Source Material: The anime adaptation thread

[blkmage]

As you may have noticed, the majority of anime seems to be adaptations of existing works: manga, light novels, visual novels, or video games. Anime that are adaptations tend to be judged against the original material that it's based on as well as preconceptions based on the medium of the source material. This thread is for the discussion of anime adaptations and how they compare with their source material. So I'll start off with a few to get the ball rolling.

Good: Ouran High School Host Club is one of the few adaptations of a manga that actually changes some stuff without becoming a trainwreck. The ending was good enough to give some closure without closing the door to future arcs from the manga. The changes in the first episode made it surprisingly better than the manga's first chapter.

Bad: Rurouni Kenshin seems like it'd make a great textbook example of how filler can destroy a project. Everything was going swimmingly for Kenshin up until the end of the Kyoto arc. After that, the studio decided to do some filler to let the Jinchuu arc finish in the manga before animating it. However, the terrible filler effectively killed off any interest in the show, leading to its cancellation without the Jinchuu arc ever being animated.

Good: Clannad manages the difficult task of translating a branching visual novel mechanic that was vital to the story so that it would work in a linear medium like a TV anime. The result is quite powerful and manages to stay true to the original story.

Bad: Fullmetal Alchemist. Yeah, I know, what? I think it isn't bad in its own right, but rather, it's bad because of the wasted potential that we're only starting to see now with Brotherhood. The anime-original storyline is okay, but it really paled in comparison to what the manga was offering. The Soul Eater anime suffers from this same problem.

I don't intend for people to follow what I did, since I just threw some out to start. Feel free to throw some of yours out there or to agree/argue with my assessments.

[ShiroiHikari]

The Hajime no Ippo anime (the first one-- I haven't seen New Challenger yet) is just as good as the manga.

I know nobody else feels the same way as I do on this one, but I thought the Full Moon wo Sagashite anime was not a good adaptation. You don't stretch a 7-volume manga into 50 episodes. It just doesn't work.

[Debitt]

Good: Gintama. Apart from the abysmal, filler first episode, I find the anime to be surprisingly well done. The original-to-anime scenes and (relatively sparse) filler episodes jive with the series' sense of humor so well that sometimes it's hard to tell which gags are from the manga, and which ones are written in. It's also one of those series that benefits enormously from having voice acting.

Bad: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! To take a page from the "What I Watched/Expected/Got" thread:

The Reborn anime has horrible animation, full of flat, boring colors, no motion, empty backgrounds, and consistently messed up facial features. Add unnecessary cuts (instead of someone lighting dynamite with a cigarette, the dynamite spontaneously ignites instead) and the random rearranging of events in the manga. Stir well. You'll get something so bad that bookstores in Japan make fun of it. I'm not kidding.

[Maokun]

Good: Saint Seiya. The adaptation fo the manga was great, but it doesn't stop at that. The anime-only Asgard arc is amazing and much superior to the following Poseidon arc from the manga, which finally lowered the series' rating beyond acceptable and it had to be cancelled. A reverse Kenshin, if you will.

Good: Elfen Lied. I know most people in the board dislike this series, but, though it is by no means a favourite of mine, I found in it redeeming qualities. Those who dislike the anime would do really good by keeping away from the original manga, which is a shameless display of everything that was wrong with the anime. You could see the anime as a lite version that rescues and magnifies the interesting sci-fi and philosophical premises by shedding as much as possible of the manga's dreck.

Good: Haibane Renmei. This one is a bit unfair as the original doujinshies and short stories were simply Yoshitoshi ABe's whimsical affairs with random western imaginaries. It was only in the anime version he went all out to flesh out the magnificent world of Biel and the philosophy and plot of the series.

Bad: Love Hina! Ken Akamatsu's mangas are your typical fanservice-y harem stories, but I personally believe he has a good narrative and a great balance of drama and comedy. The gorgeous character design is just the cherry ontop. The anime shed most of the drama, mangled the character design and left only an empty, poorly-animated husk of silly humour and fanservice.

Bad: One Piece. This is totally subjective, but I feel the rather particular character design of Eichiro Oda does not work that well in the screen. The series is still amazing because it's quite faithful to the manga, but I much rather have the painstalkely detailed panels of the original manga than the cartoony animation of the series.

[teigeki_calesa]

Bad: Love Hina! Ken Akamatsu's mangas are your typical fanservice-y harem stories, but I personally believe he has a good narrative and a great balance of drama and comedy. The gorgeous character design is just the cherry ontop. The anime shed most of the drama, mangled the character design and left only an empty, poorly-animated husk of silly humour and fanservice.

Not to mention that they turned poor Keitaro into a total wimp instead of the "Crouching Moron Hidden Bad***" I adored him for. I was totally over that.

[Bobtheduck]

Mixed: Naruto... Watch (Shippuden spoiler)[spoiler]Asuma's Funeral[/spoiler] and tell me the anime doesn't have its WONDERFUL moments, but... they tend to be few and far between. That, and the manga has its own problems too, (recent manga spoilers)[spoiler]EVERYTHING since Pain's invasion...[/spoiler] so there's no other way I can put this but MIXED.

