Rumor: High School Musical Heartthrob Offered Lead Role in Akira Movie

[faceless chick]

noooooo..damn you hollywood!




...
again!

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

I actually could care less about Zac Effron being the lead role, that is if he can manage it without making it all lame.

Rather, i'm annoyed about this

Warner Bros. is said to be aiming for a PG-13 rating, which may mean a lot of content gets cut or otherwise altered.

making Akira pg-13 would probably ruin the whole thing.

 

[eljawa]

I dont know. On 0one hand, I cannot think of many teenage actors to play the part. ANd while I cannot picture Efron doing it well, he hasnt ever had a role outside of a theatrical character and he normally does a fine job (I didnt see Orson Wells and Me but his performance was praised I think)

I think that the changing it to America and "New Manhattan" is a must, I mean...itd be weird to have a western movie in Japan. But I think that stylistically it should stay more true to the 1988 movie, which would lead to a visual style like that in The Matrix.

anyhow, I can dig this

 

[Zeriercahl]

Efron is a fine young actor, and he does have the POTENTIAL to play crazy roles, what I don't like is that they want to make Akira PG-13. A rated R animation into a live-action PG-13 movie. No...just no

I agree ^
High School Musical is pretty stupid but if any particular actor is believable enough it won't really bother me. However, Akira, PG-13? Did they even read it?
In my eyes Hollywood is shit and has been for some time. Everyone notices all the remakes and/or rehashes they've been doing for the past few years, but no one seems to be talking about how crappy they ALL were. Very few good movies come from Hollywood anymore and when they do they're from visionary directors or something like The Dark Knight, Inception, and Avatar.

To be fair though I liked The Karate Kid remake.

 

[A1]

Well, the Akira animated film was badly written, horribly paced and an hour too long so maybe the new live-action one will be okay. Impossible to judge Zac's suitability for the role as he's never done anything like this, but surely he wouldn't have been hired if people didn't think he could do it justice.

The live action one will be okay? There isn't much, if anything, to indicate that.

The whole thing totally reeks of racial foul play.

I don't know, the new Akira movie would have to be pretty awful to be worse than the old one. It's not the worst film ever or anything but certainly one of the most disproportionately crap ones compared to the amount of hype and critical acclaim it received. I saw the thing in the cinema when it came out (yes I'm that old), and god what a massive letdown it was.

There's no reason why the thing has to be Japanese - apart from, of course to appeal to irrationally Japan-obsessed fanboys. Any story that is any good at all can be easily transposed to any other setting with only superficial changes and still work, just look at how well the Shakespeare works adapt to different settings.

First of all, I never said anything at all about the original film. I'm just referring to this version.

No reason? How about respect for the source material, issues of racial sensitivity, issues of cultural sensitivity, issues of racial diversity, and issues of racial equality.

You also seem to be contradicting yourself. First you go on about how bad the original film allegedly is and then you seem to be comparing it to Shakespeare. And besides, if the whole PG-13 thing is accurate then it would seem very likely that the changes are going to be far from superficial.

At this point there doesn't seem to be any real reason to believe that this film is going to be anything other than a repeat of Dragonball Evolution or worse.

Cultural sensitivity? I can only see good cultural things coming from Akira being divorced from Japanese culture, maybe the new version will be less creepily misogynist as a result. "Respect for the source material" obviously doesn't stack up either because the people making the film would had to have asked the makers of the source material for permission to even do this, and it was obviously granted, so if it's okay by them, then they've given the source material all the respect it requires. As for racial issues that's just laughably silly and I'm not even going to go there, aside from that if you believe that's an issue, you obviously feel that no media object should ever be remade by another culture ever, so I guess you're against Bollywood, Spaghetti Western, and.... wait for it.... Anime.

My point with Shakespeare wasn't to compare it to Akira, my point was only that if source material is any good, it can stand up while being reinterpreted into different settings just fine, as long as the people doing it are competent enough at it, so it's therefore stupid for people to whine about this new interpretation that's going to happen without even giving it a chance, especially if they think the source material is good. I haven't read the Akira book/comic/whatever so I don't actually know if the source material is decent or not. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I wasn't passing a judgement on that, that wasn't really the point of what I was saying.

