Anime based on American/European stories.

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What anime have you seen that has been based on an American/European story.

I can name a few like: Wizard of Oz: It got 1 anime movie and 80s series, and a very disturbing spin-off called Oz in space.

There are also the Hans Christian Anderson anime: Snow Queen (my favorite), Little Mermaid (I still cry while saying she's selfish), and Little Match Girl.

I've loved most of these adaptions and wish that they had better dubs (or "a" dub in Snow Queen's case)
 
There's probably quite a few of them if you take the World Masterpiece Theater into account but we could always use some more.

For me Gankutsuou is what immediately comes to mind, based on The Count of Monte Cristo. Another one would be Romeo x Juliet, which I haven't had the chance to see yet but it's somewhere on my watch list.
 
Poirot & Marple - based on the Agatha Christie detectives
Howl's Moving Castle - novel by Diana Wynne Jones
Tales from Earthsea - based on Ursula K. LeGuin's novels, like it or not
Demonbane, Mystery of the Necronomicon - both based on/inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, however loosely
 
Although neither American or European, Deltora Quest, an Australian book series, was adapted into anime format, as well as a manga. The series ran in Japan for 65 episodes and adapted the first several books before going into it's own thing. From what I've heard (having really only seen the anime with reading some of the story), the anime is relatively faithful to the story, with some minor changes.

The series was unfortunately a victum of the whole Geneon mess and didn't get localized as a result. As a result, due to a lack of an english release (official or not), not a whole lot of people have seen the anime series. I've still yet to see all of it (kind of got behind while it was airing, then I just sorta never caught up), but I enjoyed the adaption from what I saw of it.

Bring up another one off the head, there was also an anime adaption of Anne of Green Gables. I have read that the World Masterpiece Theatre series is by far one of the most faithful adaptions of the book. For example, having compared episode 1 to the original story, the episode is almost word by word to the original story and one particular scene it recreates is rather vividly during in which Anne is on the carriage. Although, this could possibly cause some pacing issues, since the first episode from memory didn't even cover the first chapter. I however didn't feel that the pacing felt stilted and moved along as it should. The simplistic look to the characters also helps with it's environment. I have only really seen the first couple episodes, but I enjoyed what I did see. Hopefully the level of the series remains throughout.

There are many more stories out there, but I'm sure other people'll go over them in here.
 
The Little Mermaid has been adapted a nuraber of times in anime. Toei's third magical girl series, Mahou no Mako-chan is a modern-day retelling of the story. Then of course is their 1975 film, which was a very close adaption of the original story.

In 1992 the series was adapted into a 26 episode series called The Adventures of The Little Mermaid Marina. And most recently, Mermaid Melody Pitchi Pitchi or whatever the hell it's called.
 
Does non-fiction count? Or rather, historical-fiction (I should say).

Rose of Versailles and Reign the Conqueror come to mind. Hetalia may technically qualify too. These are loosely based on European "stories" which happen to have some thread of historical truth to them... be it a very small thread. A VERY small thread.

Speaking of Europeans stories, they really should do an anime based on The Odyssey.
Lord knows they can mess it up, big time. But if it was done right... I'd... I'd kill to see that.

I'd like to see a Harry Potter anime too, but alas, tis not to be.
 
At least they had Power Armor, and not giant mechs. Or Power Suits at all.


Chiaki J. Konaka actually did an adaptation of Lovecraft's "Shadow Over Innsmonth", although it was live-action. However, he did based the Digimon episode "His master's voice/Dagomon's Call" off "Innsmonth".
 
Ugh. It's easy enough to mess up normally, let alone giving it a sci-fi take.

The Odyssey is notoriously misunderstood, so it doesn't surprise me that such a bad version would exist. As a matter of fact, I've yet to see a good adaptation of the Odyssey. I suppose that mini-series with Armand Assante was the best of all of them, but even that missed the mark.

Oh, but if they could get it right, and have it in anime form no less...
 
You know, a lot of people actually like the anime sci-fi take on The Odyssey. It's not like the greatest thing out there, but as a kiRAB' show, it was quite fine. It's something of a cult hit amongst British anime fans too.

And really, I'm not a big fan of the recent adaptations of Romeo x Juliet and Monte Cristo either.

I think the WMT adaptations from the 70s-late 80s were the peak of anime Western-literary adaptations. The WMT version of A Little Princess is especially highly regarded amongst WMT and classic literature fans. I wish they were more available over here somehow. And I know I'd rather watch the recent anime versions of Emily of New Moon and Konnichiwa Anne! over some of the North American versions that have come out in recent years (I still contend the best Anne of Green Gables adaptation was the Megan Fallows one of the 80s...every other North American spinoff/adapation after that I prefer the anime versions)

It would be neat if PBS ran an NHK anime now and again, especially stuff like Emily of New Moon.
 
There was the infamous Lensman anime, which I hear was an "In Name Only" adaptation.

I think I recall that Spider Riders was based off a Canadian book series.

One of my personal favorites, besides Gonzo's recent adaptations, was one episode of Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics that adapted "The Marriage of Mrs. Fox"

Now, I'm fairly certain there might be some values dissonance going on, but the original story is just pointless. A nine-tailed fox thinks his wife is cheating on him, so he fakes his death to see what she does. A whole bunch of suitors how up, each with an escalating tail count, but she turns them all away. Then another nine-tailed fox shows up, and she finally decides to remarry. Of course, the husband considers this proof she is cheating on him and chases them all off. The end.

The adaptation is pretty much the same, but plays it more like a Twilight Zone episode, with the decidedly not fantastic Mr. Fox being talked into the whole thing by a little devil fox. In addition to some humor to ease the repetition in the story, it also plays things up so that Mr. Fox's paranoia really is a bad thing, driving his family off and leaving him alone in his mansion, where the devil fox reveals that he's merely the erabodiment of Mr. Fox's own failings.
 
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