Anime, as I’ve said many times, is just another medium. It’s another method of storytelling, nothing more or less. And perhaps it is perfectly natural, when we encounter a story in one medium, to imagine how it might be told within another. Isn’t that how it works, really? Books become plays, books and plays become movies, movies become games, and everything becomes television. Heck, Disney has drawn on famous stories from the very start. 🙂

So, obviously, I am no stranger to imagining stories in mediums other than the original. I’ve imagined books as cartoons and movies. I’ve imagined shows and movies as books and games. And I’ve certainly imagined all of these as anime. 😉

So, when I saw a post by Scott of Mechanical Anime Reviews, wherein he asked for volunteers to tag, I leaped at the opportunity, and he answered! 😀

Thanks, Scott, for the tag! 🙂

Now, let’s get straight into this.

Let’s have some FUN!

Rules:

1) Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog post.

2) Choose 1 Book, Movie, and TV show of your choice that you think could work as an anime. (A series of books or movies is allowed e.g. Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games)

3) If you want to pick more than one from each section, that’s fine. Or if you can’t think of one for a specific category, that’s fine also.

4) Explain why you think your choices could work as an anime. Maybe the advent of animation would enhance it or maybe the different anime genres could help expand and improve the story. Just go crazy with it.

5) Link back to the original post so I can read people’s suggestions. I’d love to read everyone’s ideas.

6) Include Make it Anime in your tags so everyone can find them all easily.

7) Nominate around 5-10 bloggers.

Simple enough, I’d say, and I had some fun with my choices!

I did add one little self-restriction: in order to keep from just listing everything, I limited myself to just one per category. You, of course, don’t have to do that, but I tend to get a little carried away on occasion… or had you noticed? 😛

Book:
The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander

There are so many novels and series which could work as an anime. But I have always wanted to see this series properly brought to life.

Disney took an animated swing at it and missed entirely. That was just before their renaissance, when they were at an especially low point, which certainly didn’t help, but trying to compact the series into a single feature was pretty much doomed from the start. Far better, I think, to translate it into an animated series. An anime sounds pretty perfect, actually.

The chapters, chronicling a myriad of smaller adventures within the overall plot, divide the source material up easily enough. It practically begs to be converted into an episodic format, filled with the protagonists’ winding journeys and growth through an extended series of obstacles. A little bit of creative magic, and we have numerous adventures, with a specific end in mind, following a tight, but relaxing, narrative across a few dozen magical episodes. 🙂

Movie:
Pacific Rim

I’m not sure I could think of a movie franchise that is more suited to an anime conversion.

Giant robots, giant monsters, chemistry among the cast, lots of fighting and destruction and death, heavy influence from cultures around the Pacific Ocean, including Japanese… this one’s a shoo-in. 😉

Heck, it was probably heavily inspired by Japanese entertainment. Probably anime, but most certainly Godzilla. 🙂

TV Show:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This category was actually the most difficult to think of one for. Not that there aren’t a large number of shows out there which could be converted, but as they’re already in a serialized format, just twice as long, it was a bit like looking at a line of people and saying, “This one looks like they could benefit from having their legs cut off at the knees.” A bit odd to try and envision, ya know?

Most quality TV shows are just too good as TV shows to do that to.

As such, my thoughts for converting Joss Whedon’s most famous work into an anime can be summed up as enhancing the physical aspects of the show and smoothing out some wrinkles.

Buffy and her enemies tend to be very strong, and fierce, but the live-action show was a bit limited by what was physically possible for the actors and what could be made to look not-entirely-ridiculous in a live setting. Anime has no such restrictions, with a number of thrilling fights already to its credit. It could be used to truly explore what these opponents can really do, and make it look dang good and compelling.

There was also a bit of campiness here and there in the drama of things, though they made fun of themselves for it. Some things were especially choppy in the first season, and there was plenty of filler in all the seasons, so the story could be streamlined as well into a shorter format.

Tags:

Good luck!

As a number of my more “usual” tagging v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶s̶ friends got tagged already, this seems like a good opportunity to branch out!  🙂

So, for some awesome bloggers to tag, I choose:
Keiko
BiblioNyan
The Things I’ve Seen
Remy Fool
Winter Reverie
Shaddowcat

I look forward to your choices! 😉

And what about the rest of you? What non-anime stories can you think of that would do well with an anime conversion? 🙂