If the Netflix adaptation of Cowboy Bebop was a lesson, it was well taken by everyone except Netflix. Live-action One Piece, YuYu Hakusho, and even Death Note crowd the red streamer’s 2023 slate, like a convoy ascending the on-ramp toward a massive pileup.

This is the fulfillment of an earlier false start, that original scramble for anime at its boom period in the 1990s. Keanu Reeves was set for Spike Spiegel, Leonardo DiCaprio was gonna be Kaneda. Nicolas Cage, presumably, was a Gundam. Few of these projects ever came to fruition, and the reasons seem obvious: anime is so specific, so wacky, maybe incompatible with American film language. And yet, Netflix isn’t alone in trying. So instead of turning onto that freeway of broken dreams and “welcome to the ouch,” producers might consider these more compatible titles.

RELATED: Hideaki Anno on Ending ‘Evangelion,’ Using Live-Action Techniques, and Leaving Animation

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A boy and a girl look over a red body of water as a large face fills the night sky.
Image via TV Tokyo

For longtime fans and those who caught Evangelion when it came to Netflix in 2019, this is a serious suggestion; psychological pain doesn’t go away simply because it’s spread around. While this anime icon is full of fantastical, budget-busting imagery, it’s also grounded by realistic character designs and an obsessive focus on military hardware. In fact, this ostensible super robot series takes fewer cues from the animated Gundam or Mazinger Z than it does live-action properties like Ultraman and Gerry Anderson shows. A photorealistic interpretation would only be closing an arc, and proof of concept exists in stunning form.

However, that still leaves the challenge of the story, which morphs into a psychodrama with a kid protagonist whose inability to take action has maddened viewers for decades. Evangelion may be drawing on too many foreign traditions for a mainstream American audience, but like with Squid Game (itself an amalgamation of Battle Royale and countless manga), there are universal themes and a beating heart powering the story. Beneath all the robots eating giant alien hearts, Evangelion is truthfully an intimate conversation between creator and audience.

Berserk

Berserk anime with Guts

Image via Universal/Sony

Imagine Game of Thrones but if Khal Drogo was the main character, and the only thing bigger than him and his muscles was his sword. Like the HBO blockbuster, Berserk takes place in a medieval Europe where the palace politics ignore an apocalyptic demon threat. It centers on a one-eyed mercenary named Guts, who isn’t questing to stop the demons and save the world, but rather to chop one really bad man in twain. In addition to the oversized sword, Guts is carrying around an epic vengeance, whose inciting incident has spawned hours of tearful, slack-jawed reaction videos on YouTube. It’s like the Red Wedding times a thousand. By the time it’s over, and the story begins proper, the title “Berserk” makes a lot of sense. It creeps into the bones and just sits there, radiating forever.

Berserk is one of the few properties which would actually work better in live-action than in animation, as anime studios have struggled to translate the hyper-detailed artwork of the late, great Kentaro Miura. In 1997, the makers of the Pokémon cartoon brought bloody Berserk to screen for the first time, crafting a memorable adaptation where the strength of the source material outmuscled any production flaws. In 2016, Berserk returned with computer-generated 2D animation, and drew more blood from viewers’ eyes than Guts did with his sword. The workload was presumably lighter, but the results were widely criticized. Recreating the ultraviolent saga with actors and physical settings would resolve the issue, and make for a standout show even in an overcrowded genre.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

moribito-guardian-of-the-spirit

Medieval Europe would surely be at home on Netflix, but give the streamer some credit for funding Eastern-style fantasy as well, like the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel (maybe not too much credit). In Moribito, the kingdom’s prince is infected by a mysterious demon, so the king plots his assassination. In secret, the queen hopes to spirit the young boy to safety, and there’s nobody better for the job than the spear-fighter Balsa, who’s vowed to never take another life. Seeking repentance for a violent past, Balsa shepherds the prince beyond the palace walls into the vast world of a fictionalized medieval Japan.

Moribito may be too out there, but it was broadcast on Adult Swim in the late 2000s, and also just happens to be a masterpiece. Its themes of redemption and parenthood should ring familiar for fans of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, but Moribito is about a mother and son (sorry, Pedro, you can’t play Balsa), and she has her own family issues which place the relationship inside a greater study of communities and heritage. Perhaps the people of this land have lost their traditions, or maybe they’ve convinced themselves of misinterpretation.

