In the last few years, many video games have received big-budget anime adaptations. Netflix's Castlevania showed that when handled well, an anime can please both the game's fanbase and those who have never picked up a controller. Capcom seems to be jumping on this bandwagon. Dragon's Dogma, a series based on the game franchise of the same name, was recently released and has been praised by anime fans and critics alike. Netflix has announced that Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, an anime based on Capcom's survival horror franchise, will come out next year. But what other Capcom franchises deserve the anime treatment? Here are five that seem perfectly suited to the format!
19xx
The first game in the 19XX franchise, 1942, hit arcades in 1984. This vertically scrolling shooter was a smash hit for the then-new company. It got ports on every popular home console from the Famicom in Japan to the ZX Spectrum in Europe. It spawned four sequels, with the final game in the series, 1942: Joint Strike, being released for Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 in 2008. The games are all WW2 themed, aside from 19XX: The War Against Destiny, which was set before a fictional war that merely resembled WW2.
However, while the technology resembles weapons and aircraft from WW2, the combat is far from historically accurate. The planes in the 19XX franchise dodge between bullets like ariel ballerinas, all while firing massive, screen-filling superweapons. This frantic and graceful combat would be great for anime. Fusing all the fun and excitement of a mecha show with a cool alternative history setting would lead to a unique anime.
Final Fight
Capcom is known for its scrolling beat 'em ups, and the most famous of these games has to be 1989's Final Fight. The game is set in Metro City, a large metropolitan area that used to be a hotbed of crime until former pro-wrestler Mike Haggar was elected as mayor. Haggar worked to clean up the city. However, these actions drew the ire of the Mad Gear gang. Mad Gear tried to bribe Haggar, but he refused it. So, in retaliation, Mad Gear kidnaped Haggar's daughter. Haggar joins forces with his daughter's boyfriend Cody and Cody's friend Guy and the group traverse Metro City, beating up various enemies until they eventually find and defeat Mad Gear's leader. The game spawned three sequels and two spinoff games, all of which retained the setting and scrolling violence of the original.
The game is full of larger than life characters. Both the protagonists and the various foes are brilliantly designed and highly memorable. The franchise's plot would allow a studio to create an action-packed story full of epic fights as audiences follow Mike Haggar on his quest to save his daughter.
Dino Crisis
An absolute cult classic, Dino Crisis is a survival horror game that was released for the PlayStation in 1999. At the time, audiences were wowed by the game's 3D environments and its unique story. The game proved to be extremely popular and got two sequels and two spinoff titles. Each one focuses on the fallout from Third Energy experiments. This form of energy causes time distortions, allowing dinosaurs and other monsters to appear in the modern world, destroying everything in their path. Throughout the series, the characters are forced to contend with many different creatures, and the player has to use all of their cunning and wits to survive.
Dino Crisis' story would be perfect for an anime. The combination of horror, intrigue and intense action would translate perfectly to the screen. As we've seen in shows like Attack on Titan, animation can make hulking behemoths look both awe-inspiring and utterly horrifying, and this is just what you need in a franchise overflowing with terrifying dinosaurs.
Breath Of Fire
Breath Of Fire is a long-running role-playing series. Starting out on the SNES in 1993, the series is made up of six games as well as a collection of spinoff mobile games. While every game is self-contained, each one features some recurring themes; for instance, every Breath Of Fire installment has a hero called Ryu who befriends a winged girl called Nina. Breath Of Fire's unique mechanic is that Ryu can transform into various types of dragons and use their unique skillsets.
The more recent games even feature anime-style cutscenes and game introductions. The series has also had a manga that expands on the games' stories, showing how easy it would be to turn the franchise into a big-budget anime production.
Rival Schools
Capcom is famous for the Street Fighter franchise. But Street Fighter has already had five anime adaptations. However, Capcom's other fighting games remain surprisingly unloved. The first Rival Schools game, Rival Schools: United by Fate, arrived in arcades in 1997 and was ported to the PlayStation the next year, and its sequel, Project Justice, was released in 2000.
Rival Schools is set in Aoharu City. The schools in Aoharu City used to be quiet, but when students and staff start getting attacked or kidnapped, teams of students set off to unravel the mystery and find the culprit via the medium of hand to hand violence. The Japanese PlayStation port expanded on this in a bonus visual novel mode that allowed players to make their own character and learn more about the various students.
Rival Schools' roster of unique and wacky characters makes it perfect for a school battle anime in the vein of Kill la Kill. It could follow the various teams of students as they fight their way through other students in their effort to find the truth.
