by James Sanghyun Han (Tay Trefenwyd)

written Wednesday, 2 December 1998 © (steal this and DIE ;P)

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The news about a movie on Anne McCaffrey's dragonriding world of Pern and a possible movie on Terry Brooks' world of Shannara has made me wonder time and time again if (or why) anyone hasn't considered making a sci-fi or fantasy movie in anime style. If you're unfamiliar with anime, you can find one of the nicer examples of the style at http://capeboy.simplenet.com/kaioh/9/2_2.jpg.

Doing a Shannara movie or a Dragonriders of Pern movie anime-style would be so much easier, cheaper - and better, in my twisted opinion *g* - than, say for instance, trying to find actual actors to play the roles required... especially since I don't think that any author would be able to find all the actors that would suit them PERFECTLY for each character. In anime, authors can have their characters drawn -exactly- the way the authors themselves imagine them.

Another plus is that it is MUCH easier in anime to carry out the many special effects one would obviously require when making a sci-fi/fantasy novel into a movie. Sci-fi/fantasy novels are filled with things like telepathy, magic spells, otherworldly creatures, and futuristic phenomena; and anime, besides being the most sophisticated form of animation available, is an extremely flexible, versatile form of art and therefore the optimal medium for turning fantasy novels into movies. If anime is used when making movies out of fantasy novels, authors would not have to worry about having their novels shortchanged as they would be by a conventional-style movie (in which many aspects unique to the sci-fi/fantasy genre would HAVE to be dropped since the medium is not nearly as flexible and accomodating as anime).

In fact, most anime deals with sci-fi and fantasy, and that is a direct result of anime's flexibility, which ALLOWS sci-fi and fantasy to be turned into movies and TV series without losing the unique and awesome flavor characteristic of sci-fi and fantasy. The medium is so flexible that nothing in a sci-fi/fantasy book would need to be cut for "what works best onscreen." There's a reason why almost all anime series portray sci-fi or fantasy stories.

Quick digression: X-Men and Bugs Bunny are not anime. Anime is Shinseiki Evangelion or Koko wa Greenwood, and is MUCH more sophisticated than anything one would label as "just some cartoon." True, there are childish anime series, just as there are childish sitcoms and childish novels, and it's too bad that the only anime series widely available outside of Japan are the more childish ones (though the original versions of the shows are a *lot* less childish than the English dubs), since it gives the impression that anime is no different from any old child's cartoon. :P Most of anime is adult, dealing with adult issues, situations, and language; and anime possesses a visual language that is amazingly complex yet so perfectly understandable. Anime frequently and eagerly touches issues like homosexuality, violence, emotional conflict, subtle comedy, and "off-color" comedy, so don't think that a sophisticated sci-fi/fantasy novel would be "dumbed down" by being turned into an anime movie.

It has been mentioned that as readers and fans we wish for the sci-fi and fantasy worlds we know and love to exist outside of books (e.g. on the big screen), but at the same time we would be disappointed by any movie since we each have our own picture of these same worlds in our own minds. One of the reasons I suggested anime is that with 2-D characters, they become 3-D in your own mind and you are the one who imagines them as 3-D and your personal biases and fantasies affect the way they look in your mind... Which means that the way the characters look will appeal to everyone because everyone will imagine them in different ways. If you've ever seen fanart of anime characters done in "real life" style and not anime style, you'll note that every artist has a VERY different mental picture when it comes to how an anime character would look in real life. This is part of anime's appeal - that in order for the characters to come alive, the final step has to be taken inside your own head - just like when reading a physical description of a character in a good book. This happens in "cartoons" as well, but not to the same degree as in anime, where the art is DESIGNED for you to make that final leap in your head.

What brings this up (besides the fact that I love anime *g*) is that I read somewhere that Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series was supposedly being turned into a movie, and I read that they had to MAKE robotic dragons that were motorized to flap their wings and such... And the first thing I thought was how much easier, cheaper, and more accurate it would have been for all concerned if they had just gotten a talented anime artist (such as the one who drew the picture I linked above) to DRAW the dragons beautifully under the supervision of McCaffrey herself. Besides, I think that trying to make all the monsters look "real" and 3-D and have all the special effects look "real" would only backfire, and therefore it would be better from the start if they didn't even try. I always hate movies where they try to make creatures look "real" (like in Jurassic Park :P).

Oh well, whatever makes your bread rise. ;)