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[Mattk50]

im really bracing for maximum cringe with the ghost in the shell movie. im not looking forward to having to clarify that "ghost in the shell is a great movie, oh no, not the shitty live action one that stole it's title, the 1995 one".

[EnigmaticHat]

Its already got controversy for casting white actors.  I guess in the cyberpunk future, Japan isn't 98% ethnic Japanese?

[Orange Wizard]

It's funny because it's basically the opposite of what happens in Hollywood.

[Antioch]

casting white people is racism now?

[Ultimuh]

casting white people is racism now?

These are strange times we live in.

[Reelya]

casting white people is racism now?

Well, it's either casting all the lead characters as white, in a story set in Japan, or changing it so that it's set in America. The second option would at least make sense. In either case, how it's done could be, or could not be, racist. If Scarlett Johansen is still called "Kusunagi" then that will just be retarded. White Japanese people would be silly. White people pretending to be Japanese would be about as racist as blackface.

I guess in the cyberpunk future, Japan isn't 98% ethnic Japanese?

The live action version of Tiger and Bunny won't have that problem. I'm much more optimistic about that than Ghost in the Shell. For Tiger and Bunny, you have a series which is pretty obscure, set in an alternate-Earth America, and it's being produced by Ron Howard in collaboration with the producer of the Japanese anime version. I'm optimistic that the adapters actually see the value in the source material, rather than are just milking it as a cash-cow.

Meanwhile, the director for Ghost in the Shell is only known for making that one version of Snow White which starred the girl from Twilight.

I'm pinning anime live-action adaptations as a possible next big thing after Marvel / DC starts to cannibalize itself. It only needs 1 big hit then a whole lot of stuff would get picked up. There's a nice site I found which lists up-coming superhero movies (and a few anime ones) for the next 4-5 years:
http://www.superherohype.com/upcoming-movies
Aquaman movie. LEGO Batman movie Shazam movie. Ant-Man and the Wasp movie. Looking at the longterm picture it looks like almost 1 new superhero movie every month for the next 5 years, and a lot of them are less than household names to  regular viewers. What's most likely is not that all these movies succeed, but people start becoming much more picky about what superhero movies they actually go and watch.

[Neonivek]

casting white people is racism now?

White Japanese people would be silly. White people pretending to be Japanese would be about as racist as blackface.

Apparently the rule of thumb is. If you can pull it off without makeup, you can pretend to be any race in a movie.

Though you likely never noticed how often it is done.

[itisnotlogical]

I'm anticipating that live-action GITS will be an in-name-only sort of thing.

[Parsely]

White people pretending to be Japanese would be about as racist as blackface.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia (I can't even think of any young, male Iranian actors), Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger (honestly people would have complained about The Lone Ranger even more if Tonto was played by an actual Native American). Alllllll racist.

What about novel adaptations where black actors play characters who were originally white (Jackie Brown, Shawshank Redemption)? Are those racist too?

Like don't get me wrong, I agree with your other points, there are some movies that do this that are actually bullshit, like Godzilla (part of it takes place in Japan and there are barely any Japanese actors and Ken Watanabe was criminally underused) and 21 (the original characters, who were real people, were Asian, but the producers wanted white actors), but actors pretending to be another race is not inherently racist. In fact I don't even think it's racism for the most part, I think it's just laziness and greed.

[Cruxador]

I think that's because of the all-too-slow death of traditional television. A show that can be watched in a handful of sittings is much more appealing for users of streaming services (Netflix and Crunchyroll) than a 200+ episode series.

But most of the target audience don't experience the shows like that (marathoning already completed shows). A three-minute show is there because it represents a low commitment on a weekly basis. If you want a handful of sittings there are already OVAs and 12 episode shows. Some 3 minute shows are longer than that (over 100 episodes), so clearly they're aimed at piecemeal consumption, not fast marathoning.

Keep in mind it's also a good size to watch on Nico Nico Douga.

A 200+ episode series can be watched in a couple sittings if you sit long enough

But some of us have lives

Like, not me, but some people.

Also not the demographics that consume the greatest volume of streaming service content.

casting white people is racism now?

Casting white people as non-white roles is racism which deserves to be righteously rebuked. Casting non-white people as white roles is, of course, progress which deserves to be celebrated and anyone who disagrees is a racist.

I guess in the cyberpunk future, Japan isn't 98% ethnic Japanese?

The live action version of Tiger and Bunny won't have that problem. I'm much more optimistic about that than Ghost in the Shell. For Tiger and Bunny, you have a series which is pretty obscure, set in an alternate-Earth America, and it's being produced by Ron Howard in collaboration with the producer of the Japanese anime version. I'm optimistic that the adapters actually see the value in the source material, rather than are just milking it as a cash-cow.

It's also worth noting that the franchise enjoys its greatest popularity with American fujoshi, pretty much the same demographic on which movie series like Twilight, Hunger Games, and Divergent have made their substantial profits. It's much more of a sound investment than GitS which is popular with the (notoriously picky) general weeb audience.

Aquaman movie. Shazam movie. Ant-Man and the Wasp movie.

Those all sound promising though. Ant-Man was a great movie and Evangeline Lilly did a great job as the (pre-super named) Wasp. DC doesn't exactly have the same stellar track record as Marvel when it comes to movies, and are already subject to a certain degree of apprehension as a result, but the names they're setting out aren't the reason why. Shazam is a really interesting concept of a character, the child who has way too much shit to deal with, taken to an extreme. Aquaman gets a lot of flack for commanding fish, but he has been consistently a great character in the comics and I think that being a king is a badass enough trope to be successful commercially. Lego Batman is stupid to me as well, but the people it's meant to appeal to most are the kind of people who like Minions.

[Neonivek]

anyone who disagrees is a racist

OHH GAWD!!! I am getting Tumblr flashbacks.

[Furtuka]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-04-15/araki-kishibe-rohan-wa-ugokanai-manga-gets-anime-on-jojo-blu-ray-dvds/.101103

Yessssss

[Reelya]

White people pretending to be Japanese would be about as racist as blackface.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia (I can't even think of any young, male Iranian actors), Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger (honestly people would have complained about The Lone Ranger even more if Tonto was played by an actual Native American). Alllllll racist.

What about novel adaptations where black actors play characters who were originally white (Jackie Brown, Shawshank Redemption)? Are those racist too?

Like don't get me wrong, I agree with your other points, there are some movies that do this that are actually bullshit, like Godzilla (part of it takes place in Japan and there are barely any Japanese actors

^ But this is exactly what I said about Ghost in the Shell. I did said it could be, or could not be, racist, depending on how they present it. I said "white Japanese" people would be just silly (implying not necessarily racist). Then, I said "pretending to be Japanese" would be racist in a manner similar to blackface. Because you just know a bunch of American actors trying to pretend to be ethnic Japanese are going to be a crude caricature. It would most certainly be a cringeworthy affair.

[Cruxador]

it would most certainly be a cringeworthy affair.

As expected of a live-action anime movie.

[JoshuaFH]

Cringe is the standard that live action adaptations of animes and videogames aspire to. Not literally, but that's how it seems a lot of the time.