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Bokurano Helmer Changes Story Due to Dislike of Manga
posted on by Egan Loo
Hiroyuki Morita, the director of Studio Ghibli's The Cat Returns and the currently airing Bokurano series from GONZO, acknowledges in a June 13 blog post titled "I Give Up" that he dislikes the original Bokurano manga and has been changing the story with the permission of the manga author, Mohiro Kitoh (Shadow Star Narutaru, Vendemiaire no Tsubasa). The post came after manga fans who opposed the changes posted a flurry of comments, with some earlier blog entries having close to a hundred comments. (The "I Give Up" blog entry has 399 comments.)
Bokurano tells the story of over a dozen children who unsuspectedly agree to test a real-life robot battle in which the ironic price of victory is death. Morita objected to the frequent deaths of children and says he asked Kitoh, "Is it all right if I save the children by […]?" (Morita omitted part of his question from his blog to avoid spoilers.) Kitoh responded, "It's all right as long as you don't use magic."
Morita then noted the issues in adapting original works into manga, and specifically cited Hayao Miyazaki's work in such titles as Howl's Moving Castle. He adds in the end, "In closing, I have to post what I don't want to post: the director of the animated version of Bokurano dislikes the original manga. From here on out, you can't expect the animated version to expand on what you might find appealing in the original. So, fans of the original, please do not watch the animated version from now on."
Source: Canned Dogs
Image © 2007 Mohiro Kitoh, Shogakukan/Izumi Project
