Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Wheel of Anime Adaptations
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2396 |
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SAO is VRMMO, not isekai.
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tintor2
 Posts: 2156 |
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It sure seems that it has to be a big series. I was confused about Production I.G leaving Tsubasa in a cliffhanger until realizing they would barely five episodes to end the story. Same with xxxHolic where it seems they made OVAs to complement the manga's ending like what happens to two of Watanuki's friends. I think Clamp never had a manga faithfully adapted by an anime (at least I recall but I don't remember Sakura's ending clashing with the sequel.)
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Lily Garden
 Posts: 72 |
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So this is how I found out that the long-delayed production for Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games anime is finally getting into gear. I was beginning to give up hope for that adaptation...
Lucas definitely needs to check it out. It's in my top 10 manga that are currently publishing. There are few manga with complicated girl main characters that aren't fully romance or fantasy. Plus the face game is on point! |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2313 Location: Online Terminal |
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The beginning of SAO effectively acts as a portal fantasy and because of the glut of fantasy game-based isekai that came out afterwards, it feels accurate to say that SAO was the inflection point for isekai nonsense. When I did a panel of Isekai Before It Was Cool, SAO was my jumping off point, and .hack was included in the list of Before It Was Cool |
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FishLion
 Posts: 256 |
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I feel like manga could never truly run out of ideas and the issue is they are running out of "highly marketable sounding" ideas that companies feel are a sure bet. It would be awesome if companies looked at manga that were not mega successful or had a short run but that has good idea an anime could adapt or expand on. Unfortunately businesses tend to look at one iteration failing as a sign a project would be doomed, which seems like an oversight considering how many works are considered classics after their time or have some adaptations that are quality and some that are sub-par.
To me the only real difference is that stuff like .hack tried to come up with an explanation for the world rooted in our reality and looking at the effects on real people who are pulled into the game or trapped there or feel real feelings in the game whereas isekai is more interested in saying "You're here, we may explain why you're here, but you are here and screw that other reality," to the point that it is easy to forget the characters go to the other world at all in many series. Even though .hack may have created a setting where tech goes haywire and causes mysterious effects, the end result is people trapped in what's usually a fantasy setting where they aren't used to living with memories of normal life. I feel like being sent to another world with memories of the first one is the most basic definition of isekai and I don't think video games that trap you being the medium versus portals or reincarnation makes much of a material difference. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4555 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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That still happens, pretty much all of the anime I watched over the past decade or so were based on fairly niche manga and they all seem to have one thing in common: they unfortunately almost never get a second season. Except for Non Non Biyori, which actually managed to sell well enough on DVD and Blu-Ray in Japan for there to be two more seasons and a movie. |
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dmanatunga
Posts: 77 |
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I would kill for more Non Non Biyori. Yes, I know the manga ended, but I need that source of pure joy in my life. I don't think the problem is there is no more manga (or light novels) to adapt. The problem is the industry has gotten more and more cautious, and they are running out of big, guaranteed Japanese hits. That is why you are seeing shifts to capture that with big webtoon properties, big american properties, or remakes. The problem for me in this is that it all has kind of gotten boring and predictable. I mentioned this another article comment, and this was touched on the column, but I somewhat miss the days when it was harder to access material like manga, light novels, webtoons, etc. Now, it is more than likely I have already read the source to any anime adaptation, so I rarely get to be surprised story wise. And while I do wish to see cool adaptations or properties like Chainsaw Man, Dandadan, etc., I do wish we could get some truly good originals at the same time. |
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explodingpompoms
 Posts: 9 |
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You guys brought up Orange for Trigun but not their absolute left-field upcoming project Leviathan, based on the American YA novels from 2009-2011. They're really doing whatever they want, and good for them.
I know adaptation have always been a part of anime and will always be a part of anime, but, if I may make a rote wish, it'd be nice if there were more originals instead of production companies plumbing the depths of Narou. |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4555 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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The thing about the third season of Non Non Biyori was that SilverLink had basically over five years' worth of new manga chapters that were published since the second season ended to choose from and the majority of chapters they focused on were ones featuring the two new major supporting characters, which was great but the downside of that was that there were many top-tier chapters which didn't feature the new characters that were skipped over for adaptation, like one of my favourites, spoiler[the chapter with Renge and the Daruma, a chapter with a great autumn mood to it]. As such, while I don't think there are enough remaining worthwhile unadapted Non Non Biyori manga chapters to support a fourth season, I could see the potential for perhaps a half-dozen new standalone OVAs if releasing more OVAs for a manga that ceased publication a few years beforehand were still a thing that could happen in Japan (unsure). |
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dmanatunga
Posts: 77 |
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I can only hope and pray. Wish the love for Non Non Biyori would spread far and wide to make it happen though. Until then, I'll just have to re-watch the video of the last 8 Mile rap with the Nyanpasu remix replacing the original rap. |
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trilaan
 Posts: 1082 Location: Texas |
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I'd like to see that list. My personal topper for best isekai before it was cool is El-Hazard: The Magnificent World. |
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flamemasterelan
Posts: 497 |
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Nah, it goes back and forth. The first arc is pretty explicitly an isekai, with people being locked in a virtual world where death is permanent and forced to live and survive there for an unknown period of time. The second arc kind of flirts with it, with Asuna still being trapped in said virtual world and Kirito needing to travel into it in order to rescue her, but being safe in his home the entire time. The third arc is definitely just a VRMMO story, with people playing a video game alongside someone who is tracking down players and murdering them outside of the game. The fourth arc combines a bit of the reincarnation trope into the isekai and has Kirito "born" into the VR world as a child and grow up as a citizen there with other characters. |
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FishLion
Posts: 256 |
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It is a sad state, but I also think that's because the biggest anime studios focus on non-niche products. I think if studios MAPPA was working on stuff like Non Non Biyori instead of remakes it would elevate those series and show a new side that people weren't expecting, leading them to possibly get more seasons. I think in general that the biggest studios only focus on guaranteed hits which mean we get less stories out of left-field that are genuinely novel in concept. That's one reason I am also hype for Leviathan, it shows that Orange is not afraid to look in unexpected places for exciting ideas. I hope that it does well and shows other studios that faithful adaptations of well known ideas are not the only things people are interested in, as even within the realm of manga there are plenty of wild ideas that people ignore because the initial run wasn't successful. |
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Essedess
Posts: 107 |
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The last season REALLY blurs the line though. |
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Fluwm
 Posts: 1052 |
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This is a really tired argument.
For my money, iseakai is just "another world." It doesn't really matter to me if that world is inside of a computer or not. Though for those that are in games, I do wish -- even just once -- they'd acknowledge the fact that video game art is highly stylized. Or explicitly call-out the game visuals as perfectly photorealistic, to excuse the game-world being presented with the exact same art-style as "reality."
One has to ask: when did isekais become cool, exactly? InuYasha was pretty dang popular back in the day, for example, as was Escaflowne. Not to mention my own personal pick, Twelve Kingdoms. I kinda feel like isekais have never not been popular -- they've just gotten a lot more formulaic in the wake of the Narou Boom. |
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