Japan Also Has Adaptation Issues

We’ve talked before, and knowing me totally will again, about the issues with adapting between types of media. Some changes are necessary, though if you’re adapting an actual story instead of general universe more faithfulness will be required. Marvel Studios, prior to being taken over by Disney, was praised for being faithful adaptations of the general Marvel Comics Universe (a different MCU) because the people in the right position cared about being accurate to the source material without losing the larger audience. Now they couldn’t care less about the source material and just being lazy, but that’s another conversation.

Japan is thought not to have that problem. Filler arcs aside, anime is usually faithful to the manga being adapted and are even actual stories. Think some of the direct-to-video DC and Marvel stories based on actual tales like World War Hulk and All-Star Superman, with changes made for the sake of run time. (Meanwhile the adaptation of Crisis On Infinite Earths is getting a series of movies, which makes more sense for just an important tale.) However, like Game Of Thrones, the anime may be so far ahead of the manga that they just have to come up with their own ending. This also goes into live-action…and the recent sad story of Sexy Tanaka-San.

In brief, since this is a lead-in to the topic I can speak on: Sexy Tanaka-San is a manga that was being serialized in Anekei Petit Comic, a digital magazine produced by Shogakukan. Still continuing until the recent tragedy, it follows the adventures of a timid girl who finds out  fellow office worker Tanaka secretly performs as a belly dancer, which I didn’t even know reached Japan. Through her fanship they develop a friendship and presumably our heroine becomes more confident. It’s not my kind of story and I don’t know a lot about it. I probably still wouldn’t…until the discussion surrounding the creator’s recent suicide.

The manga had been picked up as a live-action series to air on Nippon TV, but the manga’s creator, Hinako Ashihara, was not happy with the studio producing the series trying to alter her work, in violation of a deal struck with the network that apparently the writers’ room didn’t get the memo on. She took to social media to voice her complaints. Then took it all down with an apology. Then took her own life. As of this writing what was on the suicide note has not been released publically, but signs point to something involving this situation.

A couple of other creators came forward to also discuss the topic of manga being translated to other formats, and the mishandling by the studios. Unlike Marvel, manga creators often have more control over their works being adapted, as seen when the creator of One-Piece saw what Netflix did to Cowboy BeBop and Death Note and took a stronger role in the adaptation, much as Ashihara attempted with Nippon TV. While I don’t know what changes were made as I have seen neither work beyond looking for the above image and a promotional “poster” for the TV show, I can talk about the comments made around this and how Japan has the same issues we have in the US, which was new information to me.

Bounding Into Comics brought up Ashiara’s original comments, which are of course now removed from her own account.

Taking to her personal blog (their link goes to the Internet Archive grab of the post) on January 26th, the mangaka relayed to fans, as confirmed by her publisher Shogakukan, that though she was hesitant towards the idea of making a live-action drama s live-action drama out of her series because it was “in the middle of serialization and the ending of the manga had not been determined”, she agreed to do so on the grounds that the network follow a handful of rules:

• “If you’re going to make it into a drama, be sure to stay faithful to the manga. If it is not faithful to the manga, we will make thorough additions and corrections.”
• “Since the manga has not been completed, the drama’s original ending must have its own ending.”
• “The original author will prepare everything from the synopsis to the dialogue so as not to affect the future of the still-unfinished manga.”
• “As a general rule, please do not change anything prepared by the original author. So regarding the original parts of the drama, it is necessary to imagine someone who can adapt what the original author has prepared into a script as is. In some cases, the original author may write the script.”

The non-manga version having their own ending I’ve seen before. The ending for Magic Knights Rayearth is different in the manga than it is the second season of the anime (personally, I like the anime’s ending better but you just need to experience this show for yourselves), for example. However, most of the show is faithful to the manga, including the season one twist of the first arc, with only a few bonus episodes to expand on the characters’ backstory and character arcs. As long as they care about what they’re doing and the original creators’ desires you don’t need to have a Game Of Thrones situation. While some things will change by necessity, she seems to have been trying to work hard to make this happen without a bunch of filler to give the manga time to catch up. Naruto fans hate this, though I find most of their filler arcs interesting.

“We also understood that these conditions were very disrespectful to the scriptwriter, director, and other members of the drama’s production team, so we repeatedly confirmed with NTV through Shogakukan that these conditions were truly acceptable,” Ashihara explained. “So, after confirming many times with NTV through Shogakukan whether these conditions were really acceptable, we started the drama adaptation.”

But despite NTV having positively agreed to Ashihara’s conditions, the frustrated Sand Chronicles author revealed that the network ultimately chose to blatantly disregard them, as they soon “”received scripts that deviated from the manga.”

She lists “(s)cenes that I had carefully depicted as the core of the manga such as attempted sexual assaults, day after pills, the difficulty of men’s lives, long dialogue between Konishi and Shingo” being removed or altered, as well as how the belly dancing was depicted, all of which appears to have been the source of her frustration. She would make changes to the first batch of episodes only for the writers’ to have learned nothing when making the next batch. She even threatened to just end the darn thing. While Nippon claims changes were made through her that doesn’t seem to be her recollection according to her statement.

The day after she deleted the rant, replacing it with “I didn’t mean to attack you. Sorry.” Bounding Into Comics isn’t sure who that was addressed to, but the next day she was gone. Shogakukan has promised an investigation to keep this from happening again, but seeing as they follow Nippon in defending the changes made I’m a bit suspect. In the same article they also include part of an interview with Machiko Satonaka, president of the Manga Artists Association and a fellow “mangaka” (Japanese term for a comic creator).

