Forum - View topicNEWS: Warner Brothers in Film Talks for Bleach Manga
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Apollo-kun
 Posts: 1213 Location: City 7, Macross 7 |
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This is coming from a guy who liked Dragonball Evolution: NO. Just leave "Bleach" alone. Unlike "Dragon Ball", which is another one of my all time favorite anime/manga, "Bleach" is a work which is not open to reinterpretation. You can't just exchange places and characters and key plot elements in the world of "Bleach", because so much of the meat of the plot is dependent ON the roots of those things. Taking a uniquely Japanese thing like "Bleach" and Americanizing it is one of the stupidest ideas that I can possibly think of.
This just goes to show how unoriginal our country's filmmakers and studios are getting. Unfortunately, this is probably going to get made, because Warner Bros. is in charge of "Bleach"'s North American distribution on DVD (they formed a partnership with Viz a while back; you may have noticed the "WB" stickers on the packaging of your "Bleach" DVDs). Just another blatant abuse of power... The only possible upside to this is that it may get more people into the original manga and anime, which is always a good thing. Still, the thought of what they're going to my current favorite Shonen manga is terrifying... Buddha help us all... |
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troizen
 Posts: 48 |
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What makes Bleach too Japanese to be adapted for live action? They live in a generic town that could be anywhere in the world and most of the main characters are specifically drawn to not look Japanese (Ichigo,Orihime,Chad). THe Bleach cast is diversive enough that they wouldn't have to change anything in order to "Americanize" it.
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labantnet
Posts: 57 Location: Anoka, MN |
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Nice! When you put it that way it is quite American already. The only thing that is distinctly Japanese is the style of Soul Society, and names/titles. |
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Apollo-kun
Posts: 1213 Location: City 7, Macross 7 |
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This is assuming, of course, that they even adapt this part of "Bleach." Perhaps they'll just come up with some plausible explanation for why Rukia is running around, collecting souls, and then proceed to only adapt the first few volumes of "Bleach". Which, in that case, I would agree with you, because the initial hollow-hunting story arcs aren't exactly rooted in Japanese culture, and could be adapted into the Western world with the aid of a good writer. Still, doesn't a live-action version of an anime kind of ruin the characters? I mean, they were meant to be illustrated in the first place, so why even make them be portrayed by actors? |
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troizen
Posts: 48 |
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In regards to shinigami I think most people would just think they are grim reapers. I do concede to your point about the Soul Society though there is no way they could make the Soul Society make sense to the average person who has never seen an episode of Bleach. That is the reason why I think the live action movie would not go into great detail about the Soul Society. |
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labantnet
Posts: 57 Location: Anoka, MN |
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I hope you all have Japanese and Greek characters installed.
From Wikipedia: Shinigami (死神?, "death spirit") is the personification of death that evolved in Japan, having been imported to Japan from Europe during the Meiji period. Also From Wikipedia, From Death(Personified): In English, death is often given the name the "Grim Reaper" and from the 15th century onwards came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood. Another Example, similar to "Death": Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός (psychopompos), literally meaning the "guide of souls") are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly-deceased souls to the afterlife. So it's not a "Japanese only" idea, and is in fact not originally Japanese.
Most bleach viewers don't know, or care about this aspect. And, how does "Growl, Ash Cat" or "Moon fang slices the heavens" have anything to do with Japanese literature?(Yes I know, Release-Attack are different, doesn't matter, neither make any sense as coming from literature.) |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7338 Location: Maine |
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Maybe among the bible thumpers, but people have been pretty accepting of less-than-holly depictions of religious figures. Hellboy, DaVinci Code, Constantine, even the upcoming Priest film (another foreign adaptation!) all paint Christianity and/or its beliefs in a bad light. Angels (if that's what you want to call them) with guns would be a pretty minor offense and would be the least offensive thing in any interpretation of Bleach. Emerje |
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dho331
 Posts: 40 Location: great mills, md |
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as long as there's no bount, muramasa, vizard, pseudoarrancars, sky floating, rebel hitsugaya, memory rosary, rukia's nameless parasites, or english voices... oh wait, this is hollywood, well there goes another wasted license (goes back to blood and death note)
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, what would be more offensive? Also, when you have a Christian country (remember that the separation between Church and State isn't often practised in America), isn't it obvious that the pyschopomps for such a culture would be angels? They certainly wouldn't be cowboys, even if they did carry guns. |
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Shadowrun20XX
 Posts: 1935 Location: Vegas |
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Face it Hollywood, our cultures don't mix well. The results will always be disappointing. If anyone is going to see this it will be out of sheer curiosity, it won't add more fans to the mix. Just another failure of a movie to ignore on the store shelves. |
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Emerje
Posts: 7338 Location: Maine |
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And what, you think the Japanese idea of a shinigami is a super powered army of feudal era swordsmen fighting monsters that eat ghosts? If actual cultural relevance was important then Bleach wouldn't exist in the first place. Emerje |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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As already stated Shinigami is based off the western portrayal of Death in particular the Grim Reaper, which is why Shinigami is used as the Japanese word for the Grim Reaper. This is why in the english dub they are called Soul Reapers. The reason why Shinigami are never the same is because their is no classic shinigami. |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 363 Location: Finland |
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To make sure the American audience will buy live-action Bleach, Ichigo's family should live in Texas, his father should be a pastor who is an NRA member and goes to a purity ball with his daughter somewhere in the movie. In Ichigo's school everyone is either a jock, cheerleader or a nerd because that's what we haven't seen before.
Or it could get The Departed treatment where every second word starts with the letter f and the director's current favorite rock song plays half the movie. |
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Lycosyncer
Posts: 526 |
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Well, for me, the good news that came out of this is that at least Warner Bros. is a lot more gutsy and do put a lot more effort into their films and learn from past mistakes. At least it is not in the hands of those hacks from Fox.
For that, I am relieved. As for what should happen with the live action movie if it does get off the ground, I want it to follow the Harry Potter route. Meaning, appropriate casting with a majority Japanese or at least East Asian casting for the main core group of characters, the original Japanese settings are still kept and also, keep the main core story intact with minor to appropriate changes that would make it a lot more simpler to follow on film. Seriously, it's not that hard of a request. Besides, Warner Bros. already did get an an all majority Japanese/East Asian cast for Letters From Iwo Jima, Ninja Assassin, and is planning to get and an all Japanese cast for the live-action Ninja Scroll movie. What's going to stop them from doing that here? Besides, to be honest, I am tired of Euro-centric fantasy stories being the majority of everything that Hollywood churns out and really, having an Asian-fantasy story will make it an interesting and refreshing change of pace (don't get me started on The Last Airbender movie because, in my personal honest opinion, I find it a disgrace to the original series). For Hollywood to be interested in this current, popular, well-known anime franchise, I am pretty mixed about it. All I could say is that I hope that the live-action Bleach film will succeed in where The Last Airbender failed to accomplish. |
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labantnet
Posts: 57 Location: Anoka, MN |
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Do you mean, Dragon Ball Evolution? Cause if you do, then bleach would go well. See, you may have hated it, but the movie made money. it had a budget of $30 Million, and had gross revenue of $57.5 Million. That's $27.5 Million in profit. Compare that to Blood the Last Vampire which made gross $5.7 Million. Or how about comparing that to Street Fighter: TLoCL, which was budgeted at $50 Million, and made only $12 Million Gross. And Street Fighter is a largely more popular franchise in the US, as a console fighter. I would say that it's all about not making the movie so niche that it's audience is only the Anime fandom. Like Dragon Ball Evolution, without messing up the fundamental story elements. |
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