Why I am Worried About Western Live Action Movies Based off Anime
By ravensword 16 Comments
As you may or may not know, there are rumor/talks of quit a few popular animes being turned into movies for the west. Im not talking about Japan making these movies, these movies are being made for the states and western audiences, meaning more than likely they will involve Caucasian actors. These rumored movies include Akira (confirmed I believe), Bleach and Death Note. now, I would like to focus on Death Note personally, because out of those three its by far my favorite.
There is a part of me that is very excited for a Western Death Note movie. Itll be in english, itll most likely have much better speacil effects (shinigamis etc.) and would probaly be more relateable to me. But theres an even bigger part of me scared shitless about it. and for a few reasons.
1. Lets talk about the characters. 90 percent of all the characters in this anime are japanese and live in japan. meaning they have japanese names. L, Near, Mello and the American government people will of course be look like they do in the anime (AKA Causasian since thats what those characters were in the anime) Im not so much worried about these character than I am for everyone else, specifically Light. The rumors swirling around that Zac Efron, from what I believe is High School Musical fame, might play the part of light. I feel two ways about this: 1. It makes sense, because he look almost exactly like Light, or what Light might look like if he were real 2. I hate this, because it dosent make any sense given the context of the anime, which is set in japan. Why would a obviously white person have a Japanese name, japanese parents, and live IN FREAKIN JAPAN! And light is Japanese obviously.
Now, in order to even do this movie, they could go in two different spectrums:
1. Have almost all japanese acting cast, which L, Mello, Near and the actual American white people be the exception, so having it set in japan would make perfect since because most of the people in the show will be japanese.
2. They totally make it weird and ackward and have Light be white, but everyone else asian for some weird fucking reason, and have it still set in japan. Or they could just make almost the whole cast white, thusly completing the mind fuck.
i doubt the studio will go with option 1, meaning we are going to have a rather ackward movie on our hands. I dont think they will go option 1 because Im not sure how americans like having a almost all asian cast set in japan. It just seems like a bomb to me in america and even in the UK and etc.
2. THE ANIME IS SET IN JAPAN! I already touched on this, but seriously, IT HAS TO BE JAPAN! Unless the director wants the say Fuck the original source material, give everyone names like Steve Johns and Roy Brown and have it set in downtown L.A.. and this is why a White protaginest and even a white cast would not work, because its set in japan.
3. If they keep to the original story, it would need to be a multi movie thing. There is no way they can cram the tale of Death note in one movie, even if the movie was over 3 hours long. I pray that hollywood does right makes this a 2 movie thing or even more if they need to, because if tis just one movie, its going to be croped, cut and butchered all to hell.
These are the MAIN things im worried about with this movie, and honestly any anime movie (if its based off a Series, than Espeacilly number 3 on my list)
These movies have so much face palm potential, not to mention all the elitist anime fan pricks that will clutter the theaters day one in cosplay and not STFU when im trying to watch the movie with their cheering and screaming.
maybe im focusing a bit too much on location, but its the only location that makes since given the characters names.