With entertainment companies producing live-action animes without fully showcasing the original elements of animes in their adaptations, many anime fans are disinterested in watching them.
Elements missing from live-action adaptations have led anime-watchers to believe that these adaptations are not worth watching.
Junior Hailey Culp thinks that an original author’s vision cannot be fully executed in a live-action adaptation because the series is meant to be an anime and not meant to be acted out by real people.
According to junior Jordan Eckert, any form of special effects that can be illustrated in animation cannot be fully portrayed in a live-action movie or show.
“‘One Piece’ has really cool special effects [and] ‘One-Punch Man’ has really cool special effects that they could never recreate perfectly in a live-action, and it takes away from the story,” Eckert said.
Philadelphia resident Darien Shiranui thinks many factors from anime cannot be replicated in live-action, such as magic powers and graphics.
“The graphics of an anime and the fight scenes: it’s almost impossible to replicate,” Shiranui said.
Fans of anime believe style is important to an anime, and live-action adaptations cannot recreate this style.
Eckert said that live-action anime adaptation films “take away from the anime and manga experience.”
“Anime and manga have such a stylistic look that is so special and unique to shows, where if you put it into live action, it kind of strips it of its uniqueness in a way,” Eckert said.
Another part of what makes it hard for live-action anime adaptations to be successful is that live actions are condensed and do not include everything that was part of the show.
“It’s just a condensed short version of it,” junior Calvin Zheng said. “Depending on which one you watch, there’s 100 episodes, 300 episodes, etc.”
To Zheng, for live-action adaptations to be good, they should not “sidetrack from the anime.”
“They include qualities from the original anime without going off track, which makes them good because once you make something that’s different from what the anime is, then it’s not good anymore because it’s not what you’re expecting,” Zheng said.
Integral changes made to the story are another reason why most have not been popular.
Many fans of anime believe that live-action anime adaptations are unnecessary.
Junior Kaitlin Faulkner likes that animes have “unique storylines and characters,” but with live-action adaptations, they are “not original.”
According to Eckert, it’s important for producers of live-action animes to follow the author’s vision.
“If they do the artist and all the original series’ justice, and they do it fully well, stick fully to what was written before, then it represents the author perfectly,” Eckert said, “but if they kind of take their own approach to it I feel like it reflects poorly.”
Shiranui is willing to watch live-action action adaptations of anime since they are “worthwhile” if they have the right writers and actors.
He believes that live actions have been able to “grow the fanbase” and allow stories to reach a wider audience.
An example of this is the live-action “One Piece.”
The original series has over 1,000 episodes, while the Netflix one has eight.
