The anime had a great concept but it felt like a shell of the story it could've been. The live action, on the other hand, has answered every single of my criticisms with the anime and did justice to this amazing story.
I’m going to go over everything that the live action does better than the anime
Balsa’s flashbacks with Jiguro are shown at the very beginning to contextualize her decision to protect Chagum.
There’s more adult things in here, but used with restraint, which lends the necessary edge to a story of this scope.
Having live action actors helps a lot. Having nuanced facial expressions, as well as the little things like small physical gestures does wonders to bring these characters to life. The anime characters feel wooden in comparison. The tone here is also more natural and small bits of humor sprinkled in here and there enhances the characterization and character interactions. As a result, Balsa is more nuanced and sympathetic, much more than just a badass female character. Chagum comes across with more spunk and much less like a prim and proper goody-two shoes. Tanda is playful and can hold his own in scenes as more than just the male love healer/love interest.
The emperor is an actual villain. In the anime, the scenes with the emperor consisted of him sitting there and doling out orders apathetically, and when he finds out he doesn’t need to kill Chagum, he’s just like, OK. Here, the actor for the emperor brings an intensity to every scene, his eyes constantly wavering between nefarious scheming and straight-up madness. You couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t dispatch someone at the end of any given scene.
The pacing is twice as fast. The entire middle part of the anime, which the creators admitted to dragging out, is cut out entirely and nothing was missed. The large dumps of exposition in the anime are delivered more concisely. As such, everything has more impact, both in terms of plot development and character development.
Along the same lines, the subplots were simultaneously condensed and made more interesting. They cut down the screen time for boring Shuga while also giving his plotline more tension by putting him in danger. Meanwhile, they turned the head star reader into a machiavellian court figure whose screen presence was magnetic. Torogai’s whole journey to deliver exposition is cut; Sagum’s plotline is cut, and Touya and Saya’s side stories were also cut.
They pulled off Chagum’s development where the anime couldn’t. The anime had Chagum settle down for a while to learn to be a country kid, only for him to still be a crybaby and receive his major character development later (which I wouldn’t even classify as development) which just makes him look stupid because we spend all that time supposedly seeing him develop, only for it to be a waste of time. The live action cuts to the chase and lets Chagum know about his cruel fate early on leading to the same emotional scene that many said was the highlight of the anime. Only, in the anime, Chagum runs away because he thinks the palace would better protect him, like a little pussy, only for Balsa to chastise him for running away from those who love him. She tells him to come at her with the spear if he intends to do that. She ends up hugging him and telling her that she will do everything in her power to protect him. So the resolution for this whole thing is that Chagum should slip deeper into Balsa’s care, which makes him a weak character. In the live action, Chagum doesn’t run away to go back to the palace. He goes off to throw a tantrum because the only way he can deal with being utterly helpless in the face of a cruel and uncaring fate is to lash out in anger at fate itself. “Why me?” He keeps asking. I remember doing this exact thing when I was little and was faced with something that seemed unfairly thrown upon me that would cause me great pain and which I was helpless to do anything against. Balsa doesn’t comfort him at first; she just picks him up and carries him away. She tells him to go at her with her spear with the same anger that he showed before, and of course, he fails miserably. She tells him to not be afraid to live, and to affirm his life. Instead of hugging him, she tells him to get up and fight. Chagum cries on the ground, but picks up the spear and goes at her again. This guy is no pussy. He is physically weak, but mentally strong. This is what I’m talking about.
To supplement this, the entire time the live action makes the parallels between Balsa’s story and Chagum’s story a lot clearer. It’s apparent that Balsa also felt the same anger at her unfair circumstances as Chagum did, whereas in the anime was wiped clean of any of Balsa’s negative emotions toward her situation. Now, you can feel the raw emotions of young Balsa as she charges Jiguro with the spear again and again with a bloodied face, which she recalls as Chagum does the same thing in the present; Balsa’s connection to Chagum here is much more powerful. Furthermore, this version of Balsa didn’t just want to learn spear fighting to survive; she wanted to get revenge on the king of Kanbal for killing her father, and this just makes her all the more human and powerful as a character. When she tells her story to Chagum, Chagum decides that he also wants to do more than just survive; he doesn’t care what enemy he is fighting or even if he has an enemy to fight— he decides to be a fighter. This is him deciding that he was not simply going to be a victim of his circumstances, that he was not simply going to sit there and cry about what happened to him, that he was going to take charge of his own life and be a fighter. Compare this to the anime, where after Chagum hears Balsa’s story it’s not entirely clear why he wants to learn spear fighting. The reasoning he gives is that he wants to learn to defend himself, even if it’s only for a little bit, which is obviously a far cry from the fricking WILL TO POWER statement that live action Chagum made.
