Will you watch it?
I never saw the Anime, but saw the live action recently on Netflix. My 10 year old daughter enjoyed it a lot. Personally I felt like I often feel about Japanese live action, that it's a caricature. For some reason anime feels more realistic to me than Japanese live action (or realistically 3D animated), which just feels overacted to the point of silliness.
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It's pretty tough to transpose anime or manga into reality without it feeling silly and out of place, but I've seen some good examples of things done right like in Rurouni Kenshin, for instance, which was by far one of the best adaptations.
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I think it's more a cultural difference. A Western anime adaptation, like Ghost in the Shell or Battle Angel Alita (based on the trailers) might not be perfect, but it doesn't have that overacting and telegraphing of intention and sometimes silly actions which I've seen a lot in Japanese movies / TV. I mean, to me at least they look silly. Might be perfectly fine to a Japanese person or someone more immersed in the Japanese culture.
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I'll take well adapted silliness any day of the week over the overhyped pretentiousness that many are trying to achieve. I find myself watching a lot of Asian productions lately because I became quite tired of the same tropes I came to recognize during the first 5 minutes of the usual flicks. Not all of them are good, of course, but from time to time I'm pleasantly surprised and that's what I'm looking for :).
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True. In the end, I do tend to enjoy these Japanese movies, even with that silliness. But it still bothers me.
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After seeing the Attack on Titan live action adaptations, I wasn't sure if I even wanna click on this discussion, let alone watch the trailer.
Glad I did though, as from what I've seen in the trailer it seems to be pretty faithful to the source, so it might actually be worth watching after all.
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what I've seen in the trailer it seems to be pretty faithful to the source
That was my impression as well.
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Ooooh, you wanna talk live action in general? OK!
I've seen a few of them lately, so here we go. I'll rate them as "OK" and "not OK". Cause not a single one was truly great. Well, most of them are bad, so i really want to showcase the better.
I won't add Bleach here, cause... I don't remember the source material. I was only 10 volumes in, probably enough for the movie, but still. The movie wasn't terrible, that's something.
OK:
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable - Chapter 1 - Fine one! Characters are looking nice, stands are done really good. Story... Then changed a few things, but aside from the ending (which was rather stupid for me) I didn't mind. There are a few sloooow moments, but I'd recommend it anyway.
Detroit Metal City - Whoa. The existence of it surprised me. And it's not bad! Not as funny as the original, but still can make you laugh. Again, there's a slower part before the end, but the ending itself is nice. I don't think we'll ever get a second season, so at least there's that movie - check it out.
Cromartie High School - Oh boy. Half of it (maybe more) is pretty similar to the anime, besides that the people are actually moving, living... ;) The second part is something I don't remember - not sure if it was in anime/manga, but it was a little too much for me. Cromartie worked well as a 10 minute eps, full movie is overkill. But you can watch it in parts, few minutes everyday - try it.
Speed Racer - ...counts? I don't remember much about it, but I had fun watching it back in the day.Not OK
Here we go.
Attack on Titan - both - Guilty pleasure. Yes, it was extremely bad, there's no way to compare it to the original. But at the same time... I can't be too harsh about it, cause it made me laugh. A lot. I enjoyed it. It was so stupid, but also entertaining in a weird way. Especially the part when they decided to seal the wall. They used... NO, I won't spoil it. Check it out, just for laughs. I cried.
Fullmetal Alchemist - Ouchie. It followed the anime/manga in some scenes, but then they went their own way and it was a disaster. Bad story. Effects - not pretty. Music - TERRIBLE (just check the first action scene with Edward, why they decided to keep it that way?!). Disappointment.
