Every live action remake of an anime show - or more broadly any animated series - has always sucked. If you can find an exception to this, please send it my way. But this got me thinking, why is that?
There are good book to screen adaptations, why is animation to live action so bad?
Now I’m no anime expert, but here’s my opinion.
- Main Character Powers
Most anime shows that I have seen feature a main character that has some unique superhuman ability. In the animated world of the show, its believable, but when its translated to live action, it just doesn’t feel real. Netflix recently released a live action remake of One Piece. The main character in One Piece, Monkey D. Luffy has the ability to stretch - similar to Elastigirl in the incredibles. In the animated version, your brain just accepts it because the entire world is made up so having someone with a superhuman ability doesn’t seem as weird. However, when you see the normal world around you and then a human that can stretch his arms super far, it just feels odd.
- Thought Sequences
One of the hallmarks of anime is right before an important moment time stops and the character starts talking to themselves about what’s happening. As an example, a character may be getting beat up and about to take the final punch. They have a moment of reflection, where they say how did this happen? How did I drop my guard. The way the sequences work in anime just kind of work, but I haven’t seen a version of live action where this actually looks natural or normal.