When an IP proves to be successful, it’s only natural for its creators to try and branch out into other mediums. In some cases, this could lead toa video game being adapted into a movie, while in others, it might mean a manga or comic book getting its own anime or cartoon. In some rare cases, franchises have found a way to do it all.
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These fan-favorite works of fiction have found success in multiple mediums, having each appeared in video game, comic book, TV show, and movie form. Granted,some adaptations have been more successful than others, but the fact that they were made in the first place is a testament to both the popularity and quality of the source material.
1Dragon Ball
Perhaps the most notable example of a franchise successfully transitioning into other mediums,Dragon Ballreally has done it all. Having started out as a manga series in Weekly Shonen Jump all the way back in 1984, it soon received an anime adaptation. The rest, as they say, is history, withDragon Ball Zeventually going on to become one of the most popular andmost successful anime seriesever created.
Naturally, this success spawned even more adaptations, with a near-endless stream of games and movies coming into existence over the next few decades. Following a long hiatus around the turn of the century,Dragon Ballcontinues to receive new installments across all four mediums to this day and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
2Mortal Kombat
After taking American arcades by storm following its release in 1992, it did not take long forMortal Kombatto branch out into other mediums. Developer Midway actually released its own mail-order comic books to coincide with the release of several of theMortal Kobatgames, while a licensed series by Malibu Comics was also published between 1994 and 1995.
1995 was also the year that the very firstMortal Kombatmovie was released, with many more having followed it in the decades since. Then there was the infamousMortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, aSaturday morning cartoon seriesbased loosely onMortal Kombat 3which aired on the USA Network throughout the final few months of 1996.
3Street Fighter
Street Fighteris another video game franchise that got its own Saturday morning cartoon on the USA Network. In fact, the first seasons ofStreet FighterandMortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realmactually ran back to back before the latter was unceremoniously canned at the end of 1996.Street Fighterlived to fight another day but failed to make it past its second season.
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There have been plenty ofStreet Fightermovies too, the first and perhaps most infamous being the 1994 flick starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and Kylie Minogue as Cammy. Though there are only five mainlineStreet Fightergames at the time of writing, there are countless revisions. This includes manydifferent versions ofStreet Fighter 2, which was also adapted into a manga back in 1993.
4Pokemon
There’s a tremendous amount of synergy between the manyPokemonproperties, with each working together perfectly to strengthen the global popularity of the brand. It all began with the Japanese release ofPokemon Red & Greenback in early 1996 and quickly snowballed from there. Within just a few short years,Pokemonhad become one of the biggest and most profitable IPs on the planet.
Both thePokemonanime and thePokemon Adventuresmanga series made their debuts in 1997, with both still going strong today more than a quarter of a century later.Pokemon: The First Moviepremiered the following year, with more than twenty morePokemonanime movieshaving been produced since then. Of course, Nintendo is still releasing games on a fairly regular basis too, withPokemon Scarlet & VioletandPokemon Legends: Arceusall arriving in 2022.
5Shenmue
Released in 1999,Shenmuewas one of the most groundbreaking video games of its era, helping to redefine what a game could be while also laying the foundations for what would eventually become the open-world genre. Prior to the release of its sequel, a series of comic books was released to introduce some of the new characters, as too was a special movie summarizing the events of the first game.
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DespiteShenmue 2offering yet more innovation, the death of the Sega Dreamcast saw the series slip into a long slumber, with fans forced to wait almost fifteen years for news regarding the fate of the franchise. It returned with a pretty big bang though, with itsrecord-breaking Kickstarter campaignnot only paving the way for the long-awaited third game but also an incredibly well-put-together anime adaptation.
6Final Fantasy
When it comes to JRPGs, they don’t come much bigger thanFinal Fantasy. Hironobu Sakaguchi’s series helped to define the genre and played a central role in its popularization in the west. With this in mind, it was only a matter of time before the series made its way into other mediums, though to say that results there have been mixed would perhaps be a bit of an understatement.
The 2001 anime seriesFinal Fantasy: Unlimitedfailed to make much of an impression with viewers, with its planned 52-episode run eventually being cut down to just 25. The decision to leave the story ofUnlimitedunfinished was in part down to the poor performance ofFinal Fantasy: The Spirits Within, with the 2001 CGI movie ultimately falling flat at the box office. Thankfully, some of the many manga adaptations were quite a bit more successful,as too wasFinal Fantasy VII: Advent Children, a 2005 anime OVA.
7Spider-Man
Marvel has been responsible for plenty oficonic comic book characterssince its foundation in 1939, but Spider-Man is arguably the pick of the bunch. His heroics have been entertaining fans for more than six decades now, during which time the wall-crawling superhero has swung his way into a variety of other mediums, including cartoons, movies, and video games.
There have been a few differentSpider-Mancartoons over the years, but none were quite as successful as the 1994 series, which ran for five whole seasons on Fox Kids and other networks around the world. There have been plenty of movies as well, not just in the modern era, but back in the sixties and seventies too. Then there are the manySpider-Manvideo games, which between them have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.