Death Note (Netflix) - I still have to see the Japanese trilogy (and I will, definitely!). This one... I know some people that enjoyed it. All of them had never seen the original. Maybe that's the problem. It's far from the worst movie, but I love the manga story and they made a MUCH weaker one. And Light and L in this are not the characters I remember. Especially L disappointed me - the beginning was promising, but his last scenes destroyed him for me. The ending - well, I called it. I said it out loud before it happened while watching the movie with friend and they did exactly the thing. Stuff about dumpster fire, to not say too much. I predicted it'll happen, I really didn't wanted to see that, and... well.
Kaiji - Still have to see the second one, but I'm hesitant after it. They had GREAT source material (check out manga/anime, needs more love) and butchered it. Games are less complicated. Less drama. And the story... Check this: They somehow managed to merge the games from the 1st season with the scenes without games from S2. Yep. Strange idea, indeed. And I know that the second movie is about Bog. The moments from the toilet are already in the first movie (in the middle of an E-Card game!). I have no idea how will they handle it. Or if they.
Dragon Ball: Evolution - putting it in just cause. No need to talk about it.Comment has been collapsed.
I only saw Fullmetal Alchemist and I fell asleep halfway through and that rarely happens to me. Death Note is on my list but I haven't had the chance to see it yet. Thanks for the reviews. I'll add all of them, good or bad, to my list starting with the recommended ones.
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Watch the jap Death Notes if you really have to, at least they aren't a burning trainwreck like the netflix one
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IMO, acting is horrible... but the fight scenes are so damn good!
Nothing can beat the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, the only downside is why are they not making the jinchu arc!
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the only downside is why are they not making the jinchu arc!
I don't care, a trilogy is way better than what I could have hoped for and its execution quality is stellar. I prefer this over a crammed production trying to get everything in at the expense of quality.
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The trilogy is awesome, but I'm expecting the jinchu arc because its individual fights in the manga are sure to blow someone's mind when they make a live action
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The Jinchu arc would indeed make a very good plot for a future movie. I doubt it will happen though, at least with the same cast. The tone would probably be a bit different than in the rest. For the Jinchu arc I felt the pacing was a bit off and it got way slower at times than it used to be, so I kind of understand why they left it out of the adaptation.
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YES! Agreed on the crap acting and the superiority of the Kenshi trilogy!
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Oh didn't know this, thanks for the info! Bleach was one of my favorite childhood animes :3
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Dunno, seems too over the top. I guess an anime would be better
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Well, it's an adaptation after an anime. It's expected to be way over the top. The only catch is if they do it the right way or the wrong way. Hopefully the first :).
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A Japanese teenager can see ghosts and sees a cute girl fighting an evil monster. He ends up with her reaper power and she as human in his high school class. He discovers a connection between his mom's death and these monsters.
Yep. Sounds terrible.
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I saw it and actually liked it. True, it´s been ages since I saw the anime, but in general the movie felt fairly true to the source. I hope they make more movies with the rest of the story arcs.
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That was my first impression too upon seeing the trailer.
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I'm genuinely curious. I guess I'll find out tonight :).
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Those costumes though... I've seen much better ones from casual cosplayers.
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They seem to reflect the manga and the anime quite well.
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They do, but somehow renji and byakuya's costumes look rather cheaply made. Maybe I just feel like that because I am too used to their anime/manga looks.
But don't get me wrong though. Movie is pretty good and it is quite faithful to original source.
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haven't seen that one but for me the drama series from 2012-2014 was nice to watch despite the looks of the title covers
edit : actually i've seen the one you linked and i think it was good too. there's another one from 1998 but i'm not sure if i've seen that one
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I haven't seen any of them but I added them to my list. I agree the title covers are not good looking at all.
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Bleach aside (cause I don't really care about it, sorry!), thanks for bringing to my attention that Kenshin has a good la adaptation! What part of the story does the movie cover?
And if we're talking about anime adaptations in general; holy hell I really need to get around the Gintama movies cause the casting and characterization for the Shinsengumi is just perfect!
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You're welcome. It's quite good and I really recommend it.
