Would Doctor Who be good as an anime or not?

[OtakuMan22]

Since 1963, Doctor Who has been THE Sci-Fi show out of the UK, and has fans all across the world! Running 26 consecutive years until 1989, the rebirth of the series here in 2005 has gotten the old Who-niverse up and running again (Although some may say it technically never died since the series has always been continued in books ever since 1989).

For those unfamiliar with the series (as I'm sure a good number of you are), Doctor Who is the story of a Time Lord, an alien race on the planet Gallifrey that keeps watch over the various streams of time, and the events that take place over time across the universe. Outraged by his race's reluctance to do anything to help others, the Time Lord known only as "The Doctor" and his grand-daughter swipe an old model TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) and wind up in England during the year 1963 where they shapeshift the TARDIS' exterior to look like a Police Call Box, right before the Chameleon Circuit, that controls a TARDIS' shape-shifting abilities, breaks. This begins The Doctors adventures in Time and Space, travelling in a somewhat busted Time Machine with companions that join him off and on throughout his journeys (his grand-daughter decides to stay on Earth early on in the series).

For me, Doctor Who has always been the ULTIMATE Self-Insert story with the Doctor showing up in the middle of something and usually solving the problem before all hell breaks loose. Granted, solving the problem sometimes doesn't come as easy as one would hope.

With strings of continuity throughout many episodes, I think that Doctor Who would transition into an anime form pretty well! Not to mention, with some episodes lost to time and with only audio recordings left of the original episodes, an anime version can help recreate episodes of Doctor Who that some may never see again!

I think it could be done quite nicely, especially if the Flash version is any indication:

[Unfortunately, the Flash animations provided by the BBC were removed when they decided to remove the Cult section of their website. Hopefully, they will be back again sometime soon.]

And finally, WHO would do Doctor Who? What animation studio? Who would direct? Would it be new episodes, or recreations of older episodes where only the audio is left intact?

I want to see if there are any anime fans who are also "Who-ligans" too!

~Otaku-Man

[LantisEscudo]

I'm going to have to disagree.

Part of what made Doctor Who what it was were the quirky British actors and the budget special effects, neither of which I've seen make transitions to animation well. Even the 1993 FOX TV movie and the 2005 relaunch don't feel like Who to me - they're too slick with the visual effects (I'm a Troughton/Pertwee-era fan, though Logopolis is my favorite episode of the series). I stopped watching the 2005 series after six episodes, because of how off it felt compared to the older series, even the bad Colin Baker episodes.

What makes the transition even more difficult is the fact that you'd be crossing cultures to make a Doctor Who anime. Anime has a distinctly Japanese feel, which the "anime-inspired" American animated series don't have. Taking Doctor Who, a British icon, and creating a Japanese-flavored animation out of it would be exceedingly difficult to pull off without looking like a ripoff or a stereotype (look at the episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang for an episode they tried to give a Chinese feel).

I can see the BBC creating a Doctor Who animated series (heck, even Star Trek got one), but certainly not anime-styled.

[oldwrench]

Having been a Dr. Who fan since it first came to public tv, I would say no. I don't think you could bring out the quirky charm of the Doctors and the series in animation. Tom Baker was such a great character, how could you imitate that in anime. Please leave the anime to the creators of new ideas. I do think there are many scifi books that could inspire some great anime, the way Crest of Stars was taken fron a novel.

[azulmagia]

I remember, while looking on the web for Doctor Who pages, coming across a site that had a section on illustrations of Japanese versions of Doctor Who novels. Sad to say, they were not all that manga-ish at all.

So, I take that to mean there's no hope for any good Doctor Who anime. Star Trek anime, perhaps. Now that Doctor Who is back on the air we don't need a Doctor Who anime, anyway.

[OtakuMan22]

I for one am just glad to know that there are some Doctor Who fans here in the forums to begin with!

You do have a point that an anime styled Doctor Who probably wouldn't work, but if not anime, then what? Plus, there's also the more realistic animation styles usually associated with Production I.G.

After all, I.G. did the anime sequences for Kill Bill, and I believe they have also done a couple Linkin Park music vids. And then there's the Ghost In the Shell movies and the Patlabor movies too.

Wouldn't Doctor Who fit into that kind of animation style, perhaps?

Although I got to agree, perfecting the charm of people like Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker would be pretty difficult if not impossible, but I figure that since the characters themselves are "animated", if you will, to begin with, I figured the transtition might not be too difficult.

And also, like I said, there was some animated Who done using Flash which was REALLY killer on the BBC website before they cut off the Cult section. The one called "Scream of the Shalka" had Richard Grant playing an alternate universe Doctor (or future Doctor), and it was done REALLY well, animated or not!

And frankly, I like the new Who series myself! Some of the writers are the same ones who worked on the original series, like Paul Cornell!

If that isn't authentic, what is?!

So Production I.G.: Yes or No?

~Otaku-Man