Of Butlers and Titans: More Live Anime Adaptions
. . . and the anime film adaptions still keep coming. So here’s a roundup of what I’ve missed and what I think the implications may be.
First of all, there’s a Black Butler film coming on the heels of the stage show, and you can watch Sebastian be Satanic Jeeves here at Anime News Network.
Now it’s not an adaption – it weirdly seems to be a kind of sequel/AU take, but having same and different characters. Not quite sure what their aiming at, but then again, it’s Sebastian and his Hair so hey, you focus on what works. It looks like it’s got the mixture of creepy, sexy, and funny that BB does well.
Now as is my habit in these columns, I speculate on how these things will play over here and influence our own media. And in this case . . .
. . . not much.
Black Butler is well known and well regarded, but I’m not sure it’s got the kind of thing that’ll catch fire even with a live action adaption. There’s plenty of supernatural stuff across the sea here, in fact we’re kinda saturated in it. The most I could see this movie do is raise some curiosity, unless it does REALLY well and gets international play.
Also, Black Butler‘s story and ideas are a big mixed for the checklist-driven western movie market right now. There’s a lot of ambiguity to it, and I can’t see that paying well here. (Or worse someone goes “Found Footage” on it)
So, I don’t see this one creating any Big Adaption Demands.
And then, and I missed this – there’s an attempt at a live action Attack on Titan film that’s already had a bit of turnover. In fact, apparently the anime and the film sprung up kind of separately, which tells you something about the popularity of the manga.
Now can this film be pulled off, since it’s essentially Zombie Kaiju versus Spiderman Ninjas? We’ll see. I’m not going to pass judgement because the concept of the manga itself sounded a little weird to me, but the anime blew me away. In the hands of the right director it could be extraordinary (though I think it’d have to go to series to really work) – look at what Tsu Hark has done to see some real screen magic.
I’m keeping an eye on this one a bit more for the Western market. We like our zombies, we like monsters, and we like hyperkinetic combat. I don’t see the live action movie coming over here (I could see a CGIed one), but the crazy-sounding idea might just get interest. There’s also enough checklist-fuel to convince people it could work.
Still, I see it as a long shot.
So in this case curious, but I don’t see either of these films having the potential impact that Harlock or Gatchaman may have (and with Pacific Rim tanking, I’m not sure Patlabor will have any influence). Attack on Titan is a possible outlier, but that’s it.
Now of course, are there any other anime adaptions I missed . . .
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
