Poll: Game of Thrones as an Anime (Animation) show

[TheIronRuler]

Ladies and Gentlemen, here I show my most outragious idea yet - Make a Game of Thrones animation show. It is the only way to truly grasp the books as they were, show the large, epic battles described on print and show the massive ensemble... After all, some book-lovers might be complaining at the translation of Game of Thrones into thee tv show- but what if it's translated into animation?

Imagine the mountain fighting the viper, the massive wall being assaulted by thousands of wildlings and giants-riding-on-mammoths... Imagine The battle of the Blackwater in all of its splendor, with massive ships, carnage outside the walls and Davos's kids burnt to ashes...Imagine the sack of Meereen, the massive dragons of the last Targaryen, the battle of the whispering woods...

Anyway, what's your opinion? Can Game of Thrones work in animation?

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

It's like arguing whether the Lord of the Rings was better as an animated movie or as Peter Jackson's trilogy. An animation allowed pretty unfeasible scenes and unique character designs to come to life without donning rubber suits or abusing CG graphics. But Peter Jackson's trilogy showed that it's still possible to have enormous battles and make it look good and exciting without sacrificing creative assets.

No real right answer, but I think most of us think the live action show is pretty faithful and isn't falling too short of what we wanted.

 

[Hagi]

Considering how the vast majority of fantasy anime looks I'd say rather not...

I mean it could work... Or it could turn out as your average anime...

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Uguu, Jonaru Sno-Chan!

This sounds terrible.

 

[Lilani]

Ladies and Gentlemen, here I show my most outragious idea yet - Make a Game of Thrones animation show. It is the only way to truly grasp the books as they were, show the large, epic battles described on print and show the massive ensemble... After all, some book-lovers might be complaining at the translation of Game of Thrones into thee tv show- but what if it's translated into animation?

Imagine the mountain fighting the viper, the massive wall being assaulted by thousands of wildlings and giants-riding-on-mammoths... Imagine The battle of the Blackwater in all of its splendor, with massive ships, carnage outside the walls and Davos's kids burnt to ashes...Imagine the sack of Meereen, the massive dragons of the last Targaryen, the battle of the whispering woods...

Anyway, what's your opinion? Can Game of Thrones work in animation?

I'm not really a purist when it comes to any medium. I don't know a lot about Game of Thrones, but if it works as a TV show I don't see why it can't work as an animated show or film. Or at least it would be worth a shot. The one major thing animation has over live-action is that no matter how advanced CGI gets, you can still tell when something is CGI, and for some reason those elements just don't seem to have the same weight as other things. I don't know if it's something that's actually wrong with the animation, or just that you're aware that it isn't real, but somehow you can always tell when something isn't quite there. But with animation, since everything is in the same medium already, so not only is that problem already nonexistant, but you can stylize things and push the limits of physics and physicality even further.

Just one thing: "anime" and "animation" aren't quite the same thing. "Anime" is the Japanese word for animation, but in English the word is used to refer to Japanese animation exclusively.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I don't know but I would watch a anime adaptation of game of thrones made by the studio that created Attack on Titan.

It would be hilarious and badass at the same time.

 

[chimeracreator]

I'm not really a purist when it comes to any medium. I don't know a lot about Game of Thrones, but if it works as a TV show I don't see why it can't work as an animated show or film. Or at least it would be worth a shot. The one major thing animation has over live-action is that no matter how advanced CGI gets, you can still tell when something is CGI, and for some reason those elements just don't seem to have the same weight as other things. I don't know if it's something that's actually wrong with the animation, or just that you're aware that it isn't real, but somehow you can always tell when something isn't quite there. But with animation, since everything is in the same medium already, so not only is that problem already nonexistant, but you can stylize things and push the limits of physics and physicality even further.

However one of the issues that animation has over a cast of good actors is that layered emotion cannot be conveyed as deeply in an animated environment. While we are getting better at it, even Pixar is forced to use vastly overstated facial expressions and eye movements to provide half of the meaning that Charles Dance (Tywinn Lannister) can transmit with a glance and a hand gesture.

Roughly half of all meaning in our communications comes from non-verbal cues, and losing that in favor of a gross approximation isn't a good thing. That said if Game of Thrones had a cast of inferior actors then it would be very possible for animated characters to do a better job than them, but it doesn't, which is why so many people fell in love with Pedro Pascal's portrayal of Oberyn Martell and loathed King Joffrey.

 

[Funyahns]

Anything anime can be done well. It is just a matter of getting a really skilled team together in order to get it done.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Uguu, Jonaru Sno-Chan!

This sounds terrible.

Yup, cause that's all that anime ever does. Not an exaggeration at all. Solid truth.

/sarcasm.

OT: I'm not sure. The show is fairly faithful to the original material, but I don't think an animated version would make the show that much better. Sure, the action scenes would be better, but GoT has primarily focused on the characters and the politics. Action is secondary.

Plus, it would be really hard to portray some of the characters well in an animated format. Tywin, for example, has a certain presence and confidence about him that will be very difficult to pull off without a real actor (especially one as awesome as Charles Dance). I hope I'm making sense here, it's a bit hard to explain.

 

[Timmaaaah]

It's definitely slow paced enough to be an anime.

 

[RandV80]

While I'm not a fan of the way anime has been trending in recent years, I would say yes just on principle.

Right now A Song of Ice and Fire is absolutely perfect on HBO. The series is far too long for the theater, but the fantasy elements & battles are light enough that you can do it justice on a high budget TV series. In effect 'Game of Thrones' doesn't need an anime adaption. You could say the same thing for Lord of the Rings, the movies were just perfect so you don't really need to bring it to screen in animated format.

