Are Mangas harder to adapt into movies than Comic books?

I'd say part of the problem is that, in my experience at least, manga tend to either be extremely episodic or have extremely long arcs, as opposed to comic books, which in recent years have begun to write to the trade. While I don't really LIKE writing to the trade, it does give comics creators a good grasp on writing a story that's self-contained and limited, even within a longer run. And that in turn makes adapting comics in movie form easier.

And also, comic book characters have mostly undergone at least one, often several reboots in their lives, either hard reboots or soft ones as different writers with different sensibilities try their hands. This means that in a lot of ways it's easier for a fan of Batman to accept that a movie won't be exactly like the comics because... which comic? There's only one One Piece, but there are quite a few Batmans.

And because of this often singular "right" way for the manga story to go, with adapting manga arcs, you're often left with this decision between cutting out iconic pieces of the story or cutting out the connective tissue that gave those iconic moments room to breathe -- and no one wants to lose the icons. So when people try to stick to the source material, you get something like FMA, which I had to turn off partway through because it was like seeing all the bits I loved from the anime, but with all the context that MADE me love them stripped out. And it's frustrating because that movie also DID toss out a lot of script beats that didn't work with their script -- just not enough. While I never saw Ghost in the Shell, friends told me it suffered the same thing?

I think that dedication to fidelity to the source material also hurt things like DeathNote which, if I'm being honest, I might have really loved if they had set it in the manga's universe but made these different characters instead of L and Light, etc.

'Course you can go too heavy on the changes as well -- Dragonball Evolution wandered so far afield I don't even know where to begin.

... sorry, that may have got a bit long. I did not realize I had so many feelings about this.

I think it depends on who's doing it. The Japanese do it better, though.

Noizchild said:

I think it depends on who's doing it. The Japanese do it better, though.

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Also very true

Noizchild said:

I think it depends on who's doing it. The Japanese do it better, though.

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Japan does everything better....

The Japanese are more faithful in their adaptions but, to me that's actually somewhat of a bad thing. The film character's will have the same hair as their manga counterpart and the same clothes and whatnot. It does not look good. It looks cheap. It looks like cosplay. Some clothes just don't look good on real human beings. L from the Death Note has dark rings around his eyes because he sleeps little. With L from the Japanese films they put a dark outliner around his eyes. Bro, wut?

I haven't seen the film, but I saw the trailer for Bakuman. If you've read any manga you'll know there's a lot of facial and overall physical exaggeration. Overreacting, you might say. That trailer was that exaggeration brought to life ... and it's odd to watch.

Obviously that doesn't speak on the story or narrative of the film, but I don't think it will have worldwide appeal.

If you're Hollywood or Japan and you're adapting a manga, look at the core of the story and go from there. Leave the "manga" part outside the door for the time being. Some stories and worlds just need to be altered for live-action.

If you make a Naruto film, for the love of God don't give him those whiskers! And I do realize we have a talking raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy, but whiskers is where I draw the line.

Frankie007 said:

Japan does everything better....

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Yes!

I think it's also worth noting that it took nearly a century for American comic adaptations to reach the consistent level of quality that we're so uses to. Comic book movies were a joke, outside of a Superman and a Batman film (maybe 2 Batman films, depending). It took Hollywood a while to get it's ducks in a row!

Manga already gets adapted into anime, often very successfully. And technology is just catching up to the visuals. I do agree that the literal translation of character designs and images into live action is...often jarring. Very jarring.

Point is, in happy to give it time. See how Alita Battle Angel turns out. Avoid anything with Netflix attached

PyriteFool said:

I think it's also worth noting that it took nearly a century for American comic adaptations to reach the consistent level of quality that we're so uses to. Comic book movies were a joke, outside of a Superman and a Batman film (maybe 2 Batman films, depending). It took Hollywood a while to get it's ducks in a row!

Manga already gets adapted into anime, often very successfully. And technology is just catching up to the visuals. I do agree that the literal translation of character designs and images into live action is...often jarring. Very jarring.

Point is, in happy to give it time. See how Alita Battle Angel turns out. Avoid anything with Netflix attached

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I have to disagree with you on the Netflix bit. Live-action Erased is good so far. (I'm not done with it yet.)

Noizchild said:

I have to disagree with you on the Netflix bit. Live-action Erased is good so far. (I'm not done with it yet.)

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I'll have to check that out then! I do have to admit a slight anti-Netflix bias with regards to anime/manga. Their previous adaptations efforts have not inspired confidence, plus every time they get an anime it means us Americans have to wait MONTHS before we actually get to watch it. Drives me crazy!

Netflix has some good J-Dramas on there.

PyriteFool said:

I'll have to check that out then! I do have to admit a slight anti-Netflix bias with regards to anime/manga. Their previous adaptations efforts have not inspired confidence, plus every time they get an anime it means us Americans have to wait MONTHS before we actually get to watch it. Drives me crazy!

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I have a complicated relationship with Netflix and Japanese stuff. On the one hand, I generally agree with you. On the other, it's the only place in America that wants to let me see any of the Persona 3 movies at a reasonable price.

Their Japanese stuff isn't too bad.