5 ms·

It's a breath of fresh air watching anime adaptations that actually love and respect the original author's work like dungeon meshi. Meanwhile western fantasy a

• coolbreezetft24 2y ago
  I loved the first two seasons of Wheel of Time (and also loved the books growing up) - what is wrong with it? Never read The Witcher or played the games but also really enjoyed the netflix series
  • adamkittelson 2y ago
    If you find that you like something that most people don't it's generally best to just leave it alone and be happy you enjoyed it. If you try to delve into why so many people don't like the thing you like then either they will manage to convince you the thing you like is actually bad, which doesn't benefit you, or you'll start to question whether or not your taste in media is bad, which doesn't benefit you.
    • coolbreezetft24 2y ago
      I guess I disagree with the premise that most people dislike those two things, which seem quite popular and were well-received
      • jasonlotito 2y ago
        Most people who watched it enjoyed it. Jordan fans were big on it (at least from what I saw at JordanCon and WoTCon). Will people not like certain things, sure. The issue is that YouTubers will complain about anything these days and rage videos get more traction, so it's easier to pile on, and people who wouldn't watch it complain about how bad it is. I wouldn't put to much weight on someone not liking something. After all, either they haven't watched it all, or they are watching something they don't like. And that's not someone's taste I trust.
        • dota_fanatic 2y ago
          One can enjoy the show as a kind of trashy fanfiction while still finding it terribly unfaithful to the original story and characters. We're only two seasons in and massive changes have been made that invalidate character arcs in the original, so I expect we'll continue to see greater and greater divergence in plot points. Having said that, what do you think of people like GRRM (wrt House of the Dragon) and Brandon Sanderson critiquing these adaptations? Your last paragraph seems to imply there's no value to someone dislike something.
        • bigstrat2003 2y ago
          > I wouldn't put to much weight on someone not liking something. After all, either they haven't watched it all, or they are watching something they don't like. And that's not someone's taste I trust. That's some very "heads I win, tails you lose" logic right there.
        • UberMouse 2y ago
          Just chipping in as someone who is a tremendous fan of the books (I've read all of them 4 or 5 times and listened to the audio books twice). I _hated_ the series, I was very excited for it, watched Season 1, was blown away by how awful the changes were and won't be watching more. It honestly baffles me that anyone who liked the books is able to enjoy the TV show, it feels like bad fan fiction.
      • bigstrat2003 2y ago
        WoT was very much not well received by fans, mainly because it is so disrespectful to the source material that you would think the showrunner actively hates it. You asked for specifics, so: * Rand and Egwene's relationship going from "they like each other but are kind of hesitant" to "sneaking away to have sex in the woods". Not only is this completely unnecessary, it's completely at odds with the moral values of Two Rivers culture for them to be doing that. * Perrin being married (WTF), and then killing his wife by accident (WTF squared). In the books Perrin is very careful to not accidentally hurt people as he is conscious of his strength. * In general, trying to change the Two Rivers to have the diversity of modern day NYC. A region so far off the beaten path that even their de jure queen doesn't remember they exist is simply not going to have a broad selection of races. This isn't as big of a sin as the character changes, but it's also completely free to have this bit of worldbuilding via character casting. There is no good reason whatsoever to give it up. * Generally changing relationships in ways that just aren't supported by the books. Like, Siuan and Moiraine aren't in a sexual relationship at that point in the story so it's idiotic to depict them as such. * Trying to act as though the Dragon could be any of the Emond's Field kids is against the very metaphysical foundations of the WoT universe. The Dragon could only be a boy, and Moiraine would know this damn well. And while we're at it, Moiraine had no idea that there were ta'veren in the Two Rivers at all, certainly not more than one, unlike what the show claims. * Aging up Min severely and making her a Darkfriend. Just WTF. * At one point Nynaeve heals death, which is again completely impossible in this universe. * The damane costumes... so bad it's laughable. What on earth were they thinking? How could they get it so wrong? How you go from collars (in the books) to ball gags in the show is utterly beyond my ability to even imagine. Those are the main things I can think of, and that's just season 1. I didn't even bother trying to hate read about season 2 after how bad season 1 was, but from what I heard it wasn't better (like apparently Rand bangs Lanfear, which he absolutely would never do). I understand that adaptations need to change things. But the changes they made to WoT aren't necessary, and often make the story worse than what Jordan wrote. It all shows a grave disrespect for the source material, contrary to the staff's claims that they love the books so much (bullshit). As far as I can tell, Rafe didn't want to do an adaptation of Jordan's story, he wanted to tell his own story. Which is fine, but then tell your own fucking story, don't take a massive dump all over someone else's work which many people love.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • notanotheracc 2y ago
      > they will manage to convince you the thing you like is actually bad, which doesn't benefit you I'd argue that there is benefit to re-evaluating one's tastes based on new information. It's always good to think critically of the content you consume. EDIT: Wow. Can't even post comments on a new account. Not gonna beg dang for approval in his e-mail so I guess that's it for me and anyone else who's privacy-aware.