So it would seem that what you're saying essentially boils down to "Yes it may be culturally insensitive but the culture in question pretty much sucks anyway so it's okay" or something along those lines. Or in other words it seems to boil down to simply "Cultural insensitivity? So what?" Now I'm not going to debate what's misogynistic and what's not because that's pretty much beside the point. But I will say that it's not really fair or accurate of you to make a such a generalization of Japanese culture. Japan certainly has it's share of feminism and manga is actually popular among female writers in Japan. On top of that, Hayao Miyazaki for example is a strong feminist and this is reflected very well in his work. And misogyny is by no means a Japanese thing, it's pretty much a human race thing. It has been, and still is, present in virtually all human cultures and societies, including American culture and society.

"Obviously" you say? You seem to be getting rather presumptuous. And you're not really correct. They wouldn't have to ask the makers for permission, they would have to ask whomever own the copyrights. And creators and copyright owners are by no means one and the same. This is known as the "work-for-hire" principal. Probably one of the best known demonstrations of this reality was when Marv Wolfman, the creator of Blade, sued Marvel for actual ownership of the character (and lost). Another example is the upcoming film adaptation of "The Weapon". The main character in the comic book is Chinese American but for the film the role has been given to a white guy. The co-creator of the comic, Fred Van Lente, has expressed disappointment with this decision.

You seem to be implying that getting permission from the copyright owner makes it okay to do whatever one wants with something. That may be true from a legal standpoint but from an ethical one it's not so clear to say the least. If the copyright owners are business people (which they often are apparently) and not the actual creators that generally creates a problem because the primary concern of business people is to make money and not champion their own culture or ethnicity or anything like that. And who's to say if the business people who own a copyright are actually okay with someone else's treatment of the material? They may not actually be okay with it but nevertheless allow it for purely pragmatic reasons.

A notable opposite of this kind of thing would be Hayao Miyazaki. He was very unhappy with the original American released version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and took measures to insure that such a thing would never happen again such as his "no cuts" policy. And even if the actual creator gives permission that doesn't necessarily make it okay either. Ursula K. Le Guin sold the rights to the Earthsea stories that she created and ultimately regretted it. She has been rather vocal with her disappointment with the TV adaption of her books and the lack of respect that her creation received.

Laughably silly you say? American movies companies have a long and well-established history of favoring white actors and this practice is by all accounts still alive and well today. This is problematic in and of itself but it becomes even worse if we're dealing with source material that calls for actors of color. A good example would probably be Anansi Boys. According to Neil Gaiman moviemakers wanted him to turn the two black main characters white for the film adaptation of Anansi Boys but he said no. Another example would be the casting of Mickey Rourke to play Genghis Khan in the upcoming film. And of course we have this recent controversy surrounding the casting of The Last Airbender. There are other examples I could name but I believe that I've made my point.

Although America has made considerable progress in this area, racial inequality is still alive today. Notably in the entertainment industry. So you say that the fight for racial equality is silly? That fight for fair and equal representation for people of color is silly? That's too bad. That really is just too bad.


You say I "obviously" feel? Once again you seem to be getting presumptuous. You seem to be claiming that there is a direct correlation between believing race is an issue and being against Anime, Bollywood, and Spaghetti Westerns. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, if any. And on top of that you're wrong. I have nothing against anime, or Bollywood, or Spaghetti Westerns. I have no problem with abstract concepts like animation or business models being adopted into different cultures and societies. The concept of animation for example is not inherently linked to western peoples or cultures. What I'm referring to are specific titles that ARE inherently linked to a certain people and/or culture and Akira falls into this category.

By contrast I really don't have any problem with the upcoming American live-action film adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. Why? Because the main characters were never in any way, shape, or form established as Asian and could quite plausibly be played by white actors.

Personally, I never said that I wasn't willing to give the film a chance. There may be at least one or two VERY small reasons to hope. Supposedly Katsuhiro Otomo, the actual creator of the original manga and director of the original film, is an executive producer for the film (although this hasn't been officially confirmed to the best of my knowledge) and all this Zac Efron business is nothing but rumor. But nevertheless I remain pessimistic. And I really don't think that the idea of people not giving the film a chance is not as "stupid" as you seem to believe. A lot of people just don't trust American companies with anime and manga. In fact a lot of people were given reason to distrust them when Dragonball Evolution came out. There really doesn't seem to be any good or real reason to believe that American companies are "competent enough" as you put it.

Nevertheless I'm still holding out a very small hope that something at least halfway decent could still come out of this rather unfortunate looking situation.

Oh and by the way, your previous apparent implication that only "japan obsessed fanboys" would be unhappy with with the whitewashing of Akira is totally misguided. Don't believe me? Just check out Racebending.com.

