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.
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