Badmovies.org Forum

Live-action anime usually ends up sucking.
The Guyver movies? Lame
Fist of the North Star? Just terrible.
Dragonball?  Don't even ask.
Though Japan may have made live action movies based on anime and manga, which do you think could (or you would want to) work well?  Here's my list:

Initial D: If you thought "Days of Thunder" was for sissy's then see this anime.  Street racing down the hills of Akina mountain is the hobby of young Takumi's peers but Takumi shows no interest in racing.  But little do they know that Takumi is the fastest driver on Akina mountain with his seemingly outdated car.  But he doesn't do this for fun.  He's a tofu delivery boy!  And tofu spoils very easily!   Yes Takumi's so good he outraces the toughest racers on deliverys and that's when he's being VERY CAREFUL.  Wait till you see wait happens when his Old Man (an even better racer than Takumi) bribes Takumi into taking up a race to defend his peers' honer.  Great show that would make a cool movie.  Many critics say this show is just for motorheads, but I'm not a motor heads and I'm hooked.  And they better add the Gumtape Death Match in the movie.

Trigun:  This one would have to star Ray Park as Vash and Jackie Chan as Reverend Nickolas D. Wolfwood.  It's Mad Max meets Spaghetti Western meets chop-socky meets comedy.  Vash the Stampede is the most notorious criminal on a desert planet and has caused so much destruction that he has a $$60,000,000,000 (not a typo!) price tag on his head.  But when they find him they don't find a ruthless devil, they find... a peace-loving, womanizing idiot who refuses to kill!  and wait till you meet the villainous Gung Ho Guns.  VERY COOL anime that could be a VERY COOL movie if they get the Woo-ping guy as stunt director.

Akira:  If they make the movie a trilogy, have it made in Japan (the make some freaky movies, like Tetsuo) and make it more like the manga (it actually has a good sense of humour at times) thi8s could be really cool.  Also have special effects by Rick Baker.  Although I'm not sure I'd have the stomach too watch the finally.

Any other ideas?

Dragonball? hey man, that rocks! ;)

The series yes.  The live action Japanese movie...  I really want to get that on my site.

I want to see the live action versions of video girl ai, Yawara!, and Maison Ikkoku. I think that Cowboy Bebop could work well as a live action movie as long as the special effects were decent. I'd also kind of like to see Porco Rosso as live action if it had beautiful cinematography like Meditarano.

I'd like to see a live action Ranma.  Sex
changes could be accomplished with CG, &
for fight scenes, just use a LOT of wires...

Hey, considering it's popularity, I wouldn't
be surprised to see a live-action Cowboy
Bebop (or Bebop-clone) out of Hollywood in
the near future.  Porco Rosso would be good
too, but man, imagine the makeup job on
that one!

Anyone see the live action Wicked City?

You know, there WAS a live-action "Maison Ikkoku" movie made in Japan! It's a bit weird--the cast sings a musical number or two, I forget--but all the characters are there. It just...it just wasn't Rumiko Takahashi. And it was a bit slow. You can read about it at http://www-ucsee.eecs.berkeley.edu/~leon/mi/GUIDE/MIlive.txt and pop "Maison Ikkoku live-action" into Google.com or Hotbot and come up with more, maybe pictures. (This was just the first link that popped up.) It wasn't well reviewed in the Japanese press, I remember that much.

I was jazzed for about a minute at the idea of a live-action "Ranma," but I shudder to think about all the morphing shots and CGI/cheapass puppet animals like those in "Sabrina" playing the panda and P-chan and Shampoo's cat and more...besides--who on Earth could play ol' Happy and "Ghoul?" Pass. With reservations.

The live-action "Wicked City" bears little/no resemblence to the anime. As you might imagine, being a low-budg HK film, the demons are not as wildly designed and the sex angle is near-nonexistant. There IS, however, the usual psychotic kung-fu fighting, including a hand-to-hand flying battle that spans skyscrapers and airliners! Top THAT, Ang Lee!

"Fist (Up) The North Star" blew maximum chunkitude. Some things cannot be forgiven.

"The Story of Ricky" is a live-action version of the manga-anime "Riki-Oh."

