Unreasonably popular MMORPG anime Sword Art Online has been revealed to have yet another live action production in the works, as it has been announced that the anime is getting its own live action Netflix series, which the executive producer has assured fans will not “whitewash” the cast…
Screenwriter and producer Laeta Kalogridis will be serving as executive producer and will also be writing the script; additionally she has also taken part in an interview, where she touches on the heated debate of “whitewashing”:
Interviewer: What would you like to see with the live-action English version of [Sword Art Online, the] popular Japanese novel and anime franchise? What do you think the best English version of that is?
Kalogridis: Well, let’s get the obvious bit out of the way, right away. SAO is an essentially Japanese property, in which Kirito and Asuna, who are the two leads, are Japanese.
In the television show, Kirito and Asuna will be played by Asian actors. Whether or not that was the question underneath your question, it’s not a conversation about whitewashing.
When I sold it to Netflix, we were all on the same page. They are not interested in whitewashing it, and I am not interested in whitewashing it.
In terms of the secondary characters, because the game is meant to be global, the way it’s presented in the anime and in the light novels, there are secondary characters that clearly are from other parts of the world, like Klein and Agil.
To me, it’s very obvious when you watch it that you’re meant to take that this game spans the globe, but Kirito and Asuna are very clearly located as kids from Japan, and Tokyo, if I’m not mistaken.
That is what we will be doing because that is the story. They are, in my mind anyway, much like Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, defined in part by being seminal characters in an Asian piece of art. That’s the first and biggest thing.
Laeta Kalogridis also conversed about the aspect of adapting the anime’s story:
The second thing, in terms of what I would like to see for SAO, is that I feel it’s a much more aspirational story about hope and much less about darkness than Altered Carbon is.
Asuna is sort of the savior of the world, in my mind and in the mind of the showrunners, [Patrick] Massett and [John] Zinman, who are doing the show.
There’s a real ability to explore a fantasy-based The Lord of the Rings / Game of Thrones kind of world through the lens of these people who are trapped in it and don’t necessarily want to be there, but who have to learn how to survive in it.
What I’m most interested in is all of the human stories, when everything else falls away and it’s life or death, in a place where you were never expecting to be trapped.
That’s what I loved about the original anime and that’s what I love about the live-action adaptation, as we are currently envisioning it.
The promise that Kirito and Asuna will be played by Japanese actors (or more likely – “Asian” actors) may be the only faithful element of the series considering the track record for western produced live action anime adaptations…
> “characters that clearly are from other parts of the world, like Klein”
> Klein, Real Name: Ryotarou Tsuboi
Screenwriter, producer, executive producer doesn’t know the source material. Complete trainwreck confirmed.
It shows she hasn’t watched the anime, or is too stupid to understand. I mean, these players are all trapped in a Japanese speaking VRMMORPG game server. Language would come into play here, you’d be unlikely to find any English speakers in the real game on that server.
SAO is a steaming s♥♥t train to begin with.
Nice SAO hate meme. Keep following trends. Bet in a few years you idiots would hate something that is very popular and loved right now.
the original is a trainwreck
The game characters are almost anything but japanese except for generic self insertion main character.
Klein for sure is Japanese. Agil can be argued.
Rya and his multis at it again
sniff sniff
Smells like a jealous c♥♥t.
I’ve never been able to tell whether it’s jealous just by smell.
Takes the meaning of “polishing a turd” to a whole new level
–Netflix
CHOO CHOO!
Considering that the producer instantly jumps to the race of the protagonists when asked a simple question about what she wants most in a live-action adaptation, while the film may not be “whitewashed” you can rest assured that it will be “westernwashed” with all the Tumblr social justice baggage that entails.
I didn’t think SAO could get any worse, then this shows up. DBZ live action was crap. Death Note live action was crap. Do these idiots not learn from their mistakes? Anime is not a medium that translates well to film.
Stop. Just fucking stop.
death note was at least watchable it was bad but i wouldnt say crap
-> angsty dumbass white trash teenager at the bottom of his class
-> googles to find a cool sounding name
I have some unfortunate news to tell you. You… have s♥♥t tastes. And the prognosis is very poor. The average 5-year survival rate is less than 1% with most patients succumbing to dick sucking and drinking gallons of semen by the first 6 months. Unfortunately there’s nothing that current medical therapy can do at this stage.
Can’t they just cast someone good at acting? I don’t care if person is white, black, asian, etc. I want interesting writing, good acting and directed at least better than US Dragon Ball live action. However as first commentator wrote:
> “characters that clearly are from other parts of the world, like Klein”
> Klein, Real Name: Ryotarou Tsuboi
They don’t even have idea what’s going on in the story.
>Because the game is meant to be global
Most of the side characters were Japanese… from what I do remember. Only few were from other parts of the World and that few is very few.
I thought all the players trapped ingame were Japanese?
Agil is black.
Yes but he lives in japan. The MC visits him at his workplace after they get out of SAO. Unless by “other part of the world” she means just his ancestry.
What’s the point of making an American adaptation if your not going to have English speaking characters? Also the majors shell is the same model from Appleseeds which is described to be a Caucasian female so kusanagi is not clearly Japanese she is clearly caucasion.