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The Grey Wolf

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4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

You could say the same thing about live-action movie versions of comic book

Moving from still images to live action is quite a different thing. Animation provides movement and sound. Live action merely substitutes animation for live people and sets.

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

That said, there are a couple of decent anime-to-live action movies. I think most people forget that Oldboy is based on a manga (not an anime though)

RIght. Manga is not anime.

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

, and the 2006 Japanese live-action Death Note is apparently okay

That was manga-to-movie. The animated series came out after the movie, in fact (and here, this makes a lot of sense to me compared to adapting a cartoon to live action, since the animated series almost certainly was more faithful to the manga, whereas live action adaptations of long manga series pretty much can't be, beyond the broader thematic level). 

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

(certainly far superior to Netflix's WTFery). One of my anime-loving friends was raving about the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy as well as having pretty much nailed the anime down to a T.

Also based on the manga rather than the animated film, as I understand it. I can't really speak to its quality vs. the anime (poking around the internet does suggest it's very well-regarded, though stumbled across some who basically say all the fight choreography is amazing but the actors otherwise suck, which may something about what's being valued), but one worthwhile point as well is that it's an adaptation of a Japanese manga to Japanese cinema carried out by a Japanese director, writer, etc. Cowboy Bebop may be more explicitly Western than these others, but at the same time much of the visual flair and the approach to plotting or character development are rooted in that Japanese tradition and I really doubt that American showrunners will be able to translate or replicate those nuances.

Just using some names and the basic setup and just doing something else with it... color me dubious, but we'll see.

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13 hours ago, Werthead said:

Wasn't the AI downloaded into the dog?

It's clear the fate of the AI was ambiguous between me, you and ran.

I think there's a difference between comic/manga to film and animation to film. Primarily it's motion - adapting still images, especially for action stories benefits/transforms the concept. Animation to live-action really only has the benefit of being more "real" and i guess we can benefit from a good actor over an animated character (before gollum is mentioned i think the difference there is that they map an actor's physical presence into the animation rather than it all being from scratch)

I mentioned upthread that the bebop anime has great depth in terms of world building that it really only skims the surface of. Terraforming, the moon exploding from gate experiments and rendering earth "dead", AI, post-human cults. Interplanetary crime cartels, GM humans and animals and a bunch more. That's a hell of a lot for a western live action show to mine which I'd argue is more "our" thing. I agree with the notion that the motifs that work in anime may not crossover as well. But there's a hell of a lot of potential as long as they don't merely try and recreate the anime

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Again, I haven't finished the series yet; being so new to most anime and all. But it took me a couple episodes to realize Ed was referring to herself in 3rd person. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to her debut episode, but I thought Ed was the name of the AI, that it was backed up at the end of the episode, and that each time she referred to Ed in the next couple episodes she was talking about things the AI could do to help the crew.

Once I realized Ed was her name, I no longer knew what happened to the AI. I think it was still backed up, but it is not the involved member of the Bebop crew that I was thinking it was.

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I honestly really like the Rurouni Kenshin live action films. They honestly capture the spirit of the anime, even if they do cut out a lot of the story beats.

Also please let's not talk about Watsuki's horrible actions that were discovered last year. They've sort of ruined Kenshin for me and I've not watch anything related to the series since. I'm only mentioning it now, as an example of anime to live action transition that in my opinion worked really well.

On a side not, I always wanted a live action Gundam movie. That franchise has always been the Star Trek of the west, IMO

A live action tv show for Legions of the Galactic Heroes would be great as well, if it was done in the same style as The Wire and A Game of Thrones.

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On 4/5/2019 at 4:44 PM, Ran said:

I've said this before and will say it again, but a live action version of just about any cartoon makes no sense to me, and doubly so for a real classic anime like Cowboy Bebop. The fight scenes will be nowise as cool, the music will never in a million y ears surpass the work of Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts unless they're willing to bring them back on board, the quirkiness will not translate, and so on and so forth.

They should fund a new OVA or something instead.

