Manic Expression

Hello and welcome to In Too Deep, where I over-analyse a certain section of pop culture.

For those that don't know, the first 8 books of the Deltora Quest book series got an anime adaptation. For those really not in the know, Deltora Quest is a surprisingly good fantasy book series aimed at young kids/teens that's well worth a read. But as I was reading about the anime it occurred to me: what other book series needed anime adaptations? Well join me as I count down the top six.

6)Discworld: While not necessarily a kids book series, it would still be pretty awesome to see an animated adaptation of some of the better books. And yes, I know they did it before. I don't remember it all that well, but I do remember it was the reason I started to read the books when I was 11 and had read the series by the time I was 13 (it never occurred to me that I wasn't suppose to read books way out of my age group). And yes I know they've done live action adaptations to somewhat moderate quality. But an anime series would be quick to make since you don't need to rely on the actors or building the Discworld, whilst also telling the various stories in the series. Since there are several books that focus on the journey of one character (Susan, granddaughter of Death for example) you could make a series just out of that. Sure Terry Pratchett would never sign it off, but a man can dream, can't he?

5)Goosebumps: If you grew up in the 90s you read Goosebumps. It's as simple as that. They were The horror series; and if wasn't for the creation of the number one pick they'd have been cemented in history as the series that got kids reading again. Sure the quality varied a hell of a lot, but when it was good it was good (and very child-unfriendly). While they did make a live-action version of this show, it seriously lacked in quality. But an anime wouldn't be constrained by budgets so you could adapt some of the more experimental books (how the hell would you adapt 'Why I'm Afraid Of Bees' anyway?). Plus there's the new Horrorland series that I sadly haven't read, but heard there's an over-arching plot that runs through them. That'd be perfect to adapt.

4)Artemis Fowl: I don't know how many books they're up too, but I remember the first few being pretty good. Basically Artemis Fowl is an anti-villain turned anti-hero as he teams up with a group of fairies. Now while there isn't an over-arching plot, the individual books could be turned into interesting multi-arc episodes of an anime. Following on from that I've seen the comic book version of it and I have to say, it's pretty good. Just animated it and you are totally good to go.

3)The Chronicles Of Narnia: Seven books, interesting story, got made into a terrible TV series back in the day before being rebooted into movies (none of which I've ever actually seen funnily enough). But the potential is there. I don't know if I need to explain the plot to anyone by this point, but it's basically the Bible for kids (oh come on it so is). It's got action and adventure and all those things kids love. Why isn't this being made?

2)Animorphs: Perhaps the only book series darker than Goosebumps (at least when it involved kids in the 90s), Animorphs dealt with five kids and one alien fighting against mind-controlling aliens thanks to their ability to morph into animals. There were parts where this series really didn't pull its punches and got quite gruesome, if only in theory. Once again their was a god-awful TV series (what is it with 90s books and crappy TV series?) that totally failed to do anything interesting since it's pretty hard to get a tiger to co-operate on set. Once you turn to anime, well, you got no problem. Sure most of the series is filler, but there is a consistent story throughout. It's also too long to be made into a movie trilogy (although it'd be interesting if someone did), so a 52 episode story would be quite interesting. I mean yes it'd have filler, but what anime doesn't? With animation they could actually explore the morphing to its fullest extent.

1)Harry Potter: Say what you will about the Harry Potter movies, the continuity across the whole series is crap. Course doesn't help that they were basically working blind and J K Rowling left a real stinker of a last book for them to work with. But now they're all out, you can tell the story in 64 episodes. Not only that you could actually have magic in it, since you're not as constrained by budgetary constraints. On top of that you could age the animated actors up as the series went on, whilst also doing the same world-building J K Rowling did. Now this isn't ever going to happen, cos J K Rowling isn't interesting in doing an animated adaptation. But if she did now, then it could have the potential to be up there with the greats of anime. The ultimate wishful thinking, but perhaps someone will remake Harry Potter in animated form.

So there you have it. My picks for the top six book series that totally need to have anime adaptations. If you disagree with anything, or have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment. Till next time.