Yeah I worry about Akira also but at least that is a dystopian world so you can play with locals and language. Your Name is about the religion and rituals unique to Japan that literally make the story and time travel possible. It is essential to the story for it to at least be Japanese Americans

I hear you I’m worried about the Akira live action to tell the truth.
I hope the core will be maintained otherwise why buy the rights. But if they set it in Japan and have Japanese actors speak English for some strange reason or they speak Japanese and (god forbid) they have subtitles that would be problematic for the box office.
I like to think that the specialness is in the story and not in the culture that the story is set in.
But if the culture the story is set in is inseparable from the story, well then “Houston we have a problem.”

I disagree. You’ll rob it of everything that made the story special and it will just be a generic body swapping movie. You said it yourself people haven’t seen the original so why do we need to change it? Introduce it to them in live action format and add some different visual touches and that should be enough for it to stand on its own. Taking the core of the movie out makes me feel like why remake it at all

Just make a similar story with different characters and settings.
If I made death note (2017) I would make it about another person receiving the note (’cause it was given to many people before/after Kira).
The same from “your name”, the body-swap with other people (possibly related to the characters from the animated film, ’cause it runs in the family).
Just a way to make keep the original cannon, so everyone becomes happy.

It annoys me even more when I see Japan, basically the animation capital of the world, apparently buy into this belief too as they adapt their own animated shows into live action. Or perhaps they’ve just learned from the best on how to milk a franchise for everything it’s worth.

I suppose the best way to put it is filmmakers seem intent on making sure western audiences don’t have to leave their comfort zone and instead of working to expand that tolerance, they force popular foreign films to conform to the American tastes and standards.

I feel they should go full on American. Otherwise it well be a weird hybrid that doesn’t work at all that’s trying too hard to be like the original. And trying to be “eastern” when it’s not. They do have an edge because the fact is most people haven’t seen this movie(sorry but it’s true).
Basically it has to be a movie that stands on it’s own two feet.