It is well known as live-action Anime productions are really hit-and-miss and often end up failing. There seem to be reasonable grounds for this, live-action filming struggles to capture the over-the-top, exaggerated vibe of a majority of Anime.
If you want to know about some of the poorest adaptations of Anime, this is absolutely the right place for you.
Here, I’ve compiled a list of such live-action adaptations that got flopped prominently:
1. Black Butler
| Black Butler | Features |
| Directed by | Kentaro Otani, Keiichi Sato. |
| Year of release | 2014 |
| Written by | Tsutomu Kuroiwa |
A movie director introducing any alterations to this action Anime is sure to irritate fans because it has a sizable loyal fan base. In order to go and get vengeance against those who murdered his entire family, youthful Ciel Phantomhive strikes a deal with a devil in the animated movie.
The young lady in the 2014 live-adventurous movie takes Ciel’s position, the historical period is changed from the Victorian period to the coming years, and the bulk of the movie is devoted to a tedious terrorist plot. All of these modifications were for the worse, and the movie was a miserable failure in the Japanese history of flop Anime.
2. Kite
It had always been a troublesome task to transform Kite, a 1998 Yasuomi Umetsu Manga, given the gratuitous violence, brutality, and graphic material of the plot, particularly on a tight budget.
Ralph Ziman, the filmmaker, pulls the vengeance story and transforms that into a grudge match that seems formulaic and tiresome with such a “doesn’t ever care” type of swerve in the climax.
No surprise it has a score of zero percent freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, and perhaps even actors like Samuel L. Jackson could never really stop its downfall. Though Kite’s 2014 live-action adaptation did manage to keep a portion of the original content’s resemblance, it ultimately fell poorly.
3. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor
The Irresponsible Captain Tylor in its previous incarnation was a fantastic animated film that, when I felt in my childhood, mostly went unnoticed.
Nevertheless, if you were among the fortunate people who really watched this movie back before it became even slightly important, get ready for the 2017 version of the show to severely damage your perception of the actors.
That latest version of a once-loved movie’s sloth is what puts the figurative death nail in its metaphorical grave. To put everything into perspective, the only reason this character’s name is Banjo is that he always has a mandolin alongside him.
4. Parasyte
The bodily horrors, suspense, and sci-fi Anime Parasyte have gained a lot of popularity. Regrettably, the real-time adventure movie contains some of the most awful graphics ever.
Aside from dubious special effects, the movie falls short of capturing the plot’s real spirit. The personalities are very different from the original story in terms of appearance and attitude.
The conflict involving living beings and aliens lacked excitement. Fans were deeply let down by the clumsily planned action scenes and the opponents’ subdued reactions. The live-action movie crashes, despite the fact that it’s the absolute poorest.
5. Attack On Titan
The original movie is peculiarly scary that progresses to very mad proportions of barbarism, depicting a world where enormous skin-eating creatures have trapped humans within walled settlements.
Attack on Titan is a contemporary masterpiece that contends with serious ethical, political, and military issues.
The 2015 film compresses all the personalities into paper-thin portrayals and offers them cheesy language to speak, despite the fact that it was broken into two sections and stretches over 3 hours. Although in a considerably less pleasant approach, it is nonetheless graphic as well as violent.
6. Fist Of The North Star
The very first segment of the venerable Manga series that shares the same title served as the basis for Fist of the North Star. The plot involves combat expert Kenshiro as he ventures through a post-apocalyptic world to exact vengeance on his arch-enemy Lord Shin while facing combat against several of his soldiers.
The film received criticism for its silliness, subpar performances, poor cinematography, and disregard for the source material.
Because it was direct-to-video, the majority of traditional critics didn’t bother to give it an assessment. It also gained notoriety for using condoms to fabricate fake wounds in the form of Kenshiro’s recognizable huge tattoos. A brilliant thing concerning an otherwise uninteresting film is the fact that its Japanese version employed the very same voice talent as the animated movie.
7. Devilman
Devilman Crybaby was adapted into the live-action movie Devilman. Netflix managed to create an amazing animated film version of the season despite the strange subject matter. But sadly, the people who made this live-action picture performed a really poor job with it even people who aren’t fans of Anime movies were let down.
While other big-budget movies battled it out at the box office, showcasing their graphical prowess, the in question movie featured dreadful performances, poor graphics, and a convoluted story. Viewers and analysts were angered to no extent by the subpar production quality.
8. Death Note
The live-action Death Note streaming movie was indeed a huge letdown for fans worldwide. The nomination of Willem Dafoe as Ryuk was the sole positive aspect. Otherwise, the movie was a big failure. Seattle, Washington, rather than the Kanto district of Japan, served as the new setting chosen by the designers.
In addition to this unwarranted shift in setting, they altered the Death Note’s protocols purely for narrative considerations.
Additionally, they altered Light’s character, showing him as an empathetic youngster as opposed to a sociopath with a superiority complex. Audiences ought to have fewer aspirations for live-action Anime versions after watching this 2017 movie.
9. Speed Racer
The Speed Racer film, which received mixed reviews from reviewers and moviegoers, was directed by Wachowskis. Although the majority of commentators were unimpressed with the film, several fans were captivated by the Matrix auteurs’ graphical visions.
The first Anime series emerged in the late 1960s, but for understandable reasons, it hasn’t persisted.
Despite this, Speed Racer falls short of establishing itself as a superior live-action version since its original source hadn’t ever possessed a strong narrative structure. Due to Anime’s inherent ability to get along with lighter storytelling, the original Speed Racer manga adapted to the Anime form so successfully. The opposite is a scenario with a live-action movie, though.
10. Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist was adapted into a live-action film by Netflix in 2017. By integrating the whole four initial volumes of the Manga, they attempted to give the story righteousness but ultimately came up short of matching the grandeur that the Anime offers its audiences.
Due to time constraints, viewers thought the movie’s happenings were a little bit too rushed, allowing no space for the personalities to explore and develop. Followers of Anime who had just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist, Brotherhood were turned off by the lacking of character growth.
Final Verdict
- The majority of live-action Anime films utterly fail because anime is a difficult subject to interpret.
- The majority of audiences feel that live-action animated film adaptations are poorly done, despite the fact that other fans commend producers for trying.
- There aren’t many positive remarks to make regarding these adaptations because of the absurd narratives and overall misunderstanding of the original artwork.
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