I guess here the deciding point was the live action. I admit the novel translation has a fair bit of clunkiness, but it seems that the vast majority of people aren't interested in becoming fannish about book canons, and a live action with appropriately hot dudes was required before the winds of popularity could blow its way. (And it's now a megafandom, which means I want nothing to do with it, lol.) ...yeah, I'm grumpy.