Seto Kaiba

Giving another series a whirl while I wait for some automation processes to finish at work... The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses.

Y'know, I'm feeling optimistic after Betrothed to My Sister's Ex.  This series looks like it's going to be cringe-worthy harem fanservice material but maybe it'll have some substance after all.

Aside from feeling like this series needs a counter for how many times the protagonist passes out standing up (the way Excel Saga did for Hyatt dying)... it really feels like an excuse plot wrapped around some fanservice and some barely-there character cliches.

A bunch more episodes dropped today... so I'm starting Betrothed to My Sister's Ex over lunch.

NGL, my hopes for this one are not high.  Crunchyroll's synopsis makes it sound like it's Legally Distinct Anime Cinderella, so the Walt Disney Corporation doesn't sue.

I have a feeling I'm going to like this one.  It's very cute and funny.

Very slick, well done!

As a fun fact, some of the very oldest Macross setting materials mention a VF-1 Wolfpack in the UN Forces during/after the events of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series.  It's implied to be a continuation of the famous US Navy squadron, which survived the war and was subsequently assigned to ARMD-10 Haruna alongside the VF-2 Bounty Hunters.  (There was also a set of Wolfpack decals for the Yamato VF-0 toy, though by that point VF/SVF-1 had since been established to be the Skulls.)

15 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

No they are not - anyone with any idea where Yavin 4 is should be kept on Yavin 4 or going no futher than a collection point where they pick up and pilot other starships to Yavin from those collection points.  Anyone going anywhere else should have no idea where the rebel base is, only the collection points.

"It ain't that kind of setting, kid."

Star Wars doesn't run on that kind of logic.  Not yet, anyway.  Stories set after the sequel trilogy might have to, but only because The Last Jedi gave the First Order the technology to track a ship through hyperspace.

The Rebels in Andor don't have that problem.  Knowing a place's name isn't enough to actually get you there, you need coordinates.  If your destination is uncharted, you're SOL (as seen in Skeleton Crew, The Bad Batch, etc.).  Jumping to hyperspace is a de facto clean getaway.  Ships can only be tracked between star systems by spaceport logs (in legit travel) or by installing a physical tracking device on the ship that can be detected, disabled, and/or removed as happens often.  All that really needs to be done to keep the location of secret bases or facilities secret is to wipe the navigational computer's memory, a security measure we see implemented several times.  (This is also one reason droids get periodic memory wipes.)  The way interstellar travel works in Star Wars is massively, MASSIVELY convenient for the rebels.

There is one example of the kind of security you're talking about, but it was for an Imperial program even more secret than the Death Star in The Bad Batch, and since the waypoint was fixed the secrecy was compromised fairly easily anyway.

15 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

As for the spoiled rich politicians, sure they could all say they have to know where the base is - but in any realistic universe at all that would have meant instant doom to keep that secret.  Star Wars could get away with bad logic like that(*) since as Harrison Ford reportedly said to Mark Hamill "It ain't that kind of movie kid".  Andor was trying to be that kind of series.

That is multiply acknowledged in Andor.  Not only is that the reason that Luthen recruits/coopts a key member of her staff to serve as an ad hoc protection detail, it's also why the rebellion needed to urgently extract her from the Senate and get her offworld after her speech.  She Knows Too Much and can't be allowed to be arrested by the ISB.

I disagree that keeping that secret would mean instant doom.  After all, there are plenty of politicians who are privy to classified knowledge about black sites and top secret plans who manage to keep that sh*t under wraps in the real world.  Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, et. al. were, as directly acknowledged in-series, basically counting on wealth, status, and public perception of them as upper-class twits offended by the very thought of violence to remain beneath suspicion as anything other than possible rebel sympathizers.

15 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

(*) - Leia should never have had the Falcon go straight from the DT to Yavin, they could have had those plans studied anywhere and the Empire would not find the Yavin base (which Leia knew they were doing from her own dialog).

Whether those plans could've been studied anywhere is doubtful.

6 hours ago, Dynaman said:

1 - Who come and go FAR too freely.  Those who actually know the location should have been kept on a very tight leash.

They are on a tight leash.

We're told directly that comings and goings from Yavin IV are strictly monitored, require authorization, and so on.  We're directly shown that unscheduled/unapproved arrivals get intercepted and taken prisoner if they cooperate, and shot down if they don't.  We also directly see General Draven chew out Cassian and his team for leaving without clearing the op they're headed out on for Luthen with command or filing a flight plan twice. 