My recollection is that no one had the AI in them, they just had a backup made of it. Ein was a genetically-engineered super dog, and Edward is a born savant.

Just because we've not really seen it done right often, doesn't mean we should dismiss as impossible. For the record, I'm not particularly happy with this casting either, but I've been wrong at first glances before.

For example I thought Alita was much better than I was expecting to be.

I mean I'm sure 20 years ago people were thinking the same thing about comic book films and look where we are today. Should we say, that it's impossible to make a good Fantastic Four film, just because all four of the movies made with the characters have been lack luster?

 

edit: also to reply about your comment about Rurouni Kenshin. The arc in the second and third films was the Kyoto arc, which was both in the manga and fully animated waaaaaay before those films were even a thing. It's arguably considered the greatest arc of the franchise.

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Just now, sifth said:

For the record, I'm not particularly happy with this casting either, but I've been wrong at first glances before.

Even if the casting were much better than it was, I'd still question why it's happening beyond "money".

Just now, sifth said:

For example I thought Alita was much better than I was expecting to be.

Manga-to-movie again. I haven't seen it, so I can't say anything about it.

Just now, sifth said:

I mean I'm sure 20 years ago people were thinking the same thing about comic book films and look where we are today.

Yeah, look where we are today... :P (FYI, I've been pretty completely over the live-action comic book movie franchises for awhile now, and consider their vast popularity to be the equivalent of the endless forgettable musicals of the 30s through 50, except there's been almost no gems to speak of in the post-Nolan superhero era.)

Just now, sifth said:

Should we say, that it's impossible to make a good Fantastic Four film, just because all four of the movies made with the characters have been lack luster?

Remaking a great movie would generally get people wondering why you're bothering. Does anyone think a remake of The Godfather would be an improvement on the original? Goodfellas? Lawrence of Arabia? Chinatown

I can understand your point if Cowboy Bebop had been a promising concept with horrible-to-mediocre execution (as the FF films have been) but it's one of the great anime series. 

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49 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

Even if the casting were much better than it was, I'd still question why it's happening beyond "money".

Manga-to-movie again. I haven't seen it, so I can't say anything about it.

Yeah, look where we are today... :P (FYI, I've been pretty completely over the live-action comic book movie franchises for awhile now, and consider their vast popularity to be the equivalent of the endless forgettable musicals of the 30s through 50, except there's been almost no gems to speak of in the post-Nolan superhero era.)

Remaking a great movie would generally get people wondering why you're bothering. Does anyone think a remake of The Godfather would be an improvement on the original? Goodfellas? Lawrence of Arabia? Chinatown

I can understand your point if Cowboy Bebop had been a promising concept with horrible-to-mediocre execution (as the FF films have been) but it's one of the great anime series. 

I'm actually one of the few peoples who'd welcome a God Father remake. I'm not a huge fan of the movie, but I love the novel. I always hated how the movie pretty much skips over Johnny Fontaine's entire story arc, when it was one of my favorite parts of the story. I do agree that most remakes are horrible; The Thing and Fly being the major exceptions.

However when you look at anime remakes it's a little different. Most would agree that both FMA and FMA Brother are both amazing series in their own way. Same with Hunter x Hunter, in which case I'd argue the remake is even better. Hellsing and Jojo are also examples of animes that were remade for the better.

Also just because you don't like comic movies made since Nolan's Batman films, doesn't mean a lot of people haven't enjoyed them. I mean I personally love GotG, though I've been a James Gunn fan since he was making low budget stuff like Slither and Super.

Battle Angel was not just a manga as well, it was also an OAV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_(OVA)

Are you inferring that the only way anime can transition to live action, is if it's source material is a manga or light novel?

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20 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Once again I've been caught by surprise. 

One Punch Man S2 is apparently finally coming out. 

Yeah, but it looks like the animation doesn't seem to be nearly as good. It's probably due Madhouse no longer working on it. Hopefully the dialogue is good.