Mixed: Sailormoon. Thing is, the anime was made for a mixed audience, and the manga was made for girls. What I loved were the new personalities... Rei in the Anime was flawed and a bit immature, vs the idealized one in the manga (at least the first arc, I didn't read much of the manga past that) and I actually prefer the anime Rei. I also prefer the art style in the Anime... The long, skinny fingers and pointed EVERYTHING in the manga is kind of annoying. What I hated, though, was the monster of the week and copious filler in the Anime. They also got rid of some of the serious moments from the manga such as [spoiler]Princess Serenity's and Endymion's double suicide[/spoiler] and left how the moon kingdom events happened a bit more ambiguous... This was, possibly, due to the audience, but I'm nearly certain the target age was the same, it's just that the manga wasn't entirely appropriate for the target age in that respect.

Good: Seasons 1 and 2 of School Rumble... It was pretty much a panel for panel recreation of the manga, except they mixed the flat and sharp (and natural) sections together, to make it flow (mostly) Chronologically (except where this would be impossible, with events taking place simultaneously.)

Bad: "Season" 3 of School Rumble... They reduced the entire last 1/3 of the manga, which is where possibly half the plot takes place, to 2 episodes... After indulging the second 1/3 of the manga, which had the most nonsense and non-plot moments in the series, why would they ignore the more plot heavy (relatively speaking, anyhow) last 1/3?

[ShiroiHikari]

I personally like the Sailor Moon anime better than the manga, in spite of its flaws. When the anime gets it right, it really gets it right. The manga always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

[Debitt]

Bad: One Piece. This is totally subjective, but I feel the rather particular character design of Eichiro Oda does not work that well in the screen. The series is still amazing because it's quite faithful to the manga, but I much rather have the painstalkely detailed panels of the original manga than the cartoony animation of the series.

It's interesting to hear that. I'm not acquainted with the story of One Piece, but I admire Oda's artwork a lot, and I think the character designs at least lend themselves beautifully to animation. My movie-buff friend has shown me clips of the anime, and said that a lot of the animators who work on One Piece specialize in making the characters move very fluidly, and while the detailed backgrounds might get shafted because of that, the movement and the fighting in the really well done segments of the anime look stunning and I think compensate quite well for the loss of detail in the artwork.

The animation for the series never really struck me as cartoony either, probably because the clips I've seen lack the jerky, limited animation style that a lot of other anime series tend to use.

[Maokun]

Oh yeah, by cartoony I never meant "poor" (see the "cartoons" made by WB + Steven Spielberg for some of the highest animation quality ever done for TV, especially Pinky and The Brain). It's as I said, something unequivocally subjective, but the saturation, the palette, the lines, etc, rub me somehow the wrong way. I find much more appealing the stark and gritty look of the manga, the amount of lines and ink brush-strokes, the balances between black and white that can make characters as goofy looking as luffy and ussop really menacing and even frightening or inspiring in certain circumstances. That effect, I believe cannot be translated that well to the screen.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I wholeheartedly agree with FMA being a bad adaptation. The first anime did a really good job till around episode 39 or so, when it started to peter off (it's debatable when it actually started, but that's when I started to feel that something was wrong). They did have some pretty cool ideas left, but it really started to veer off in a weird direction, and the last few episodes [spoiler]just crushed the implicit promises developed throughout the story.[/spoiler]

FMA: Brotherhood has some very good points, and then some very bad points. If you ask me, it can only be appreciated as a sort of supplement to the manga - you get to see the events in color and fully voiced, but all the while you know that the manga is the real deal.


I actually haven't compared too many series, but I've just started reading Trigun Maximum, and I can already say that the Trigun anime was a good adaptation. Maybe it's just me, but I find it extremely hard to follow what's going on in the pictures of the manga. Too many extraneous lines, and often there aren't even the little stick things pointing out who's saying the stuff in the speech bubbles. Now, the ending of the Trigun anime felt really rushed, so I'm assuming the ending of the manga is better, but for the most part I'd take the anime any day.

[Fish and Chips]

The Blade of the Immortal Anime was pretty terrible. There's a particular screencap some people like to post for this, but I'll refrain from using it here. Suffice to say, what could have been an epic, well-paced series basically got compartmentalized and drawn short, with too much happening all at the same time. I wouldn't hold my breath for a second season.

[Maokun]

Gha! Why is everyone changing their avatars? It's like changing your face, you know. Oh well, that leaves me as the sole posessor of a Cave Story avatar, so I guess it's good.

Also bumping, because this is a good topic that deserves more exposure.

[BubblegumNinja]

I know nobody else feels the same way as I do on this one, but I thought the Full Moon wo Sagashite anime was not a good adaptation. You don't stretch a 7-volume manga into 50 episodes. It just doesn't work.

