[umjames]

Hollywood, please don't ever try to make live-action remakes of anime. Why can't they just show the anime itself? It was already good.

I highly recommend watching Death Note in its original anime form (preferably in Japanese with English subtitles). It's excellent. A little culture never hurt anyone. Every story doesn't have to take place in the U.S.

[_delirium]

The anime form isn't the "original", but itself an adaptation of the manga. I don't have a huge problem in principle with media forms being adapted into other media forms, though, so that isn't really a knock against it. Imo whether an adaption is good is more interesting than the status as original/adaptation/remake. Some adaptations and remakes are good!

[pestaa]

Yes, the original format is manga, and I have a few volumes -- the overlap is remarkable. As if Madhouse studios took the pictures, enhanced them, gave them a flow and breathed life into them with excellent voice acting and music.

The manga is outstanding because of the plot, but nothing beats the anime.

[gbog]

The extreme example is when the translation is actually better than the original, for a book.

Edgar Alan Poe's tales translated by Baudelaire are said to be one of such cases.

[lmm]

Maybe someone should publish a translation of Baudelaire's translation

[Steko]

My first reactions to this were "Thank god this abomination hasn't been green-lit" and "*@#& you Hollywood!"

Getting over that I can see how a looser translation could work. But don't call it Death Note. Calling it Death Note while whitewashing it and getting rid of many of the major plot characters and plot elements entirely is just asking for a colossal failure and fanbase revolt. It's like they didn't pay attention to the DBZ and Airbender fiascos.

[hkmurakami]

The Japanese TV Drama industry is a much more frequent offender of such adaptations (as you may imagine, the outcome is almost always catastrophically bad).

[math_is_life]

I'll never understand the people that are hurt by changes to something that they could just avoid. Why does an American movie hurt it? Will it make you enjoy the original less? I'll also never understand the fascination with subtitles and the Japanese voice, which anime fans seem to think is more dramatic.

The people who read the original manga probably feel a certain way about the anime. The same way that people who read books feel about movie adaptions because they know there will be differences in it. A movie can bring things to a wider audience and then a lot of them may check out the original, which they may or may nor prefer.

[rkwz]

>I'll never understand the people that are hurt by changes to something that they could just avoid. Why does an American movie hurt it? Will it make you enjoy the original less?

Because it spoils the 'reputation' of the original work? If the movie is done crappyly, then people will assume that the anime/manga will also be crappy.

>I'll also never understand the fascination with subtitles and the Japanese voice, which anime fans seem to think is more dramatic.

It's not that anime watchers hate english dubs. It's just that they hate crappy dubs. I watch a ton of anime and I usually prefer japanese with english subtitles, but sometimes the english dubs are better than the original and in that time, I'll stick with the english dub.

It's just a matter of which version has better quality voice actors and dialogues.

[illuminate]

The usual claim is that it "ruins their childhood".

[Hemospectrum]

> Why can't they just show the anime itself?

The rationalization most moviegoers would use is one of legitimacy. Many people see film as the only "serious" medium for storytelling (live action TV is too cheap, books are too academic) and categorically dismiss newer media (video games, comics, etc.) as having no cultural value whatsoever. Thus, a good story is not actually good until it's a movie.

Hollywood loves this attitude and may be entirely to blame for it. It's hard to tell how many studio execs actually think this way though. I get the impression there are also a lot of people in Hollywood who don't believe in the concept of art.

[Dylan16807]

Because an entire TV series is much longer than a movie.

* goes back to waiting for more of Rebuild *

Edit: Huh, if the last thing in a comment is an asterisk it becomes invisible.

[tokipin]

i think The Matrix shows that it's at least possible to make a live action remake of an anime. i think what's actually needed is a director who understands the anime essense that well. eg the Wachowski bros

the Wachowski bros also directed Speed Racer (2008). it's one of my favorite movies and was 1,000,000x more awesome than it got credit for