America has had plenty of experience in taking awesome Japanese
anime and making terrible adaptations of them. But for every Dragonball: Evolution, Japan has also
borrowed one of our properties, and desecrated it in much the same fashion. Here
are eight American casualties in this cross-pop culture war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP4bxXZ3rXc
1) Batman: Gotham
Knight
Released shortly before The
Dark Knight, this six-chapter anime anthology boasted some of the best
talent in Japan, some of the best comics writers in the U.S., and was
masterminded by DC animated wunderkind Bruce Timm. So why did it suck so bad?
Mostly because so few of the chapters dealt directly with Batman. Instead, we
get stories about Batman from kids, bitching about Batman from cops, and two
chapters about Bruce Wayne outside of the Cowl, one a flashback to his
training, and one focused on his gadgets, and none of them are even slightly tied to each other. Only two chapters include Batman fighting named villains, and they’re not nearly enough to save this boring, disjointed
mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXa4FE3er8I
2) Lensman
This 1984 TV series based on E.E “Doc Smith’s Lensman scifi series isn’t terrible if
you like Star Wars. Unfortunately,
the Lensman novels are almost nothing like Star Wars, except for being set in space, and reportedly “Doc” was so
livid at the wild adaptation that he and his estate have refused to permit any
other Lensman adaptation since. Carl
Macek, the guy who created Robotech,
brought four episodes of the TV show to America as a movie, but had to pull it
because of licensing issues; now you can track it down online or on an old VHS.
Just remember, do not watch Lensman
if you have any affection for Lensman.
3) Powerpuff Girls Z
The original Powerpuff
Girls cartoon was simply animated but cleverly written, genuinely funny,
and massively pro girl power. When Japan adapted the Cartoon Network series in
2007, they ditched all of that, and turned it into the most straight-forward,
mediocre magical girl anime they possibly could. The girls were no longer
sisters or had superpowers, at least until they used their magical jewels to
transform into the Powerpuff Girls (complete with enormously long
transformation sequences (complete with jewels that allow them to change
outfits). These new girls are shallow, the original’s wide cast of memorable
characters is pretty annihilated, and the show’s subversive humor is replaced
with random weirdness. Honestly, PPGZ
would be a great satire of magical girl anime series if it obviously wasn’t
taking itself so seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHrOtRyaWvI
4) Highlander: The
Search for Vengeance
A Highlander movie
from the guy who made Vampire Hunter D
sounds like a recipe for success, yet somehow it wasn’t. Somehow The Search for Vengeance was a soulless
retread of both the original Highlander
movie, as yet another ancient Scotsman hunted down an evil immortal asshole who
killed his family, and Vampire Hunter D,
as the protagonist wanders silently through the post-apocalyptic wasteland, not
saying anything and getting into period fight scenes. Even that sounds kind of
all right, but then you watch it, and it’s clear this is a soulless cash-in
without an ounce of creativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X9UJV9DWtc
5) Witchblade
You’d think that an adaptation of the Image comic, about a
cop turned underdressed superheroine thanks to a magic weapon, would be easily
adapted to anime — just keep the boobs and action, and you’re done. The Witchblade anime certainly kept the
boobs and action, because the show is 50% ludicrously busty ladies fighting
each other. But the other half is about main character Masane trying to raise
and care for her precocious 6-year-old kid. Trying to pair fight scenes with
this down-to-earth human drama sounds like a promising idea, but it’s entirely
derailed by the main character’s giant boobs, and the show’s desire to provide
fan service. It’s pretty tough to care about the plight of this small family
when the kid is literally careening off her mother’s enormous breasts.
6) Dracula: Sovereign
of the Damned
This 1980 straight-to-VHS movie is based on Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula horror comic, where
“based” in this case means “tries to cram in years of comic storylines into a
90-minute movie creating an incomprehensible mess.” It begins with Dracula
stealing a virgin sacrifice from Satan, having a kid with her, getting chased
by Van Helsing’s daughter, an old man and a random martial artist, who
accidentally kills his baby, but then God resurrects it as an adult who can shoot
laser beams from his eyes, and.. hoo boy. Suffice it to say, the movie ends
with Dracula eating a hamburger in a New York diner. Obviously.
7) Starship Troopers:
Invasion
In 1988, Japan actually made a six-episode OVA series that
was faithful to the classic Robert Heinlein novel. In 2012, Japan made this
direct-to-DVD movie based on the universe created with Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 movie
satire. Except that this CG anime movie is basically one long videogame fight
scene with no story to tell, no excitement, and no originality. Basically, if
you love the novel or the original movie, you’ll both equally find nothing to
enjoy in Invasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYjywXyyDI
8) Wolverine
None of the four Marvel anime series made by Studio Madhouse will go down in
history as great superhero entertainment, although their X-Men show may come closest. The series that doesn’t come close to
mediocre in Wolverine, where they
managed to take the Marvel superhero best suited to hang out in Japan and star
in an anime series and somehow managed to fuck it up. For starters, Wolverine
is a slender, naïve hero with a mullet; despite his muttonchops and claws, he’s
nothing like the Wolverine we know (or the one that appeared in the X-Men
anime, weirdly). But the plot, while taken from the comics, is rendered
paper-thin and riddled with repetitive, uninspired fight scenes.