It's strongly implied that Cassian's breach of regulations was only overlooked the first time because he had more or less singlehandedly rescued Mon Mothma from the Senate and delivered her safely to rebel agents after her speech denouncing the Emperor.

The second time... even though he extracts a valuable rebel intelligence agent, his ship is escorted down by rebel fighters, he's greeted by a sizable unit ready to shoot him on sight, and is ultimately grounded and confined to quarters.

6 hours ago, Dynaman said:

2 - They should have known it exists but not where it is.  They are always one step away from being caught.  They should also have insisted they not know where the base is.  The base also should have had a code name they used instead of "Yavin base".  

Perhaps... but as we see in the series and in Rogue One, it's difficult to say "No" to the spoiled rich politicians who are literally bankrolling the Rebel Alliance's activities.

Bail Organa does acknowledge that they were basically all supposed to go into hiding anyway and were relying on their status to keep them from being arrested and interrogated.

Not using a codename for the base may be mildly excusable in the sense that one of Star Wars's favorite tropes is the idea that there are star systems so irrelevant or so far off the beaten path that they're either effectively unknown, forgotten about, or simply ignored on navigational charts. 

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

The only problem I really had with it is that everyone and their uncle knew that Yavin was the location of the rebel base, for the Empire not to have found out is beyond belief. 

Forgive me, but this doesn't quite make sense in context if you think about it.

After all, the characters who know Yavin is the location of the Rebel Alliance's main base are all either:

1. Alliance soldiers who are stationed on Yavin IV, and whose comings and goings are carefully policed by the Alliance's commanders.  (e.g. Cassian, Melshi, K-2SO, Vel.)
2. Rebel senators who are the Alliance's political leaders as well as its financial and logistical backers.  (e.g. Mon Mothma, Bail Organa.)
3. Luthen Rael and Kleya Marki, rebel organizers and spymasters who built the pre-Alliance rebel network from the ground up and without whom Yavin's base would not exist.
4. O.G. rebel Saw Gerrera, leader of the first and most extreme anti-Imperial resistance and GFFA Not Getting Caught champion (20 BBY - 0 BBY) who only really uses that knowledge to periodically call Mon Mothma up and tell her she ain't sh*t.

It might seem like "everyone knows", but that's only because everyone who's not an Imperial on the main cast is a highly placed rebel organizer or operative.  Cassian, Bix, and Wilmon are basically Luthen's three best agents, K-2SO and Melshi are rebel soldiers at Yavin base in Cassian's unit, Kleya is Luthen's right hand man, and Mon Mothma and Bail Organa are the ones literally paying for it.

The only folks who aren't part of that tight circle who ever hear about Yavin are the Maya Pei brigade, who end up there before the base was founded and get eaten by the local fauna, and Lonni who is shot dead within a few minutes of hearing the word for the first time before he can even get out of his seat.

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

Things others have brought up too (like the woeful security at the Senate) were more momentary so easier to ignore.

That's just truth in television.😆

Caught the second episode of Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter... and oof, don't fail to miss it.  It's developing exactly as I expected, as a low-effort lolicon harem series.

Lord of Mysteries is also eminently skippable, as it turns out.  

The first new episode of My Dress-Up Darling dropped today, so that's some good news at least.

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

*wonders when the next sequel to Record of Lodoss War will be butchered made*

Hm?  You mean besides Legend of Crystania, Magical Warrior Louie (localized as Louie the Rune Soldier), and Record of Lodoss War: Next Generation?

NGL, I actually rather like Louie for how incredibly irreverent it is as a fantasy series.  

29 minutes ago, Dangard Ace said:

Ahhh isekai.  I'll start watching Isekai again when they start being like Fushigi Yuugi, Escaflowne, Rayearth, Shurato Inuyasha or Gate.   Really tired of the died and reincarnated by a God in another world with OP abilities.    Hmmm....think I'll rewatch Gate now.

So, I have good news for you then...

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2025/7/4/gate-2-tides-of-conflict-tv-anime-announced

There's a new Gate series coming.

Very happy to see that a third season of The Apothecary Diaries has been announced.