 

[Serge A. Storms]

This is just the beginning, shooting for a "PG-13" rating, Zac Efron playing Kaneda, this is becoming the movie version of "The Mask," next thing you know that scene with Tetsuo plowing through the military will be replaced with a big dance routine.

 

[Wintermoot]

NO just NO! nonononononononononononononononononono NO! a blond western guy who only played in shitty disney movies playing a Japanese kid from the streets WHERE THEY HIGH?!
PS. a PG-13 RATING?! was the original writer EVEN INVOLVED?! this is gonna FAIL on so many levels

 

[digotw]

ITS FUCKING DRAGONBALL ALL OVER AGAIN

 

[BonsaiK]

gosh

Wow, you put a lot of work into that. Apologies in advance for the short reply you're going to get.

I think the weight that you're giving Akira is slightly disproportionate to the actual content of what the thing is (I say this having only seen the original film of course). Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that it's some special and unique snowflake worthy of "cultural protection".

Japanese culture and media is very misogynistic in general, that's a fact which is pretty easily verifiable, especially if you're a woman travelling to Japan, as a few of my friends did to teach those TESOL courses and boy did they have a few quaint illusions shattered for them. Exceptions like Miyazaki do exist but damn, there's sure not many of them...

Making a big deal of racial issues that don't actually exist is a subtle form of racism IMO.

EDIT: to give that last comment a bit more context because I know you're going to jump on my ass about it, all cultural artifacts get reappropriated when transferred to different cultures. It doesn't matter what culture A is and what culture B is. Of course the west is going to reinterpret Anime/Manga/whatever in terms of how it sees fit, just like Japan has reinterpreted (completely random example) western punk rock into things like this:


Disrespectful racist cultural thievery, affectionate tribute, or just a few girls having fun? My point here is that maybe the people working on the new Akira actually really like and respect it. Not a certainty but definitely a possibility.

 

[A1]

gosh

Wow, you put a lot of work into that. Apologies in advance for the short reply you're going to get.

I think the weight that you're giving Akira is slightly disproportionate to the actual content of what the thing is (I say this having only seen the original film of course). Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that it's some special and unique snowflake worthy of "cultural protection".

Japanese culture and media is very misogynistic in general, that's a fact which is pretty easily verifiable, especially if you're a woman travelling to Japan, as a few of my friends did to teach those TESOL courses and boy did they have a few quaint illusions shattered for them. Exceptions like Miyazaki do exist but damn, there's sure not many of them...

Making a big deal of racial issues that don't actually exist is a subtle form of racism IMO.

EDIT: to give that last comment a bit more context because I know you're going to jump on my ass about it, all cultural artifacts get reappropriated when transferred to different cultures. It doesn't matter what culture A is and what culture B is. Of course the west is going to reinterpret Anime/Manga/whatever in terms of how it sees fit, just like Japan has reinterpreted (completely random example) western punk rock into things like this:


Disrespectful racist cultural thievery, affectionate tribute, or just a few girls having fun? My point here is that maybe the people working on the new Akira actually really like and respect it. Not a certainty but definitely a possibility.

You really don't seem to get it.

I'm not giving any weight to Akira. At what point did I try to argue that Akira was actually good or that it couldn't be interpreted as misogynistic? I didn't.

And a few anecdotal accounts don't really add up to much, if anything. What's actually verifiable is that there is misogyny present in Japanese culture, likely even to the point where it can easily be said that there is plenty of it. But on the other hand there are also more examples of the opposite also being present in Japanese culture than you seem to think or know. There are a number of Japanese works that portray women in an empowering and/or sympathetic light such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Aoi Hana, Simoun, Nana, Sasameki Koto, arguably Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Love my Life, Free Soul, Saki, Maria-sama ga Miteru, arguably Blood+, El Cazador de la Bruja, Avenger, Red Garden, .hack/Liminality, Patlabor, Seraphim Call, Serial Experiments Lain, arguably Boogiepop Phantom, and Blue Drop.

I could go on but I believe I've made my point.

I really don't care for generalizations like the one you're making because they often don't give the whole picture and the one you're making is no exception. And as I said before it's not fair to single Japan out for this because there is also plenty of misogyny in America culture as well as elsewhere in the world. There by all accounts seems to be both good and bad stuff in all human cultures and societies. Simple as that.


But seriously, ENOUGH about all this misogyny stuff because while it may make for some interesting conversation it's totally beside the point here. My main point is the issue of race.


