Respect the source material: Adaptations in jdorama and jmovies

 

There is a story in Oshi no Ko about the mangaka played by Shida Mirai who was not happy with the script of her the dorama adaptation of her work got me thinking about adaptations in general. Shida Mirai wasn't happy because she accused the writer of not getting her characters basically saying that the characters motivations and behaviour are completely different.

In the past, when thinking about live action adaptations of mangas, there are only two worries: The first is whether someone can translate the idiosyncrasies of a manga from page to real life and secondly how to fit the story from a long running manga to a season of dorama or a movie.

For example, there is no way to do a faithful live action version of Gantz on a Japanese movie budget. However, Sato Shinsuke did a very good job translating the essence of the characters and the story with a limited budget and he also did a good job with Inuyashiki.

An example of not being able to fit the story is Netflix's Yuyu Hakusho which stripped away way too much of the manga and I suspect a lot of it was due to budget.

One of my favourite adaptations of all time is I"s. I am a huge fan and have read the manga many times and the dorama series is exactly like the manga come to life. You can tell the people involved in the jdorama version of I"s love and respect the source material.

Which brings me to Amazon's Ryu ga Gotoku series which I have written about but I am still so pissed off about. Ryu ga Gotoku is not manga but the makers of the series don't love and respect the source material. Instead of understanding why fans love Kiryu, Haruka and Nishiki from the first game, they decided that they can fix the story by giving Kiryu less screentime, sidelining Haruka and giving more story time to Morita Misato's character who does not exist in the game.

Your job is to copy and paste the game to live action and make the core fans happy and show the casual watchers the miryoku or the appeal of the characters. The story is so freaking simple and what they have created is not Ryu ga Gotoku. I was not happy with Miike Takashi's movie adaptation of RGG but even he did a much better adaptation compared to Amazon's.

The most important thing in adaptations is hiring people who are either fans or who respect the source material. Not people who think they can make the original story better by side-lining the main characters and pushing their own side characters. I wonder if Yokoyama Masayoshi, the head of RGG studios ever gave feedback that the Amazon show does not understand the appeal of the game.

These thoughts were running through my head when Shida Mirai said point blank to the drama writer that he did not understand her characters in Oshi no Ko. If you don't lover or understand why something is popular, don't try to adapt because you are only creating your own frankenstein instead of making sure the core fanbase is happy.

On a related note, I feel like trying the Maison Ikkoku adaptation although I know I will be disappointed.