9. It Won't Be The First Live-Action Anime Adaptation...
The anime wagon may have long since departed, having reached a fever pitch in the late nineties/early noughties when every book publisher, TV channel and movie studio was clamouring to obtain the Western rights to what they expected to be the next big thing after Dragonball Z/Naruto/Bleach (delete as applicable). Sometimes that clamouring worked out well, sometimes...not so much. The first Japanese animation to hit big overseas was Katushiro Otomo's iconic Akira, which Hollywood have been trying to turn into a Westernised live-action picture ever since (most recently with Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt). It never quite happened, with most fans being glad it failed. Some live-action anime adaptations did make it through, however, like Dragonball Evolution and the Wachowskis' Speed Racer. Both of which was costly failures, both critically and money-wise. Before that, American-produced anime adaptations were the preserve of B-movie stuff like Guyver and Fist Of The North Star. Hopefully Ghost In The Shell transcends both.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