Punk rock is a genre and a more abstract concept that isn't inherently tied to any one people or ethnicity and can plausibly be adopted by other cultures. The same can be said of the basic concepts of Anime and Manga. For example I don't have any problem with Original English Language Manga like Aoi House or American works that use Manga styles and characteristics as a template like Marvel's Mangaverse. I also don't have any problem with Western shows that draw heavily from anime styles like Avatar: The Last Airbender (the television series) and The Boondocks.

I'm talking about SPECIFICS here because that's when the issue of race tends to come into play. Like I told you I have no problem with the upcoming American live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop because the main characters were not in any way, shape, or form established as Asian. For example I don't have any problem the character of Spike Spiegel being played by Keanu Reeves. There are also a number of other anime titles that I would be at least curious about seeing adapted into American live action because they don't actually take place in Japan and they prominently feature and/or star non-Asian characters (or at the very least characters that are not established in any way, shape, or form as Asian). Some other examples besides Cowboy Bebop would be Gunslinger Girl, Eureka Seven, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Baccano, El Cazador de la Bruja, Madlax, Red Garden, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and Monster.

Once again I could go on but I think that's enough for me to make my point.

And no, Akira is not some special and unique snowflake. But it is different from the titles I just named because it actually takes place in Japan and more to the point stars Asian characters. In fact pretty much all of the characters in the film are Asian and thus it's exactly the kind of thing that the American movie industry shouldn't be trusted with in light of it's rather unfortunate track record with regard to the issue of race. And of course there are plenty of other anime and manga titles that feature casts of characters that are mostly, if not completely, Asian. Supposedly there is also an American live action movie adaptation of Bleach being considered. I am also very concerned about this because like Akira, Bleach is also very Japan-centric and the cast is mostly, if not entirely, Asian including the main protagonist.

And I never said that it wasn't a possibility that the people handling the Akira adaptation really like and respect it. But it by all accounts would seem to be a very small possibility and the viewers have been given little, in any, reason to think otherwise. And even if they do that doesn't automatically justify anything that they may choose to do with it.


Racial issues that don't exist you say? From this I get the impression that you buy into the idea of post-raciality and possibly also "reverse racism".

Neil Gaiman's experience with Anansi Boys did happen. Dev Patel did have trouble finding a decent role despite the success of Slumdog Millionaire (although I would say that it's rather ironic that this led him to audition for a part in "The Last Airbender"). According to him all he was getting offered were stereotypical parts like "the goofy Indian sidekick". A caucasian actor (John Wayne) played Genghis Kahn in 1956 and the exact same thing is going to be happening in 2013 with Mickey Rourke.

But these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

You don't even have to take my word for it. As I've already indicated the people at Racebending.com have done a good of talking about the issue.

But there's also a rather clever video about Yellowface. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Yellowface&aq=f


On top of that there is also a wonderful five part documentary available for viewing on youtube. Here are the links for all five parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgcksOQwjDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0CH_jwabRs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xksxz-1yFfs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TOYT4JTea4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrpNv4QXblU&feature=related


And furthermore you can also check out the Documentary film: "The Slanted Screen".


This issue is indeed very real. That I guarantee.

 

[PrimoThePro]

they dont neeed to make this movie Akira was perfect the first time. this just seems to me to be endemic of the lack of imagination in hollywood.

I fully support the man with the awesome Avatar, that this movie just shouldn't be. One more thing, if they were gonna do it at all, High School Musical is NOT the place to look for talent.

 

[BonsaiK]

more gosh

That's very articulate and you make a lot of good points, but Akira's setting in Japan is incidental. It's only set in Japan because a Japanese guy wrote it, so he set it in Japan because he felt like it. It could have been set in any big city, there's no reason why it couldn't be Neo-New York or Neo-Paris instead of Neo-Toyko. If a New Zealander came up with the idea it might have been Neo-Auckland. There's nothing about the story that suggests that is HAS to stay in Japan, just like gangster films don't have to stay in New York and can quite easily be transposed to Mumbai with an all-Indian cast...

 

[A1]

more gosh

That's very articulate and you make a lot of good points, but Akira's setting in Japan is incidental. It's only set in Japan because a Japanese guy wrote it, so he set it in Japan because he felt like it. It could have been set in any big city, there's no reason why it couldn't be Neo-New York or Neo-Paris instead of Neo-Toyko. If a New Zealander came up with the idea it might have been Neo-Auckland. There's nothing about the story that suggests that is HAS to stay in Japan, just like gangster films don't have to stay in New York and can quite easily be transposed to Mumbai with an all-Indian cast...

