The creative process of adapting anime to live action presents certain pitfalls for many popular anime franchises to avoid. These challenges led to a poor live-action adaptation of the popular anime. At the same time, few of these live-action adaptations have gotten away with overcoming such obstacles. However, there are still some anime series that should never be adapted into live-action. These series will never work in any medium other than anime.

In general, live-action anime adaptations have a somewhat mixed track record. While live-action adaptations of anime produced in Japan are generally better received, several Western adaptations have also become popular. Netflix’s live-action One Piece has been hailed as one of the best live-action anime adaptations to date, and Detective Pikachu has taken off from both the Pokemon video games and anime series to do well with critics and at the box office. Unfortunately, in some cases, some anime should never be adapted to live action, so it’s not worth the risks of such an adaptation.

10 Record of the Battle of Lodoss

Elves don’t look good in live action.

Historically, live-action fantasy works have struggled to portray elf ears convincingly on screen. Even big-budget fantasy works with internationally acclaimed costumes and effects, such as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Amazon’s Power Rings, have struggled to depict elf ears in live action, both small, subtle, barely pointed ears. Anime elves are generally depicted with very long, narrow ears, so any live-action Lodoss War Deadlit record would be challenging to understand well on screen, which is further complicated by the fact that Deadlit is one of the most important characters in the series. The series and she will be on screen frequently, which means her ears have to be exceptionally well defined or she will be a constant distraction to the audience.

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9 Spy X family

The best visual gags don’t work in live-action

Thanks to being based on real life in the mid-20th century, the Spy X family has a well-established art style that wouldn’t be hard to replicate live. With the exception of Yor’s incredible hairstyle and Anya’s bright pink hair, most of the characters could be adapted to live-action without any major changes. However, the live-action adaptation lacks the biggest strengths of the manga and anime. Some of Spy x Family’s funniest moments come from the characters’, usually Anya’s, hilariously drawn reaction faces. Since this is impossible to replicate with real actors, the live-action Spy X family is inspired by the best comedic moments.

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8 K-On!

It is also necessary to take actors who are musicians

Taking on the live action K-On! It presents a clear challenge. As one of the best anime series about musicians, the cast of K-On! Must have musical ability. This therefore gives the producers of the speculative live-action K-ON! rather a small potential casting pool. Not only should the actors be able to be properly high school age or at least pass for high school age, but they should also be able to play the same instruments as their characters. Even if the actors were supposed to sing, play the instruments, and then provide the music for the film, it would be very difficult to be able to do this convincingly and hide the actors lip-syncing. Live action instead of animation.

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7 Little Witch Academy

It will be canceled as a Harry Potter rip-off

A story about students at a magical school, The Little Witch Academia has already inevitably drawn comparisons to Harry Potter. These only increase from the live-action adaptation. This connection to Harry Potter may hurt the adaptation of Little Witch Academia, as the Harry Potter franchise seems to be at a low ebb recently and JK Rowling herself has alienated a large segment of the fanbase with her comments on social media. Basically, this association with Harry Potter is completely unfair to the Little Wizard Academy as well. Aside from the outward similarities of both taking place in a school of magic, Little Witch Academia has very little in common with Harry Potter. If anything, Little Witch Academia is akin to the worst of the Witcher series.

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6 Vineland Saga

You feel less isolated

Gritty, epic historical fiction has a market at least as far back as HBO’s Rome. The live-action Vineland Saga will certainly be of interest. On the other hand, for live action, the most stylized aspects of the series would have to be toned down or changed. This probably does more damage than the adaptation, as it makes Vineland Saga far less visually and thematically diverse. This is particularly damaging as the Vikings TV series and especially the sequel Vikings: Valhalla cover similar historical ground to the Vinland Saga in direct action. The live-action Vineland Saga doesn’t do enough to set itself apart.

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5 Oshi no Ko

A high that can come across as hypocrisy

On the one hand, Oshi no Ko lends itself to a live-action adaptation, with several live-action series about the idol industry. On the other hand, the painful condemnation of the Japanese entertainment industry created by that same industry seems self-inflicted and hypocritical at worst.

The original Oshi no Ko manga is of a sufficiently diverse genre and industry to avoid most of these issues, but the live-action Oshi no Ko has great potential to be incredibly uncomfortable. Oshi no Ko manga and anime have been criticized for exploiting real-life tragedies that have plagued the Japanese entertainment industry, and these issues are only amplified with a live-action adaptation.

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4 My Hero Academy

It should compromise its unique visual identity.

One of My Hero Academia’s biggest strengths is its very idiosyncratic and instantly recognizable character designs. For example, All Might’s fully powered form is a superhuman muscular colossus, while his injured, powerless form is drawn and almost skeletal. This is easy enough to draw in animation but hard to do in live action without suffering from the Uncanny Valley effect. All of May is a great example of My Hero Academia’s character designs, but most of the actors have powers, costumes, or general looks that are either difficult to draw in live action without looking silly, or require a lot of toning down and thus lose most of their visual uniqueness.

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3 Arslan’s heroic legend

It needs a big budget

In theory, a live-action superhero could appeal to fans of Arslan’s epic saga, epic war stories, and political intrigue like Game of Thrones. In practice, however, adaptation requires a large budget to record not only the beautiful costumes and settings of the series, but also the necessary extras or CGI effects to do justice to the sequence’s fight scenes. Arslan’s legend of the hero is very convenient to make such a budget profitable. Additionally, as the series is inspired by Iranian mythology and history, the epic poem known as the Shahnameh, Arslan’s adaptation of the heroic legend has the potential to be a controversial casting choice on the part of the producers.

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2 Berserk

He struggles to show the dark subject

Berserk’s plot moves from the first page of the original manga in 1989 with dark and disturbing storylines. Since then, Berserk has been recognized as one of the most sinister and relentlessly dark fantasy franchises of all time. Berserk is filled with violence, nudity, and incredibly disturbing scenes and stories. Notably, much of this dark and disturbing content precluded much of the story in the original manga from even being revealed in the Berserk anime adaptation. All of these issues are compounded by the live-action medium. Basically, although many human characters like Guts aren’t too challenging to portray well on screen, monsters, demons, and especially angels are difficult to do justice to in live action.

1 Kono Suba

Adapting it would feel pointless because it would be so CGI-heavy.

Aside from aqua’s bright blue hair, KonoSuba’s main characters are cute and have simple designs that fit right in with the live action. On the other hand, much of the rest of the series’ world will be difficult to adapt to. There are enough non-human characters and enemies, a visually beautiful use of magic, and the series design is impressive even considering that it relies heavily on CGI. Converting an originally animated series into such a CGI-dependent live-action series often feels awkward and unnecessary, especially since the original art style is sure to remain popular with audiences and one’s reputation is considered a huge success. The most popular isekai anime series.

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It’s true that some anime have served as the basis for successful and popular live-action series. Many others have not been able to overcome the artistic challenges of such adaptations. There’s always the possibility that such an adaptation could succeed, but it’s simply not worth the high risk of an anime series not being adapted into a live-action adaptation.