Those two are covered...but what about the rest of the genre? If ASoIF is light enough on fantasy/battles for TV, and Lord of the Rings is short enough for a movie trilogy, what about something like Malazan: Book of the Fallen which overflowing with high fantasy and big epic battles? Or more of a cliche fantasy what about Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Or my current favourite, how about a visual representation of Brandon Sanderson storm wracked world in the Storm Light Archives (2/10 books, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance completed)?

For the last one it's the first time I've begun buying it by the hardcovers because the artwork is

Spoiler

ridiculously

Spoiler

good

Spoiler

The young women above is a talented artist and aspiring scholar, and she illustrates what she sees in her travels with a Charles Darwin-like diligence. Her work in-story is then brought to life in between-chapters illustrations.

.

Anyways getting back to my point, in Japan these sorts of creative works gets brought to life through animation: anime. It's not all just manga/comic adaptions, series like the fantasy adventure Slayers or the modern suspense thriller Monster (honestly I'm not sure how to classify it, but it's awesome) were born as written works before being brought to a visual medium through anime.

What do we get in the West though? Animation is children's entertainment, so with a few very rare exceptions all these wonderful written works stay on the page. Nothing wrong with that, I love reading, but I've always been envious that the Japanese get to see their stuff animated as well.

Oh and for the OP, anime creators have to work within budgets too. While it's easier to bring all sorts of fantastical or sci-fi elements to the screen, lengthy action sequences or scenes crowded with people can quickly eat up a budget. Much of he cliche Dragon Ball Z stuff was born out of this necessity.

 

[Fox12]

Ladies and Gentlemen, here I show my most outragious idea yet - Make a Game of Thrones animation show. It is the only way to truly grasp the books as they were, show the large, epic battles described on print and show the massive ensemble... After all, some book-lovers might be complaining at the translation of Game of Thrones into thee tv show- but what if it's translated into animation?

Imagine the mountain fighting the viper, the massive wall being assaulted by thousands of wildlings and giants-riding-on-mammoths... Imagine The battle of the Blackwater in all of its splendor, with massive ships, carnage outside the walls and Davos's kids burnt to ashes...Imagine the sack of Meereen, the massive dragons of the last Targaryen, the battle of the whispering woods...

Anyway, what's your opinion? Can Game of Thrones work in animation?

They already have this. It's called Berserk, and it's better than Game of Thrones by far. You should check it out, if you like fantasy.

 

[smithy_2045]

No. If it's animated, the emotional impact is reduced to near nothing on the majority of people.

 

[Souplex]

As someone who dislikes most Japanime, and doesn't watch Game of Thrones, I can only hazard a guess as to what that would be like.

Spoiler: So it would be somewhere between this...

Spoiler: ...And this?

(If I didn't tell you that second one was a parody, would you have realized it?)

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Oh ye gods no. I really like anime, but this would be a terrible idea.

There'd be stupid angles where the camera pauses on someone blushing, shitty internal monologues, uber shitty romance plots, the incestuous chick would be turned into a tsundere, Deneres would be weak as fuck and constantly dependent on a man, just, no, purge it, burn it with fire.

I'm gonna go scrub my eyes with steel wool to permanently remove these images which have burned themselves onto my eyes.

 

[Julius Terrell]

I'm not really a purist when it comes to any medium. I don't know a lot about Game of Thrones, but if it works as a TV show I don't see why it can't work as an animated show or film. Or at least it would be worth a shot. The one major thing animation has over live-action is that no matter how advanced CGI gets, you can still tell when something is CGI, and for some reason those elements just don't seem to have the same weight as other things. I don't know if it's something that's actually wrong with the animation, or just that you're aware that it isn't real, but somehow you can always tell when something isn't quite there. But with animation, since everything is in the same medium already, so not only is that problem already nonexistant, but you can stylize things and push the limits of physics and physicality even further.

However one of the issues that animation has over a cast of good actors is that layered emotion cannot be conveyed as deeply in an animated environment. While we are getting better at it, even Pixar is forced to use vastly overstated facial expressions and eye movements to provide half of the meaning that Charles Dance (Tywinn Lannister) can transmit with a glance and a hand gesture.

Roughly half of all meaning in our communications comes from non-verbal cues, and losing that in favor of a gross approximation isn't a good thing. That said if Game of Thrones had a cast of inferior actors then it would be very possible for animated characters to do a better job than them, but it doesn't, which is why so many people fell in love with Pedro Pascal's portrayal of Oberyn Martell and loathed King Joffrey.

How about I call bullshit on this statement. I've been watching Japanese anime my entire life and I'll be damnned if I'm ever going to agree with this statement. Anything that has been done with live-action can be done with the animated medium.

I've felt every emotion that one can feel just because there was that multi-layered emotion there. If anything live actors have to work harder to make me feel the same way.

If you've seen Record of Lodoss War then I'd say it can most certainly be done. It's all about the right studio will to give the right amount of effort.

Go watch Fist of the North Star or Gundam 0079 or Macross Plus and dare to make that statement afterwards.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The show is doing a pretty damn good job, so it'd have to be top-quality animation, but it's a much of a muchness to me. There are character elements that would be easier to do in animation and the effects would be broader, but the action might not have as much weight. It's hard to say without having it here to compare. I think hypothetically both methods could be excellent, but what we have is live-action and I can't say I'm disappointed.

 

[Reaper195]

Considering that people seem to be saying Attack on Titan is a great fantasy show...get fucked.