Incidental? That might very well be true. However, I'm afraid it's also beside the point. People can pretty much take any established story and change it in whatever way they want and that doesn't automatically make it okay. I can actually think of maybe one or two ways that this adaptation could be done perhaps reasonably well and at least somewhat tastefully. For example they could make a wholly original story set in America and pay tribute to the original work by talking extensively about how a very similar incident to what was happening now happened in Japan at one point. Preferably with a one hundred percent original main character like say a female African American scientist for example. I would say it may be ideally done with an appearance of the original titular character being played by an Asian boy. But as it stands now they simply seem to be going with a bad mimicry approach not unlike the one that was used with Dragonball Evolution and The Last Airbender. Or in other words they simply seem to taking the original characters and changing their race (and even seemingly their names in this case). And that's not good for reasons that I believe have already been established.

As I said it's possible that something at least halfway decent could come out of this and the whole Zac Efron thing is after all nothing but rumor. But if history is any indication it would really seem to be best to keep one's expectations low. And that's not even taking into account all of this PG-13 stuff.

 

[BonsaiK]

more gosh

That's very articulate and you make a lot of good points, but Akira's setting in Japan is incidental. It's only set in Japan because a Japanese guy wrote it, so he set it in Japan because he felt like it. It could have been set in any big city, there's no reason why it couldn't be Neo-New York or Neo-Paris instead of Neo-Toyko. If a New Zealander came up with the idea it might have been Neo-Auckland. There's nothing about the story that suggests that is HAS to stay in Japan, just like gangster films don't have to stay in New York and can quite easily be transposed to Mumbai with an all-Indian cast...

Incidental? That might very well be true. However, I'm afraid it's also beside the point. People can pretty much take any established story and change it in whatever way they want and that doesn't automatically make it okay.

I guess that's where we differ because I think transposing any story of any kind into any other setting is completely fine and dandy. You seem to think that it's morally wrong unless certain conditions are met. I say screw the conditions, if I'm producing a film and I want to remake Akira in 17th Century France, with Justin Bieber in the lead role (make it a musical too fuck yeah) and an all-female supporting cast and they all ride giant swans instead of motorcycles and Tetsuo is a big goldfish, then that would be fan-fucking-tastic, and if the copyright holder or whoever gives me the green light, then damn I'm going to do it and I might even get Uwe Boll to direct it just to piss people off. And yes, don't doubt that I would do all of this if I had the money and could talk the required parties into it. And people would even go and watch it, and they'd go "oh that's so revolting" and write negative reviews on internet forums while secretly loving it...

 

[A1]

more gosh

That's very articulate and you make a lot of good points, but Akira's setting in Japan is incidental. It's only set in Japan because a Japanese guy wrote it, so he set it in Japan because he felt like it. It could have been set in any big city, there's no reason why it couldn't be Neo-New York or Neo-Paris instead of Neo-Toyko. If a New Zealander came up with the idea it might have been Neo-Auckland. There's nothing about the story that suggests that is HAS to stay in Japan, just like gangster films don't have to stay in New York and can quite easily be transposed to Mumbai with an all-Indian cast...

Incidental? That might very well be true. However, I'm afraid it's also beside the point. People can pretty much take any established story and change it in whatever way they want and that doesn't automatically make it okay.

I guess that's where we differ because I think transposing any story of any kind into any other setting is completely fine and dandy. You seem to think that it's morally wrong unless certain conditions are met. I say screw the conditions, if I'm producing a film and I want to remake Akira in 17th Century France, with Justin Bieber in the lead role (make it a musical too fuck yeah) and an all-female supporting cast and they all ride giant swans instead of motorcycles and Tetsuo is a big goldfish, then that would be fan-fucking-tastic, and if the copyright holder or whoever gives me the green light, then damn I'm going to do it and I might even get Uwe Boll to direct it just to piss people off. And yes, don't doubt that I would do all of this if I had the money and could talk the required parties into it. And people would even go and watch it, and they'd go "oh that's so revolting" and write negative reviews on internet forums while secretly loving it...

Don't get me wrong, I very firmly think that the most ideal thing to do would be to have the live action movie take place in Japan (although not necessarily actually filmed in Japan) and have the same characters being played by Asian actors, if not Japanese actors. And it would best if the overall story or mythos, perhaps also taking into account the original manga, is at least basically the same with maybe a few twists here and there, not really unlike what was done with the Sin City film adaptation. I think that this would be best for Asians, Asian Americans, people of color in general, and possibly even human society in general (although I admit that the "human society in general" part might be a least a bit of a stretch).

