Petition to Marvel Studios: Give Wolverine Back to Japan

An Open Letter to Marvel Studios, Disney, and Everyone Who Has Ever Asked What Wolverine Would Do If You Just Let Him Stay in Japan

Dear Marvel Studios,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that Marvel Studios do something completely unnecessary, financially irresponsible, artistically magnificent, and therefore obviously correct:

Give Wolverine his own anime.

Not an X-Men anime.

Not an Avengers anime.

Not another multiverse crossover where Wolverine spends six minutes standing next to seventeen other superheroes.

Wolverine. Logan. Alone. In Japan.

And let a major Japanese animation studio make the damn thing.

The Premise

Take the Logan we know.

The claws.

The healing factor.

The adamantium skeleton.

The centuries of trauma.

The alcoholism.

The inability to process his emotions like a normal human being.

The inexplicable ability to walk into any situation and immediately become involved in the most dangerous bullshit imaginable.

Now change one thing:

He stays in Japan.

Logan chooses Mariko.

They marry.

They build a life together.

And because this is Wolverine we’re talking about, that peaceful life lasts approximately eleven minutes before someone attacks them with ninjas.

From there, we let the story go absolutely fucking insane.

Season One: The Wolverine Who Stayed

Logan and Mariko attempt to build a life together.

He becomes involved with the Yashida family.

Yukio remains part of their lives.

The old conflicts with the Yakuza return.

Logan discovers that Japan contains an entire supernatural ecosystem that nobody bothered to warn him about.

Ninjas.

Assassins.

Ancient clans.

Mutant experiments.

Occult organizations.

Cursed swords.

Giant monsters.

And, eventually, something that requires Logan to fight a fucking robot.

The season ends with Logan looking at the destruction surrounding him and realizing:

“I thought I left this shit behind.”

He did not.

Season Two: Samurai Wolverine

Give us Japanese swordsmanship.

Give us Logan actually learning the culture rather than simply passing through it.

Give us rival swordsmen who become friends.

Give us ancient warrior clans.

Give us supernatural blades.

Give us Logan discovering that his healing factor does not make him immune to getting his ass kicked by someone who is simply much better with a sword.

Give us the occasional episode where Logan spends an entire day trying to fix something around the house while Mariko watches him repeatedly make the problem worse.

And yes:

Give us the adamantium Gundam again.

This time, make it even bigger.

Season Three: Wolverine vs. Kaiju

There is no reason Wolverine should not fight a kaiju.

None.

He has fought aliens.

He has fought robots.

He has fought demons.

He has fought other mutants.

He has fought basically everything Marvel has ever thrown at him.

So let him fight a giant Japanese monster.

Have Logan stand on top of a skyscraper while a 300-foot creature approaches.

Everyone evacuates.

The military panics.

Mariko tells Logan not to do anything stupid.

Logan pops his claws.

Mariko:

“Logan.”

Logan:

“I’ll be fine.”

Mariko:

“That’s what you said last time.”

Logan:

“Yeah.”

Cut to opening theme.

Season Four: The Dead Don’t Stay Dead

Ghosts.

Absolutely fucking ghosts.

Logan has spent centuries accumulating enemies and dead friends.

Eventually some of them should come back to bother him.

Imagine Wolverine being completely unafraid of physical monsters only to discover that he has absolutely no idea how to punch a ghost.

His claws go straight through it.

He looks at Yukio.

Yukio looks at him.

Logan:

“I hate this.”

Perfect.

Season Five: The Stars Are Angry

Aliens.

Logan gets abducted.

Mariko has to deal with the fact that her husband has apparently been kidnapped by extraterrestrials.

Logan discovers that there are civilizations throughout the galaxy that have heard of Wolverine.

Unfortunately, they have mostly heard stories about him as:

“That incredibly violent Canadian who refuses to fucking die.”

He gets dragged into an interstellar conflict.

He solves it by stabbing something.

He returns home.

Mariko asks where he’s been.

Logan:

“Long story.”

Mariko:

“Were you abducted by aliens?”

Logan:

“…yes.”

Mariko:

“Of course you were.”

The Most Important Rule

Do not make this another X-Men story.

No Professor X.

No Cyclops.

No Magneto.

No Brotherhood.

No Sentinel apocalypse.

No “Wolverine must save the mutant race.”

This series should be about Logan’s life.

Let him have a family.

Let him have friends.

Let him have a home.

Let him be happy occasionally.

And then, because he’s Wolverine, throw something fucking enormous through the roof.

Why Anime?

Because Marvel has already demonstrated that Wolverine works in this format.

In 2011, Marvel partnered with Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan and Madhouse on an actual Wolverine anime series set around Logan’s relationship with Mariko and his adventures in Japan. Madhouse’s official description explicitly identifies it as a Marvel adaptation and lists Warren Ellis as the story writer. (株式会社マッドハウス)

Marvel also produced companion anime projects for Iron Man, X-Men, and Blade around the same period. (株式会社マッドハウス)

The experiment already happened.

We are simply asking you to do it again, but with considerably more ambition.

Give it a serious budget.

Give it twelve-to-thirteen episodes per season.

Give it theatrical-quality action animation.

Give the animators freedom.

Give Logan a long-running story.

And most importantly:

Do not be afraid to make it weird.

The Pitch

Title:

WOLVERINE: RONIN

Or, if you prefer the completely honest version:

THAT TIME I FELL IN LOVE WITH WOLVERINE BUT FIGURED OUT MY GRANDFATHER’S PLANS WITH ADAMANTIUM GUNDAM

We are willing to compromise on the title.

We are not willing to compromise on the Gundam.

The Request

Marvel Studios:

You have an opportunity to take one of your most recognizable characters and put him somewhere he has always made strange amounts of sense:

Japan.

Give Logan a wife.

Give him a home.

Give him enemies.

Give him swordsmen.

Give him ninjas.

Give him ghosts.

Give him aliens.

Give him kaiju.

Give him the occasional completely unreasonable giant robot.

And let him spend several seasons discovering that perhaps, after centuries of wandering, he can finally belong somewhere.

Then let someone blow up his house.

Because this is Wolverine.

He’ll rebuild it.

We respectfully request that Marvel make the Wolverine anime we apparently deserved all along.

Sincerely,

Fans Who Have Thought About This For Approximately Five Minutes and Are Already More Invested Than We Probably Should Be