Japanese cartoons have inspired many film directors and today it’s quite fashionable to make live-action anime films with real actors.
Yatterman, the movie
The film "Dragon Ball" was launched not long ago. It was filmed with real people rather than as an animation. This US production, based on a Japanese anime series, has been very controversial among Dragon Ball fans in China who do not like the new version since, among other things, the protagonist’s name has been changed and the Turtle Master is not as perverted as they expected.
But it’s not just Americans who dare dress flesh-and-blood people up as anime characters; films and series based on animes are also trendy in Japan. Here is a sample:
GeGeGe no Kitaro
It’s a manga series created in 1959 by Shigeru Mizuki and many people say it’s the best folklore anime. The main characters are creatures known as yōkai, a specie of spirits-monsters that all the main characters are a part of. It’s been adapted for the screen on several occasions, both as an anime series and as a video game.
Kitaro, the protagonist, is an yōkai boy who’s father is an Eye Ball called Medama-oyaji. With the help of his friends, Kitaro fights for peace between humans and the yōkai.
Yatterman
Yatterman is a Japanese anime TV series that began in 1977 and was very popular. Now, after all this time, it’s returned to television with a revamped animation style, and a live-action film version has been launched simultaneously in movie theaters.
The God of Thieves Dokuirobei sends his crony Doronbo to carry out evil plans. Yatterman fights against them with his robots and some very amusing mechanical contraptions.
Sailor Moon
The series was especially famous because it made the Magical Girls genre popular again. Its sentai (army) elements made it just as popular among males in the audience, who are generally less interested in these types of stories.
It recounts the adventures of Usagi, a very absent-minded and imprudent teenage girl. Usagi accidentally meets a cat named Luna, who tells her about her mission as Sailor Senshi (a soldier in a schoolgirl’s uniform) and about how she must save the world from villains. In time, the other sailor senshis emerge. They are joined throughout the series by more allies and new enemies. And, in general, the plot begins to thicken a little at a time.