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Recursive Adaptation
aka: Recursive Adaptations

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The video game based on the hit card game based on the hit video game! Now with a special card!

"Grease 2: The Musical Based On The Sequel To The Movie Based On The Musical"
— Sign outside of Springfield Community Theater, The Simpsons episode "The Monkey Suit"

Something that can happen when a work is adapted, and then that is adapted, and it's repeated, to the point where it gets adapted back into the original medium. Often because the original version is so far from the adapted version that it's useless as a tie-in, so the work had to be adapted back. It can also be due to Adaptation Displacement, however. Other reasons are quite possible, as this trope cares not for motives of the recursive adapter, merely that the adaption "stack" curves back on itself (for example, book->movie->TV show->book).

This is the result of making a novelization of a movie based on a book, or making a movie out of a Screen-to-Stage Adaptation, effectively remaking the original movie. See also Recursive Import, Recursive Fanfiction, Third-Option Adaptation, and Canon Immigrant.

Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, manga → game → manga.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: Novel (Hi-Streamer) → Movie → Novel (Beltorchika's Children). Note that both novels were written by series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino, and none of these are straight adaptations.
  • Dragon Ball Z had a double recursive adaptation: the fourth Dragon Ball Z RPG for the Family Computer was titled Dragon Ball Z Gaiden, which featured a new storyline written specifically for the game. A two-part video guide for the game was then released that was essentially a Dragon Ball Z OVA with footage of the Famicom game spliced in between. The animated segments of the video guide were then reused for two FMV games released for Bandai's short-lived Macintosh-based Pippin game console in Japan.
    • Dragon Ball Jump Festa special, Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!, was adapted into a one-shot manga by Ooishi Naho.
    • The Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku featured an original storyline that wasn't in the original manga, years later Naho Ooishi wrote a manga miniseries called Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock set after the events of the TV special which got adapted into a TV special. That makes it an OVA adapted from a manga which is a sequel to an anime TV special which was spun-off from a manga. Also, just to make it more confusing, Bardock as a character received Canon Immigrant status in a flashback in Toriyama's original manga.
    • And then of course there's the "animanga", which is a manga that uses screenshots of the TV series, which itself is based on the manga. Its main upside was that it was colour while the original manga was black and white, but then it became "redundantly redundant" with the release of Dragon Ball Colour, which colours in the original manga panels at a much higher quality.
  • Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is an anime inspired by the original Ghost in the Shell that establishes it's own continuity. This anime series received a manga adaptation, which makes it a manga based on an anime inspired by a manga.
  • Lupin III is a multi-media franchise that began as a serial manga. After making its way to Anime, some of the stories have become full-colour manga volumes.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima! (manga) → Negima!? (anime) → Negima!? Neo (manga).
  • One Piece had a video game adaptation that had an original story, and the story of the game later got adapted into a Filler arc in the anime.
  • Trigun is a strange beast; it began as a manga, which ended prematurely due to publication issues but shortly after was adapted as an anime with a definite conclusion to the story; but later the original manga was republished under a different magazine, and continued on while borrowing story elements from its own adaptation.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! was originally a manga which was adapted into an anime. The anime received a spinoff, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, which was adapted back into a manga, though this is not a full example of this trope as the manga is almost completely different from the anime, sharing only characters, setting, and the card game. The same goes for subsequent spinoffs too, the first of which also has decent amount of changes from the anime, starting with the rules of the game (certain cards are not required and monsters are summoned differently).
  • Attack on Titan: The Novelization of Levi's backstory, A Choice with No Regrets being adapted into a Manga, then being adapted into a two-part OVA.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam (anime) → Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (manga) → Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (anime adaptation of new manga material as a Prequel series)

    Comic Books 

    Film 

    Literature 
  • Both the films Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein had new novelizations written, despite being based on classic novels themselves. And having included the original author's name in the title of the movie, as if to give an air of authenticity. Fred Saberhagen wrote the novelization of Bram Stoker's Dracula; Saberhagen reportedly offered his services on the Frankenstein novel as well, solely for the purpose of being able to put "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: From the author of Bram Stoker's Dracula" on the cover. Ah, What Could Have Been...