Between that and the forthcoming fourth season of Ascendance of a Bookworm, the "weird girl with highly situational knowledge" crowd are going to be eating well indeed.

Picked up a couple more of the Summer '25 simulcast offerings.  Hopefully they'll have more to offer than the likes of New Saga or Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter.  

Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! is yet another one of these isekai-adjacent form letter JRPG fantasy stories about a nice guy protagonist who finds himself being kicked out of The Strongest Adventurer Party because its leader is a cowardly and arrogant slimeball who clearly hasn't thought it through, and despite being a max level utterly broken demigod opts to leave his companions in the slimeball's care and quit adventuring altogether and go live a slow life boonies.  Inevitably as the f***ing tides, the slimeball will slowly crash out during the season since he didn't realize how much he needed the protagonist while the protagonist lives his best life.  It's nothing we haven't seen fifty times before over the last eight years.

First impressions are that Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! is bland and inoffensive, lacking anything to really make it feel distinct in any sense.  

The Water Magician defies the trend of being isekai-adjacent j-fantasy in favor of just being a straight isekai story.  20 year old Ryou, a protagonist so generic he might as well have a barcode for a face, falls victim to legendary isekai serial killer Truck-kun and awakens to find himself in a featureless void with a being who professes to be an angel.  He learns that he is to be reincarnated in a fantasy world, but not for any particular purpose, so he requests to live a slow life.  The angel sets him up with a house in a peaceful area, several months of supplies, and leaves him to it after informing him he's compatible with water magic and leaving him a knife and two books on local flora and fauna.

First impression... The Water Magician is unlikely to develop into anything interesting.  The tropes it uses make it feel like its original web novel should be around a decade older than it is... apparently this series is from just five years ago, rather than the fifteen it feels like from how it's written.

I was going to start Lord of Mysteries, but I realized after looking up its Wikipedia page that it's another bloody isekai and I'm overdosed on that trope for one night.  Apparently this one is a Chinese isekai series instead of a Japanese one, with a fantasy Victorian England-inspired setting full of magic and steampunk instead of standard j-fantasy wilderness.

So, I decided to give New Saga a whirl... and it is as painfully generic as its title suggests. 

In a generic medieval j-fantasy world where Humanity has been at war with the forces of the Demon King for thousands of years, generic j-fantasy protagonist "Kyle" finally slays the Demon King but is fatally wounded in the process.  As he lays dying, he touches a jewel guarded by the now-slain Demon King and awakens to find he has been sent back in time to four years before the invasion began.  He must use his future knowledge to try to Save The World.  Don't fail to miss it.

In a world where we're increasingly worried about studios will be using generative AI to churn out poorly-composed, formulaic, derivative slop with no soul or value, there are still a few brave human authors who are unwilling to concede to GenAI tools in the writing quality race to the bottom. 😆

17 hours ago, azrael said:

Something for you to think about as you watch new shows with subs.

Crunchyroll Accidentally Reveals They've Been Using ChatGPT for Sub Translations (CBR.com)

Is anyone really surprised?

Every corporation worth a damn has spent the last year or so frantically trying to find a viable use-case for "AI" tools in their workflow and/or products because it's trendy and they're all terrified of being left behind should a competitor find a way to make the technology useful.  Even companies or divisions where "AI" tools have no practical application or pose an enormous risk of leaking proprietary information.  Lots of backpedaling going on there too lately.

'course the article's also been updated to say that it was an outside contractor using ChatGPT in violation of their contract.

Admittedly, if you told me ChatGPT wrote Classic Stars, I'd absolutely believe it... it reads like AI slop.

5 hours ago, Big s said:

They really should have started doing that before the  Zeta era. 0083 showed that some already knew of their dealings. And the fact that they not only were supplying the feds, the Titans, Zeon Remnants and even the AEUG  is totally ridiculous.

Yeah, after a while they kind of run out of excuses... and even then it's not until UC 0096 and the aftermath of the Laplace Incident in Unicorn that the Federation bothers even trying to arrest anyone from Anaheim.  It still doesn't stick in the end.  

5 hours ago, Big s said:

It would’ve made more sense if they had been doing the Votoms type of thing to create more advanced humans by forcing constant struggle, but they just were hyper greedy and couldn’t help putting a stamp on everything 

Not that that gimmick doesn't get used... it's just not until like 10,000 years later in the Regild Century and Correct Century with the likes of Cumpa Rusita and Gym Ghingham trying to foment conflict because they firmly believe humanity needs it to survive and advance.

