The One Piece live-action show by Netflix has turned out to be a sleeper hit of the year, with its surprisingly great adaptation quality. From the look of the show to the faithful screenplay, the entire show just feels meticulously crafted as a love letter to the beloved story of the Straw Hats.
So considering how much of a success One Piece has turned out to be, one can only wonder if other upcoming live-action anime adaptations can receive the same care and attention and actually live up to the quality standard that One Piece has set. Let’s talk about the odds of that, shall we?
Why is Live-action Anime Bad?
There are a plethora of reasons for why Live-action adaptations of different Anime series usually turn out to be either really bad or just disappointing, such as: –
- They tend to generally display a lack of respect for the source material and tend to cut out important characters or narrative moments from the screenplay in order to push deadlines and reach a “Wider Audience” as they tend to say.
- Another reason is that the look and narrative formula for many anime series, especially Shonen and Shoujo are not particularly easy to translate into a motion picture, and on top of that the production teams are barely ever given the budget to even embark on such a daunting task.
- The common factors in many Live-action adaptations are bad casting, bad CGI, and an overall lack of passion for the project. This is mostly because many of them only ever adapt mainstream Shonen or Shoujo anime in order to capitalize on their popularity, regardless of the quality of output.
Which are some good Live-action anime?
Contrary to popular belief, there actually are Live-action anime series that somehow range from decent to actually really good. A few examples we can choose to demonstrate are: –
- Great Teacher Onizuka (1998) – It is considered a cult classic and hailed as one of the best original adaptations of the series. Though it derives loosely from the actual source, the series still contains the charm of the Onizuka brand with its perfect casting and delivers an original plot that is gripping in every way and has a satisfying conclusion unlike the original Anime, which is a feat that not many adaptations can ever boast about. Great Teacher Onizuka 1998 is 12 episodes long and entirely worth your time.
- Bleach (2018) – One would think that a live-action adaptation of Bleach, would be nothing more than a disaster and one might be half right because even though Bleach 2018 was a financial failure, the actual movie itself was a brilliant recreation of the early exploits of our beloved substitute shinigami. It’s a damn shame that we never received any sequel for it, because it honestly blew every expectation we had out of the window.
- My Love Story!! (2015) – This movie is honestly the most faithful live-action adaptation of all time. Not only is its casting perfectly accurate, but its tone, visuals, and humor are ripped straight out of the original source and translated brilliantly into motion picture due to the efforts of the production team that clearly cared about the original story and decided to make the best possible version they could without any compromise.
Conclusion
As it has been with video game live-action adaptations such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. The quality of Live-action Anime has been gradually increasing over the years and its no doubt that the success of Netflix’s One Piece is going to pioneer the production of actual quality in the industry, for anime and manga series that deserve nothing less than the expectations set for them.