Two things I love are anime and Star Wars. If asked to pick between the two, I’d probably give a slight edge to Star Wars. Blasphemy for an anime blogger, right? Star Wars is such a mega franchise that mega franchise is an understatement. The expanded universe is downright ridiculous, and the far reach of Star Wars has just about every entertainment medium in its grip… Except anime, which begs the question, “Why isn’t there a Star Wars anime?”.
Maybe there would be licensing issues involved with such an endeavor, but George Lucas really shouldn’t care as long as he gets to pad his massive wallet with royalties. Also, the Star Wars license is nothing new to Japan, as they get all manner of merchandise from X-Wing model kits to R2-D2 soy sauce bottles, and even a relatively obscure manga series following the original trilogy was published back in 1998-99.
The normal train of thought is to think cartoony manga and the relatively realistic and serious Star Wars aren’t compatible, but I can attest the manga adaptations of Episodes IV-VI are quite good. Star Wars with manga flair worked surprisingly well, and it was fun to see the Japanese take on the series with some manga cliches tossed in such as the exaggerated face faults and sweat drops. Nothing against Carrie Fisher, but the manga’s much cuter, somewhat tsundere Princess Leia didn’t hurt either. While the manga has long since been forgotten, it was an enjoyable read, faithfully sticking to the narrative while the manga-ka (a different artist for each Episode) made small liberties here and there to make the experience distinctively Japanese. Scans from starwars.com below.
An anime would be perfect for the franchise. Western properties have been adapted to anime before. I wasn’t too crazy about Witchblade and Batman: Gotham Knight, but they were decent at least. I’m positively stoked about the upcoming Iron Man and Wolverine anime recently announced at Comic-Con though. With what look like two decent comic book-anime adaptations on the way next year, this is as good a time as any to see a Star Wars anime with anime’s increasing recognition and popularity here in the US. It’s also a great opportunity to expand the franchise even more in Japan, because you can never milk the Japanese fanbase enough. Lucasarts would practically be printing money with all the ensuing merchandising opportunities.
The big foreseeable snag right now is there’s already an animated Star Wars series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which relies on the popular 3D CG gimmick that’s all the rage now. The show itself isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty decent, but it’s very… Kiddy. Let’s just say that while it’s not bad, it could be much better.
The lesser foreseeable snag is story and casting. Star Wars is rich (almost too rich) with lore in the realm of novels and video games. There are several prospects to focus on from the ever popular bounty hunters to the dogfighting aces of Rogue Squadron. Even a story about fodder Stormtroopers could be remotely interesting too, but the big draw of Star Wars has always been, and always will be the Jedi. Just as well too since Jedi are pretty much samurai in space with cool beam swords. I’m more of a Sith man myself, but every SW fan has to like Jedi in some form or fashion.
An original semi-canon story in the vein of Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) would be perfect. Canon enough to be accepted by the fans, far enough removed from the movies to be an original property. Heck, this could even be a straight up KOTOR adaptation, and I wouldn’t mind since it’s such a great franchise. I’m also tempted to recommend this theoretical anime be an original property more closely related to movie canon ala The Force Unleashed or Shadows of the Empire, but prominent main characters from the movies should be avoided because I think they would be out of place. There’s a wealth of Expanded Universe novels available such as the Thrawn Trilogy too, but the process of adapting novels may be more trouble than it’s worth and again, main characters should stay as far away from an anime as possible. I don’t work in the industry, but it shouldn’t be too hard to make even a relatively successful anime. The only thing the studio would have to do is not screw it up, which should be impossible with big brother Lucasarts scaffolding the process along.
I’ll pray for the day we can see a Star Wars anime, preferably focusing on the franchise’s badass Bounty Hunters, but a Jedi story (much like a cat) would be fine too. I would then do cartwheels all the way down the street either way. Who wouldn’t want to see hotblooded Jedi and Gurren Lagann/Sengoku Basara-esque lightsaber battles? My blood’s boiling to a temperature meeting or exceeding 9000 degrees C just thinking about it. You would have to be dead or comatose not to get excited. Or you’d have to not like Star Wars, in which case I e-slap you in the face for not being with the program. Get with the program, okay?
PS: Check out the Star Wars Manga/Comic comparison at the official Star Wars site for the original scans (and because it’s a fun read for SW nerds anyway). The original manga are pricey at $10 a volume and 4 volumes per episode, about $120 for the whole original trilogy. If you can live with flipped manga from the old days, they’re well worth reading.
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Ah, Star Wars. The Siscon that started them all…
@Roy: The Skywalker family is just a big giant mess from Anakin all the way down.
aaa aaa aaa aaaaaa Star Wars was that really good, I always thought it was average, and always wanted to say it sucks with out pissing people off like my best friend and stuff, but i still say it to him that it does.
I think this was something I mentioned in my first post on your blog like a year ago…but I would do cartwheels for a Pride and prejudice anime that is set in modern times. I know I know going from Star Wars to Pride and Prejudice is the biggest stretch you can make but maybe I made my comment relevant enough to this post by mentioning cartwheels?
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@lovelyduckie: Well it’s not that far off base considering novels have been adapted before… Though they do have a lot of liberties taken with them. Cough RomeoxJuliet and The Count of Monte Cristo (Gankutsuou) Cough. My classical literature sucks outside of plays and required school reading though, but it’s entirely possible.
And have you been commenting here for a year already? Time passes so quickly. Cartwheels are fine too. o_o
Dude, there already is a Star Wars anime created by Genndy Tartakovsky called “Clone Wars”.
And it’s fucking GREAT.
I thought about mentioning the first Clone Wars after this post. It was very anime like, but it was still more a Star Wars cartoon with a healthy serving of Samurai Jack influence. I guess that could be a case for a real SW anime to be made though since it was pretty popular.
You’d figure the publisher who was able to obtain the rights to do the manga would have been able to secure the rights to do the anime.
És molt original, m´encanta Star wars!: I love Star wars, the comic is very outsandingl!
^ ^
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