Many of us may know about Burn the House Down as a J-drama on Netflix. But I’m guessing not many of us know it’s a drama adapted from the manga.

I for one seem to be the latter – I only knew about the live-action drama when I did a random Google search about the manga.

Believe me, I wouldn’t even know about the live-action drama’s existence if it’s not because of my Google random search.

What’s even funnier is that I have no idea how I had the manga in the first place.

I suspect it may have something to do with me getting the manga when it was free on Bookwalker.

If there’s one thing that got me to come across manga and light novels without knowing anything about them, it will be in that situation.

While it’s no secret here that I tend to prefer the source material over the anime adaptation, I will also say the same for the live-action adaptation of any kind.

If I have to pick between the source material and the live-action adaptation, it will be the source material for the win, hands down.

And it seems like my suspicion about the Burn the House Down live-action drama proves to be right when I see the review for the Burn the House Down live-action drama.

What people think about the Burn the House Down live-action drama

Not surprisingly, the reviews that I come across on the IMDb are rather mixed.

While the majority of them love the drama, a handful of them don’t think that highly about the drama.

The reason behind their dissatisfaction with the drama?

Well, it’s none other than some parts of the story don’t make much sense.

The math isn’t mathing, they say.

One of them is what took Anzu so long to investigate the cause of the fire and seek revenge for her family.

For someone who wants to seek revenge, she sure does take her own sweet time to make it happen.

And let’s not forget how the live-action drama seems to portray the father as someone who abandons his children and runs off to marry his ex-wife’s bestie.

Even the ending doesn’t seem that convincing either. It looks as if they’re putting together the ending on a whim.

Well, I won’t blame them for feeling frustrated with what they see in the live-action drama.

It’s hard to cram everything when you only have eight episodes in total to work on.

And here we are, thinking that cramming everything in the 13-episode anime is already a disaster in the waiting.

The issue with the live-action adaptation of any kind

Think the anime adaptation that you watch is plainly terrible?

Well, you’d better believe that the live-action adaptation of any kind isn’t any better.

And it’s even more so when the budget for the live-action drama adaptation is only a pittance.

As a result, not only do we have a subpar cast and mediocre production like the one you see in Sweets Today’s live-action drama filming in Oshi no Ko.

But it causes the live-action drama to have episode constraints too.

If you find the story in the live-action drama seems to have this huge gaping hole, you’re not wrong to feel that way.

It’s impossible to cram a story that spans ten volumes into eight drama episodes. So, something’s got to give even if they’re crucial to the story.

Sure, you can argue that you can squeeze as much information as you can since the episode for the drama tends to be longer than the anime episode.

But it can still be a tall order to cram everything when you only have eight episodes to work on.

Just go and read the manga

While it’s easy to convince anime fans to read the source material, it can be hard to convince people who only watch live-action dramas and movies to do the same.

The reason for that is simple – they’re not the type of people who read manga.

Think of the average person who enjoys watching drama and movies.

While a handful of them do watch anime and read manga, you certainly don’t associate the average person to love watching anime and reading manga.

It’s a different story if they love the live-action drama so much that they’re willing to give the manga a try, though.

And that leads us to this question – why bother with the live-action adaptation if it doesn’t help with increasing the sales of the source material?

Isn’t that why they agreed to have the manga adapted into a live-action drama?

Well, you’re not wrong to believe that the purpose of adaptation of any kind is to increase the sale of the source material.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case for the source materials that get a live-action adaptation.

Rather than hoping the live-action adaptation to increase the sale of the source material, they’re gunning on making money from the TV or movie right instead.

How much they’re raking the dough for the TV or movie right is something that I’m not sure of.

But I can bet it must be a lucrative one, even for a non-mainstream manga like this one.

Fill in the void

This post on DMT sums up nicely all the things that don’t make it to the live-action version.

Give it a read if you need clarity on the gaping hole in the story.

That post also seals the deal on why you should judge the story based on the source material, not on the adaptation.

Yes, I admit I’m not a big fan of the live-action adaptation, especially the ones that get the Hollywood treatment.

But if there’s one thing that I loathe the most is the live-action adaptation that doesn’t resemble the source material at all.

Ask anyone who watches the Chinese drama Cruel Romance and reads its source material, The Fate of Jinxiu, and they will say that the drama is nothing like its source material.

The only saving grace about the drama is the cast.

At the very least, we all should be thankful that the live-action version of Burn the House Down is still similar to the source material.

I can’t say much about the cast since I know none of them.

But story-wise, it’s not that much different from the manga despite having so many gaping holes that confuse some.

P.S. If you want a story that has a similar vibe to the Burn the House Down manga but with a disturbing twist, then you may enjoy reading my light novel, The Diary of Modern Cinderella.

Intrigued by the title and find the premise promising?

You can get the ebook version on my Payhip store. Use the coupon code SEKINAMAYUBLOG to get 25% off on your purchase.

Buy The Diary of Modern Cinderella on Payhip