Western fantasy novels/books that would make good mangas?

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I've spent a long time reading a lot of literature before even knowing what manga even was and I'm sure there are many others here like me.

One of the things I like about a lot of the older pre-2000s western fantasy is it feels really refreshing after reading fantasy web novels and light novels since a lot of the tropes you see in Japanese fantasy light novels are nonexistent or in fact the opposite. What are some western Fantasy works you'd love to see in manga form? Of course, they would stick to recreating it properly without altering characters, belief systems, politics, etc.
 
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@Falador being a fan of fantasy novels myself the list would be endless but my no. 1 would be Eragon. This story is too good for the bad movie adaptation. It saddened me that after the one movie it was buried and forgotten 😢
 
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I loved “ children of the lamp” a series of 7 novels. Best of mystery, adventure and slice of life I ever read. Would love to see it as manga/ comic/ anime/ tv series or even movie.
 
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>none of the cthulhu mythos is listed
hmmmmmmmmm

Mistborn
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Dune
 
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I think A song of Ice and Fire done right could be a really great anime, because the live series is shit. The only people that like it are the ones that havent read the books.
 
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@wowfucktron

How would you go about recreating the feeling of helplessness, tinyness, and fear that Lovecraft strives for and portraying it in a manga while doing it justice?
 
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Warhammer Fantasy

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@Tamerlane

Yeah. I don't like a lot of the stupid tropes in manga either. I do enjoy the art styles the same as graphic novels. A lot of them are incompatable.
 
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My favorite manga resemble books more than they do most popular manga, and I like both my books and my manga to be fictitious but grounded in reality, though I used to read a lot of fantasy books as a kid. I'd recommend Eragon, Pendragon (by D.J. Machale), Insignia, and Ender's Game for fantasy.
 
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> Dune

Nah, I don't think Dune or LotR or any other similar series would make good manga. No one would like literally hundreds of pages with zero action and just "blah-blah-blah". Well, you can of course drop out all that "blah-blah-blah" but then it wouldn't be Dune/LotR/whatever.
 

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Cirque du freaks is a children’s chapter book series that got a metal af manga adaptation. Has a very shonen vibe to it while capturing the kinda gorey and mature themes of the series. I still need to finish the manga and while I haven't read the original series, I think western works could make for great manga based on what I read of Cirque Du Freaks. Pretty surprised that something like Harry Potter never got something like this.

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  • Lord of the Rings
  • The Riftwar Cycle
  • The Artemis Fowl Novels(Screw the Movie Adaption)
  • Inkheart
  • The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
  • Krabat
  • The Cangaroo Chronicles
  • All Quiet on the Western Front
  • Dwarves(Markus Heitz)
  • Momo(Michael Ende)
  • The Neverending Story
  • Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
 
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I really want to see Tom Clancy books made into a manga XD
 
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One of the things I like about a lot of the older pre-2000s western fantasy is it feels really refreshing after reading fantasy web novels and light novels since a lot of the tropes you see in Japanese fantasy light novels are nonexistent or in fact the opposite.
Interesting opinion. What kind of tropes have you seen in fantasy novels? Do you mean just eastern novels and such? I'm not so sure that Western novels have them.

Nah, I don't think Dune or LotR or any other similar series would make good manga. No one would like literally hundreds of pages with zero action and just "blah-blah-blah". Well, you can of course drop out all that "blah-blah-blah" but then it wouldn't be Dune/LotR/whatever.
That's true, but I feel that a skilled adaptation would adapt the long-winded moments into something more suitable for the medium. In Dune, I feel the scene that most often gets this treatment is the dinner scene. It serves to show the relationships between power-brokers in Arrakis, and also to show off the way that the Atreides strategize in such social gatherings. I feel the 2021 movie adequately shows off how the clan works as an organization by having them frequently communicate with handsigns and such. The local politics not adapted and I feel this is a better choice since it didn't matter in the long run.

For LOTR, I imagine you're referring to the long winded travel segments. Could just be adapted into two-page spreads showing off the landscape and the enormity of the world in comparison to the small party.



Responding to the thread's question, when I was in school I read a book. It was called "Durante la Reconquista" by Alberto Blest. In English it's "During the Reconquest", which refers to the moment after Spain had gotten rid of Napoleon's brother on the throne and turned to taking their colonies back. The book takes place during this historical period in Chile and is about a rich family's struggles during, since they were not royalists. Protagonists has his edgy backstory ("they killed my family!"), a love triangle with a hot MILF and his childhood friend (who might or not be his cousin, now that I remember), a merry band of revolutionaries powered by friendship, bishounen antagonists, etc. Anime-related tropes abound. When I was reading I couldn't help but to think it would be a fine manga, or anime. Could even it give it the Monte Cristo treatment and make it into a sci-fi manga. Optimally, an adaptation should have that LOGH styling with a bit of a romantic bend to it.

Still, it is far-fetched to expect a japanese mangaka to know of a relatively obscure book even in it's country of origin. My countrymen would mostly regard it with an eyeroll, since most were forced to read another book by the same author with all the emnity that creates.
 
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I think Jack Vance's Cugel novels (bizarre fantasy comedies from the 1960s and 80s) would be really well-suited to the format.
 
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I kind think the Black Company by Glen Cook could make a good series and I know someone already mentioned Warhammer but I think specifically the Gotrex and Felix novels would be the best option.
The King Killer Chronicles would be interesting purely by the way the story is told and I'm surprised Sanderson hasn't tried to get an animated series based of one of his works.

Also I'm reminded that there was almost a Wheel of Time anime back in the late 90s to the early 2000s. Story goes is a unnamed japanese studio approached Jorden to adapt the first 3 books into 2 or 3 movies but he turned them down because it would of hardly told the full story
It was mentioned on his old blog but It seems to been scrubbed a few years ago so I might have to look through some archives to find it.
 

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