Actual Solid Criteria for Reboot
Now I don’t talk about reboots lightly, I think everyone understands that we’re living bit of a reboot era right now where old IPs are being rehashed and done over again, especially in Hollywood, but this has become more popular in Japan too with recent titles like Urusei Yatsura, Sailor Moon, Gegege No Kitaro, Trigun, Shaman King, Fruit Basket to name a few. The bigger question is what are good qualifications/reasons to issue a reboot on something that already has an anime, i explain my criteria below, which will be used on this list.
- The most valid reason probably in my opinion is that the original anime(s) didn’t adapt the source material truthfully either by not following the story closely or derailing from source material by creating an original ending for example or just skipping some arcs altogether.
- The Previous anime didn’t adapt all of the source material that existed or the anime ended up before the manga
- The original anime hasn’t aged well in terms of animation quality, resolution quality, the execution wasn’t as good as the manga, or just has bad audio, to begin with
Those three are the most valid reasons in my opinion and some people could argue that there is some value in “modernizing” older titles such as Gegege No Kitaro that first aired back in 1968 when computers and cellphones weren’t a thing and now with the latest reboot they were able to corporate those modern tech elements in. In the same vain you can do the time change in reverse, we have seen many adaptions of sherlock holmes that take place in different countries and dates.
Now that i have established my reasonings let’s proceed with my Top 10 List (You can also drop in comments your choices please note that these aren’t in heavy ranking order).
#10 – Nausicaa The Valley of the Wind
Now here’s the thing with this proto-ghibli movie. The actual story continues where the movie lefts off, meaning that there isn’t exactly a proper conclusion here – I’m not sure should we have a series of movies or just a full series done by Ghibli at this point, but what I can say is that this project won’t likely ever come to fruition before Miayazaki is dead, I think they might continue this one after he’s gone as some type of a homage project.
Given how long there is since the original movie, I wouldn’t necessarily just continue from there who knows how many of the original voice actors are even alive at this point honestly? It’s still one of the best works done by the Ghibli team hands down.
- Original Airdate: 1984
- Animation Studio: Topcraft
#9 – Hitman Reborn!
This is more of a personal entry that not a lot of people are going to agree with. Hitman Reborn! had a long run as a Shonen series. It basically adapted most of the original manga excluding the two final arcs, which turned out to be quite good. What needs to be understood however is that the Anime was filled with fillers and the beginning part skipped some arcs that weren’t in the anime at all.
Also looking back at the production quality, it’s not the most high-detail series compared to the incredible detail that the original Mangaka did, granted all long-running shows had quite mediocre quality, but this time around you wouldn’t have to do any of the filler arcs so you could just focus on the actual real turns of the story and perhaps give a bit more artistic execution that’s closer to the style of the original manga.
- Original Airdate: 2006-2010
- Animation Studio: Artland
#8 – Silverfang (Ginga Nagareboshi Gin)
Another more niche personal request, Ginga is quite a long-running manga series, and a very small portion of it has been actually on the screen. Back in the late 80’s we got the first series adapted into an anime and that was quite a banger and has aged actually really well, but it did not cover the last arc of the manga known as “Wolf Arc” Now holistically this decision made a lot of sense not to include it because it doesn’t have much to do with Akakabuto (the main villain).
Many years later we got Ginga Densetsu Weed which is one of the sequel mangas that has quite a different spin to the source material and does many things completely differently, I’m not claiming its bad, but it was written in a way that is is there wouldn’t be a sequel. I Would also argue that Studio Deen did a kinda mediocre job with that and there could be a better studio that could adapt the whole manga series.
It’s an unrealistic expectation, but then again the series has ended and I feel like it’s fundamentally a series that differs a lot from anything pre-existing out there, very different dynamic since humans are secondary characters in the story in general.
- Original Airdate: 1986
- Animation Studio: Toei Animation
#7 – Air Gear
Had to at least add one Sports entry to the list and I thought that Air Gear would fit best in that category given the fact that the original anime literally stops on the spot when things actually get good. Focusing around roller skating which evolves into pseudo-fighting shonen later.
The Original anime has decent quality and a great soundtrack, but I feel like there is so much more that could potentially be done with it, I mean the manga’s style is really cool and the anime is not exactly capturing that style in my opinion. Getting everything done from start to finish wouldn’t even be that long of an anime honestly, so maybe they will revisit this at some point.
- Original Airdate: 2006 & 2010-2011 (OVA’s)
- Animation Studio: Toei Animation
#6 – Kekkaishi
This is quite a special Shonen series that had a bit different artistic approach compared to shows that were running at the time. Not only it kinda has some unique aspects and an interesting world the series kinda ended up way too early, because manga went on for a few arcs after the events of the original anime in 2006 and manga went from like 2003 to 2011 so quite a lot of material was left out.
