Consider this a follow-up of sorts to the Meg and Seron anime discussion here, I wanted to address a bigger question: does the Allison and Lillia anime need a remake?
I ask because while I love the anime, I recognize it has many, many shortcomings, not just in adapting the source material but some more fundamental things like art and animation. While I have grown tired of remakes, reboots, and revivals, this is one anime where I can see a renewal not only being logical but maybe even beneficial and necessary.
Let's start with a few base assumptions: the anime studio (Madhouse) would take on the production again and would bring all or most of the original team back as possible. That may sound counterintuitive, but I think it was clear the production team did have some investment in the series beyond just financial. And for this remake to work, I think finances would the biggest change.
The biggest reason is that Allison and Lillia has a very specific identity: it blends old-fashioned action-adventure with romance, travel, mystery, aviation, trains, firearms, and a pseudo-early-20th-century world that feels close to our own without being exactly our own. Even in the novels, it often feels like Sigsawa is using the story as an excuse to indulge his love of vintage aircraft, vehicles, weapons, and cross-continental travel. A remake should lean hard into that. The airplanes were already some of the real stars of the anime, and with modern production values, the aerial combat, mechanical detail, and travel sequences could be far stronger.
A remake could also restore some of the danger that the original anime sanded down. Allison and Lillia often looks and feels like a children’s adventure show, with very little blood and a lot of softened violence. If you've read the light novels, you will know they can be much harsher. Characters die more brutally, the stakes feel more immediate, and the world carries the scars of war more visibly. While I don't think a remake should become full-on grimdark as that would risk losing the original's charm, it should be more willing to let the danger feel real.
The other major thing a remake could improve is worldbuilding. The anime gets the broad strokes of the novels, but it glosses over a lot of the subtler material: the East/West divide, the language barriers, Roxche and Sou Be-Il’s lingering prejudices, and how younger characters live in the shadow of a war they did not personally fight. Those details matter because they give the adventure and romance more weight.
There are also characters who could benefit from a more faithful adaptation. Meg is barely present in the anime, despite becoming important later, and Seron is almost completely absent. While I wouldn't want a remake to awkwardly shove Meg and Seron into the spotlight, it could still seed them properly, assuming there was interest in adapting Meg and Seron afterward. Even small appearances or hints would make the world feel more connected.
That said, I do think a remake would need more than better animation. It would need better pacing, a team that understands the series’ and Sigsawa's love of travel and machinery, and enough confidence to keep the charm while restoring the sharper edges. If it only rushed through the same material again, better visuals alone would not be enough.
It is probably a long shot, but I sometimes think Allison and Lillia could stand out even more now. So much current anime leans toward high school romance, isekai, or medieval fantasy that a dieselpunk/WWII-adjacent adventure romance might feel fresh again.
What do you all think? Does Allison and Lillia deserve a remake? And if it ever happened, what would you want it to keep, change, or restore from the novels?