I very much agree with this. There were moments in the anime that were absolutely heart-wrenching and, in particular, I felt the end was very well done. But in general there were gripes I had with it that I didn't find in the manga.

More specifically, Takuto. I didn't like him at all in the anime. I mean, he was okay and I thought he was funny but I was furious when they [spoiler] coupled him up with Mitsuki. [/spoiler] However, in the manga I thought he was really likable.

[LadyRushia]

Good: From what I've seen, the Haruhi anime has stayed true to the light novels, but I've only seen half of the first season.

Bad: The Code Geass light novel prequel. It was awful. There were no/really bad descriptions, too many perspectives that didn't stand out enough from the rest, bad transitions, and inconsistent narration. Plus, the events that drive this book are things you already find out from watching the anime. The manga adaptation is slightly better, but it changed things around and left stuff out.

[blkmage]

In the realm of more interesting structures for adaptations, we've got Kara no Kyoukai. ufotable decided to do a series of seven movies, each with a theatrical release, with each movie corresponding to a chapter of the novel. Most of the movies are around one hour in length, except for Spiral Paradox at almost two hours and Murder Speculation (Part 2) at one and a half. Other than the sixth movie, Oblivion Recording, the adaptations are pretty faithful to the original.

It's the format of the adaptation that's most interesting. Instead of doing a 26 episode series or a set of OVAs, the studio went for theatrical films. Now, the one hour length isn't as big of a deal in Japan (look at, 5 Centimeters per Second). The difficult thing about this would be keeping the audience through seven releases. But, it looks like it's been doing pretty well in theatres and DVD sales.

[Maokun]

That sounds interesting. General plot/themes?

[blkmage]

Kara no Kyoukai is essentially a set of related short stories in which the main character, Ryougi Shiki, solves some supernatural problem. It shares a lot of themes with Tsukihime and was where a lot of the character prototypes for Tsukihime were drawn. It also features a fair bit of philosophical exposition. So far, Kara no Kyoukai is considered the only competent anime adaptation of a TYPE-MOON work (the others being Tsukihime (lol what Tsukihime anime) and Fate/stay night (let's animate the worst route, guys)).

[Maokun]

Good: Oh! My Goddess. The different animated versions of the story have made a great selection of the source material with good animation and great character design (which is something I don't really like in the manga, especially in the first chapters). Also, everytime it has deviated in some form from the manga, it's been done intelligently with events that seem totally cannon and merge seamlessly with the rest of the story. Oh! Mini Goddesses it's also really funny and well made for such an offbeat spinoff.

[blkmage]

One interesting case I forgot was the Eureka Seven movie, Pocketful of Rainbows. Here, we have a successful, original 50 episode TV series. Several years later, the studio decides to create a theatrical movie using the same characters and themes, but completely changing the story. People are understandably divided on it. There were a number of ways that a movie adaptation could have went. My belief is that the completely new story route was the best.

The first alternative is doing a summary movie. This is bad. I don't think I need to explain why stuffing a 50 episode series into one movie is bad news.

The second alternative is to reopen the story and make it a sequel. People might have preferred this. I do not. What I can't stand is creating a new, shallower threat for the protagonists to fight against and save the day in two hours. This will never compare to a threat that has lingered and solved over 50 episodes of development. Also, reintroducing conflict cheapens the resolution of the previous one, especially in the way that it was solved in E7. This is exactly the sort of thing that made me hate the FMA movie.

Of course, doing a new story is dangerous because it could end up being terrible, as I hear Escaflowne did. I found E7 to be really good and a fantastic piece of work that can stand alongside the TV series on its own merits.

[bigsleepj]

FMA the anime is actually pretty good, but as an adaptation of great source material it is not. I prefer the manga as well.

[minakichan]

Good: Haruhi. The original is nice and all, but broadcast order makes it so much more interesting.

Weird: Axis Powers Hetalia. I can understand why they decided to [SPOILER]make Chibitalia give Holy Roman Empire a deck brush instead of his panties[/SPOILER] but it's just not as hysterical at all.

Good: Toradora! The anime art is cute, but the light novel art is craaaaaaaaaap.

[blkmage]

I'd argue that the broadcast order only works because of the particular chapters they decided to adapt. In a world where Kyoto didn't go insane and decided to produce the second season normally, the chronological order would work just as well, since the climax of the show (Disappearance) would be in the right spot.

[minakichan]

I'd argue that the broadcast order only works because of the particular chapters they decided to adapt. In a world where Kyoto didn't go insane and decided to produce the second season normally, the chronological order would work just as well, since the climax of the show (Disappearance) would be in the right spot.

Sorry, I should specify season 1 only. Endless Eight is ridiculous.

[Maokun]

I have to agree that I enjoyed the messed up broadcast order of Haruhi's first season (the next episode previews with Haruhi unwittingly stating the chronological order and Kyon correcting her with the broadcast order was a really nice touch. (by the way, does season 2 have no next episode previews? I guess they decided not to, in preparation for the ordeal of Endless Eight.)