Anaheim... eech... Anaheim just decided to be greedy in the stupidest way possible by absorbing assets from the dissolved Zeonic and Zimmad, making them an independent division within the company, and then trying to pretend they know nothing about the huge amount of war materiel that keeps falling off the back of a space truck anytime there's some Zeon remnant with dreams of starting sh*t.  

Detectives These Days Are Crazy! is... certainly something.  It's the story of a down-on-his-luck, chain-smoking, middle-aged private detective who was once hailed as a genius in his high school years who has spent most of his career barely making ends meet thanks to a spectacular case of gifted kid burnout.  His rotten luck is changed when an extremely bossy teenage girl barges into his office with a years-old flyer demanding to be taken on as a part-time employee because she dreams of becoming a detective herself... and because his agency is closest to her house, so she won't have to commute as far.

It's quite entertaining so far.  I'm looking forward to more.

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Mobile Suit Gundam: Operation- One Trick Pony.

That just sounds like a side story about the Pegasus-class assault ships.

Always and forever, the Trojan Horse's one trick is "have Gundam, will travel". 😜 

WRT the UC, it is pretty funny in hindsight to consider that all the Federation needed to do to squash half or more of the Zeon uprisings was just police Anaheim better.  They kept the conflicts going indefinitely by selling arms to both sides until SNRI snuck up and ate their lunch in the UC 100s.

The Summer 2025 simulcast season has finally kicked off.

Only a few shows have dropped first episodes so far... Rent a Girlfriend S4, Takopi's Original Sin, Detectives These Days Are Crazy!, and Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter.

Less than zero interest in Simp Simulator 2K5... er... Rent a Girlfriend S4.  Takopi's Original Sin's synopsis doesn't really inspire either.  

Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter is... well... let's just say the start of the series screams "Excuse plot".  All of about two minutes are spent setting up the story's premise - the story's protagonist being a student who failed his government exam to become a sorcerer and is being quietly fobbed off on a nobleman's daughter as a private tutor - before it's off to the races.  The promotional key art seems to suggest this will be a harem series, and the protagonist unthinkingly sexually harassing two different young girls in the first seven minutes is not exactly helping.  I have a feeling this one is going to be excruciatingly dull.

32 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah... I think by now, the One Year War has been fought and refought so many times in the various series, that Amuro and Char are probably receiving royalties.

When all's said and done, the conflict between the Federation and Zeon actually lasted 43 years.

The One Year War may have officially ended on New Year's Day UC 0080, but Sunrise's writers were so unwilling to let Zeon go and come up with a new antagonist faction that the Earth Federation is stuck fighting a seemingly neverending supply of Zeon remnants and splinter factions literally right up to the point that the Crossbone Vanguard takes over as the main antagonist in UC 0123.  (Seriously, the last battle against a Zeon remnant is just a couple months before Cosmo Babylonia is founded.)

Even then, Cosmo Babylonia's philosophy and goals are little different to Zeon's and the same is broadly true of their successors the Zanscare Empire.  Even the Juptier Empire is essentially just Zeon with the social darwinism and contempt for life turned up to 11.

I'd like to see them branch out and try something different with the UC timeline instead of just swapping out store-brand Zeon stand-ins.  

There's a few thousand years to play in before they run into the Correct Century and the Regild Century.  

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I figured use the suckiest of mechanimes, it'd be over before Jean has a chance to say something stupid.

Nah, handle that SRW style and you'd have half a dozen episodes of Marie and Lana gushing over Bright for slapping some sense into Jeanne. 😆

7 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

I will watch Erin Hathaway be a terrorist. I hope his dad show's up and slaps him. 

In the light novel, his dad does show up... but not to slap him.

Honestly, if we're talking UC... I'd like to see some capital emphasis New Development.  We've seen too goddamn much of the One Year War in terms of do-overs, alterniverses, side stories, and such.  The UC timeline has some war or other major conflict in the Earth Sphere every few years for three quarters of a century from UC 0079 all the way to UC 0153 and the ending of Victory Gundam.  That balloons out to almost a century (93 years) if you count Crossbone Gundam's spinoffs about conflicts with/within the Jupiter Sphere which drag out into the UC 0170s.  