The Studio behind Kekkaishi was Sunrise which did a high-quality job, so I wouldn’t actually go complaining about animation quality, OST, or general directing here, its all about really the series being ended way too early when things are really going to get started and get interesting.
- Original Airdate: 2006-2008
- Animation Studio: Sunrise
#5 – Zetman
Sometimes we have decent these Manga IPs that do well in sales, are well-liked, and even unique in some aspects. However, when got an anime adaption out of this seinen one known as Zetman it was pretty much a trainwreck after the directors thought it would be smart to do their own ending and derail the storyline to something very nonsensical.
TMS did a good job on animation but I don’t honestly remember anything about the OST, so that could’ve been better. Zetman is actually a long manga too and it’s a lot different from your average superhero story out there. I mean we’re talking about 226 chapters of manga here and the anime is only 12 episodes, what were they trying to achieve here? Except for butchering the source material.
- Original Airdate: 2012
- Animation Studio: TMS Entertainment
#4 – Nurarihyon no Mago
Next up is another Weekly Shonen Jump series which actually came back this year with a sequel series called “Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan – Shadow” and the original manga that ran at WSJ was kinda rushed due to a drop in sales, I wish we could have rehashed bit of the last arc instead, but hey at least WSJ gave mangaka a shot to end this series than axe it fast.
Now I have to really revisit the anime since it’s been over a decade, but what can be easily said about it is that it was solid for the most part, but the animation quality and style were different from season one to season two, so it wasn’t really consistent. So I would rather have a reboot that adapts all the arcs which probably would amount to 4 seasons and obviously all should be done in the same level of quality.
This series has very distinctive character designs and has good lore, which is based on real yokai stuff from Japanese folklore. It kinda has a bit of a cult following and I think there could be a newfound appreciation for the series if it actually will come back.
- Original Airdate: 2010-2011
- Animation Studio: Studio Deen
#3 – One Outs
It was granted we needed one true sports entry in this list and I couldn’t think of anything else except One outs, which was created by Shinobu Kaitani who also made Liar Game that spans multiple live-action series in South Korea and Japan. Now what is the problem here with the original series in my opinion? I think there are a couple here for starters for a series that was made back in 2008 by Madhouse, I have to say that the quality isn’t that amazing when you think about it, there were other titles by the same studio like Claymore, Needless or Black Lagoon which all, in my opinion, have better animation quality and standard.
The second thing I didn’t like about this series was its soundtrack, the opening does grow on you a bit, but I did find it annoying mostly. It maybe reflects more of that time period’s style of J-Rock and we can see it as a product of its time, but that doesn’t make it good.
Lastly, we don’t get a proper ending to the series, because the actual manga keeps going forward from the point where the anime ends, plus there is a whole all-star sequel manga too which could be adapted as well (Not that I have read it though).
- Original Airdate: 2008-2009
- Animation Studio: Madhouse
#2 – Claymore
Hands down one of the best seinen Dark Fantasy manga have to be Claymore and the 2007 anime adaption is frankly quite good however it derails completely from the original story in the last two2 episodes or so and makes completely a new original ending that’s very off from the manga. There is a lot of great lore in this story, to be honest, and getting a proper reboot that would cover all 27 volumes of the manga would be great honestly since the anime stops halfway here.
Technically the manga even itself leaves out some cliffhangers for a potential sequel too and who knows Norihiro Yagi might return to working on that at some point.
- Original Airdate: 2007
- Animation Studio: Madhouse
#1 – Berserk
I think probably one of the most obvious choices on this list is Berserk. Both the 2016 & 1997 series cut content from the manga, which eventually gave birth to Berserk Redux which mixes the best of both anime into a more wholesome compilation. The new reboot has obvious flaws in its animation which made it one of the most criticized anime of all time, but they ended up skipping a lot of crucial stuff like whole arcs in the story, which to me is plain dumb.
Now that Kentaro Miura is dead complicates this issue further, yes we have a friend of his whose continuing the work based on Miura’s notes and what he told him about the story. So we will have eventual completion at some point, but it needs to be said that it will likely take time until we get there and I honestly would prefer waiting till proper conclusion before we start adapting this franchise again.
- Original Airdate: 1997-1998 and 2016-2017 (for the first reboot)
- Animation Studio: OLM, Inc.
This list wasn’t easy to put, there are some other good candidates out there, which might get explored in the second article if I get around to doing one, obviously, I’m curious what is our audience thinking, but leave your reply below.