And if they're not going to do that then the next best thing would be to do nothing and call off the whole thing.

And if they're not going to do that then the next best thing after that would be to pay good tribute to the original work in the way I described in my last post or perhaps at least something similar on at least a very basic level to what I described.

And if they're not going to do even that then I would say that quite frankly we are all more or less totally screwed.


Now to respond to your post:

I actually appreciate your honesty. However if what you say is true then no offense but we really don't seem to have anything more to talk about. To take an original work and change it pretty much beyond recognition (or butcher or mangle it as some might say) despite any issues involved, racial or otherwise. If you really are fine with this kind of thing then so be it. That's your problem, not mine.

 

[Mr Fixit]

I don't really care about the actor, but PG-13, Fuck you Warner Bros any remake of Akira NEEDS to be R, nothing else will do it justice.

 

[BonsaiK]

Don't get me wrong, I very firmly think that the most ideal thing to do would be to have the live action movie take place in Japan (although not necessarily actually filmed in Japan) and have the same characters being played by Asian actors, if not Japanese actors.

If you remake Akira in Japan with American actors, Japanese would cope and a lot of them would actually dig it (given that many Japanese people have an irrational, uncritical, rose-coloured fascination for Western culture which mirrors how many Westerners feel about Japan) and even those Japanese who think Westerners are basically stupid might check it out for a sly giggle at the Japan-obsessed subset of our culture. On the other hand, if you remade Akira in Japan with non-Japanese but Asian actors, you might have some issues with people not wanting to see it for that reason alone. If they were Chinese you might even start a riot, or at the very least boycotts. I believe that racism is simultaneously far less and far more complicated than you're making it seem.

However if what you say is true then no offense but we really don't seem to have anything more to talk about.

True. Well played. We could have a deeper discussion about racism I suppose but that'd be fairly off-topic and I couldn't be bothered. Peace out, yo.

 

[A1]

Don't get me wrong, I very firmly think that the most ideal thing to do would be to have the live action movie take place in Japan (although not necessarily actually filmed in Japan) and have the same characters being played by Asian actors, if not Japanese actors.

If you remake Akira in Japan with American actors, Japanese would cope and a lot of them would actually dig it (given that many Japanese people have an irrational, uncritical, rose-coloured fascination for Western culture which mirrors how many Westerners feel about Japan) and even those Japanese who think Westerners are basically stupid might check it out for a sly giggle at the Japan-obsessed subset of our culture. On the other hand, if you remade Akira in Japan with non-Japanese but Asian actors, you might have some issues with people not wanting to see it for that reason alone. If they were Chinese you might even start a riot, or at the very least boycotts. I believe that racism is simultaneously far less and far more complicated than you're making it seem.

However if what you say is true then no offense but we really don't seem to have anything more to talk about.

True. Well played. We could have a deeper discussion about racism I suppose but that'd be fairly off-topic and I couldn't be bothered. Peace out, yo.

I'll respond to your post in a moment. First just let me further clarify something. In my previous post I said "Asian actors, if not Japanese actors". What I meant by this was that Japanese actors would be preferable and indeed ideal. But if that isn't an option in any particular case for any reason then simply Asian actors in general would be the next best thing in terms of principle and certainly preferable to Caucasian actors for reasons which I believe have already been established.

Okay. Now on to my actual response:

First of all, you're still being presumptuous. There's no way to know for sure what people will and won't like until someone actually tries something because there are many possible factors that could affect the outcome.

Second of all what SOME people MIGHT think is totally beside the point. What I have been talking about is principles, not speculation and possible opinions.

I never said that the issue of race was complicated. I never said that it wasn't complicated either. I also never was talking about the issue of race in general or the issue of racism in general. I was talking about issue of race as it relates to the American film industry and therefore how that in turn relates to the American film industry's handling of Akira as well as certain other stories and IPs. Or in other words I was simply talking about one particular aspect of the issue of race. But I suppose it's possible that I didn't make that clear enough for you. If this is true then I would like to say sorry about that.

And by the way, Chinese and Japanese (as well as other peoples of Asian nations like South Korea for example) are NOT different races. They are different nationalities. And nationality is another issue altogether.

 

[Aptspire]

'PG-13'
I shall base my dread solely on this rating