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There are a lot of live actions that are based from anime. To name a few:
[Paradise Kiss](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Kiss_%28film%29), [Kimi
ni Todoke](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimi_ni_Todoke#Live_action) and
[Lovely Complex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovely_Complex#Movie). Has there
ever been a live action film that was purely based on manga, meaning without
the manga becoming an anime? Or is it not possible to base a live action film
purely on manga (since a manga that has its anime version defines its
popularity)?


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2013-03-05T05:52:53.150
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live-action-production
Live action version based purely on manga


There are plenty of cases of this. [Yankee-kun to Megane-
chan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flunk_Punk_Rumble) (for some strange reason
it was localized as Flunk Punk Rumble in English) is one such example of a
manga which never had an anime.
[Jin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_%28manga%29) is another example which
actually had both Japanese and Korean live action versions, and again no anime
version. Neither of those are technically films, but there are plenty of film
cases as well, including Nana to Kaoru (no Wikipedia article) and [Liar Game -
The Final Stage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_Game%3a_The_Final_Stage). I
know of at least 5 other cases of this (and I'm no drama expert), but I'll
spare you the list because it's not terribly relevant.

There's really no reason that this should be an uncommon thing. Both dramas
and anime are expensive to produce, but that isn't really a reason to produce
an anime first. Very successful manga often have both drama and anime
adaptations (for instance,
[GTO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Teacher_Onizuka)). The only reason
why you see fewer dramas based on manga than anime is because the physical
constraints for a live-action series are fairly limiting compared to anime.
When there aren't any such issues it's pretty common for manga to be adapted
only as a drama and not as an anime.

If you head on over to some site which indexes J-dramas and K-dramas, you'll
find plenty more examples. One such site is
[mydramalist.info](http://mydramalist.info/). Another one is
[mydramalist.com](http://mydramalist.com/).

If you're only interested in J-dramas, then Wikipedia has [a
category](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3aJapanese_television_dramas_based_on_manga)
for dramas adapted from manga. Many of those don't have anime adaptations
(easily a majority). For films, it seems that more of them also have anime
series, but it's still roughly an even split. [This
list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_manga) on Wikipedia
is the corresponding list for films, though it does include anime films as
well so you'll want to only count the "live-action" ones.


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