Japanese Fans Are Dragging Hollywood's Live-Action Plans For 'Your Name'

There are few phrases more controversial to anime fans than “live-action adaptation.” Over the [...]

By Megan Peters

There are few phrases more controversial to anime fans than "live-action adaptation." Over the years, Hollywood has cemented its toxic reputation with otakus thanks to critical flops like Dragonball Evolution and Ghost in the Shell. Your Name will be the next anime to get its own live-action film from Hollywood, and Japanese fans are hilariously dragging the project online.

Japan's relationship with live-action anime is different from the one US fans carry about. It is much more common for anime series to get live-action takes abroad as franchises like Black Butler, Rurouni Kenshin, and a ton more have been adapted to film. The quality of the films may vary, so Japanese fans wind up eyeing Hollywood adaptations when they're announced thanks to the industry's big budgets and all-out CGI effects.

However, when it comes to Your Name, none of those blockbusting elements can save the film. The anime film may be a sci-fi romp, but it's a grounded one that relies on romance. If J.J. Abrams cannot get Your Name's core characters right, there is no hope for the adaptation to succeed and Japanese fans know it.

Over on Twitter, those fans have taken to social media to mock how Hollywood will end up 'Americanizing' the hit anime. Anything and everything from whitewashing was fair to critique, and you can check out some of the most blistering responses below:

[HT] Kotaku

Whitewashing

Hollywood is all too familiar with whitewashing, and anime fans know it. Over the years, otakus have critiqued western anime adaptations for totally whitewashing its leads or casts as a whole. Ghost in the Shell cowered under this controversy most recently, and Your Name could do it next if they bring in Scarlett Johansson to play another Japanese heroine.

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All The Alcohol

Who needs traditional alcohol made in a Japanese shrine when the US can just substitue the drink for Jack Daniels? It's not like anyone will notice, right? Right??

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Those Lens Flares Though

J.J. Abrams is one of Hollywood's top directors, but the visionary just can not get over his lens flares. Fans have come to expect a gratuitious amount of CGI effects and lighting tricks with Abrams' movies, and Your Name will be no different. In fact, it might end up blinding you.

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Explicit Content

Your Name has a few naughty moments, but the film never touches into full-on XXX territory. The most explicity the anime gets is when its body-swapped leads realize they have to live with another gender's body for a set period of time. If Hollywood has anything to say, its take on Your Name will see the genderbent couple sexting and swearing in regular intervals if past adaptations are our guides.

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Apocalyptic Posters

If you've seen Your Name, then you know the film isn't as lighthearted as you might think. Much of the film's gorgeous animation and colorful artwork may fool fans into thinking its a carefree romance, but it isn't. There are serious complications awaiting the film's leads by its latter-half, and Hollywood would have no problem darkening its adaptation if it meant bringing in a few more bucks.

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