      • PawgerZ 2y ago
        What do you mena you can't post comments? I see this jsut fine.
  • msp26 2y ago
    I'm surprised to hear that. I've genuinely never held so much disdain for a TV show (season 1) in my life. But when season 2 hit I was too apathetic to even bother watching. They made so many changes (mostly shit) that it was hard to even see it as an adaptation. The official statement (mental gymnastics) was that it's "another turning of the wheel".
    • jasonlotito 2y ago
      > I'm surprised to hear that In the fandom, it's fairly well received. JordanCon/WoTCon had everyone loving it. Sure, some people might not like it, but the majority of people who watched it loved it. Martin's criticism of HoD is silly considering he still hasn't stuck the landing on his original series, and I imagine is holding back because people didn't like his resolution and is now stuck. Regardless, lots of people love these things. That you don't is fine. Not everything needs to be for you. I didn't like Witcher 3. Overrated lame open world with boring stories and poor combat. Never finished it. So I had zero interest with any of the Witcher shows. But I also realize that a lot of people love it. I'm happy those people have something they enjoy.
      • dota_fanatic 2y ago
        What makes you think ".. had everyone loving it" and "the majority of people who watched it loved it"? Was there a study done? I don't know either way, and am genuinely curious what that distribution looks like. I suspect nobody knows the answer but you seem confident in your assertion. As an aside, I imagine the commenter you're replying to will find "That you don't [love these things] is fine. Not everything needs to be for you." to be patronizing.
        • jasonlotito 2y ago
          > What makes you think ".. had everyone loving it" and "the majority of people who watched it loved it"? "the majority of people who watched it loved it" Because why someone who doesn't like something watch it all the way through. The majority of people who watched Wheel of Time loved it. Sure, some people who disliked it or weren't interested would have watched it all the way through, but most people don't. Did the majority of people who watched only an episode or two love it? I don't know. But that was never my claim. Maybe you can share why you think people, outside of being reviewers, will watch things they don't like? Am I the odd one out? Seriously, if I don't like a book I stop reading it. If I don't like a show I stop watching. "JordanCon/WoTCon had everyone loving it." (completely different from saying "everyone loving it") Because I attended them, and everyone there was loving it. Judging by the cheers and the interest at the associated panels, and well everyone I spoke with. > I imagine the commenter you're replying to will find "That you don't [love these things] is fine. Not everything needs to be for you." to be patronizing Facts hurt?
  • MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
    The Witcher books are great. A refreshing take on fantasy from an entirely different set of folklore, and the English translation was done so well that you can't even tell. I also played the games (which take place after the books) and loved them - although despite having a great story, the first game was really rough. Witcher 3 is in my top 10 games of all time, and it rewards you for playing all three by letting you carry over your saves and seeing your impact on the world. I hear they're remaking the first game as well as a fourth, so there's a lot to look forward to there.
• A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  Right. And anime tends to stick very closely to the manga which inspired it, because, commercially, it's often a vehicle designed to increase the sales of that manga. Take Dungeon Meshi, for instance: The anime only covered about half of the material of the manga. So if you liked the show and you want to know how the story ends, you've got to pick up the books. If the showrunners changed important plot points, finishing the story might not be so easy... The Dungeon Meshi anime probably made some money on its own account, but there are a lot of marginal anime series that aren't really designed to make money, but are intended to increase awareness/sales of various manga properties.
  • spondylosaurus 2y ago
    Dunmeshi's getting a second season—hopefully enough ground to cover the rest of the series :)
  • AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
    The anime following manga orthodoxy is a relatively recent thing, especially compared to earlier 90's adaptations. Compare Sailor Moon, Helsing, etc, where they deviated so far that both of them got subsequent "re-do" animes that tried to more explicitly follow the manga. I would argue that reinterpretations/taking liberties aren't always a bad thing. I went back and watched the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OVA from the 90's that compressed/deviated the Stardust Crusaders arc considerably, especially compared to the more recent anime, which follows the manga panels to a 't'. I would argue the OVA holds up very well and makes some necessary edits for the sake of the pacing. Plus, the OVA staff clearly did their research, because OVA Egypt feels way more authentic than anime Egypt (which looked like your stereotypical mishmash of Middle East/India).
    • phatfish 2y ago
      Fullmetal Alchemist and the redo Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the one I'm familiar with. Also the "filler" episodes from Naruto. It seems like mega series with 200+ episodes where fillers are needed aren't getting made now? Demon Slayer is only on 63 for example.
