Within days of eachother I've watched two very good live action-anime based films: Speed Racer and Mushishi. Yeah, it's no surprise that I'm a fan of anime but looking at IMDB, the films boast little over a 6/10 score - yet I happened to thoroughly enjoy both. I thought Speed Racer was brilliantly done, the races were expertly created and the plot was very positive and uplifting. Mushishi was however a very different film. Though it was also beautifully artistic, it had a 15 certificate although that was all probably only due to one fairly bloody scene in the film. It had been on my 'to watch' pile for a while, possibly the longest of my unwatched DVDs but it was worth the wait. Directed by the much acclaimed writer/director Katsuhiro Ôtomo of Akira fame and based on a very highly ranked anime and manga Mushishi it was a very ...strange film.
The only sad thing is that I don't think that viewers who aren't familiar with the anime counterparts would really appreciate the films all that much, especially as Mushishi has a very surreal plot and Speed Racer being all about a guy and his car. This is the only reason I can think of to explain the poor reception for films I really enjoyed.
With all that said, there are many other projects to turn anime into live action, including Akira and Dragonball Z in the near future. I thought Akira was quite overhyped and DBZ I just couldn't get into at all. Other forthcoming films I can think of are Blood: The Last Vampire, Hellsing, Neon Genesis Evangelion, another Street Fighter movie (if that counts) and Battle Angel. Talk about cashing in...