  • The Thing (1982) also had a novelization... making it a novel based on a film based on a short story (ignoring the previous film version of the short story which had little to do with the original).
  • Hollywood producers offered Philip K. Dick the chance to write the novelization of Blade Runner, itself a loose Film of the Book (the screenwriters had not read the original book) of his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? They would have paid him a lot of money to do this, but feeling insulted he refused. This led to the release of tie-in editions of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? re-titled and looking for all the world like Blade Runner novelizations. Later, his short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" inspired the movie Total Recall (1990). Having gone through Development Hell and many screenwriters, the script was essentially an original script with even less in common with its source material than Blade Runner. By the time of the film's release, Piers Anthony had written a novelization of Total Recall. The novelization came out in 1989. The movie came out in 1990.
  • Black Beauty, originally a novel, had a movie made out of it. And then the movie was novelized into a children's book with pictures from the movie in the middle.
  • Several movies based on children's books wind up getting adapted into children's books again. Recent examples include The Tale of Despereaux.
  • Anthony Trollope's six-volume Palliser series (long) was adapted into a twenty-six episode miniseries (also long) only to be novelized again in a single volume (very, very short).
  • Fritz Leiber adapted Tarzan and the City of Gold starring Mike Henry into a prose Tarzan novel. He took pains to footnote past Tarzan adventures by Edgar Rice Burroughs to make this a canonical continuation of the Tarzan continuity of Burroughs.
  • Star Trek: The Animated Series example: the episode "The Slaver Weapon" was adapted by Larry Niven from his own original (unrelated to Star Trek) short story "The Soft Weapon". The episode itself was then subsequently novelised by Alan Dean Foster as a Star Trek novel. This means that there are two print versions of the exact same story, both of which are similar but also startlingly different from each other.
  • Many The Saint comic strip arcs and TV episodes received prose adaptations by Leslie Charteris and other writers. These adaptations fit into the Saint's literary continuity. Examples include The Saint in Trouble (has a footnote to the events of The Last Hero) and Salvage for the Saint.
  • Will Murray wrote some Remo Williams comic books, at least one of which he adapted into a prose novel.
  • Max Allan Collins wrote a Bones novel. This counts as a recursive adaptation as the Bones TV series adapts Kathy Reichs' concepts from her novels.
  • Carl Dreadstone adaptations of the Universal, many of whom started in prose.
  • 1977 novelization of Lancaster version of The Island of Doctor Moreau.
  • The novelization of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake was a novelization of a remake of a film adapted from an English translation of a French novel. Yikes.
  • Joy Hakim's A History of US middle-school textbook series was adapted into a PBS documentary series Freedom: A History of US, which was released concurrently with a history book (not quite written for middle-schoolers, but for all casual readers) adaptation of the documentaries, sharing the revamped title with the documentaries. So Textbook → Documentary → history book.
  • The run-up to the Jackson The Lord of the Rings adaptation inspired this memorable parody.
  • The Magic School Bus series had books based on the TV series based on the book. They were by far the least educational of the versions.
  • Both Arthur and Franklin began their lives as popular book series. Both have since been made into television series. In turn, episodes of those series have been released as books, though they've generally avoided releasing episodes as books that were adapted from books in the first place.
  • How to Train Your Dragon: The Chapter Book. Seriously, that's the actual title.
  • The Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine was adapted into a TV show, which then was adapted back into books based on the episode (though, these books were written by someone else).
  • Moonraker has an interesting history as a book → movie → book. It was the third James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. It was then adapted into a film in 1979... but the film only incorporated the villain (Hugo Drax) and the idea of a rocket from the novel. The screenwriter, Christopher Wood, adapted his screenplay into a book of the movie, titled James Bond and Moonraker to differentiate it from the original novel.
