Audiences know that the words “live-action adaptation” and “anime” rarely go well together. Over the years, Hollywood and Japan has struggled to do justice to some very famous franchise, and Fullmetal Alchemist is the next series to be judged. This winter, Edward and Alphonse Elric will be brought to life on the big screen, and the adaptation’s director says his film has little to do with the anime.
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Recently, director Fumihiko Sori did an interview at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival where Fullmetal Alchemist debuted (via CrunchyRoll). It was there the creator opened up about his adaptation style, and Sori admitted his film did not look to the anime as its inspiration.
“The anime was also based on the manga, and this film is not an adaptation of the anime,” the director said.
“We have to create brand new images. We provide new suggestions, and if the audience can accept it, it will continue to the next, new Fullmetal Alchemist. So we tried to renewal it with courage and formed a new team.”
For fans of Fullmetal Alchemist, Sori’s separation of the anime and manga is an interesting one. The series was created back in 2001 by Hiromu Arakawa, and it ran nearly a decade before ending. The shonen series was – and still is – a very popular one, but its anime past is a bit complicated.
In 2003, the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime was made by Bones, but the series fizzled because of its pacing. The franchise got a second anime adaptation in 2009 by Bones as a sort of restart, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is almost a page-for-scene remake of Hiromu’s manga. Many fans had assumed Sori’s live-action vision would borrow from the latter anime given its close connection to the manga, but it seems the franchise will go in an entirely new direction with its first live-action project.
