Following the scarlet thread of crime: (re)building the formidable professor rival in Moriarty: the Patriot
intermediality; adaptation; manga; anime; Moriarty.
Lauded as the most famous fictional detective in literature, the stories of Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, have left their mark in the collective imagination, as it can be observed in the numerous adaptations – TV series, movies, comics, and animations – which were and are still produced and released nowadays. The aim of this dissertation is to analyze how the manga and anime Moriarty: the Patriot, an adaptation of the detective’s stories, reinvents the character professor Moriarty and his relevance in Holmes’ stories. To achieve this goal, an analysis based on intermediality studies is made, based primarily on the model proposed by Elleström (2021), but also supported by studies about adaptation and characterization. It can be noticed that there is an expansion of the character Moriarty in terms of backstory and personality, fitting to his new position as a protagonist of a story. This change also affects the rest of the narrative, which is adjusted to accommodate the professor in this prominent role.