Forum - View topic

INTEREST: Warner Presents Pacific Rim's del Toro With Madoka Magica Films

Madoka sounds like one of the worst possible things to adapt. The whole magical school girl trope isn't widely known/popular outside of Japan and if it is known is considered for children. Little girls fighting and dying is a big no-no as is. If it was adapted, it wouldn't be a big budget adaptation, it would be a small horror movie style adaptation.

Put another way, DBZ is like the 2nd biggest anime franchise in the west and look how much they ruined that. No way is some obscure show with a plot that's radically different to anything people are used to seeing gonna get a lot of money/effort put in it.

If you want something adapted Death Note, 20th Century Boys, Cowboy Bebop and Berserk(after the success of GoT we might be ready for this) are much more likely.

Even if it isn't a publicity stunt, it feel like wishful thinking on my part.

But one thing I notice consistently with all of these attempted American movie remakes like EVA, Death Note, DBZ, and Akira is that they are not remakes at all, but reimaginings of a successful Japanese franchises.

It seems to me that whenever these big studios pick one of these projects; they put there hands all over it. Try to change it; adapt it, or reimagine it. Whatever you want to call it.

I would like to see a company or director try a different approach: Instead of adapting or reimagining an already successful product; why don't they just make it exactly the way it already is. A live action, or animated, American counterpart. Whatever you wish to call it.

I'd pay money just to see if they could pull it off. I'm not saying it is an easier way at all, but I'm tired of getting my hopes up over this and being disappointed when it all falls apart. Just for a change of pace, I would love to see them try it. Challenge provides a much better motivation for creativity, and you can still have creativity even with an already existing product.

Usagi-kun wrote:

Even if it isn't a publicity stunt, it feel like wishful thinking on my part. But one thing I notice consistently with all of these attempted American movie remakes like EVA, Death Note, DBZ, and Akira is that they are not remakes at all, but reimaginings of a successful Japanese franchises. It seems to me that whenever these big studios pick one of these projects; they put there hands all over it. Try to change it; adapt it, or reimagine it. Whatever you want to call it. I would like to see a company or director try a different approach: Instead of adapting or reimagining an already successful product; why don't they just make it exactly the way it already is. A live action, or animated, American counterpart. Whatever you wish to call it. I'd pay money just to see if they could pull it off. I'm not saying it is an easier way at all, but I'm tired of getting my hopes up over this and being disappointed when it all falls apart. Just for a change of pace, I would love to see them try it. Challenge provides a much better motivation for creativity, and you can still have creativity even with an already existing product.

A major difference between them and Del Toro's attitude is typically that they're just selling the franchise name. They usually don't have any interest in anime/manga, nor have they usually read the source material. I think there was a controversy in the Death Note Western movie project staff as a result of some of the lower staff members getting upset when the higher staff made direct changes and I think one of them accused the higher staff of never even having read the original work--eventually actually leading to the project being revised and including the Shinigami/Death Gods, whereas they were originally going to exclude them.
Meanwhile, Del Toro is obviously a manga fan, at the very least. He's got an HBO series adaption of the "Monster" manga in the works (not yet greenlit, I don't think) and I believe he has mentioned that he's adamant about keeping it as much like the original source material as possible.

I honestly don't think he's interested in the "Magical Girl" genre, but he likes dark Superhero-type stuff, so Madoka may still be up his alley, since many of the themes carry over. At the very least, he's going to watch the movies soon enough, I suppose. =P

NO. Oh my god, I don't even want to imagine it. I can't begin to understand how do people even consider this kind of thing. Dragonball: Evolution and The Last Airbender were enough for me. No more adaptations of great animated series! If Americans are willing to spend so much money just to make people angry for making a shitty adaptation, they should better use that money for charities or something...

And why are people overreacting over this? Last I checked, film directors are humans too and they can have hobbies, especially people as humble and down to earth as GDT. Just because he's holding up some DVDs doesn't mean he has intentions of making a live-action Madoka Magica film(s).

"[del Toro] has a good facial expression!! It couldn't be that, in the near future, there might be a Hollywood live-action adaptation! Oh my goodness...!?"

Guillermo del Toro is not American. His Hellboy films were very faithful to the source material, and Pacific Rim is very close to it's inspiration.

Julliant wrote:

Guillermo del Toro is not American. His Hellboy films were very faithful to the source material, and Pacific Rim is very close to it's inspiration.

I think Japan disagrees with you with how their reception of it was. I think westerners are a bit bias when it comes to judging the quality of their works inspired by Japan anime. Fans of Last Airbender and My Little Pony think their works are perfect representations of anime and just like shonen and just like shojo anime but it seems to be the majority of Japan disagrees with this statements. People can not force their works on Japan and say its just like their work because Japan seems to say different and find fault in them. One can not truly replicate another country's work and all attempts will just be imitations no matter how much us westerners claim its superior or just as good. The masters of these shows seem to disagree and think they are not. This movie is not very close to the mecha genre it appears is the general consensus, it seems?

Lavnovice9 wrote:

Julliant wrote: Guillermo del Toro is not American. His Hellboy films were very faithful to the source material, and Pacific Rim is very close to it's inspiration. I think Japan disagrees with you with how their reception of it was. I think westerners are a bit bias when it comes to judging the quality of their works inspired by Japan anime. Fans of Last Airbender and My Little Pony think their works are perfect representations of anime and just like shonen and just like shojo anime but it seems to be the majority of Japan disagrees with this statements. People can not force their works on Japan and say its just like their work because Japan seems to say different and find fault in them. One can not truly replicate another country's work and all attempts will just be imitations no matter how much us westerners claim its superior or just as good. The masters of these shows seem to disagree and think they are not. This movie is not very close to the mecha genre it appears is the general consensus, it seems?

Having deliberated Pacific Rim AND My Little Pony with a Japanese otaku friend, I've concluded that both shows carry some good deep-level influence from Japanese entertainment, but that both fail to deliver surface level comparison. That is, I was able to get him to agree that Pacific Rim had general storytelling that made it appeal more to the Japanese audience than most American films (that don't gather appeal directly from their American exotic-ness), but many "mecha otaku" like him were agast at 1) the dialogue, and 2) the visual design and how the action scenes went. He claimed they were both too "American" to capture what was best about Japanese mecha--the designs and color scheme and such. A possibility I came up with was how dreary and dark the lighting and atmosphere is most of the time, preventing the color scheme from standing out too much.
As for My Little Pony, he said that he likes it (or what I showed him) in the sense that it is more "reserved" than most Western cartoons he's seen (he's not particularly a cartoon fan, though), but it's very childish and... the characters are ponies, which are a huge turn-off and nothing like what an anime of its intent or genre would usually be like.

I want to delve into this kind of discussion further, though. I feel like our short discussion gave me ideas and theories, but I'm more interested in talking to someone more adept to contemporary Japanese storytelling than my friend is.