    • Previously done to a greater extent with The Spy Who Loved Me. Fleming only licensed the title to Eon due to his being unhappy with the novel and with Bond only appearing in the final third of the book. An entirely new plot was created for the film and a novelization commissioned; the first for James Bond. As with Moonraker, the novelisation was also written by screenplay writer Christopher Wood.
  • Night at the Museum, based on a children's picture book, was adapted into a young adult novel.
  • Mary Roberts Rinehart adapted her detective novel The Circular Staircase in collaboration with Avery Hopwood into the play The Bat, whose runaway success led to a novelization.
  • The Fox and the Hound, a novel by Daniel P. Mannix, and obviously literature to begin with, was very very loosely adapted into a Disney movie which was then further adapted into another series of books.
  • Where the Wild Things Are started as a picture book, then was adapted into a much longer and more detailed movie, and the movie has its novelized version, titled Wild Things.
  • Conan the Barbarian, both the 1982 and 2011 versions, received novelizations. (Admittedly, an unusual entry, since the films did not especially specifically adapt the tales from the 1950s reprint volume Conan the Barbarian.) Robert Jordan also wrote a novelization of Conan the Destroyer, but no anthology or novel had used that title.
  • Significant changes were made to A Princess of Mars to get the movie John Carter, but at least the novelization included the original novel as an added feature in the back of the book!
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit was based off the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit?. The film then led to the book ... Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Not a straight example because only the characters were used but rather close.
  • The first Jurassic Park film was based fairly directly on Michael Crichton's novel, though differed in several major respects — including just which characters survive or not. Crichton's subsequent book The Lost World (1995) was written more as a sequel to the movie, rather than the novel, given the sudden Unexplained Recovery experience necessary for one major protagonist to appear after his apparent fate in the original novel. This new book was itself swiftly followed by a movie of (partly) the same name, although adapted more loosely still. A second sequel movie was then produced titled Jurassic Park III, combining some characters from the first book/film with the setting of the second and at least one major inspiration (the pterosaur 'cage') from the original novel. By the time we got to the third movie we're 4 steps away from the original book in general, though.
  • Pretty much any fairy tale that Disney adapted was later released by them as either picture books, a movie novelization, a manga, or all of the above, including Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, to name just a few.
  • Robert Sheckley novelized Condorman, loosely based on his novel The Game of X.
  • Some Ellery Queen film adaptations received novelizations.
  • The dramatic novel by Peter George Red Alert was adapted to the Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove with a lot of satirical elements. George would go on to make a novelization of the film.
  • Jane and the Dragon was a series of children's books that got an animated series, which in turn had a few episodes get the Novelization treatment.
  • David Morell wrote First Blood, which was adapted into the Rambo series of films. Morell then penned novelizations of the first two sequels, which have more in common with the films than the original book since Rambo dies at the end of the original story.
  • Return to Oz, loosely based on The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, received a novelization.
  • Julie Burchill's novel Sugar Rush was adapted into a popular TV show that ran for two series. Burchill was inspired by the performance of the two leads to write a follow-up novel, Sweet, that incorporated aspects of both the original novel and the TV show but wasn't canonical to either, essentially creating a third version of the story.
  • If you guessed this has happened to any of the Live Action Adaptations to Dr. Seuss' books, give yourself some green eggs and ham!

    Live-Action TV 
  • Television (The Twilight Zone) → theme park ride (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) → television (Made-for-TV Movie Tower of Terror)
  • The History Channel Mini Series of The Bible (2013) released a novelization called The Story of God and All of Us.
  • Monk recieved a series of non-canon tie-in novels set throughout the series. Two of the plots from these novels (Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse and Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu) were later loosely adapted into episodes of the main television series (Mr. Monk Can't See a Thing and Mr. Monk and the Badge, respectively), albeit with some differences (the most significant being the main plot point of Can't See a Thing).
  • After Doctor Who was revived on TV, there were quite a few cases of Expanded Universe stories being remade as television episodes.
    • Full-scale adaptations are "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" (a Tenth Doctor TV story based on the Seventh Doctor novel Human Nature), "Blink" (a Tenth Doctor TV story based on the prose Ninth Doctor annual short story "What I Did on my Summer Holidays, by Sally Sparrow") and "The Lodger" (an Eleventh Doctor TV story based on a Tenth Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic story of the same title).