Because the tentacle creatures are established as threats because they actually kill people here, the final battle is more intense.
Maybe the anime actually did this but was just too subtle about it for me to notice, but the live action caps off Chagum’s development beautifully by framing his decision to go back to the palace and assume his role as the crown prince instead of staying with Balsa, as him not running away from what needed to be done— taking the harder path as opposed to the comforting embrace of Balsa. This goes back to the theme of embracing his destiny, even if it’s hard.
In general, comparing the anime to the live action version makes it quite apparent that the creators of the anime went out of their way to tailor the story for kids, making it all prim and proper, and by doing so they held it back. A telling line is during the final episode of the anime when Torogai commends Chagum for finally speaking his mind, whereas in the live action Chagum straight up tells Saya that she’s not pretty in the first episode.
I really wish more than just the first two books were translated into English and released over here. I think this is from a 12 novel series as the original source material.
Of course the live action is better. There's no way the anime wouldn't be worse with the way the writers make up stuff to stretch a single book over 26 episodes. The Deer King is also better than this anime. People only watched Moribito because it came out before the novel it's based on was translated. Now that The Beast Player novels have been fully translated into English, there is no reason for anyone to bother with its anime.
Lucifrost said: Of course the live action is better. There's no way the anime wouldn't be worse with the way the writers make up stuff to stretch a single book over 26 episodes. The Deer King is also better than this anime. People only watched Moribito because it came out before the novel it's based on was translated. Now that The Beast Player novels have been fully translated into English, there is no reason for anyone to bother with its anime.
You would think, but I thought I was suffering from cognitive dissonance with the way people were talking about how amazing the added content was and how nuanced the relationship between Balsa and Chagum was. Am I missing something here? Is it really THAT subtle?
And yeah it's a travesty what they did to Erin. In both cases here I think they made a mistake trying to sugarcoat the story for a younger audience. I wonder if you see the same pattern (the slow-ass pacing is obviously the same though).
I had actually completely glossed over the Deer King until you brought it up. Didn't know the author had three anime productions. Doesn't seem to have good reception though.
Recynon said: I had actually completely glossed over the Deer King until you brought it up. Didn't know the author had three anime productions. Doesn't seem to have good reception though.
If you read the movie's negative reviews, you'll see detractors complaining the pace is too fast. They want filler.
I don't think you have to worry about sugarcoating, as The Deer King is a fairly violent movie.
I have not seen the live action show but the way you describe its rendition of the mikado and the head star reader just sounds like 100% predictable, textbook villainy, and thus to me far more generic than what the anime offers.
Personally, one of my favourite things about the anime is specifically the fact that the mikado, the star readers and the warriors were ultimately just people trying to do their best working within the systems they were a part of and with the limited / degraded information that they had access to (remember the theme of imperial propaganda and how it damaged even the higher servants' understanding of history). When their understanding was challenged, they actually thought it over and mended their ways -- realistically at that, not in that stupid shounen cliche of "oh you beat me so I guess I was wrong and I'm gonna be your follower now".
Recynon said: In general, comparing the anime to the live action version makes it quite apparent that the creators of the anime went out of their way to tailor the story for kids, making it all prim and proper, and by doing so they held it back.
It's actually the novel itself that is quite kid friendly to begin with. With that in mind, though it expands some stuff, the anime is far more accurate tonally than the drama you describe. Again I haven't seen it but from your descriptions of the changes it just sounds to me like riding the coattails of Game of Thrones, The Witcher, and whatever other edgy fantasy is popular with brainrotted westoids who seem to believe that excessive melodrama and violence somehow constitutes depth and realism as they inject it into their veins like junkies, seemingly unable to appreciate anything more mellow and nuanced.