“I do not know Ms. Ashihara directly, but [based on] her comments on social media, I can tell how seriously she put herself into her work, and I am filled with regret,” she confessed. “I believe that many manga artists, not only myself, feel helpless that we could not do anything as colleagues. It was an event so painful that I cannot find any words to describe it, and to be honest, I would have refused to do an interview about this case if I could have. However, there may be young people who are still suffering alone from the same problems as Ms. Ashihara.”

The mangaka would further encourage that authors who are dealing with a similar situation as the late Ashihara to “please, please, please do not assume that you cannot speak up because you are in a weak position. Please do not be fooled by the illusion that the publisher is more powerful than the author, that the TV station is more powerful than the publisher, or that the sponsor is more powerful than the TV station.”

“The [Japanese] copyright law guarantees the rights of the original creator. People who create something from nothing are strong. So I would like young people to be proud and say with dignity,” she noted. “This is what I want, and if you can’t do it, I refuse to make it into a movie. Sometimes, there may be some unbelievable people who threaten you, saying, “If you resist, you will never be able to draw again. But please do not be fooled.”

This is good advice. Unlike the Marvel character, these are essentially indie works published in major collected magazines and then released in a sort of “trade collection”, which is how we in the US usually get them in print form. They have more rights, though that doesn’t always mean a proper adaptation. Remember my discussion of Marry Me, a Jennifer Lopez movie so loosely based on the original webcomic it might as well have just changed the rest of it and become its own movie. It’s the same situation we’re seeing with other American comic adaptations: writers who think they know better than the creator changing things almost whole cloth. Manga may have more respect in Japan than comics do in the west, but I guess the pecking order is still in play there.

Meanwhile another colleague spoke up about the issues he had getting his work into animated form. George Morikawa (“George” is a Japanese name?), creator of boxing manga Hajime No Ippo, knows what Ashihara went through.

“When I first started serializing Hajime no Ippo, I was approached by a number of companies about an anime or movie rather soon after the series started,” he stated. “I wasn’t interested in those things at all, so I kept turning them down. About 10 years later, a company came to see me with a large group of people, and I nodded to their enthusiasm and offered them a condition: ‘Please don’t disappoint the readers who have bought 40 volumes of the manga.’ “

Morikawa then confessed that upon seeing just how far the anime adaptation’s second episode deviated from his original story, he proclaimed to the series’ production team “‘That’s not what you promised, stop now. If you don’t stop, I will stop the serialization.’”

“Everyone involved was in a panic,” he recalled. “But I was not satisfied.”

Apparently Morikawa was more convincing, and got his way with his series. He also has similar advice for others whose work has caught the attention of whatever Japan’s version of Hollywood is.

“It takes energy and courage to stop something that has started running,” Morikawa acknowledged. “I don’t even want to remember the heartache I went through. There are other examples, like the writer who really stopped the airing of an anime for two weeks because he didn’t agree with it. There was also the writer who voluntarily terminated the anime because it interfered with the serialization of his work. Or the one who went to court and won the case because he said the story was different from what he was told.”

“I am not saying that the original author is great,” he added. “However, only the author can protect the work and the readers, and he or she has the responsibility to do so. I hope that you will remember to respect and appreciate them, and express your opinions with dignity.”

“There are many examples of successful adaptations and alterations of original works,” Morikawa continued. “It is also true that many writers look forward to seeing ‘how that part will be expressed.’ Once a relationship of trust was established, the same was true for me. There is a big difference in the production method between manga and video, and it is extremely difficult to keep the original work as it is.”

“I think the best way to achieve this is for everyone, including the original creator, to be involved with respect and gratitude,” he then posited. “As for the priority of gratitude, in the case of manga artists, it is overwhelmingly the readers. Please don’t forget that. This is my own subjective opinion, so please keep it as a reference.”

The article quotes him in a different post noting that the creator’s word is absolute but all parties involved, studio and creator, have to get their heads out of their ego trips and work together. Comics and manga tell stories in a different manner than television or movies, whether animated or live-action. Everybody has to work together, but ultimately the creator should have the final say since its his or her vision being adapted by people you only hope share it and aren’t just working for a paycheck to show how superior their version is. That’s how you end up with Frank Miller’s The Spirit, so convinced that Miller could tell the character’s story better than creator Will Eisner that he basically co-opted the movie to tell HIS version rather than the late Will Eisner’s version…an insult even if it wasn’t intentional.

“The future can be better after discussion, and the original author has the right to make choices such as refusing to make the media in the first place,” Morkawa continued, “This is also absolute. I may have sounded judgmental and arrogant, but what I have written is my own personal opinion, and I am not presuming that I am right about everything. I hope that when you encounter trouble, you will remember that there were people who said such and such. I wrote that the only one who can protect you is the original author, but no matter how strong your grip on the rights is, it’s still a little scary. Don’t make me fight alone.

Whether or not Japanese creators can end up better off than their American counterparts (there’s no hope for the corporate owned DC and Marvel universes at this point since NOBODY involved seems to care about the comics, even the people making them) we’ll have to wait and see. There’s always room for improvement, and Ashihara herself noted her inexperience in television scripting. However, creators who aren’t just continuing someone else’s legacy (and even a few that are, like Brandon Sanderson did with the Wheel Of Time novel series) put a lot of heart and love into what they do, a part of their soul. Is this what broke Hinako Ashihara? We may never know for sure, even if the contents of the suicide note are released. How long this brings the industry together, if at all, also has yet to be revealed. What it does show is that this debate continues between personal and corporate creators, amateurs and auteurs, and until we learn to respect each other and each others’ hard work and dedication we may hear more sad stories like this in the future.