As American entertainment seems to be stagnating, stories from video games and foreign animation are beginning to catch the attention of American viewers. Whether you are a fan or not of video games and anime, you have definitely seen some of these adaptations on your favorite TV channels, streaming services, or even on the big screen. In this post, we will discuss why this happening and what are the most prevalent versions of these adaptations.
At this point, there are countless video games and anime adaptations available to the American audience. It started with decades ago with the Japanese folklore of Godzilla becoming a huge hit in American theaters, and the pace at which stories like this are becoming mainstream in American entertainment is steadily increasing as the years go by. So why is this happening? Well, American storytelling has gotten become stale – the same few formulas for movies and shows have become overused. Not only this, but the amount of TV shows and movies that are being produced have increased over the many decades of visual entertainment. It would be disingenuous to say that all of it is stale; there are definitely some great original American originals that come our way every year, but the vast majority of TV shows and movies nowadays are decent at best. Just take a look at the newly added shows/movies on your favorite streaming each month, it is really telling of this issue.
However, there is an obvious solution to this problem. It started with books and is starting to move into video games and foreign stories like Japanese anime. Taking content that is successful in a medium of entertainment and adapting it to another is nearly a surefire way of making it even more successful. In essence, if one audience loves it, bringing it in a somewhat different way to a different audience is a great way to expand the popularity of any given piece of entertainment. Not only does it cut the costs of having to create an entirely new story and script, but it also carries less risk than an entirely new story. Of course, this is the reason why we are seeing these remakes/adaptations so often in our American entertainment sphere.
As mentioned above, there are countless examples of this on our favorite streaming services and most of them have been huge hits. One of the most famous of these adaptations is The Game of Nerds namesake, Game of Thrones, which started as a best-selling book series. Not only is Game of Thrones now one of the most famous pieces of entertainment in American history, but it is also so successful that a prequel is being creating (House of Dragon on HBO) just quench the thirst for this type of content in the American audience. However, books being adapted to TV shows or movies is not new – we see this with the Harry Potter Series, Lord or the Rings, and countless other books. What is new is making video games and foreign stories, and making movies and TV shows out of them.
Just in the past few years, we have seen this part of American entertainment explode. For video games, it really started with the Warcraft movie from the World of Warcraft universe, but it did not stop there. The animated series Arcane from the League of Legends video game universe; the Witcher series from CD Project Red (was originally a book series, then became a video game series, and now a TV show); the recently released Fallout series from the Bethesda video game series; and many more that are already released or soon to be released.
For anime, there are also plenty of examples. Just think about the One Piece live action that is based on the One Piece anime; the recently released Parasyte: The Grey which is based on the Parasyte Maxim anime series; or the countless anime that have been subbed and dubbed through a variety of platforms for millions of Americans to enjoy. Whether we like the future of American entertainment or not, these adaptations seem to be becoming increasingly more popular.
With this in mind, there is only one question remaining: what video game or anime story would like to see made into an American TV show/movie next?
