Amazon Prime Video announced on Thursday that it is producing a live-action series adaptation of Hyuganatsu and Touko Shino’s The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) light novel series that will stream exclusively worldwide on Amazon Prime Video in 2028. Mana Ashida (Pacific Rim, Mother) plays protagonist Mao Mao in the series. ……
Absolutely incorrect tho.
First: Technically this is live-action adaptations of light novel
Second: There are tons of live-action from manga and light novel that are hugely popular, it’s just never reach anime-centric Western audience. Like Meteor Garden, City Hunter, Nodame Cantabile, Rurouni Kenshin, Imawa no Kuni no Alice, Kimi ni Todoke, Liar Game, and so on.
The problem with japanese live-action is that they try to transpose the source material (manga or whatever) as is (dialogs, character designs, etc), but this will usually be kinda cringy… You mentioned Alice in borderland which I watched and enjoyed, but that is because of the story, while It was just barely watchable on every other aspect for me (ofc its very opinable)
Which live-action did you watch? Most of international fans outside Asia and anime-centric casual fans only watch badly adapted live-action from shonen action manga.
Most of live-action are relatively well.
Judging manga/light novel live-action adaptation as all bad is like watching live action of cringe teen Western vampire novel then thinking all live-action adaptation from novel are all bad.