    • Looser adaptations are "Dalek" (a Ninth Doctor TV story loosely based on the Sixth Doctor Big Finish Doctor Who drama Jubilee, earlier drafts of which were reportedly much more heavily based on the audio), and "The Shakespeare Code" (a Tenth Doctor TV story loosely based on the Ninth Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story "A Groatsworth Of Wit").
    • The Third Doctor was partially based on James Bond, who was allegedly partially based on actor Jon Pertwee.
  • Red Dwarf's novel "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" had some plots used for episodes of the TV show, notably in "White Hole". The book also explains a lot of what happened before most of the crew were killed, and some of it was adapted into Series 8. The book is often inconsistent with the show's plot, but this was done deliberately (it is inconsistent in show too). The other books "Better Than Life", "Backwards" and "Last Human" had some features put into the show too, but none as much as the first book.
  • Muffin the Mule puppet show had a book based upon it. Some of the shorts from the book were remade into cartoons in the Soviet Union.
  • The Brady Bunch inspired two television movies, The Brady Girls Get Married and A Very Brady Christmas, which each had a spin-off series (The Brady Brides and The Bradys, respectively).

    Music 
  • Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, known as the Kreutzer sonata after its dedicatee,note  inspired the novella The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy about an adulterous affair between a violinist and pianist who perform the Beethoven work. Tolstoy's novella was then adapted back into music as Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No.1, also called Kreutzer Sonata, which paraphrases a theme from the first movement of the original Kreutzer sonata in its third movement.
  • Any time a song, album, musical artist, or musical genre inspires a movie, musical, etc. a soundtrack album is inevitably produced. For example:
    • The music of The Beatles inspired the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which of course had a soundtrack album.
    • The Who album Tommy was adapted as a musical in the 1990s, and produced an album of the original cast recording.
    • American Idiot spawned a Broadway Musical in 2009, which in turn spawned an album of the original cast recording. It even won a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.
  • Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, originally conceived as a classical music piece (and performed in fragments at various Zappa shows over a span of two years), then made into a film in 1971, which was also going to be performed in concert at the Royal Albert Hall around the time of the film's release, until the orchestra and organizers balked at the bawdy lyrics. Eventually a newly-adapted version, 200 Motels: The Suites, with elements of the film and of Zappa's 300-page original score, was performed by the LA Philharmonic and the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2013.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The role-playing game phenomenon inspired the Niven & Barnes novel Dream Park and its sequels. R. Talsorian Games then adapted the novel into an actual tabletop RPG.
  • Magic: The Gathering sells a few of the decks used in its Duels of the Planeswalkers video game as pre-made decks. Of course, there's nothing but money preventing the dedicated player from making the decks himself.
  • Words With Friends: The Boardgame. Zynga copies the concept of Scrabble to make a video game, then licenses it back to Hasbro, the company they copied it from.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: tabletop game → animated series → "Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series Handbook", a third-edition supplement that statted out several characters and races exclusive to the cartoon.
  • Star Wars d20 strongly influenced the Knights of the Old Republic video game series, which, in-turn, spawned a Campaign Guide for the tabletop game a few years later.
  • Scrabble: Board Game → game show → board game.

    Theater 

    Video Games 
  • Street Fighter II inspired a Live-Action Adaptation simply titled Street Fighter, which in turn inspired two fighting games based on it, both titled Street Fighter: The Movie. The arcade version was made by Incredible Technologies. The console version, often mistaken to be a port of the arcade version, plays more like a standard Street Fighter game (specifically like a slower Super SF II Turbo) and it's generally considered a decent game, albeit not at the same level as the other games in the series.
    • Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie also had its own game version, albeit one that came out only in Japan. Instead of being a traditional fighting game, it was some weird pseudo-life sim where you controlled the newest model of Shadaloo's Monitor Cyborgs and develop his fighting abilities by watching FMV footage of the actual movie (along with new scenes made for the game) and "analyzing" the characters' special moves. There is a Super Turbo-style fight sequence in the end, but the Cyborg's moves are the same ones that Ken has in Super Turbo (including his Shoryu Reppa).
  • Pokémon
    • Video game → collectible card game → video game. And the promotional cards that came with the game and its strategy guide are based on those from the video game, adding another layer.
      • Also worth noting that several aspects of the TCG directly affected later generations of the main series. The move Destiny Bond and Rain Dance, as well as the "Pokemon Powers" becoming abilities being prime examples.
    • Also, Pokémon Yellow is video game → anime → video game. This eventually went double-recursive when Ash and Gary finally battled each other in the anime: Ash uses Pikachu while Gary uses an Eevee, which are the Pokémon their game counterparts start with in Yellow.
    • The Surfing Pikachu card is a reference to the anime via Pokémon Yellow, and is included in the video game version of the TCG. That's video game → anime → video game → trading card game → video game.
    • Cinnabar Island has been, from the start, said to be a volcano, but no such volcano is visible in the original games. The anime made the volcano very visible, and even had the city's Gym situated inside it. Come Pokémon Gold and Silver, where that volcano erupted and destroyed the city during the Time Skip, and the eruption is very clearly shown to have originated from the point where the Gym once stood. Another case of video game → anime → video game.
    • Pokémon Puzzle League, aside from being an updated version of Panel de Pon, is a pretty massive recursive adaptation in its own right, given that the Puzzle Master is Mewtwo from the movie. So the adaptation goes: game —> anime —> movie —> game.
  • Advanced Variable Geo was loosely adapted into a 3-part OVA by KSS in 1996. Part of which was used for the beginning of Advanced V.G. II's (released in '98) story mode. Specifically, by reusing the exact same footage of Yuka's match with Jun to explain how Tamao first saw Yuka in action.
  • Double Dragon inspired an animated series produced by DiC Entertainment and Bohbot Entertainment, which had an American-developed fighting game tie-in titled Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls. The Movie also had its own fighting game version for the Neo-Geo, which was developed by Technos themselves.
  • Hoo boy, Super Robot Wars. Initially a series of games centered around anime crossovers which eventually got a sub-series of games based on its Original Generation. Said subseries got its own Animated Adaptation and an OVA sequel. And then the first two OG games got a remake that changed plot elements to accomodate scenes from the anime, and a bonus segment based on the OVA. And after that, a Gaiden Game was released that continued the plot of the bonus segment and threw in elements from what was essentially a radio play. Together with all the Canon Immigrants getting tossed around between series and mediums, Super Robot Wars has more loops than your average roller coaster ride.
  • Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, which was a creative localization of Puyo Puyo based off the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, which was based off of the Sonic the Hedgehog games.
    • If you want to stretch it that far, Sonic Spinball is a video game loosely based on (read: has cameos from) the Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic SatAM, and the Archie Comics series (which were, as above, based on the original games), which eventually got its own comic adaptation.
    • There was going to be a straight example of this—that is, a Sonic game based on the SatAM cartoon, which in turn was based on the video games—but it was canceled.
    • Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was very heavily inspired by Archie Comics' comic line, and the comic has recently been taking in idea from the game.
    • Sonic Boom is a reimagining of the Sonic universe as an animated CGI cartoon series with the companion video games Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal acting as a prologue to the story of the former.
  • Tomb Raider has an interesting example, in that it started as a game, and then became a movie which was a failure for fans of the game. And then the games became failure for fans of the game. Eventually, they borrowed elements from the movie to make the new game series (also putting a "Lara Croft" before the title, similar to the movies), which has actually made it more successful and relevant than its been in years.
  • F-Zero GP Legend—a video game based on the anime of the same name, based upon the F-Zero franchise of video games.
