Anime that CANNOT Become (Hollywood) Live-Action Film

Let's pretend we live in a world where anime movies would be adapted into live-action films produced by Hollywood with little creative input from the actual creators and creative liberties is the same term as "let's just repurpose the entire movie." I mean could you imagine what kind of a world we would live in if that were to happen?

WHY does this exist?

As many of you may or may not know, Hollywood's been a bit..busy in acquiring anime film rights and preparing to produce them on the big screen for us to be pleasantly disappointed by. Or create rant videos/ blog posts on the Internet about them. I'm not being hypocritical about this, when Ghost in the Shell and Death Note come out you will hear my flustered thoughts on such films. 

But those are legendary franchises. Ghost in the Shell, its original film mostly, was revolutionary back in the late 90s/ early 2000s. Much of The Matrix is based on concepts from that film and it was a cyberpunk masterpiece. Is a cyberpunk masterpiece. And everyone knows what Death Note is, arguably the most popular anime of all time outside of Dragon Ball and One Piece. 

When it was announced that Lionsgate, behind "The Hunger Games" film franchise as well as the upcoming Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers film reboot, had acquired the rights for Naruto, that was basically where I knew things needed to stop. And am I going to stop them? Probably not. But I can at least cast my opinion out there to see if others agree. 

I saw a recent post on Moviepilot.com about anime that should become live-action films, and, for the most part, I disagreed with it. Many of these are series that have to be animated, that should just stay the way they are regardless of how feasible they may be in a Hollywood adaptation. I was going to make this a list, but, I realized I'm grouping many series into categories, so it is a list, but nothing specific. I'm just writing as I have them, in no real order. 

The Big Three + Fairy Tail

One Piece, Bleach, and Naruto are known as "The Big Three" of anime--or at least, were known--given their extreme popularity in and outside of Japan. They were on top of the anime world for the longest time, One Piece still holding that title because it never seems like it'll end. Obviously, the inherent flaw with this category is that Naruto is more than likely to be adapted into a film, so, to fill it, I threw in Fairy Tail, and honestly, you could put in any action-Shounen series you want to fill this, like Toriko or Magi. 

Each of these, though, has the same reason that they cannot be adapted: they're too long, and too implausible. Not that the effects are too far out there. It'd be neat to see the Hollows or Arrancar from Bleach in real life, but that it'd just be too hokey. Plus, modern Western audiences aren't really into these sorts of things. The trend in Hollywood points away from these things. These series are all about friendship and big, epic battles, often sacrificing story for the action in most cases. There are many tender or heartbreaking moments in these series, but the fact of the matter is that we get excited for the fights and how big they are. They're epic as an anime because we believe it can be done. 

Fairy Tail is a weird series anyway, could you imagine it in live-action? How bad they would mess up Happy's design? He's a flying cat, but doesn't at all resemble a cat! Chomper from One Piece is the same thing. 

Plus, what do you adapt from? The opening material of One Piece is good, not great. Fairy Tail has no real story until you hit the Oracion Seis, maybe you could adapt the Galuna Island material but even that's kind of dull. Bleach is, quite honestly, an unoriginal idea. How many times, nowadays, have we seen a teenage boy suddenly be gifted powers and thrust into a new world where he's actually the strongest of them all? Nah, it'd be boring! Bleach has its strong material at the get-go but, it'd be impossible to make good as a film. 

Cowboy Bebop

This is one I kind of had to think about, but, in the end, Cowboy Bebop is simply untouchable as an anime series, for any adaptation. Like many series on this list, it already has its own movie. And the charm of the series is getting to go on these episodic adventure with the Bebop crew. The voice acting is also flawless, I can't imagine anyone else playing Spike, Jet, Ed, or Faye. There are some characters who simply have their best versions when animated, Batman and the Joker also coming to mind. Best Batman? Kevin Conroy. Best Joker? Mark Hamill. 

And, like I said, it's an episodic series. The movie is good on it's own, yes, but for the most part it's geared toward those who have invested their time in watching the show already. They know the characters and how they are meant to act, so they get their mannerisms. 

Space is also an area that Hollywood has been lacking in. Science fiction is a hard nail to hammer in Hollywood. And, we already have our own version of a movie close to Cowboy Bebop called Serenity! Sure the concepts are different, but it's a Western up in space. We don't need to befuddle the reputation of one of the greatest series of all time with poor live-action adaptations? "Bebop" works off of its simplicity, both in terms of story and in terms of grandiose. The stakes are, quite honestly, pretty low most of the time. It's just about the crew trying to survive. If you're going to watch a movie on the show, watch the animated one. 

