Last week, news hit the Internet that Sword Art Online (or SAO for short) will receive a live-action adaptation on Netflix. This story came several weeks after the announcement that the Full Metal Alchemist live-action movie would also be available through Netflix, and if I’m being honest, plenty of other anime deserve live-action adaptations more than SAO. The first season doesn’t live up to the promise of its premise, and the second season features backpedaling character development, tentacles, and borderline incest. I can list seven anime off the top of my head that deserve a live-action Netflix original adaptation, and that’s what I’m about to do.
Samurai Champloo
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Anime fans admire Shinichiro Watanabe, the creator of the legendary Cowboy Bebop. He also created Samurai Champloo, and while the show is nowhere as widely recognized as Bebop (nothing is), it still deserves to be admired. Samurai Champloo features Watanabe’s uncanny ability to combine any music genre with any setting; in this case, Edo-period Japan and hip hop. In lesser hands, this combination would be a disaster, but Watanabe turns it into the lovechild of Akira Kurosawa samurai epics and Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks.
While the live-action Cowboy Bebop Hollywood movie anime fans have desired (and dreaded) has finally started production, Samurai Champloo has been left by the wayside, even though it is on par with Cowboy Bebop. While not necessarily fit for an epic movie, Samurai Champloo would make for an excellent live-action comedy, as the show is at its best when it features bonkers stories. Imagine: Japanese Samurai vs. American Naval Officers. In a game of baseball. Complete and utter lunacy.
Claymore
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Many pieces of modern media feature strong female leads, and few anime leading ladies are stronger figuratively and literally than those of Claymore. The anime takes place in a pseudo-medieval world where a small army of women use supernatural powers to fight man-eating monsters, and these women are identified by their silver eyes that can turn gold and cat-like. Think of Claymore as The Witcher: The Anime but without all the Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue.
Not only are we in the midst of a renaissance of strong female leads, but “dark fantasy” is steadily growing in popularity. The anime Berserk has reentered the public eye, video games based on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 tabletop games are more common, and we all know about the dark fantasy juggernauts that are The Witcher, Game of Thrones, and Dark Souls. Modern audiences practically inhale this genre, and since Claymore combines dark fantasy with strong female protagonists, a live-action adaptation is sure to be popular.
Summer Wars
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Most movies that involve a sentient virus or computer program that wants to control or destroy the world focus on that singular plot point, but Summer Wars seamlessly makes it a B-plot that is woven seamlessly into a story about family, community, and teamwork. And the ever-present anime trope of playing card games to defeat villains. Summer Wars is a masterpiece of a film that has won numerous awards and is almost guaranteed to make you cry.
You probably wonder why Summer Wars, a feature-length anime movie, deserves to be turned into a live-action Netflix adaptation. The same reason why The Seven Samurai was remade into The Magnificent Seven: while the message and themes are timeless and universal, the settings and characters are placed squarely in Japan and Japanese culture, which might go over some viewers’ heads. Plus, anime just turns off some people. If Summer Wars were turned into a live-action Netflix original, viewers who would not have given the original movie a second thought might find themselves enjoying the story. Also, a remake would be the perfect opportunity to include callbacks to what is essentially the prototype of Summer Wars, Digimon Adventure: Our War Game! It was, after all, directed by Summer Wars’ creator, Mamoru Hosoda.
Psycho-Pass
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Imagine a future where you’re under constant surveillance and can be arrested at any given moment, not because you’ve committed any crimes but because the surveillance program believes you will probably commit a crime based on your mental state. Sounds like hell, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the world of Psycho-Pass, one that doesn’t have much in the way of crime, privacy, or freedom. Like all good dystopian worlds, it’s a false utopia. Everyone is happy and safe, but only because they know they will be arrested (or worse) if they aren’t happy.
Despite airing in 2012, Psycho-Pass reflects today’s society more than ever. Many Americans feel they don’t have privacy due to constant surveillance. Profiling and arresting people based on what those in charge think they will do is on the rise. Police brutality seems all the more common. Worst of all, many people feel the systems in place perpetuate and aggravate these problems. Yet, underneath the show’s seemingly prophetic nature, Psycho-Pass’ main message is society can change for the better. Audiences need a show like Psycho-Pass now more than ever, and a live-action adaptation just might do the trick.
Wolf Children
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Another Mamoru Hosoda classic, Wolf Children mixes the real trials and tribulations of being a single mother with the not-so real problems of raising werewolves. Granted, they’re a far cry from the cursed men and women portrayed in most werewolf movies, but they bring their own problems that revolve around their dual natures. Do they live in the wild as wolves or in civilization as humans? How do they cope with children’s stories portraying wolves in a negative light? These aren’t the kinds of problems we normally associate with werewolves (or stories about single mothers), but Hosoda works his magic to make these questions poignant and the characters relatable.
Wolf Children is yet another feature-length anime movie that would make a compelling live-action Netflix adaptation. It’s a family drama with a powerful message, and the supernatural elements add to the movie’s charm. Plus, werewolves are major horror icons in America, more so than they are in Japan. An adaptation of Wolf Children could add to Hosoda’s vision and tell a fresh story about raising werewolf children in a society that has grown up on stories of werewolves as bloodthirsty monsters. That’s the beauty of remakes and adaptations: they give filmmakers a chance to put a different spin on a concept, one that the original creators might never have considered.
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Horror anthologies used to be extremely popular. The kid-friendly Are You Afraid Of The Dark, the campy Tales from the Crypt, and the cerebral The Twilight Zone – they were all designed around the premise of scaring audiences in new ways every episode. Even the Halloween movie franchise was originally intended to be an anthology of scary Halloween-themed movies. But, for one reason or another, horror anthologies have fallen out of favor. However, shows such as Yamishibai keep the horror anthology genre alive. Each episode tells a different scary story that earns its frights rather than just rely on jump scares and loud noises.
Yamishibai is a treat for horror fans, but it has one major flaw: the art direction. The show utilizes barely-animated images in front of static backgrounds that emulate its namesake: kamishibai (literally puppet play). It’s a very Japanese method of storytelling that doesn’t resonate with everyone in the West. But, Yamishibai still tells some very scary stories, an impressive feat given each episode is less than five minutes long. A live-action adaptation of Yamishibai would be perfect for Netflix. Imagine it: an entire season of scary, live-action shorts you can binge in the amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Stranger Things. I’ve got goosebumps already.
.hack//SIGN
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Sword Art Online’s premise of “gamers trapped in a virtual reality MMO” has been done before and, more importantly, done better. 2002’s .hack//SIGN follows the same premise, but instead of thousands of players trapped in the game, only one character is stuck in the show’s MMO. Instead of the show telling audiences from the beginning why the characters are trapped and how they can fix the life-threatening issue, .hack//SIGN’s entire story is a mystery that revolves around those same hows and whys, and audiences discover the answers alongside the protagonists. From a narrative standpoint, .hack//SIGN is a superior show, especially when it delves into philosophical issues such as existentialism. It’s a slow burn, but that’s part of its charm.
I could go into why .hack//SIGN deserves a live-action adaptation, but it just simply comes down to the point I just made: .hack//SIGN is superior to SAO in literally every way. The characters are more memorable, the story is deeper and more thought provoking, and the music is phenomenal. It is some of if not the best music ever devised for a show, anime or otherwise. Just google “Yuki Kajiura” alongside “The World,” “Key of Twilight,” or “In the Land of Twilight, Under the Moon,” and prepare for several minutes of pure auditory bliss. But, getting back to the point at hand, .hack//SIGN is SAO done right, and that alone makes it desire a live-action adaptation on Netflix.
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