Sensitive and often tear-jerking, Moribito is attuned to the human heart, and boasts an all-timer action heroine with a handful of stunning fight scenes; who knew a spear duel would be the coolest thing in the world? While a Japanese live-action Moribito premiered in 2016, the story could use the pacing of a streamer’s eight or ten-episode run. No filler from the middle of the anime, and enough time to set up those plot developments both devastating and uplifting.

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell - Major Motoko Kusanagi

This one’s already been done – or has it? Maybe that was just an implanted memory. The 2017 American adaptation of Ghost in the Shell was basically a teaser trailer for Blade Runner 2049, and if anything, it proved that the source material doesn’t need to be wrestled into shape. Ghost in the Shell is a brainy post-cyberpunk police procedural with anime’s other all-timer action heroine, the Major, taking place in a world where cyborg bodies are so common that even brains can be hacked into. The Scarlett Johansson film tried to play with backstory and really obvious themes, taking a hammer to what required cyber-surgery.

The blueprint for a proper Ghost in the Shell series on American television was laid down in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, way back in 2002. This anime balanced “standalone” episodes with longer, more “complex” plots, a structure that joins the comforts of the network juggernauts on CBS with the challenge of prestige TV. Of course, this would be Law & Order where sometimes there’s a spider-tank, but genre television has evolved to a point where a foundational text like Ghost in the Shell might actually feel familiar. “Is this a rip-off of The Matrix?”

Black Lagoon

The Laggon Company in Black Lagoon

Like with Evangelion, Black Lagoon takes a number of cues from existing live-action media, though instead of tokusatsu it’s Hong Kong and American action movies. Everything from A Better Tomorrow to The Rock was thrown into the anime blender for this one, all fronted by an all-timer action her– wait a minute. Well, true enough, the anime industry makes its bones on marketable female characters, and sometimes, those characters are also super tough. So let’s see: Dragonball, Death Note, Fist of the North Star, Speed Racer, Cowboy Bebop – I think it’s the ladies’ turn (though Battle Angel was fantastic).

The star of Black Lagoon, Revy, is a Chinese-American mercenary covered in tattoos and just bristling with anger, but in truth, she shares the spotlight with mild-mannered Rock, a Japanese salaryman caught up in a world of assassins and organized crime. Taking place primarily in Southeast Asia, Black Lagoon imagines an intricate criminal underworld where an enemy one day is an ally the next, provided nobody takes a kukri to the face. It was essentially the John Wick ethos before John Wick, though its philosophical bent and surprisingly poignant drama better sells the humanity of professional killers.

Bubblegum Crisis

bubblegum-crisis

After Iron Man, who else’s next thought was “Bubblegum Crisis?” The visual effects are in place for this rock and roll fable about four women who don robot suits to beat up robots. The original eight-episode anime is well-remembered for its soundtrack and for having an infectious sense of fun, and there isn’t much more than that. No real plot to screw up or complicate, but there are areas to expand on; less a blank canvas than it is a playground. The only problem with Bubblegum Crisis is that its debt to other intellectual property might be actionable, with a city that’s just the Blade Runner city, an opening scene lifted out of Streets of Fire, and Terminators for the bad guys. But what’s more rock and roll than copyright law?

Ocean Waves

Ocean Waves
Image via Studio Ghibli

Of course, Studio Ghibli is holy ground among anime fans, and there’s never been serious talk about Americanizing the classics like My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away. Infamously, the great director Hayao Miyazaki sent Harvey Weinstein a sword as a threat against editing Princess Mononoke for its American release. However, Studio Ghibli has always experimented with forms beyond animation, including live-action television and even stage plays. Ocean Waves, considered one of the lesser entries in the canon, is nonetheless a heartfelt drama and might benefit from live-action performances. Ocean Waves is a slice-of-life romance centered on a love triangle and traces how immature teens become adults who can look back and smile. While this sounds perfect for The CW, it has a surprising bite that brings it closer to the dramedies of FX.

Live-action anime is no longer a question of if, but when. Is it too much to ask that studios choose their next victim based on anything but name recognition? Naturally, but at the same time, Hollywood is in a different place than it was during the original anime gold rush. The Weta Workshop concept art for Evangelion put whitewashing on paper with their cast of Ray, Kate Rose, and Susan Whitnell. They’ve at least had the lesson of Ghost in the Shell, which must’ve inspired the casting of Korean John Cho as the Bruce Lee-inspired Spike over anyone who’s played Bruce Lee recently (Andrew Koji was right there!). A “different place” may not be the best place, but the next crop of adaptations will also provide lessons in this endless, heroine-deficient spiral.