Been having some very interesting talks with Iain about works of fiction In the context of Jap & Americano x-overs. From what i can see so far is that HE is the POLAR opposite of me when it comes to things like these. He prefer's realism,things that the mind can grasp and relate to in real life with Minor exagerrations I.e the Orang Putih way of Story telling.

Me I prefer my fiction stories no to be bound by mundane everyday rules of life,physics, Logic. And extreme exaggeration is most welcome (whenever applicable) I.e the Japanese way of story telling.

Take Godzilla for instance. The American version was NOT Godzilla. It was just a Big Budget Piece of crap that used a popular franchise's name. If it was any good it would have spawned a sequel aeons ago. Apart from the Name & the voice everything else was not godzilla. For 1 there was no monster island, no mothra, jet jaguar, mecha godzilla etc. The plot was also not godzilla like. The story would have fared better if they called It "Radioactive Lizard". With a Plot where Annoying little boy named Trevor flushed his pet lizard down the drain and now its back for Revenge. That would Have suited the movie more.

Another Point is Godzilla's power level seems to have dropped significantly,Power level is Mucho importante in Japanese story telling. Eventhough the American Godzilla was waayy bigger, I mean seriously a couple of missiles and the Lizard Keeled over and died WTF is that?. Bottom line is They messed with the myth and tried to make it something that it's not, which ultimately Fucked it up.

Another Fine example of Fucking with the myth of the source material is Final Fantasy Spirits within. Normally when you say Final Fantasy You would immediately imagine Spiky haired hero with a Huge sword and angsty teenage behaviour and a troubled damsel in distress that would sprout angel wings, Big muscle dude etc which are typical RPG type characters. But Spirits within Didnt have any of those elements. To me it was a cheap CGI starship troopers ripoff with Ghost bugs. As a final fantasy movie it was a complete and total failure and as a Sci-fi movie it was barely tolerable with a pathetic attempt at being deep. Which was why Sony Movies Closed down after the release of this movie. And why FF7 advent children did WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better. Reason Being they didnt FUCK with the Myth which is essential in Jap story telling.

And those are just 2 examples of Jap franchise that was destroyed in its American translation. Other Notable mentions include KAMEN RIDER BLACK RX( MASKED RIDER), Street fighter, Gundam, & to a certain extent power rangers altho not as bad.

Some Good Ports Include Mortal Kombat(eventhough not japanese was good game to silver screen adaptation) Movies & Tv series & DOA which Added to the myth instead of changing and mutilating it. They weren't perfect by any means but They got the story through
in an entertaining manner.

I mean its better than a movie where some dude who's smacked up on dope drives at high speed and eventually dies crashing his car, after watching him do nothing but drive and get smacked up on more dope for close to 2hrs.

Of course the same can be said about American franchise that gets ported over to Japan. 1 example I can think of right now is SPIDERMAN. I mean WTF were those Japs smoking? giving spiderman a Robot and Making Him turn into Ultraman Size? That is not spiderman. It's like turning Captain America into a Henshin hero or Gaban.

More can be said about this matter Just like the never ending War between Transformers collectors arguing about which version Of Prime is better TAKARA or Hasbro.

This is my opinion and I'll stick by it no matter what. Plus the fact that the Whole world is going Manga anyways. Coz lets face it MANGANIME is just cool.