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2 hours ago, Aurane said:

Yeah, but it looks like the animation doesn't seem to be nearly as good. It's probably due Madhouse no longer working on it. Hopefully the dialogue is good.

Mad House doesn't do sequels, lol

Anyway, I was happy with the first episode regardless. I can take a dip in animation quality, so long as the story is fun.

I mean if we're talking about bad art, try reading some of the HxH chapters during the Chimera Ant arc. Togahsi was pretty much just handing in squiggly lines and blank pages and Jump was printing them. I don't think I ever saw an artist take advantage of his popularity like that before.

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Sooo... I actually went out of my way and dusted off my US account of Fate/Grand Order for good and started playing through the "Epic of Remnant" arc, since the Shinjuku chapter is already translated and I was a bit afraid that I miss out on free stuff if I don't have at least clear the main story.

And that story... I must admit, it is surprisingly decent. Surely no Fate/Zero, but having a miniature Grail War in which Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty are forced to work together, is in theory quite cool. Unlikely alliances like Edison and Tesla are parts that are actually written well and while the story so far is unfortunately very short on deductions, the few times they arise highlight pretty well how the two arch enemies end up matching each other's conclusions. It also (re-)introduced the mechanic of Servants keeping their identity hidden to encourage the players of figuring out who they are. I still remember when it appeared on JP how I debated with a few all too clever fans who made convincing arguments for deductions that were far more cool and thoughtful than the lazy nonsense the developers put in at the end.

Too bad the chapter is still way too focused on mindless battle. At least these battles are nowhere near as ludicrously hard as in the previous two chapters. You can cheese through everything with a borrowed Merlin and Cu Chulainn, even someone as horribly unlucky as I am when it comes to summoning.

Only the Sleepy Hollow headless rider is a pain... An Avenger with 800k HP who blocks a third of all your attacks. Bogus...

Well... Coming next is the Fate/Extra event with all these horrible, horrible fanservice characters. I'm passing on that one (except my failed attempt to summon Nero Bride because my only decent Saber so far is Artoria). Thereafter comes another chance to fail at summoning Ishtar...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I've finished Cowboy Bebop and, I know I'm not saying anything new here, but that really is a hell of a show. My only complaint is how quickly it wrapped up. I like the fact that the episodes were mostly self-contained and that the show never dragged on, but the I think the last 2 episodes probably should've been 3 episodes. Julia and Vicious (and Shin for that matter) had so little screen time that I thought it kinda lessened the impact of the ending. 

But that just speaks to how much I liked the show that I wish there was more to it. Next up will be getting back to PsychoPass, I let that one fall to the wayside right when it was getting good because I wanted to focus on Bebop.

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14 hours ago, Fez said:

Well, I've finished Cowboy Bebop and, I know I'm not saying anything new here, but that really is a hell of a show. My only complaint is how quickly it wrapped up. I like the fact that the episodes were mostly self-contained and that the show never dragged on, but the I think the last 2 episodes probably should've been 3 episodes. Julia and Vicious (and Shin for that matter) had so little screen time that I thought it kinda lessened the impact of the ending. 

But that just speaks to how much I liked the show that I wish there was more to it. Next up will be getting back to PsychoPass, I let that one fall to the wayside right when it was getting good because I wanted to focus on Bebop.

I think that's what impressed me the most how the show actually had loads of ideas but just breezed through them. Lots of fodder for the live-action version where I'll be amazed if they don't expand upon ideas and characters. I doubt Netflix only have two seasons planned (based on idea if them doing 40 minutes per episode of anime).

I've been watching wolf's rain. The show nosedives when it's clear they've either ran out of money and/or time and start doing recaps and lots of animation saving story techniques. I'll stick it out for 8 more episodes for the sake of completion. I think attack on titan or FMA is next on my list. 

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6 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

You know, I'm not hating S2 of One Punch Man.

Saitama's personality seems a little different, but I'll let that slide.

It's just nice watching new episodes of an anime where the plot actually moves along.

I've seen 3 episodes of season 1 and it hadn't quite hooked me. Does it improve? I think i might just prefer how the Tick parodies superheroes.