It's not a single movie but a trilogy:
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I read the Bleach manga all the way to the end over the course of several years. The ending was incredibly bad, like "we forgot all your favorite characters exist, and don't care if the ending actually wraps up anything" bad.
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Having a bad/incomplete/nonsensical ending is a recurrent theme in many Asian stories, regardless of their form. It's like they run out of ideas and hastily make decisions that make no sense.
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I considered it finished with the Huenco Mundo arc, with every single one of them plus the eeevil bad guy (let's stay clear of spoilers :D ) defeated. I stopped watching it further because it was a perfect ending regarding characters, and it was clear that if it goes on further it will be the "oh we forgot yet another powerful group that now will attack / surface and ofc the progagonist collects superpowers and bloodlines like someone else collects stamps" :D
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And after seeing it, I also added my review to the main post that might help you decide in favor of or against seeing it.
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why make live action movies of anime, it just doesn't work and if you've already seen the anime it's not the same. after watching Bleach LAM im like wtf is this shit, stick with good ol anime. LAM SUCKS ANIME BALLS
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I believe they did a pretty good job considering the difficulty. At least they did it way better than others. You also have to consider the fact that it's pretty much impossible to perfectly transpose the anime into reality because of many factors. At least I'm glad this one was among the better ones. Do you remember Dragonball: Evolution?
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It's been many years since I saw the anime and apparently they even made a live action movie this year. It even has pretty good reviews in terms of live action adaptation. I hope it's as good as the Rurouni Kenshin adaptation was. So if you didn't know about it and you liked the series, this thread was meant for you. This instantly climbed to the top of my to see list.
You can watch its trailer here.
You can see its details on IMDb.
Feel free to comment about it if you want.
Aaand I saw it.
My review:
It's a quite faithful adaptation of the first 17 episodes of the Agent of the Shinigami arc. There are many things altered to fit the live action theme and for brevity sake. The good thing is this doesn't detract from the overall story. The characters were very well portrayed and even felt multidimensional down to the microexpression level which is quite an accomplishment. The main theme and the general focus remained prevalent during the whole runtime and were quite faithful to the source material.
The action sequences were very well put together, the choreography was near flawless with respect to the source and the CGI is way better than in other similar productions.
But it's not perfect. Some casting choices were spot-on, others not so much. And I'm not referring to their acting which was, in general, pretty good. You can easily see they did their best to give their characters the iconic personality everyone expects from the manga/anime and they mostly succeeded.
Although the actress that played Rukia did a good job overall and even a great job in some key moments, I strongly believe she was miscast. She doesn't visually fit the role of Rukia and whoever was in charge with her appearance and had her ears stick out like that should be fired. It was very distracting and felt so out of character.
Renji's appearance was over-the-top and, although faithful to the source, didn't fit the actor at all.
Byakuya was decently represented visually speaking but it was still miles away from the original character's appearance. The actor did a great job though in portraying the character and this helped alleviate the impact of the visual discrepancy.
The characters that I believe were spot-on both visually and personality wise were: Ichigo, Orihime, Urahara, Ishida and Chad.
There is a good balance between action, silliness and plot development. The storytelling method and character introductions might seem weird and out of place to those not used to the anime/manga style but in this instance it was a fine depiction of the tongue-in-cheek narrative approach that is very well known.
I consider this a successful adaptation and among the better ones. I noticed many well thought details that might escape the eye at first sight but it shows they were dedicated enough to take care of details so little that many would have probably skipped entirely and that's a big plus.
This is clearly not for everyone and you can probably tell right from the start if you like it or not. Its style is pretty daring and its execution sticks to the source material without caring too much for the occasional viewer. The comical moments and action sequences might be enough to cater to some viewers unfamiliar with the story and the characters up to a point, but the unusual narrative style can become a hindrance.
All in all, I liked it and I don't consider I wasted my time seeing it. I hope they'll adapt the other arcs too and in the process also take care of the several issues that can be seen here and there, probably also helped by a bigger budget.
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