Netflix’s 3-Part Sci-Fi Series Broke The Rule Of Live-Action Anime Adaptations

For years, live-action anime adaptations had a pretty negative reputation. In fact, it seemed the rule here was that these movies and shows just had to be truly terrible. The worst of the worst was 2009’s Dragonball Evolution, but Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, Ouran High School Host Club, Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, and more really put up a good fight for that title. Many of these are Netflix adaptations, so this streaming platform quickly gained a reputation for ruining beloved anime.

The problems with live-action anime adaptations vary wildly. Often, the budgets for these projects just aren’t what they should be. It’s all too easy for these sorts of stories to come across as painfully cheesy, and bad cosplay-style hair and costume designs, like what we see in Fullmetal Alchemist, only add to the cringe. On the opposite end of the spectrum are adaptations that try way too hard to Westernize anime, wholly eliminating the charm of the medium. This is part of what went wrong with Death Note and Dragonball Evolution.

Thankfully, the live-action adaptation landscape has gone through a shift in recent years. While success stories are still rare, they aren’t entirely unheard of. In Netflix’s case, the revolution started with 2020’s Alice in Borderland. Expectations for this series weren’t high, but it managed to break all the rules and turn out to be a pretty exceptional series a whole three years before Netflix’s One Piece hit the scene.

Alice In Borderland Beat One Piece To Being Netflix’s First Good Live-Action Anime Adaptation

2023’s One Piece is the most high-profile success story in the way of live-action anime adaptations. However, it was Alice in Borderland that first broke the streaming platform’s painful cycle. That first season in 2020 stood well on its own, establishing itself as one of the first shows of its kind that could be enjoyed by any viewer, regardless of their familiarity with the source material. Even more impressive is the fact that Alice in Borderland managed this without completely polarizing anime fans.

The key here is the high-quality and respect applied to the adaptation. It was enough to grant Alice in Borderland season 1 a miraculous 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes, something virtually unheard of in the live-action anime adaptation world. Even more miraculous is that things got better in season 2. The Netflix series’ sophomore installment claimed approval from 91% of critics, pushing the project toward perfection. Finally, the curse was broken.

Netflix ran with this success with One Piece, which, like its predecessor, showed fantastic respect to the source material. This time around, however, the project was less grounded in realism, and One Piece actually feels like anime while capturing the visual thrills and accessibility of live-action. Like Alice in Borderland, One Piece only got better, kicking up its 86% season 1 Rotten Tomatoes score to a whopping 100% with season 2. Clearly, both One Piece and Alice in Borderland prove what can be done, though there is still a slightly dark omen here.

Alice In Borderland Still Struggled To Match Its Source Material

Alice in Borderland had two really exceptional seasons, and by the end of that sophomore installment, the series effectively covered the manga’s full story. This could have been the end, but Netflix kept things going beyond the established canon and dived into original content with season 3. Perhaps it was overenthusiasm, or maybe just greed. Regardless, Alice in Borderland‘s third installment just didn’t work out, as evidenced by its painfully low 63% Rotten Tomatoes score.

This decline further demonstrates that live-action anime adaptations will generally doom themselves when they stray away from the source material. One Piece doesn’t run the risk of carrying on past Eiichiro Oda’s original story, since both the manga and anime are still ongoing. However, trouble may arise as the live-action adaptation tries to wrap things up by inventing an ending that doesn’t exist in the source material.

In conclusion, Alice in Borderland may have broken the rules of anime adaptations by putting out two great seasons, but it will now be up to One Piece to break the rules further and produce an exceptional third (and beyond).

Release Date

2020 – 2025-00-00

Network

Netflix

Directors

Shinsuke Sato

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  Kento Yamazaki

  Ryohei Arisu

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  Tao Tsuchiya

  Yuzuha Usagi

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