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4 hours ago, red snow said:

I've seen 3 episodes of season 1 and it hadn't quite hooked me. Does it improve? I think i might just prefer how the Tick parodies superheroes.

The first 3 episodes sets the series tone pretty well. If you didn't enjoy those 3 I doubt you'll enjoy the rest.

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2 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The first 3 episodes sets the series tone pretty well. If you didn't enjoy those 3 I doubt you'll enjoy the rest.

I thought it was interesting as a parody, it just wasn't as addictive as shows like attack on titan were. Like i said, i think it's mainly due to me comparing with tick, especially the cartoon.

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Because of the discussion about it I decided to watch Cowboy Bepop.

Poor guys. 3 episodes in and they haven't collected a single bounty yet. How do they stay in business?

Episode 8: They finally got some money. Good for them.

Episode 17: What is wrong with these people that they just found a lone mushroom sitting on a plate, and all 3 of them decided that the best course of action was to eat the mystery mushroom?

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Currently the US version of Fate/Grand Order has the Fate/Extra collab event going on, so now I am actually reading its story instead of just rolling my eyes at all the horribly character designs... and... credit where credit is due... it's actually strangely enjoyable. This is really strange. I have read summaries about Fate/Extra and read the oddly negative fan reaction to the Fate/Extra Anime that I haven't watched. So I am really surprised that the collab event actually works as a narrative, despite my standing issues with the stupid Sakura faces in this franchise's narcissistic need for self-references.

So basically the story of the event is that Chaldea (the secret international observatory charged with preserving the timeline through summoning and deployment of Heroic Spirits) loses contact to one of its supply assets, a massive off-shore oil rig near Norway with over 200 personnel. When trying to make contact, they instead get hacked by a mysterious attacker who claims to have transported the rig into the year 2039 and dumped it into the Mariana trench. The attacker, who claims to be a rogue AI from the future called B.B., invites them to timejump into the future and save their people before the water pressure destroys the rig and kills them all. So the protagonist takes Emiya, Nero and Tamamo and jumps to the specified coordinates...

... only to find that it's an even more elaborate trap than first anticipated. The rig has been warped into a 'digital' structure where time has been stretched out significantly. Instead of the 2 and a half hours time anticipated to have left until the rig's destruction, there are now several weeks left. However, it also turns out that the missing crew has been stuck here for years... and pretty much everybody has already died as their supplies ran out and they turned against each other in both desperation and insanity (which you find out through grim notes left behind in the broken ruins). So the whole rescue mission has been pointless from the beginning. To make matters worse, B.B. intercepted the transport from Chaldea and messed with the Heroic Spirits accompanying you. Tamamo was captured and turned into one of her minions, Emiya turned into the absolutely unhelpful Emiya Alter and Nero disappeared entirely. Instead you arrive alone in a hostile world where insane Heroic Spirits roam, fighting a Grail War that doesn't really exist, only to be saved by one of the supposed boss monsters that has turned against B.B. and now accompanies you as a pseudo-Servant. Later your party is also joined by a suspicious Gawain who claims to have been accompanied you from Chaldea as well as a thoroughly confused Tristan who has recently been summoned for this fake Moon Cell Grail War and not yet turned mad by the warped environment.

When finding the first log detailing the fate of the rig crew, I was really taken aback by just how dark the story is. But dark isn't necessarily good. The off-putting crude fanservice of the Sakura-faces plain everywhere (not to mention that the rig gradually transforms into a giant naked Sakura to rip off Evangelion) certainly pushed the story's worth into the opposite direction. But then there is also the constant suspicion in the narrative that everyone clearly isn't what they pretend they are and have their own sinister motives. A few twists early on and several already set up make for a surprisingly tense atmosphere. It's certainly no Fate/Zero, but still surprisingly intelligent for something that overrated hackjob Nasu wrote. It actually made me consider watching the Fate/Extra Anime... for a few minutes until I went "Nah...".

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