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Western books that would make good anime.




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RedSwirl



Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Posts: 344
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 12:49 pm Reply with quote
Since a lot of anime these days are based on light novels (how many of those get released in English by the way?), I don't think it's a big leap of logic to suggest western books that might make for good anime adaptations. Plus, more than one Ghibli film has been based on a western novel. I've seen a thread here before about adaptations of western properties in general, but not books specifically.

What brought this on was that I just finished reading a downloadable sample of this 90's Australian fantasy book called Sabriel. As I was reading I started visualizing the first part of it as the first episode of a fantasy anime. It's got a lot of the staple tropes - a world that is somewhat like ours today but not quite, and more importantly a school girl who becomes some kind of professional sorceress.
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Ryo Hazuki



Joined: 01 Jan 2008
Posts: 363
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 1:58 pm Reply with quote
Lists of already adapted books:
anime#430

Manga sekai mukashi banashi episode entry has only Japanese titles but at least Wizard of Oz and Little Mermaid were part of it, bot of which have been adapted more than once:
animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=2314&page=25
anime#1499
anime#3604

Some other H.C. Andersen stories have also been adapted:person#22197

Tove Jansson's Moomin has three different series + sequel series and a movie:
person#7036

The Diary of Anne frank has two adaptations:
person#36249

Mike O'Toole had an article about anime adaptations of western literature:
animenewsnetwork.com/the-mike-toole-show/2010-10-24
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Cecilthedarkknight_234



Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3819
Location: Louisville, KY
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Just saying that gone with the wind wold be an amazing adapt.
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SereneChaos



Joined: 14 Oct 2011
Posts: 384
Location: Middle of Nowhere, USA
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 4:07 pm Reply with quote
Yen Press adapts a number of Western book series into manga, such as Soulless, Maximum Ride, and part of The Vampire Chronicles. Of the adaptations I've read, most of them could work as anime, especially Maximum Ride and Cirque Du Freak. Maximum Ride follows journey of some kids trying to escape the people who preformed genetic experiments on them and would work well as an anime. Cirque Du Freak (also called The Saga of Darren Shan) by Darran Shan is almost a perfect example of a shonen with lots action, strong characters, and very unexpected plot twists. The novels were also fairly popular in Japan and the series was adapted and serialized as a manga there.
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EmbraceMe



Joined: 17 Dec 2010
Posts: 2013
Location: Growing old and jaded.
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 6:09 pm Reply with quote
I have to get this out before I break down from laughter:

An adaption of 1984 by J.C. Staff - instead of "Big Brother is watching you", it will become "Onii-chan is watching you." The "big brother" is the actual older brother of the now female tsundere main character, Winston Smith, who is voiced by Rie Kugimiya.

I had actually hope for adaptions of Lovecraft's stories but then we got the Nyarko-san OVAs which in turn got a TV series airing right now. It wasn't what I was looking for but it works. I don't think Lovecraft is that big in Japan so my hopes are low for a full on adaption of his stuff.

I've seen quite a lot of anime fan art for Harry Potter so it might make a good anime.

I'll look into my book collection later and write what else I have in mind.
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Gatherum



Joined: 14 Feb 2012
Posts: 773
Location: Aurora CO
PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2012 9:47 pm Reply with quote
I could see the Japanese making rather bastardised adaptations of Stephen King's works. I really hope that if they ever did that, though, that they'd have the courtesy not to touch The Dark Tower.
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