Depending on how canon they decide G-Saviour is, they potentially have a free run of hundreds or thousands of years before the next story in the chronology... lots of room to do something new.

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

On another note: instead of "speed running" all the greatest moments of an anime in an "adaption",  they'd be better off doing what the new version of Dune did: spread it out over a few movies. But I can imagine most studios wouldn't want to commit to that for several reasons.

Maybe, maybe not... but considering how live action anime adaptations usually do, nobody is going to go into one banking on getting a sequel green-lit.  

Even One Piece, the 800lb gorilla of shounen anime, played it safe by opting to make each live action season a single complete story arc from the manga so that the story wouldn't be left hanging if Netflix didn't renew it for another season.

5 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I have an idea for what would probably be the shortest Gundam series of all time.

Ready?

  Hide contents

Crossover Event: Gundam Vs. Super Dimensional Army Southern Cross.

*ducks and runs away*

There are loads and loads of crossovers between Gundam and other mecha anime... that's pretty much the entire Super Robot Wars game series in a nutshell.

That other series was never popular enough to be included, AFAIK, but plenty of others have already done.

If they really wanted the shortest-possible story... all they need to do is do a SEED spinoff where Kira isn't feeling angsty.  He's the Godmode Sue.  The minute he gets serious the fight is OVER.

50 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Seto, your description of how it may have gone under the WB is apt. Along with the aforementioned actors, including Pedro Pascal, don't forget Giancarlo Esposito as the American version of Col Shikishima. Add a couple good kid actors to play the Espers and voila, a Hollywood adaptation that likely, due to the Production's insistence on "creativity" would, despite the heavy star power, resemble Akira in name only, cost approx $200M, and totally flop at the box office b/c it made little sense to non-anime fans, was too convoluted, and strayed so far from the source that it pissed off anime and manga fans. In every way, it would miss the mark, tie-in merchandise would linger on shelves and get clearanced, and Blu-ray sales would be decent, but not great either.

Even in the absolute best-case scenario that the Akira movie were made by an Akira superfan with enough clout to keep the execs at bay, it's likely that much of the original story and setting would end up on the cutting room floor in the name of trying to fit every iconic moment from the source material into a 90 minute film.  

50 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Referring to the live action Ghost in the Shell, I don't think who they cast as the Major was as big a blow as the reworking of Motoko's origin. [...] I thought they did a good job with Batou, and the mecha looked good. The action was good. The Major's origin subplot was the biggest headscratcher- it wasn't necessary- just give her a good case to solve and let her and Section 9 do their thing. Anyway, I thought it was pretty close to being a good LA adaptation. Alita still gets my vote for best, or at least the most enjoyable. Looking forward to the sequel.

It was missing most of what makes Ghost in the Shell iconic, interesting, or in any way memorable.  It was watered down into a fairly generic cyberpunk movie that takes some loose inspiration from Ghost in the Shell while omitting most of the characters, set pieces, and settings.

50 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Moreover, I hated that they just called her Major, like it was her name and not her rank. Coming from a military background, it bugged me throughout the entire film.

Now, in all fairness, that's not necessarily the adaptation's fault... that's how she's addressed by everyone in every version of Ghost in the Shell and they just did a crummy job of working it into the live action adaptation by trying to make it significant.

On 6/29/2025 at 8:12 AM, PointBlankSniper said:

Crossbone should have been the brain dead pick, since a long time ago. But the problem now is that they've already milked it to death. I'm not sure anyone actually cares about the buggo and clow looking grunts, so theres probably little incentive to squeeze it anymore. Astray is in the same place imo. 

From what I've seen, there's still plenty of demand for Crossbone Gundam among the UC fans.

It's pretty much the #1 most-requested adaptation whenever anyone mentions what they should do with the UC next.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, of course, is a mostly dry well to the point that they're doing a prequel to the movie to explain a fairly trivial background event because that's all they can think of.

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

"Stealth"? 

In my culture, it is expressly forbidden to speak of that... "motion picture". [...]

Yet here we are, talking about it. 😆

Given that several news outlets that interviewed Stealth director Rob Cohen reported that he cited Macross as an inspiration for the film we can tentatively toss it on the pile of awful anime adaptations too.  It makes for an excellent example of what happens when a creative tries to rework an anime title for "western sensibilities" and ultimately ends up removing everything that made the original enjoyable or distinctive in the first place. 

