It's a phrase that has brought about terror from almost all anime & manga fans who have heard it spoken:
The "Hollywood" Live-Action Adaptation. While there have obviously been good to even great examples of this, for every
Alita: Battle Angel,
Guyver 2,
Crying Freeman, or even Netflix's
One Piece there have seemingly been at least two or three examples of a
Ghost in the Shell,
Fist of the North Star, or Netflix's
Cowboy Bebop, if they ever actually make it into proper production (see:
Akira,
Robotech, or
Neon Genesis Evangelion); yes, not all are actually from "Hollywood", but it helps establish the idea. It's arguably one of the prime examples of the old "Roll the Dice" or "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" adage, i.e. take a chance & hope for the best, but you know the chance is greater that it'll wind up terrible. The year 2024, in particular, is both one of celebration (on this blog, at least) as well as loss, as while we're in the middle of celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Masami Kurumada's career in manga here at the Land of Obscusion, we've also recently mourned the passing of Akira Toriyama, creator of
Dr. Slump &
Dragon Ball, someone who was in the trenches with Kurumada over at Shonen Jump, specifically during the 80s & early 90s (i.e. "until Kurumada left").
We'll give Akira Toriyama a much more fitting piece to honor him with later this month, but this is Kurumada's 50th Anniversary year... and it's April Fools' Day.
Dragon Ball was a smash hit, and with it (initially, at least) being focused on martial arts it only made sense that there'd be people who wanted to adapt it into live-action. Over in Korea & Taiwan two unofficial movie adaptations were produced:
1990's Dragon Ball: Fight Son Goku, Win Son Goku (which is known for being the most accurate live-action adaptation) &
1991's Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (which actually got a licensed release in English by Tai Seng in the 00s). Legendary action star Jackie Chan voiced interest in producing an official live-action adaptation back in 1995 but admitted that it'd require special effects & a budget that was simply untenable at the time. It wouldn't be until 2002 that Shueisha finally sold the live-action rights to
Dragon Ball, in this case to 20th Century Fox, and while Stephen Chow (
Shaolin Soccer,
Kung Fu Hustle) was approached to direct (& was a fan of the manga), he declined & simply agreed to help produce, since he only wished the direct stories that he created; he'd later break that vow somewhat when he co-directed
2013's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. Eventually James Wong (
The One,
Final Destination 1 &
3) would get hired to direct, and while Ben Ramsey wrote the initial drafts (& was credited in the final product) it was Wong who wrote the final draft himself. The finished film,
Dragonball Evolution (yes, it's a single word for this film), would finally see release in 2009, first in Japan on March 10 & the United States on April 10... and it was utterly trounced. Ben Ramsey himself has gone off on the film numerous times over the years, it's often lambasted by all anime fans (voice actor Kyle Hebert has even done live roastings of the movie at some anime cons; it's how I first saw the film), and while the commonly stated rumor of Akira Toriyama hating it so much that he conceived of 2013's
Battle of Gods in response isn't exactly true (Toei had started pre-production on it without Toriyama's involvement), it is reasonable to assume that Toriyama wanted to be more hands-on with the franchise following
Evolution's release, if only to prevent something like it from happening again. Really, the only "good" thing to come from this film was
the PSP video game adaptation, which was pretty much just
DBZ: Shin Budokai, but with a modified cast; it was actually the first time Bulma was playable in a
Dragon Ball fighting game.
Meanwhile, Masami Kurumada had wanted to see a live-action adaptation of
Saint Seiya more or less since the manga debuted in 1986. There was an attempt at such a thing sometime in the 90s with
StarStorm, which never went beyond a proof-of-concept pitch, but for the longest time the closest thing was a pair of musicals based on
Saint Seiya, one in 1991 (starring members of the bands SMAP & Tokio) & another in 2011. That all changed in 2016, when Toei Animation announced a trio of
Saint Seiya productions, including an anime adaptation of spin-off manga
Saintia Sho (which eventually came out in late 2018), a full-on CG anime reboot series (which debuted in 2019 & is still getting made to this day), & a live-action theatrical adaptation, with Stage 6 Films (a division of Sony Pictures) co-producing the last one. Polish animator/illustrator/director Tomek Bagiński (then best known for his intros to CD Projekt Red's
The Witcher series of games) was hired to direct. Befitting this being a (mostly) non-Japanese production, the film was titled
Knights of the Zodiac (the name
Saint Seiya tends to use abroad), though in Japan it eventually got the final title of
Saint Seiya: The Beginning. After some delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film finally came out on April 27, 2023 in Latin America (natch), followed by Japanese & US releases over the next few weeks... and it was utterly trounced, even more so than
Dragonball Evolution;
DBE earned ~$9.36 million in the US ($56.5 million, worldwide), while
KotZ only earned ~$6.986 million (with no reported worldwide box office).
In many ways,
Dragon Ball &
Saint Seiya have always had a bit of a symbiotic coexistence, even if Toriyama & Kurumada themselves
respected each other too highly to ever consider each other "rivals", so to continue celebrating Kurumada's 50th Anniversary &, to some extent, celebrate the legacy of Akira Toriyama, let's compare both of these Jump icons at their (apparent) worst & see which film comes out on top!