Which Anime Would make the best Hollywood Movie?

Chou Toshio

Chou Toshio

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It seems like Hollywood can't get enough of Super Hero Movies or pop culture-- like half or more of popular block busters of late are adaptations from comic books or popular book series... and it seems like the American movie goer (and international movie goers) can't get enough either.

But what about Anime and Manga?

While Japan's comics and animations are one of its most popular and successful exports to the world, live action adaptation is limited at best, and almost non-existent to the western audience (unfortunate, as so many Westerners still believe cartoons are "just for kids"). Let's not even talk about the dragon ball movie, which was so bad Akira Toriyama had to release an official apology to movie goers that was shown at the beginning of every showing when the movie came to Japan...

Even in Japan (with Japanese audience), successful (or good) live-action adaptations tend to be for series that are almost completely real-life-- Hotaru no Hikari, Nodame Cantabile, NANA (so Shojo series?), Death Note (mmm kay, but could you really call that one successful? lol).

Rurouni Kenshin also recently had a really bad ass live action movie recently!
(Alright, the movie was awesome but the Japanese have pretty much mastered Samurai films/Drama by now-- besides, the filming style and more than half the caste are ripped straight off of Taiga's Bakumatsu historical drama from the previous season, Ryouma Den)

Tokyo just doesn't seem to have the tech expertise (CG tech...) to enable Shonen Action series or Mecha master pieces to be properly "brought to life." But for Hollywood, it seems that the tech to bring to life even something like "Gundam Wing Endless Waltz" would easily be possible.


So we come to the question of the OP:

Which Anime Would make the best Hollywood Movie?
If adapted to live action. Some points that could be considered:
-Most likely to be successful with a western audience
-Would be most awesome if adapted to live action with cutting edge technology
-You personally would like to see the most as an anime fan and movie goer

Assume the following (even if likely impossible):
-A flawless casting (none of this Goku-is-a-white-guy crap; Hero Yui would be Japanese, Wu Fei would be Chinese, Quetre, Zechs, Relena etc. would be white, and all would be competent... All the characters in Bleach adaptation would be Asian, etc.)
-A sensitive, tactful, and excellent cultural adaptation (localization is minimal, yet just enough to help a western viewer catch on-- subtitles where necessary for things that really should be in other languages; names of characters not changed)
-A genuine (or at least acceptable) faithfulness to the characters / plots / feeling of the original anime/manga series.
-ie. just assume it's done really well


Given the above, what series do you think would make for an awesome movie?
 
Matthew said:
if done right FMA would be a killer movie.
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Fantastic idea... first off, ALL the characters are German (basically), so just need a bunch of white actors-- and they all have European names too, so if anything name pronunciation would be better than in the original Japanese. Getting Chinese actors for those parts (if included) would probably be easy enough (Jet Li as Ling-- let's get it! lol).

Also all the awesome landscape scenes that could be filmed on real sets in New Zealand (or Europe...). All the characters have abilities/techniques that would probably translate really well to the big screen.

Mustang v. Envy in live action-- let's get it
 
images
 
Chou Toshio said:
Fantastic idea... first off, ALL the characters are German (basically), so just need a bunch of white actors-- and they all have European names too, so if anything name pronunciation would be better than in the original Japanese. Getting Chinese actors for those parts (if included) would probably be easy enough (Jet Li as Ling-- let's get it! lol).

Also all the awesome landscape scenes that could be filmed on real sets in New Zealand (or Europe...). All the characters have abilities/techniques that would probably translate really well to the big screen.

Mustang v. Envy in live action-- let's get it
Click to expand...

the only issue is that Envy's true form would probably look really tacky. but i'm sure that's an easy enough scene to skip or so.
 
Matthew said:
the only issue is that Envy's true form would probably look really tacky. but i'm sure that's an easy enough scene to skip or so.
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Just get some good CG designers-- like the people who made Smaug (The Hobbit)

billymills I also thought AoT would make for an awesome movie-- will add comments on why later

edit: Except everything would have to happen approximately 9001x faster than in the actual series...
 
Cowboy Bebop would almost be too easy to pull off, I think.

The series had huge international appeal, especially in the US. All of the names are easily pronounceable, and it would be really easy to switch Jet to the obligatory wise black man. It also gives a great balance of space sequences (including a big space chase scene) and on-planet scenes. Throw in Spike and Faye's actors being ridiculously attractive, and it's practically making money already.

Trigun would probably be in a similar vein, since both are essentially in the "futuristic western" category. The difference with Trigun is that Vash would have to be made a bit more stoic than funny, while Spike wouldn't need to change a thing. Also, Cowboy Bebop's story could be a bit more straightforward, while Trigun's would need to cram a lot into 2 hours to do it any justice.
 
