Some things are better to stay animated.
Despite the common opinion that anime should never become live action that spread due to so many failures (we still see Netflix’s Death Note in nightmares), there are still a couple of good examples.
The recent live action adaptation of One Piece is among them, and we’ve even recently discussed how it impacted the fandom in a positive way. Still, there are anime series that fans wish would never be touched by live action lovers, and here are some of them.
1. Kill la Kill
Although the series does have a live action adaptation, fans choose to ignore that. They say what made Kill la Kill so charming and hilarious was its animation, and live action could never achieve the same effect.
They do enjoy looking at cosplays and seeing Kill la Kill characters in real life, but live action just doesn’t hit the same way, since it lacks the goofy animation style of the anime.
2. Odd Taxi
In case you’ve forgotten, Odd Taxi’s characters are animals, so we see the live action adaptation going two ways: they either keep the animals and turn it into something like the live action Lion King (2019) or use real people instead.
The first option might look extremely weird and we dare say even creepy sometimes. The second one will make Odd Taxi lose a big part of its charm.
3. Beastars
For the same reason as Odd Taxi, Beastars wouldn’t work as live action, either. A lot of animals and a lot of questionable-looking CGI would be involved in the project. Such an adaptation would lose everything interesting about the anime, and fans don’t want that, of course.
Fans are just too worried that Beastars, the live action, would turn into something like the Cats movie, but with more drama.
4. Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)
This series’ titans are one of the creepiest-looking monsters in anime, and we doubt that any live action project will ever be able to keep this vibe. And the already existing adaptations proved that.
Such an adaptation would involve a lot of CGI, and the titans will end up looking weird in a bad way. There’s just so much in Attack on Titan that you can’t imagine looking good in real life, and, genuinely speaking, we don’t even want to imagine.
5. Solo Leveling (Ore dake Level Up na Ken)
To be honest, fans say that it’s not just Solo Leveling, but most modern anime series with RPG elements that would look questionable as a live action adaptation.
Imagine all that strange RPG gear in a modern city. It would look hilarious and even a little bit cringey, and such series as Solo Leveling are not there to make you laugh.