[KineJapan] Adaptation in the tabloids

[Gerow Aaron]

It may surprise some, but the tabloids in Japan are now full of debates about adaptation. What started this was an incident in which the author of the manga “Sekushi Tanaka-san” died at the end of January, apparently of a suicide (though the trend in Japanese media is to no longer state if it is a suicide; instead words like “kyushi/sudden death” are used). This was only a week or so after the same author declared on Twitter/X that they had taken over writing the script for some of the last episodes of the  <>TV adaptation of the manga, apparently because the adaptation was not true enough to the manga. Some pushed back against that announcement and only a few days later, the author was found dead. 

It was this that started a large debate in the tabloids and weekly magazines about adaptations to film and TV of novels and manga, mostly revolving around the issue of fidelity and respect to the original and its author. Some authors complained of previous bad experiences; some industry experts complained of the industry’s over reliance on adapted works. Public sentiment seems to be on the side of the original author, so the Japan Writers Guild (the screenwriters guild) actually ended up taking down a video on their YouTube channel when some complained a screenwriter in the video was treating original authors with disrespect. 

Perhaps someone should analyze this incident at a later date, but has anyone been following this closely?


Aaron Gerow
Alfred W. Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Film and Media Studies
Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
320 York Street, Room 108
PO Box 208201
New Haven, CT 06520-8201
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Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu <mailto:aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
website: www.aarongerow.com





















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