Chou Toshio said:
Fantastic idea... first off, ALL the characters are German (basically), so just need a bunch of white actors-- and they all have European names too, so if anything name pronunciation would be better than in the original Japanese. Getting Chinese actors for those parts (if included) would probably be easy enough (Jet Li as Ling-- let's get it! lol).

Also all the awesome landscape scenes that could be filmed on real sets in New Zealand (or Europe...). All the characters have abilities/techniques that would probably translate really well to the big screen.

Mustang v. Envy in live action-- let's get it
Click to expand...

I'd be more interested in seeing Mustang vs Lust. To see him repeatedly incinerate her like he does would be amazingly cool. Seeing Greed, Fu and co vs Wrath would be pretty awesome too. Practically any of the wrath fights would be interesting now that i think of it lol

Obviously the last fight would be pretty cool too.
 
Samurai Champloo would be fairly easy to fit into a film, as you could take out a lot of the filler and have the main story be the focus, much like a Cowboy Bebop film. Maybe it wouldn't be as appealing to Western audiences as other adaptations, but I personally would love to see it. As we've already seen, samurai movies are generally well-done.

I think you could also adapt Darker than Black from an anime to a live action film. Superpowers and a badass main character would be big attractions, and CG would have all the effects covered. Most of the characters would be Japanese (bar Hei who's Chinese and Yin who's some type of European), but I honestly think you'd be able to pull the film off with white actors (though that would be somewhat odd given that it's set in Tokyo).
 
Akira would be pretty awesome because of Kaneda's bike among other things (like the epicness of it), but unfortunately, I don't think Hollywood could pull of a version anywhere close to the movie / manga. That and it would probably set in Neo New York or something (ew).

I actually think Monster could turn out really great though, if it were directed by someone competent. It takes place in EU so casting wouldn't be a trainwreck and there are plenty of good psycho-thriller-mysteries out there.

Also 20th century boys but again cast it JP etc. :<
 
V0x said:
I actually think Monster could turn out really great though, if it were directed by someone competent. It takes place in EU so casting wouldn't be a trainwreck and there are plenty of good psycho-thriller-mysteries out there.

Also 20th century boys but again cast it JP etc. :<
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I think a Monster movie is actually in the works, as a matter of fact. Or, at least it was - apparently it's being adapted into live-action TV instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(manga)#Live-action_adaptations
But yesss! I totally agree. Monster's definitely a series that would translate well into film, and if they're going to do a TV series instead of a movie they'll probably have an easier time writing the script as well. I'd be sad if they cut any of the important bits out just to depict everything within a suitable timeframe, heheh. Monster is so rich and chock fulla goodness.

(20th Century Boys has already been adapted into a movie in Japan, by the way :o
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155705/ )
 
V0x said:
I actually think Monster could turn out really great though, if it were directed by someone competent. It takes place in EU so casting wouldn't be a trainwreck and there are plenty of good psycho-thriller-mysteries out there.
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Guillermo Del Toro's making it into an HBO series.
 
Death Note done by hollywood would be pretty great as some hybrid between some inception-type film and a horror movie. The Japanese movies handled mass heart attacks and traffic accidents rather terribly.

But who would play L?
 
That's been on the back burner since '09. However, the writers and director (Shane Black) are currently working on a Doc Savage movie.
 
Petrico94 said:
Full metal alchemist while also making a TV series. It worked for the anime + manga
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Thinking about FMA you'd need to do it in 2-3 movies to actually capture what the authors intent was going for. The first movie would be going up until... a little after Barry. The second would go until Ed got mortally injured, and the third would be the final plan / escape plan. Given a correct cast of actors (who could play Ed I have no idea and Reynolds might be able to pull of Mustang) it would actually not be a terrible plan. It's not going to happen but it would be interesting.

Ed is a really hard character to cast, same with Envy and Wrath. Gosling might make a nice Wrath given his roles in Drive and Only God Forgives but otherwise those roles are incredibly hard. Also finding a decent child actor to fill the role of Pride would be stupid. But as I said earlier, if done correctly FMA would make a great movie (series).
 
I think the main issue with an FMA movie would be properly getting the Special effects to be even mildly appropriate to the series, considering giant floating eyes in shadows and big green flobby things with faces on them likely looking a little.. Off in a Hollywood movie.
 
What about a Bleach movie? You'd probably need a few(one until Aizen reveals his illusion, one for the whole pre-fake karakura town stuff and one for the finale(not the quincy part or xcution at least yet)), but I think the effects would be nothing short of amazing especially with the Getsuga scene in the end of the last movie!
 
I think Death Note and Attack on Titan would make the best movies, though I could see Kuroko no Basuke and Anohana faring decently as well. The special effects for Attack on Titan would be insane - actually, a movie is set to come out in a couple years I think, so I'd like to see how that turns out.
 
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