Why doesn’t Vagabond still have its own anime?

If we start reviewing the list of the best rounds of all time in portals like MyListAnime we will find the names of Berserk, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, One Piece, Monster, and of course Vagabondoccupying the first places. To date, all these works have been adapted into anime format by various studios, however the story of Takehiko Inoue It never had a TV series, movie or OVA.

How is it possible that a manga as prestigious as Vagabond never received an anime? We are facing a complex question that has no official answer from Inoue-sensei, so in this short article I will analyze the situation and feedback from fans until I come to a reasonable conclusion..

Possible reasons why Vagabond will NEVER have an anime

• Vagabond is a manga that began publication in September 1998 and has been on indefinite hiatus since May 2015; Today it has 327 chapters and we don’t know how it could end

• Needless to say an anime studio would have a lot of material to create an adaptation of this work which could even be divided into several seasons, but the problem is elsewhere

• Vagabond fans have come to the conclusion that Musashi Miyamoto’s story cannot be animated due to the enormous difficulty there would be in replicating the quality of the manga panels (which is one of the most impressive I’ve seen in this medium)

• Other possible reasons that would make this task difficult could also be the very high production costs, licensing issues or even artistic and narrative differences with the original author

• It’s possible that Inoue received offers from producers to make a Vagabond anime, but by not meeting his expectations, he might reject them all

A dark precedent

to top it off we have a previous which could have derailed any intention of bringing Vagabond to Japanese television. Berserk is a very similar manga to the work of Takahiko Inoue in terms of the level of detail in the drawings, the maturity and philosophy that are covered in both stories and their great cultural impact.