Hellsing/ Ultimate

Much as everyone wants to see a great Vampire flick again, I can't get behind a "Hellsing" film. First of all, the original series is not that good. It's slow, boring, and while the voice acting is fine, it has a filler mystery that drags right into what the series is meant to be about. Hellsing Ultimate, on the other hand, is quite a great series. For kids? 

No. 

But it can't be a Hollywood movie. There are obscene amounts of gore and much of the second half of the series is the war in London. It does get a little boring after a while. A movie could in fact cut down on this and focus up on the series, but the fact of the matter is that it simply wouldn't look as good as the show would. It's a simple enough plot to be adapted, but, it would look cheap. Mashing the CGI needed for Alucard and the other vampires along with the great amounts of carnage would just look like watching an animation anyway, so why not watch the real one? 

Gore is also a bit of a turn-off for some folk. It's often labelled as a horror series, but, never really thought it was much of one. It's an action series, from my interpretation of it. A mature one, at that, given some of its themes and moments, but mostly an action series. And, in a Hollywood movie, you would have to sacrifice such characters as the Valentine bros as well as the Dandy man and maybe Rip Van Winkle, but I think you might just get away with it. 

Plus you know they would find some way to screw up the Major's epic speech at the end of Volume 4. Chills every time. 

Any Mecha series (Gurren Lagann and "Gundam" in particular)

Like I said already, space is something that Hollywood is good at sometimes, but not recently. Maybe the new "Star Wars" flick will change that up, and that would be pretty awesome. But we've had to sit through boring stuff such as "Jupiter's Ascending" recently, too, so, I don't know what to expect. 

Thus, the last thing we need is a "Gundam" series to see live-action from Hollywood. And if you thought the Shounen series were confusing then boy are you in for it with "Gundam." Which timeline do you choose from? How iconic are you trying to be, and what do you pull from out of each timeline? It'd be almost impossible to make a feasible "Gundam" movie, carrying all the different characters and legacies from the various series. 

I'm throwing Gurren Lagann in here just because I want to, and the fact that is isn't too much of a space series, but more of a Mecha series. It's tough to know what to film and what not to film. Again, though, it's all about it's tone and how it clashes with Hollywood. "Lagann" is insanely over-the-top in its action and dialogue. It's cheesy as all heck, which adds to the charm of the series. Much of the humor also comes straight out of the animation. The fights are insane and that's sort of the point. Similar to Kill la Kill, another series that should never be adapted--good God censorship would slaughter that series--it's a lot of screaming and insane fights and while it does get the adrenaline flowing quick, the lack of CGI is what makes it good. It'd be near impossible to make a good looking Gurren Lagann film with practical effects, and the same can go for "Gundam" as well. 

Fate/Zero + Fate/ Stay Night

This is more of a personal choice so I'll be brief:

Fate/ Zero  is awesome (go watch it on Netflix, what are you waiting for?) but it's also incredibly complex and there is so much information and backstory crammed that you would need an expert writer and director to pull this off. Not to mention the flawless voice-acting done by the English cast that makes these characters feel real and sympathetic (except Gilgamesh, screw that guy) toward all of them. The plot bounces around a little bit in the early-going and you would have to make it a two-part film to tell the complete story, maybe even a trilogy. 

F/SN is the same way, with so much story and action and characters that just one film would be impossible. 

Black Lagoon

The most realistic of the bunch so far, you would think that Black Lagoon would make for a great live-action movie. Yeah, normal dude joins a mercenary company and becomes the in-between for good guys and bad guys. Great action movie!

Except, most of these secret-agent movies are beginning to turn slightly more toward the mercenary stories. Matched with little story in Black Lagoon and how it would more than likely be reduced to a simply action movie and make Roc probably more of a badass or a wimp than he really is and you've got one heck of a mess. The cast is small, so focusing up on them and their characters would be easy, but, what arc do you pull from? The initial Roberta material? When they go to Vietnam, or when they have to steal from the Neo-Nazis? Certainly not the material with the twins or the final arc? 

While many would argue the possibilities are endless, I'd say they're quite limited. Making a new story would risk you going outside of the norms for the characters, not to mention you have to establish the relationship between Roc and Revy, crafting their juxtaposition in as well, while also making us feel for Bennie and Dutch. It'd also be pretty hard to make Balalaika more intimidating than she really is. 

And, really, those are the main ones. For the most part, I'd say other anime are quite out of the reach of Hollywood either because they have a smaller following or because they'd be just ridiculous to pull off as a live-action film. Plus, there are some series like a Psycho-Pass or Stein's;Gate that may actually work live-action given their nature. I'd love to see a real Ghost in the Shell movie, but, not in the way they're probably going to go about it. 

These were mostly series that I'd seen people pining for, so they were the most important to talk about (also, I don't want to end up rambling about every series I've watched). 

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