  • Pac-Man → the Saturday morning cartoon Pac-Man → Pac-Land, a sidescrolling platformer based on the cartoon.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever added mini-scenario (game) → Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series (anime) → Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable - The Battle of the Aces (game)
  • Metal Gear started out as a PC game for the MSX2 computers, and it has some sequels made for the video game consoles after the demise of MSX, and some of them have even ported back to PCs running Microsoft Windows. Considering Windows a Spiritual Successor to MSX, it could helped playing this example even straighter. Unfortunately, no one knows.
    • Hell, some of the sequel games even had PC ports released in Japan as a tribute to the series' roots.
    • Metal Gear Solid had a 12-issue Comic-Book Adaptation published by IDW, which was then adapted into a PSP game titled Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel.
  • The 2006 installment of Midway's Spy Hunter series was actually based on the movie that was based on the game series. Except the Spy Hunter movie upon which the game was based never ended up being released. Apparently they got tired of waiting, and decided to just release the game with no context.
  • Bomberman → Bomberman Jetters → Bomberman Jetters video game.
  • Touhou series (video game) → Strange and Bright Nature Deity (manga spinoff) → Fairy Wars (video game continuation of a story from the SaBND manga)
  • City of Heroes goes Comic Book > MMORPG > Comic Book.
  • Not across mediums, but across companies: Konami's Guitar Freaks → Harmonix's Guitar Hero → Konami's Rock Revolution.
    • Another Rhythm Game non-pure example; Pac Man and other old arcade games → Pac Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia → Pac Man Fever on Rock Band, including a song about Donkey Kong available on Xbox 360 and PS3.
  • Roadside Picnic (novel) → Stalker (short storynote ) → Stalker (Tarkovsky movie) → S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (video game) → numerous novelizations → movie based on one of them.
  • Tak and the Power of Juju started out as its own game series, became a cartoon, them Tak from the cartoon appeared in Nicktoons Unite and got two games based loosely off the cartoon.
    • It goes deeper than that. The games were meant to launch with the cartoon, but the cartoon ended up getting stuck in Development Hell while the games went on to become a trilogy. So, there are games based off a cartoon, which are based off a series of games, which were meant to tie-in with a cartoon.
  • Autobahn Raser: racing game (1998) → In-Name-Only movie adaptation (2004) → racing game based on the movie (2004).
  • The additional cars and tracks from the home versions of San Francisco Rush 2049 were incorporated into the Updated Re-release /Special Edition of the arcade version, as well as two of the BGM's from the Dreamcast version to go with the new tracks. The tracks also had new shortcuts added.
  • The Star Wars films lead to the space simulator X-Wing, which lead to the X-Wing Series starring Wedge Antilles and his Rogue Squadron, which lead to the Rogue Squadron series of games.
  • Adventure Island → Honey the Bug (anime) → Takahashi Meijin no Bugutte Honey (video game)
  • The King of Fighters → The King of Fighters Kyo (manga) → The King of Fighters Kyo (video game)
  • Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? → Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? (cartoon) → Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective (PC game)
  • Arcus (early RPG series by Wolf Team) → gag Yonkoma in Micom BASIC Magazine → Arcushu (adventure game)
  • After making his debut in the crossover MOBA game Heroes of the Storm, Lucio from Overwatch gained new features in his native game based on his appearance in HOTS: namely, a visual indicator for the range of his auras and increased movement speed while wall-riding.
  • Parodied with I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game.
    • It also is the source of an extremely unusual example. The creator of I Wanna Be The Guy was inspired to create the game when he played an unfinished Japanese flash game entitled The Life-Ending Adventure. The creator of The Life-Ending Adventure must have noticed, because they finished the game by adding a I Wanna Be The Guy section.
  • Mega Man Battle Network: GBA games → anime → WonderSwan games
  • Virtua Fighter → The Anime of the Game → Virtua Fighter Animation for the Game Gear.
  • Metro 2033 is based on the novel of the same name, and the game's sequel Metro: Last Light is getting a novelization by the original author called Metro 2035.
