi, but they are unlikely to have affected the scores. All aspects of the movie, from acting to backgrounds to the plot have been praised. So what went wrong?
Well, some of the criticisms suggest that the movie just did not manage to capture the feeling the original anime produced. This is extremely vague, but also eventually crucial. Sometimes a movie just lacks something poorly defined but important to the way the watching feels. It can be in the settings, in the script, in the special effects; and make no mistake, 2017's Ghost in the Shell has been praised for all of that… but it is still missing something.
Which makes us conclude with a dissatisfying point: any live action movie based on anime or manga is going to be a derivative work. And that means it will, by definition, be compared to the existing movie or series. This comparison may not be negative, but it still means that a movie based on anime has to immediately compete with another creation, with nostalgia not being on its side.
It does not mean that movies based on manga or anime should not be made. Far from it! We would love to see direct recreations of the anime we love, and we would love to see adaptations, changed and warped to the creators’ liking. We want a Death Note in the US, even, it just has to be better than the existing one!
But while working on those creations, you have to keep in mind all the pitfalls. It is difficult to translate the visuals and adapt the plot, the runtime is ticking, and while you are trying to be respectful to the source material, you are bound to be judged against it.
Do you still want to make that live action movie?
Live actions are often created based on manga and anime. They also often fail at it, and we want to know why.
Is there any anime you would like to turn into a live action movie? A lot of people have one, but anime is a special type of media, just like manga, and translating a story between media is challenging. Here, we want to take a look at different live action movies made from anime or manga and figure out if there is something to be learned from them.
An action movie is usually around two hours long, and that sounds like an issue when you are trying to fit multiple arcs of manga and a few series of anime into that amount of time. For example, The Promised Neverland seems to often suffer from rushed plotlines. The second season of anime was disliked by many fans for trying to fit too much content into a limited number of episodes. Naturally, the live action movie with its meager two hours could not escape this curse. A lot had to be changed to make the story fit into the runtime, but you can argue that they managed. After all, the ratings of the movie is fine, with an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes. This time the pitfall was avoided.
Anime also tends to have stylized drawings that are adored by fans. For example, Kakegurui, the compulsive gambling anime, has a very specific, almost extreme visual style that is meant to be unsettling. The live action movie tried to recreate the style, too, and it is not clear if that was to the benefit or detriment of the production. In either case, the actors and actresses definitely deserve praise for acting out something that, quite possibly, should not have been translated to the live action medium.
But do you even want to watch the same thing over and over again, though? How about changing things up? Well, there is the 2017's Death Note movie. Almost universally hated, regardless of Willem Dafoe doing his best as Ryuk, this Death Note is supposed to have been adapted to American settings. Instead of Yagami Light, it has Light Turner going on his own murderous rampage with the same goal of ridding the world of criminals. In the end, even though it can be argued that “Death Note but in the US” is a valid premise, the divergences from the source material caused watchers to dislike the movie.
Do keep in mind that Death Note got more than one live action recreation. The 2006 movie was generally praised, with some people even suggesting that it was more watchable than the anime. With an 85% of audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is a relatively well-received movie. In other words, it is possible to do it right when remaining quite close to the source material! Right?
The 2017's Ghost in the Shell, has just barely over 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. It is not a terrible score, but for a movie starring Scarlett Johansson, you would expect a better performance. There were concerns about whitewashing, which may be fair for a movie based on Japanese sci-fi, but they are unlikely to have affected the scores. All aspects of the movie, from acting to backgrounds to the plot have been praised. So what went wrong?
Well, some of the criticisms suggest that the movie just did not manage to capture the feeling the original anime produced. This is extremely vague, but also eventually crucial. Sometimes a movie just lacks something poorly defined but important to the way the watching feels. It can be in the settings, in the script, in the special effects; and make no mistake, 2017's Ghost in the Shell has been praised for all of that… but it is still missing something.
Which makes us conclude with a dissatisfying point: any live action movie based on anime or manga is going to be a derivative work. And that means it will, by definition, be compared to the existing movie or series. This comparison may not be negative, but it still means that a movie based on anime has to immediately compete with another creation, with nostalgia not being on its side.
It does not mean that movies based on manga or anime should not be made. Far from it! We would love to see direct recreations of the anime we love, and we would love to see adaptations, changed and warped to the creators’ liking. We want a Death Note in the US, even, it just has to be better than the existing one!
But while working on those creations, you have to keep in mind all the pitfalls. It is difficult to translate the visuals and adapt the plot, the runtime is ticking, and while you are trying to be respectful to the source material, you are bound to be judged against it.