And yes I did enjoy a lot of the TV show's additions, but then again I'm also a fan of Aria, Haibane, Kino etc. so it might be a taste/genre thing. YMMV.
RoadsidePicnic said: I have not seen the live action show but the way you describe its rendition of the mikado and the head star reader just sounds like 100% predictable, textbook villainy, and thus to me far more generic than what the anime offers.
Personally, one of my favourite things about the anime is specifically the fact that the mikado, the star readers and the warriors were ultimately just people trying to do their best working within the systems they were a part of and with the limited / degraded information that they had access to (remember the theme of imperial propaganda and how it damaged even the higher servants' understanding of history). When their understanding was challenged, they actually thought it over and mended their ways -- realistically at that, not in that stupid shounen cliche of "oh you beat me so I guess I was wrong and I'm gonna be your follower now".
Recynon said: In general, comparing the anime to the live action version makes it quite apparent that the creators of the anime went out of their way to tailor the story for kids, making it all prim and proper, and by doing so they held it back.
It's actually the novel itself that is quite kid friendly to begin with. With that in mind, though it expands some stuff, the anime is far more accurate tonally than the drama you describe. Again I haven't seen it but from your descriptions of the changes it just sounds to me like riding the coattails of Game of Thrones, The Witcher, and whatever other edgy fantasy is popular with brainrotted westoids who seem to believe that excessive melodrama and violence somehow constitutes depth and realism as they inject it into their veins like junkies, seemingly unable to appreciate anything more mellow and nuanced.
And yes I did enjoy a lot of the TV show's additions, but then again I'm also a fan of Aria, Haibane, Kino etc. so it might be a taste/genre thing. YMMV.
First of all, I appreciate your thought-out response.
Secondly, I think I'm making the live action seem like GOT in my post because I'm contrasting it with the anime. Relative to the anime, which is mellow, the live action is grittier. However, I am also not someone who enjoys watching gritty fantasies like GOT or The Witcher, for precisely the reason that you mentioned: too edgy. But no, the live action is nowhere close to being too edgy, having excessive melodrama, and being too violent. It still maintains that "everyone doing their best with the info they have" thing while being grittier than the anime. And also, from what I can tell (I haven't seen much of western fantasy), the characters in shows like GOT are darker, but they are not less nuanced. And for that matter, I don't think characters like Shuga and Chagum, being as pure as they are, are nuanced. Although I don't agree with the dark approach of these western fantasy shows you cite, the anime is guilty of going too far in the opposite direction. In particular, episode 13 weasels its way out of having Balsa confront her no-killing rule. In another example, the soldiers chasing Chagum are easily dismissed by a single speech from Torogai.
And to be clear, I have no particular gripe with a lack of an especially villainous antagonist. However, in most cases, depending on the series, I'd still require that the story has tension/struggle/conflict coming from SOMEWHERE. The anime has slow pacing and a lack of threat, so there's no tension from the plot. There isn't a of interpersonal conflict. There isn't a lot of intrapersonal conflict (the characters don't struggle much with their internal weaknesses). So little tension from the characters. There doesn't need to be a lot of tension, but more than was shown in the anime, where it felt like it felt like there was an active effort to water down things. The novel is indeed for kids, but the anime made it even more so. For example Chagum isn't as perfect as he is in the anime. He gets actually pouts for a while when he learns of his fate. There's also no scene where he runs away only for Balsa to reassure him of her love for him. Also, the addition of the middle portions by the anime slowed the pacing in a way that also made the story feel more saccharine, since Chagum is treated to an extended stretch of comfort before he learns of his fate, as opposed to learning of his ghastly fate shortly after Balsa gets injured protecting him. So I wouldn't say the anime is more tonally accurate, especially if you said that thinking that the live action is akin to GOT.
As for the Emperor and the Star Reader, I don't agree that they show textbook villainy, but I encourage you to watch the first season of the live action for yourself. It's only 4 1 hour episodes and it's free on Amazon.
And it probably is, in large part, a genre taste thing. But I'd also argue that the show calls for more tension/struggle because of the way it's set up; the fate of an entire kingdom is at stake, the life of one of the main characters could be lost, and powerful forces of nature are at play. The tension/struggle is low RELATIVE to how big the scale/themes/threat level are.