  • Raving Rabbids → Rabbids Invasion cartoon → Rabbids Invasion game
  • Ratchet & Clank (2002) → Ratchet & Clank film → Ratchet & Clank (2016) video game. Its tagline is even "the game, based on the movie, based on the game." In addition, there was also an in-universe holo-film made which was based on the adventure of Ratchet and Clank (which had already happened in-universe; the game you're playing is the story being retold by Captain Qwark), which spawned a holo-game based on that film.
  • An unusual one is Hearthstone, which follows the unusual path of Video Game/Warcraft (The original PC RTS) -> World of Warcraft (The MMO) -> the World of Warcraft CCG -> Hearthstone (video game)
  • Mighty Bomb Jack, the NES adaptation of the arcade game Bomb Jack was backported to arcades as Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack. Similarly, the NES version of Gradius had the recursive arcade port Vs. Gradius.
  • Zanac(MSX)->Zanac(NES)->Zanac EX(MSX)
  • Steins;Gate → The Anime of the Game → Steins;Gate Elite. What makes this interesting is that Elite is an Updated Re-release of both the game and the anime; it contains a visual novel-adapted version of the anime's version of the game in its entirety, all 24 episodes, but also adds new routes on top of that.
  • Video Game/Rampage the arcade game -> Film/Rampage, the film adaptation of the arcade game -> Rampage, the arcade game based off the film , based off the arcade game

    Other 
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Theme park ride → movie → revamped theme park ride.
  • Epcot's Mission: SPACE: a theme park ride based on a movie (Mission to Mars), which itself was based on a ride (Mission to Mars).
  • Transformers started out as toys, went to an animated series, which then introduced new toys, some of which were used for new Transformers series, or for The Movie, which got its own line of toys. Another Hasbro franchise to which something similar happened is My Little Pony. It started out as a line of plastic toy ponies with accessories, and in order to boost sales, an animated series was produced. Three generations later, since My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic was launched, the toys are more and more based on the animated series which in turn is based part on the first generation toys (or how Lauren Faust characterized them), part on the third generation (In-Name-Only, though).
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Radio play → Series of books → Radio plays based on the last three books that didn't start as radio plays. Plus, a fondly-recalled 1980s television series based on the first two books (and, by extension, on at least the first radio series), and a forever delayed but finally-released 2005 film version of the first book, which varied enough from the 'original' for a Broken Base to result. Plus, a towel. Um, don't ask, but it's All There in the Manual. Oh, and recently the canon has added a sixth book in the trilogy by another author, several years after the Author Existence Failure (a term based on a phrase of his from Hitchhiker's, ironically) of Douglas Adams, the man behind most of the above.
  • Civilization: Civilization → Sid Meier's Civilization → Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game.
  • A recurring MST suggestion for RiffTrax is... Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie! Which kind of came true in places which never had Mystery Science Theater 3000 on TV, but where suddenly its treatment of This Island Earth appeared on an official DVD, looking like a movie adaptation.
  • The game of Mornington Crescent on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue inspired two books detailing the history of the game: The Little Book of Mornington Crescent and Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac. The later radio Mockumentary In Search of Mornington Crescent is essentally an Audio Adaptation of these books.
  • The theatrical version of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The theatrical version was notably Darker and Edgier than the Lighter and Softer Disney adaptation, keeping the dark tone of the book (having Esmeralda and Quasi die at the end, Frollo being a (former) priest, etc.) whilst keeping the plot points from the Disney version (Clopin being a sort of narrator, Frollo being a bastard, the lack of Gringorie, etc.)
  • Japanese pro soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata cites the Captain Tsubasa manga and anime as his inspiration for pursuing a career in soccer. He got a cameo in Inazuma Eleven 2 via a secret character based on and named after him. Said character became an Ascended Extra in the third game and consequently also appeared in the corresponding arc of the anime adaptation. In short, anime → real life → game → anime.
  • Cabaret: Real Life → book (Berlin Stories) → fictional play (I Am A Camera) → Musical → Movie (which is a closer plot to the play, but uses songs from the musical).