• spondylosaurus 2y ago
  Watched a few episodes of dunmeshi before binge-reading the manga, and I was surprised/impressed that the anime is essentially a shot-for-shot recreation of the manga. I assume they used manga panels as the storyboards, which speaks to how good Ryoko Kui is at visual framing, timing beats for action sequences and jokes, etc.
  • frozenlettuce 2y ago
    that's the source of some cheesy anime clichés like having every character react and say something while an arrow is still mid-flight - in a manga it makes sense but when animating it makes it feel slow (looking at you Saint Seya)
  • dale_glass 2y ago
    That's extremely common, it's been happening for ages. You can see it in things like Naruto, too. That's because they made it at a rate of an episode per week, and in parallel with the source material. That doesn't give time for anything very fancy, so it's mostly a panel by panel adaptation. Plus some filler in the mix, because a chapter usually doesn't have enough meat in it to last a whole episode. It's often 2 chapters per episode or so. And that's why the slow pacing and the awful fillers.
• throw4847285 2y ago
  That's because the gap between comic books and animation is one of the smallest between mediums. Not that it doesn't take creativity to adapt a manga into anime, but there is a template for a very faithful adaptation that is available to you. If you're turning a prose novel into a tv show, you have to basically create everything from scratch. You can set it in the world of the novel and basically follow the plot, but the pacing is impossible to translate directly, and you don't have any of the visuals.
• Barrin92 2y ago
  >be full of arrogant showrunners that think their vision is better Most just want to have their own take on whatever they're adapting and I think that's preferable because whether good or bad, at the very least they're adding something new. The nostalgia and fanbase driven reproduction of the same stuff over and over adds nothing, it's just fanservice. If I want The Witcher the game I can just play the actual game, if I want GRRM I should read his books. Adaptions in which authors take liberties have much more potential to be interesting. King famously hated Kubrick's The Shining, Garland took a lot of liberties with Annihilation and Starship Troopers was straight up subversion and satire of the book and Heinlein's worldview. Given that we're in the age of maximally non-offensive Disney and comic book adaptions that just refuse to die and with so few genuinely novel media out there to begin with, I'm in favor of people at least taking some risks with adaptions.
  • jwells89 2y ago
    The biggest issue with divergent adaptations in my opinion is that there aren't many that are middling or on par with the original. They tend to either be good, uplifting the source material into something greater, or not well thought out and somewhere between bad and awful, and it's easier to fall in the latter of those two buckets than the former.
  • themaninthedark 2y ago
    But if you wan to have your own vision, why don't you just create your own world to do that in? If I took Fahrenheit 451 and adapt the story so that the state executes Guy Montag because my vision is that hate speech is dangerous, it's not Fahrenheit 451 anymore. Take the most recent Dune movies as an example; In the books, Paul spends so much time becoming Fremen and trying to resist the prophecy as well as endlessly worrying about a space jihad, only taking the water of life when he was not able to predict that Gurney would try and kill his mother. In the new vision "Let the Jihad begin!" The first is the story of a reluctant hero who is trying to keep his family alive and cherish the love of the desert people who adopted him. The second portrays a mother and son who scheme to use those around them to further their end goal of power and revenge. If I enjoy eating Oreo cookies and I buy an ice cream that is labeled "Oreo Ice Cream" but when I taste it, it is Strawberry Jam flavor, I am not going to be writing a review that praises the product designer for their bold vision. I will be taking the product back for a refund.
• jeffchien 2y ago
  Anime has had no shortage of adaptations disrespectful of the original. Most of the time it's due to not having enough source material like HBO GoT, which somehow sent Fullmetal Alchemist to 1920s Germany in the first adaptation's movie. But sometimes you get people like Bokurano's director who straight up said he hated the manga.
  • xoxxala 2y ago
    It also happens sometimes when anime looks to western media. "Tales from Earthsea" and "Lensmen" are notoriously bad adaptations.
  • least 2y ago
    Fullmetal Alchemist and its movie are both excellent, though, even though they it's vastly different from the source (and of course, the more faithful adaption in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood). I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy is also quite good, even though it does stray quite a bit from the books, omissions aside. It's really hard to make good media and I haven't found any reliable indicators hinting at whether an adaptation will be good or not. I found The Hobbit trilogy to be laborious despite having Peter Jackson at the helm of it as well. Though in that case, maybe the source material itself is the issue.
    • pnt12 2y ago
      LOTR was a work of passion , The Hobbit was a mess. With The Hobit , there was a change in directors (originally Guillermo del Toro) and lots of studio meddling (eg pushing for 3 movies when the original is a 200 pages book, inclusion of LOTR actors for wider appeal). I think Peter Jackson was brought in to try to salvage what he could.