The 1st Anime/Manga I ever saw was Akira. It's hard not to fall in love with the genre with THAT as your introduction. The dark yet bright technological style was amazing to me at the age of 8. Now, as Hollywood is heavy into its "buy and remake classic franchises" mode, there seem to be some disturbing rumors popping up about the potential casting for a live action U.S Akira remake.......see below for the full story. I cann only pray that this isn't the case....
Legendary Star Trek actor and social activist George Takei has spoken out against Warner Bros. Pictures' alleged plans to cast a live-action version of the classic Japanese animated film, AKIRA, with Caucasian leads rather than Asian actors. In response to the publication of a purported "short list" of actors including Justin Timberlake and Robert Pattinson, among others, Takei endorsed a Facebook petition called "Don't Whitewash AKIRA" that people can sign to make the powers that be aware of their wish for the film to be cast with Asians.
In an interview with The Advocate, Takei, who has long used his prominence to champion Asian-American actors and culture, correctly observed that fans of AKIRA strongly identify with Japan and the Japanese people.
The manga and anime phenomenon is mostly white in this country. It originated in Japan, and, of course, it has a huge Asian fan following. But it's the multi-ethnic Americans who are fans of Akira and manga. The idea of buying the rights to do that and in fact change it seems rather pointless. If they're going to do that, why don't they do something original, because what they do is offend Asians, number 1; number 2, they offend the fans.
Additionally, Takei said he is surprised that Warner Bros. hasn't learned from past mistakes with whitewashing like the abysmal Dragon Ball movie and, more specifically, M. Night Shymalan's similarly disastrous adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, another piece of animation based on Asian culture that was remade with Caucasian performers:
The same thing happened with M. Night Shyamalan. He cast his project [The Last Airbender] with non-Asians and it's an Asian story, and the film flopped. I should think that they would learn from that, but I guess big studios go by rote, and the tradition in Hollywood has always been to buy a project, change it completely and flop with it. I think it's pointless, so I thought I would save Warner Bros. a bit of failure by warning them of what will most likely happen if they continue in that vein.Despite the organized protest against the state of affairs surrounding the casting of AKIRA, it is all based on rumor. Anime News Network reported that Warner Bros. had no comment on the Deadline story, and Robert Pattinson addressed the AKIRA rumor in an interview with MTV News. The actor claimed he was aware of the report but suggested he hadn't seen a script, although he is a fan of the anime and "likes motorbikes."
In his interview with The Advocate, George Takei suggested part of the problem with the AKIRA situation, as it presently appears, is the lack of progress Asian-Americans have made in the entertainment industry as compared to African-Americans.
Can you name one bankable Asian-American star? No. There isn't. You have Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson. A whole host of them.One can't name a single Asian-American whose name you can take to the bank and get a project financed. We are making headways. I'm not a pessimist. We have made tremendous headways from the time I started in this business in 1957. Asian faces are part of the ensemble in many TV shows playing not roles that are specifically Asian, but playing doctors and detectives. Advances have been made, but we have still not caught up with the African-American achievements.
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