Live-action anime adaptations have become an unfortunate trend in the West, namely on streaming services. This has led to a number of poor, mangled attempts to bring several fan-favorite anime to life, with fidelity to the source material and cheap production being one of the most common complaints.
The latest popular anime to be primed for an American adaptation is Steins;Gate, which stems from a popular line of visual novels. While fans are right to be apprehensive, there's actually a lot more hope for this series turning out better than those that have come before it.
What is Steins;Gate?
Premiering in 2011, Steins;Gate is based off of the 2009 visual novel of the same name, which itself was part of a series that also included Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes. The series follows Rintaro Okabe, a scientific guru who runs a laboratory in his apartment devoted to the study of time travel. Trying to send his friend a message after discovering the dead body of a neuroscientist, he discovers both that the scientist is alive and that his friend received the message before he sent it. Realizing that the phone-controlled microwave in his possession can send messages back in time, Okabe and his group begin sending messages and their memories to the past in order to change the future.
The discovery garners the attention of SERN, who seek to control this technology for themselves. This triggers a tragic event for Okabe's team, forcing Okabe to travel in time and undo his previous tampering in an attempt to prevent this from happening. It all culminates a time travel arms race, with Okabe fighting to prevent not only the death of a loved one but also the occurrence of World War III.
Why It Could Succeed
As bad as the track record for live-action anime may be, Steins;Gate does have a few things going for it. For one, it's being produced by Skydance Television. They've not only produced several noteworthy films such as the last few Mission Impossible and Star Trek movies, but also the successful Netflix series Altered Carbon. That series deals with transhumanist themes of transferring one's consciousness into different bodies, and the idea of living forever. This isn't too far from the themes present in Steins;Gate, showing that not only could the series work in live-action but that the studio has already done something similar.
On top of that, the genre of the show is fairly soft science fiction, and would by no means be very special effects intensive or out there. This would make it both affordable and palatable to mainstream audiences, who might actually be surprised that it's based off of an anime. As shown in the aforementioned Altered Carbon, as well as Black Mirror and other similar shows, there is a growing demand for genre shows on both network television and streaming services that extend beyond the typical police procedural premise. Time travel is also one of the more popular themes in fiction at the moment. From video games and movies such as Mortal Kombat 11 and Avengers: Endgame to TV shows such as Timeless, Legends of Tomorrow, and Doctor Who, time travel and its effects are some of the more palatable science fiction concepts for those who might not typically watch science fiction.
The still relatively grounded premise still keeps it from the typical craziness that some might expect of an anime, which again makes it a logical choice for a live-action adaptation. The recent announcement of a live-action One Piece series sounds extremely problematic, if for no other reason than the intense budget required to make such an adaptation look even passable. The same goes for other notoriously bad anime adaptations such as Dragon Ball: Evolution, which had a fairly pedestrian budget for adapting one of the most stylized anime ever. Another common issue with these adaptations, as seen in the controversial Netflix version of Death Note, is the truncation of key story elements to fit into a film's timeframe. While its success spawned four OVA sequels, the Steins;Gate anime was only 24 episodes long, with its first half being the most criticized. Thus, it'd be easy to wrap the entire story up succinctly in a live-action series.
Not much else has been announced about the series, including the cast or production team behind it (besides Skydance). Skydance is also producing a live-action adaptation of Sword Art Online, and plan to have the protagonists played by Asian actors. This level of reverence to the source material will likely be the determining factor as to whether or not the both Sword Art Online and Steins;Gate will actually be any good, but for now, Steins;Gate definitely has more going for it than the typical anime adaptation found on Netflix.