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NEWS: Live-Action Sword Art Online Producer: Series Sold to Netflix, Will Have Asian Lead Actors

Animeking1108 wrote:

Hopefully, due to cultural boundaries, things like the cousin incest subplot, Asuna's damselization, and the sexual assault scenes get altered.

Um, people NEED to understand that cousins="NOT incest". Especially in Japan, where they can marry.

Incest= mother x son, father x daughter, brother x sister.

That is what incest is, mmkay?

Utsuro no Hako wrote:

Random Name wrote: I'll never understand why people care what race the actors are. Though I don't watch live action adaptations so doesn't effect me either way. Because Asian actors have a hard enough time getting roles in Hollywood already, even without characters who are canonically Asian getting turned into white people.

Exactly. People who say "the race of the actor doesn't matter, as long as they act well" seem to think that Hollywood is a fare meritocracy. They miss one of the main complaints people have about whitewashing: that actors are rejected because of their race all the time, despite being good actors! Blind casting is unfortunately rare, and most casting directors are looking for white actors and only white actors. If you actually look at what Asian-American and other minority actors have said about their experiences being dismissed and rejected *because* of how they look, you'll come to realize that the problem *isn't* that there are not enough good, talented Asian-American actors, the problem is that they're not offered opportunities for roles.

Now, in this show's case, I got the impression that they might be interested in a truly international cast to expand the scope of the story, which would be awesome. But even if they're planning to only use Americans/Native English speakers for the roles, there's nothing wrong with the screenwriter saying: "these characters were Japanese in the original novel, so Japanese (or Japanese-American) actors should play them in the show". I'm surprised such a simple, basic idea is getting so much pushback. You'd think a black actress was cast to play Hermione in a Harry Potter play every day, the way people think that the best actors always get the good parts (TL;DR Blind casting is good. Specifying minority actors for roles may not be as good, but it's better than the standard "rejecting minority actors and only casting white actors by default").

I still wonder, why hollywood still making movies or series based on manga and anime? Didn't they learn that it doesn't work at all? The only exception was "Edge Of Tomorrow" which was.. decent. But other than that, it's going to flop.

I still wonder, why hollywood still making movies or series based on manga and anime? Didn't they learn that it doesn't work at all? The only exception was "Edge Of Tomorrow" which was.. decent. But other than that, it's going to flop.

The whole debacle of whitewashing in live action adaptations is another reason why I love anime. Characters for the most part aren't discernible by race, and even if there's stereotypical White characters with blonde hair and giant breasts, you can have Asian characters who look the same, too.

True, but completely irrelevant to reality - if Hollywood whitewashes it, then people who'd never have heard about SAO until the press release (or premiere) will come a' howling. This casting decision has nothing to do with the story, and everything to do with avoiding bad publicity from the ignorant activist masses. The story is from Japan, therefore the adaptation must have Japanese actors - whether it makes sense or not.

You should probably wait before you pat them on the back. Specifically citing Kirito and Asuna makes me think the other characters are free to white/black/brownwashing, and there's no way they won't. Hollywood can't help itself. They're addicted.

Would have been much easier if they just make a spinoff that takes place in the same universe but with a slightly different cast.

Honestly it wouldn't be hard for them to find and use a Japanese actor and actress who can speak english rather than using an american. Its not like they come up with the lines on their own and even if their pronunciation isn't perfect at the time of casting it wouldn't be all that hard to coach them to make them more understandable.

Maybe there still hope for Hollywood. Is about time Hollywood people get out of their little Hollywood planet and start to understand what real people in the real world want.

This whole thing is pandering to a vocal minority who will never be pleased no matter what you do.

I don't care either way, it's a losing battle: either you cast well-known Asian actors and people complain they're the wrong kind of Asian, or they end up casting 'accurate' no-name actors that will hurt its success among the normies.

I still wonder, why hollywood still making movies or series based on manga and anime? Didn't they learn that it doesn't work at all? The only exception was "Edge Of Tomorrow" which was.. decent. But other than that, it's going to flop.

They finally get it right and it had to be on such a crap anime.

Ah well, with the source material there's nowhere to go but up.

You must not watch much anime. White characters are drawn distinctively different from Japanese characters. Race is extremely easy to tell in anime.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Maybe there still hope for Hollywood. Is about time Hollywood people get out of their little Hollywood planet and start to understand what real people in the real world want.

You say that like as if Hollywood wasn't this multibillion dollar industry that's able to afford the best lawyers and buy up other large companies.

Quote:

You say that like as if Hollywood wasn't this multibillion dollar industry that's able to afford the best lawyers and buy up other large companies.

I don't know exactly what you mean here... But I can't figure out what Jonny means either. If Hollywood isn't making movies that real people in the real world want, then how exactly is Hollywood raking in megabucks at the box office?