Arcane’s animation studio expresses interest to animate Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond manga

In an interview with Crunchyroll, Pascal Charrue, co-founder of the animation studio Fortiche — which animated Arcane — was asked what manga he would love to bring to life. “The first adaptation that comes to mind would be Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue. It’s a masterpiece with incredible depth and stunning artwork that would be fascinating to bring to life in animation," he said.

One of the biggest challenges, according to the co-founder of Fortiche, would be translating manga to animation, especially in terms of pacing. He explained that while readers can control the pace of a manga as they read, it's challenging to achieve the same effect in an animated version.

Pascal also showed admiration for many artists like Naoki Urasawa and his creations, such as Monster, 20th Century Boys, Pluto, and Billy Bat. Urasawa is a manga artist, considered one of the great masters of thriller and mystery styles. Despite the huge adaptation of Naoki's works, he's a huge inspiration for Pascal's work and his studio.

"We’re big fans of anime directors such as Satoshi Kon, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Hosoda, and Hayao Miyazaki. These directors are renowned for their ability to direct characters like real actors, bringing emotions and drama through a subtle blend of aesthetics and directing techniques inspired by live-action," he said. However, he added that their inspiration as a studio isn't limited to animation. "We're also influenced by live-action movies from Hollywood and Asian action films."

For the Arcane studio, Vagabond has been an inspiration art-wise. This manga is an epic martial arts manga written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue, the same writer of Slam Dunk. These two art pieces are two of the best-selling manga series in history. Vagabond tells us the life story of a Japanese swordsman named Musashi Miyamoto in 1600. This manga is based on Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel Musashi.

The fan's reactions to Arcane Studio's interest in Vagabond on X have been mixed. Some fans asked Fortiche to go further with this interest and bring life to other iconic Japanese mangas such as Berserk. Others ask for 3D animation to stay away from manga and that the Arcane style would be horrific for Vagabond. However, fans have been explaining that the same studio does not mean the same art style.

Overall, fans seemed curious about this move, but the skepticism is still very present. Many manga have been adapted in the last decades to bring more stories to the screen. In fact, the majority of the anime blockbusters are adapted from manga like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, or the most recent season of Solo Leveling.

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