Watching Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul unleash vampire-like powers is always a neat visual. Even watching Goku power-up for ten episodes makes our eyes magnetize to our TVs to see that beautiful animation only Toei Animation can produce. However, all of these cool things main characters can do is because they are from anime worlds. In the real world, we sadly lack the power to make energy beams from our hands and that’s reflected even stronger in some live-action adaptations that just didn’t meet the mark.

Both Tokyo Ghoul and Dragon Ball Z had live-action adaptation films made and both were met with severe criticism. While Tokyo Ghoul did significantly better—the writing was strong and battles had some cool effects—the same can’t be said of Dragonball Evolution. Still considered one of the absolute worst anime live-action movies ever made, Dragonball Evolution showed why humans should never try to power up and use ki-blasts. The super-cool abilities we see in anime just can’t be mirrored in the real waking world and that is because we sadly aren’t super Saiyan warriors.

Anime is usually anywhere from 12-episodes and beyond. That allows studios to take the story and make sure things are paced well and be given enough time to be explored. Anime live-actions tend to be feature-length films that have a run time of anywhere between an hour or two…which is half the time of a standard anime series. Parasyte—which is an anime that ran for 24-episodes—was cut down into two films meaning you can bet a lot of the story was either cut or removed to avoid time constraint issues. We otaku already hate when anime adaptions mess up the stories seen in the light novel/manga versions but seeing a live-action cut even more story from the original work is a crime against the anime community.

Does anyone remember the live-action Attack on Titan movies? Maybe you, readers remember the Netflix version of Death Note. Those movies are considered the worst of the worst in the world of live-action adaptations and that’s because they deserve those titles. Both movies made the cardinal sin of taking a story that already worked perfectly and changing them completely. Attack on Titan and Death Note’s live-action adaptations are so far removed from the original works that they almost feel like they aren’t even based on the anime works…that is just flat-out disrespectful in our minds to both the fans and the original authors.

We mentioned already Dragonball Evolution but that isn’t the only live-action anime that Americanized the story and cast to appeal to those in the West. Another few flops in live-actions that were Americanized come in the form of Speed Racer, Guyver, and Fist of the North Star. These movies weren’t made in Japan and that is clear based on the entire cast. While the actors aren’t all considered bad—some of them had great movies prior to these anime live-action adaptations—their acting just missed the mark completely. Anime live-actions are already considered evil but these works failed by having a cast that doesn’t even look or act like their anime counterparts…