Dear lord, this post is going to come back and haunt me one day.
It might have just been my twisted fanboy youth, but way back when I first read the first couple of books…
I had this crazy idea that it would actually make for a good anime.
NOW HOLD ON!
This was many years ago, I was young and foolish, and I had just really started watching anime at the time.
But still, given the way the story is presented, certain elements of the narrative, it really wasn't that much of a far fetched idea at the time.
We got:
a. Huge story, which can easily be broken down into "story arcs".
b. A large number of main characters, with an insane amount of side characters.
c. Magical battles which tends to more often than not turn into full blown "beam clashes".
d. Copious amounts of swordplay.
e. Fan service (oh yes! even in text form, there is fan service present.)
f. Multiple pairings over the course of the series. (though how you could sell polygamy to a Japanese audience, I have no idea.)
And like some of you said earlier in the thread, there's little to no chance that these stories would ever be able to be produced as a movie series, or even a live action TV show. And American produced animation goes so painfully slow in it's production that's it unrealistic that they'd ever be able to pull it off.
So you must wonder, what other medium would be capable of telling a story that could go well beyond hundreds of episodes, manage to juggle that many characters and subplots, and be produced and distributed in the quickest and most consistent manner?
But lets be realistic, we all know that'll never happen in a million years. We're more likely to have a sitcom based on Dune before that would ever happen.