It's a safe bet a similar fate would have befallen Akira, had Warner Bros not finally given up on it and let the license expire.

Just imagine... Akira, but Neo Tokyo is never named and is filmed in Toronto, the biker gangs aren't present at all, the Akira Project is instead being run by terrorists or Evil Russians because the military can't be vilified, Kaneda's played by Daniel Radcliffe with a spray-on tan and 30 minute subplot devoted to explaining he was adopted by Japanese immigrants, and Tetsuo's played by Chris Pratt or Jack Black because casting one of them is practically mandatory right now.

5 hours ago, Big s said:

I didn’t know they ruined Doom twice. I saw a live action one a few years back that really sucked and maybe that was enough that when I hear the name Doom, I stay far away unless it’s for a video game 

Yeah, there are two... Doom (2005) and Doom: Annihilation (2019).

The first one was supposed to be an adaptation of Doom 3, but ultimately deviated from it so much in development that by the time it went into production it was essentially a totally unrelated work that was just borrowing the Doom name.  The second one was a very loose adaptation of Doom 3 on a hilariously tiny budget that was still bordering on in-name-only status.

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I'll agree; One Piece does a good job at that for the most part. I just cringe anymore when it's announced a studio "has an adaption coming".

A deep sense of foreboding is the appropriate reaction to the announcement of a Hollywood anime adaptation.

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I think I know the answer already, but I'll just ask anyways: why do they ignore the source material when doing this? I know some stuff may not translate well into our culture or may be too weird/ perverted/ violent/ other-reason-I-can't-think-of-right-now. But in much of what I've seen, these things are barely recognizable from their sources and in at least a few cases, are practically unwatchable (imo).

Reasons vary, as you'd expect.

The most commonly given reasons come down to trying to broaden the appeal of the movie.  Anime may be more mainstream now than it was even ten years ago, but it's still not something that's widely accepted.  Premises get made more generic and "accessible", plots are streamlined and simplified, potentially controversial characters and situations wind up removed, and so on.  By the time they're done cutting and streamlining and simplifying they've often removed most of the original work's personality.

Then, of course, they sometimes have to make concessions for casting decisions too.  For instance, Ghost in the Shell cast Scarlett Johansson for her star power and ability to fill out a catsuit... then had to essentially center the entire plot on deflecting accusations of racism and whitewashing for casting a white woman to play a Japanese woman living and working in Japan.

If the studios had their way with Akira, it's likely the only thing left of the original when the dust settled would've been Kaneda's iconic bike.

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

*praying they never try a live action adaption of Macross Plus*

They kind of already did... like twenty years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_(film)

It's basically Macross Plus with the serial numbers filed off.

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Do you know if they currently have any flights or cruises out to there?

Asking for a friend...

Probably inadvisable.  There's a reason one of the five main types of Irish folk song is "The fae are back on their bullsh*t and I got bamboozled". 🤣 

Seems like it'd be in poor taste to name a resort ship meant for tourism after a magical island that you can't leave without recreating the "He chose poorly" scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Doubly so if the scholars are correct and Emhain is an cognate of what's now called Avalon in Arthurian mythos.  Avalon isn't a place of bounty for living souls to visit, it's a place for the dead and dying and not somewhere people generally come back from.

Then again, naming a resort ship with an underground factory after a beautiful seaside town in a kingdom ruled by underground by a power-hungry technocrat is a bit on the nose too.  

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Do you think anyone here in the west has any idea of how to do a successful "live action" version of an anime? I think even One Piece  has its' issues, tbh...

I'd argue that One Piece is proof that it is possible for there to be such thing as a western anime adaptation that respects the source material.

It's very much the exception that tests the rule that western anime adaptations are awful.  Of course, it was always going to have issues because One Piece is so incredibly weird that there were always going to have to be some significant compromises to make it work with living actors.

About the best we can reasonably hope for from Hollywood is something like Alita: Battle Angel which plays fast and loose with the original story in order to essentially speedrun the most iconic moments in a single two-hour span.  You only get that if there are superfans involved, though.  The far more likely fate is a western "creative" trying to give their own new interpretation of the work and turning it into a dumpster fire that proves they missed the point completely.  Akira would probably have ended up a generic sci-fi monster movie like what they did to Doom twice.