The "Peacock King: Spirit Warrior" series has a live-action version out there, somewhere, I think.

"Dragonball: The Magic Begins" is a Korean film with NO connection to the anime, unless they're based on the same legend.

Hentai freaks will be delighted to know, if they don't already, that three live-action "La Blue Girl" films are coming out in English VHS/DVD, the first already out. Again, low-budgie stuff not too close to the original, but slimy and tubular. Pervert! (There are actually live-action "Demon Beast Invasion" and "Urotusuki Doji" movies--sort of. More info available at http://galaxy-of-terror.com but you have to go to a paysite to see the films. Pervert. Aren't you ashamed? Pull up your pants.)

Three manga/anime I'd love to see done live-action or full CGI:

"The Ghost In The Shell" (or "Appleseed"); If you don't know these, you shouldn't even be in this thread. There was a kinda lousy/kinda cool live-action demo of "Appleseed" included with the anime version.

"Gunsmith Cats;" Oh, I like the ladies. Bean's cool, too. Imagine "Gone In 60 Seconds" but it doesn't suck knob.

"Parasyte;" now HERE's where the CGI could really shine. If you're unfamiliar with this one, it's about a "Brain Eaters/Body Snatchers '78"-style invasion by wormlike alien lifeforms that take over their hosts by slithering into the ear and assimilating the brain. They then gain complete molecular control of the host, meaning that they can turn their heads into giant mouths or arms into blades in a heartbeat. They eat, well, us. The hero, Shin, is the victim of a failed assimilation: the alien inhabits only his hand--and the two have to coexist, threatened by both alien and human foes. Sure, every single element in the entire story is rooted in something from 50s classic sci-fi to "Terminator 2" and "Evil Dead 2," but it's a fun read.

This is actually going to be a live-action movie with SFX by the Jim Henson team.  Really.  Also, I just remebered that Tim Burton was supposedly working on Astro Boy (...the Hell?)

"Parasyte"? Oh, you just made me day. Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy...oooooo, a TV series would be smashing.

They aren't anime OR manga--or weren't originally, but "Tekken" and "Soulcalibur" are being dragged kicking and screaming to the big screen. Where they will probably suffer the same fate as "Street Fighter," "Mortal Kombat," and "Super Mario Bros." I weep for my beloved Julia. Hopefully, she won't even make it onscreen...

Don't hold to any news about Tim Burton; waaaaay back when manga was just entering mainstream US culture, Tim was expressing a desire to film "Mai The Psychic Girl" (Ah, remember that? "She a girl...she's psychic...and she's Japanese!" Oh-kaaaaaay.) as...a musical. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Live Action Maison Ikkoku...loved the manga( A japaneese soap opera? Suprised the heck outta me too!)...Live though, it changes the dynamic,as the actors would inevitably bring their own interpitation to the characters....No, i think i'll pass. Appleseed might be okey, but the similarity to AD-Police and others would put lots of pressure on the script(If you need to reachout to a non-animae literate audience.) Pat-labor would get my attention. Macross?....i donno, could get expensive...But, Gunsmith Cats?...bang bang!....I Love the Jazz style theme music of the Anime. They better carry that into a movie!  And Rally's fave. Piece, the CZ-75. (i like Rygers myself, but hey...) Mutch to think about.....

Parasyte won't be a series, it will be a movie.

Not the rumored Tim Burton project, but I thought I'd mention that back in the days of B&W TV, Japan produced a live-action AstroBoy TV series, featuring a Japanese child wearing a plastic helmet shaped like AB's head and--yikes--a thick, heavy, wrinkly rubber body-suit. I've only seen a single still from the show, but jeeeeeez, that looked silly. Almost as silly as Prince of Space, Space Chief, and Starman combined.

There is a film of this, I've got it on DVD (from Hong Kong, region free). Directed by Nam Choi whateverhisnameis that made The Seventh Curse and The Story Of Rikki O. Peacock King's quite good, it's got some stop motion animation a bit like some of Tool's videos. It's pretty mad.

If anyone's interested you can get a lot of wierd HK stuff from
www.dvdshelf.com  or
www.dddhouse.com

and Poker Industries stock a lot of stuff in the US but it's cheaper to buy direct.