  • Adrian Mole started out in 1982 as a BBC radio play called The Diary of Nigel Mole. The Adrian Mole books were then adapted for Radio 4, with the same voice actor, Nicholas Barnes. In 1985 Sue Townsend wrote some original Adrian Mole material for Radio 4's summer holiday programming (again with Barnes), which later became "Adrian Mole at The BBC" in her True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole book. So radio → book → radio → radio → book. Further books have come out at random intervals every few years since, featuring Adrian's diaries from the age of 13 3/4 to over 40.
  • "Baby's Tears" started out as a Konami original song in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. It got drastically remixed (different instrumentals, different lyrics, slower tempo; about the only thing that stayed the same was the melody) into an Anime Theme Song as the opening theme for the Sky Girls OVA. The anime version subsequently appeared alongside the original in DDR SuperNOVA 2, listed as "Baby's Tears (Sky Girls Opening Theme)".
  • Rice Krispie Treats Cereal: cereal → dessert → cereal.
  • A weird one occurred after Homestuck cosplay at various convention: A bystander appeared on a photo and quickly went memetic with fanart, cosplay, and fanart of the cosplay.
  • Battleship: Board game → Film → Video game.
  • Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Tacos are being adapted into Doritos Locos Tacos flavored chips. It's a mix of either nacho cheese or cool ranch and "taco flavor" chips. The world quietly weeps, but also gets ready to go grocery shopping.
  • Radicalfaith360 is a YouTube user known for his re-enactments of YouTube Poop. Since becoming popular, his re-enactments have become sources for poops on their own — often by the very same users who made the poops he was re-enacting in the first place.
  • The Heckler & Koch G3 rifle: Unproduced Nazi German gun (StG-45) → Spanish gun based on its plans (CETME Modelo B) → licensed German copy. Likewise for the M20 Super Bazooka: Original American rocket launcher (M1 and M9 "Bazooka") → upscaled German copy (Raketenpazerbüsche 43 and 54 "Panzerschreck") → upgraded, further-upscaled original American rocket launcher based on the Panzerschreck.
  • Girl Genius Radio Theatre strips: Webcomic → live performances and podcasts → webcomic.
  • Thomas the Tank Engine garnered its own promotional magazine series, with some of its original stories actually adapted into episodes of the show itself in Seasons Three and Five. Incidentally the magazine's writer at the time eventually ended up lead writer for the show come Season Seventeen.
  • Combining this with Hey, It's That Sound! — Williams Electronics' Defender reused sound effects from several of Williams' early solid-state Pinball games. When the game became a smash hit, Williams released Defender, a solid-state Pinball Spinoff that used the video game's sound effects.
  • The Spooktacular New Adventures Of Casper was a cartoon based on the film Casper, which in turn was based on the cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost.
  • Parodied in Irregular Webcomic!, where Will is hired to write a novelization of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies.
  • A strange example in regards to The Amazing World of Gumball: The show got a Shoddy Knockoff Product entitled Miracle Star that ripped off scenes from the show wholesale. The show, in turn, then made Captain Ersatz versions of those characters in the episode "The Copycats".
  • Vocaloid: The mascot character meant to be modeled after a Hatsune Miku Nendoroid figure became memetic for its strange look and awkward movements, gaining the nickname Mikudayo. This became her official name, and she got made into a figure of her own. She was adapted from figure◊ → mascot◊ → figure.◊
  • Through an elaborate set of videos, The Fine Brothers gave us Kids React to Poppy Reacts to Kids React to Poppy. As Poppy is more or less performance art which invokes Uncanny Valley Girl, it actually turned out to be a pretty good practical joke.
  • British supermarket Morrisons once sold own-brand Cola Cube flavour soft drink. In other words, a soft drink, based on a sweet, based on a soft drink, which tasted nothing like their actual own-brand cola. Wrap your brain around that one.
  • Anyone knowledge on cuisine would understand that American Chinese food is far removed from "true" Chinese food, which is why it was a notable risk for an American Chinese restaurant to open in Shanghai. In spite of its challenges - mainly its reliance on international exports and incompatibilities with local tastes - it was an overall success, with the owners planning on opening additional restaurants in Shanghai.

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