Most of us have done it. Many have read a manga, fallen in love with it and gotten excited over the announcement our manga was being made into an anime. Score! Then we scurry to buy the DVDs when they’re finally released, and painstakingly collect each $24.99 volume. After the set’s complete and we’ve watched the whole manga-to-anime series, we realize: Wow, that sucked.
I know I’ve done that. I simply cannot believe a studio ruined a perfectly good manga. First off, how could they mess up the anime when the script is already written and storyboarded right there in black and white? Isn’t it a simple thing to draw the character designs and panels and make them move? It’s not as if there’s actual story or character development needed; it’s already done. How can they botch something so seemingly simple?
I think many things contribute to the failure of a manga-to-anime series. A major factor is the timing, as in the manga is as yet incomplete when the anime is being produced. Why oh why studios even bother to create a series from an incomplete manga makes no sense from a fan’s perspective but probably makes perfect $ense to the marketing department. Too often a studio is left to their own devices when devising further story to pick up where the manga is stalling at. They’ll rush through some “story” and tack it on. Sometimes, it might work, but oftentimes, it blows.
Another contributing factor is mass marketability. Studios think, how can we make this manga more appealing to a more diverse audience? Should we add romance, action or fanservice? Why not all three?! Then a horror manga becomes a tragic, romantic comedy with the meddling of marketing and bad decisions. Why? How did the mangaka let this happen?
Then, there’s the omissions which bring about failing marks. It’s one thing to add things to a manga-to-anime series it’s another thing to completely leave out necessary story arcs and background stories. Whoopsie.
I’ve seen far too many anime which were bad beyond belief yet were based off terrific manga. Spiral, which is supposedly phenomenal, is one which springs to mind as does Trinity Blood, although Trinity Blood was a series of light novels as opposed to manga.
I know there are nigh uncountable amounts of fans out there who have a beef with a studio for mistranslating a manga into an anime. Which manga do you feel was given the shaft in terms of production or story? Is there a manga that deserved better? Which manga do you think was horribly translated into an anime?
I would say Negima and Love Hina. Those got some pretty bad manga to anime conversions.
The nerfing treatment of Gantz by Gonzo.
Claymore… was awesome it truly was although Galatea’s voice a tad bit different from what I’d imagined but the thing that got me was the ending I mean they decided for a anime original path which in my opinion doesn’t leave any room for a opening :[
“I would say Negima and Love Hina. Those got some pretty bad manga.”
there, corrected
D.Gray-Man, Chrno Crusade, Tsubasa Chronicles are the ones that come to mind..
Studios do manga that haven’t finished because they’re paid to do so — quite often an anime series will be produced by a publisher as a form of advertising for a manga or novel series.
@Koji Oe, I’m all primed to watch Negima; got the boxset the other day. Poor manga-to-anime treatment aside, is the anime any good on its own?
@bakaneko, oh, yeah,I had a friend who loved Gantz, followed the manga pretty religiously before he moved stateside. He hated the anime. He thought the ending sucked hard. I didn’t even read the manga and thought the anime’s ending was clown shoes.
@Hei, the studio redid the manga’s ending in the anime? Weak.
@dood, so you didn’t like either the Negima or Love Hina manga? Or the anime?
@Inuhanyou, Chrono Crusade, the anime, was a crap translation? Would you recommend reading the manga if one were a fan of the anime? Is it better than the anime?
@dm, do the mangaka have a say in whether or not the studio can make their work into an anime? I’d be cheesed if a publisher gave the go ahead but didn’t consult me before doing so. It’s great publicity, yes, but I’d be concerned, if I were a mangaka, my vision wouldn’t be adhered to.
Love Hina and Hellsing.
Then again, one would have to argue that when Hellsing was made, the manga wasn’t even completed yet. Still…I know a lot of people who didn’t bother reading the manga after watching the anime because they thought it was bad.
@Rachel – Yes, i would encourage anyone who was interested in the anime read the manga. The manga has an epic scale and feel of it, compared to the anime where it puttered off around halfway into the series, and eventually boiled down to a highly unsatisfying conclusion that i THINK was intended to be tragedy to invoke emotions, but turned out to be just depressing and a downer instead.
Compared to that, the manga seemed almost like an A-grade movie that hit all the right notes, even while it ended roughly similar to the anime, the emotions it invoked were much different due to its presentation.
Tsubasa Chronicle, without a doubt. I adore the manga, but couldn’t sit through the anime series. Hated the animation and the dumbing it down for a family audience, even though the Japanese voice acting was brilliant, as was the music. Thankfully it was taken out of the hands of Bee Train, so we have a proper adaptation with Tokyo Revelations.
There are a number of great anime produced from unfinished manga series (His and Her Circumstances, Fruits Basket and Ouran High), but even they, I think, need second seasons, though that is completely unlikely, especially in the cases of the first two.
NHK ni Youkouso for me. The manga is much funnier, had much more taste and addressed the character’s problems in a more light-hearted way.
@Edrei, I read the manga for Hellsing after the anime and after volume four, realized the original anime sucked in comparison. I thought the manga deserved better than that, and so did the studios since Hellsing was given another shot in the way of an OVA.
@Inuhanyou, thanks for the heads up! I’ll pass this info along to someone I know who’s a huge fan of the anime.
@Akaihane, Is Tsubasa now being animated by a different studio? Is that what the mumbling was about for the anime?
@Sasa, NHK seems like a funny anime series and a potentially good manga. I’ll need to look into the books now.
@Rachel, Yeah, the first two seasons were done by Bee Train, but it was cancelled for a number of reasons, everything from fan reaction, to hints that CLAMP were unhappy with the adaptation (they basically had no input in the series), to the fact it was aired on a family channel and with the more violent and adult leaning of the manga in the last number of volumes, it was felt it wouldn’t be able to air on the same TV slot or would have to be more censored than it previously had been.
So after it was cancelled, Production I.G. (who handle the xxxHOLiC anime and the Tsubasa movie), Bee Train’s parent company, took over for the three episode OAV based around the crossover with X/1999. In addition, CLAMP’s writer, Ohkawa, wrote the screenplay.
Tsubasa for sure (I got turned into a bee train hater because of it), Air Gear , and just about every single extremly long shounen series(the orginals were at least entertaining, the anime was just pure bad prime examples are naruto and bleach.) Full moon wo sagashite and that other thing done by arina tanemura, and then there were the ones where the anime looked so bad that I couldn’t bring myself to even watch it…….
Eyeshield 21. They toned down the attitude and the American coach’s racism, and drew a lot of the characters really strangely. The colors were off and things looked a little cheap. A lot of the subtle humor didn’t make it over, either. Ah, well.
@Hypertoast, seems like there’s not much love for the Tsubas anime!
@JO, Sounds like they sugar-coated the anime when it got made. That’s a major irritation. It makes anime seem all bubble gum goodness when it really isn’t.
Tenjou tenge is another that comes to mind, the manga had nudity but it was to be expected as it was seinen, whereas they tried to pass the anime off as a shounen but with extra fanservice that came off extremely cheap…did i mention that they also wasted the second half of the series on flashbacks that set up a backdrop for a plot that never showed up?
@Inuhanyou, I wasn’t that much into the manga, but I do recall some boobage. The anime had extra fanservice? Boobage?
What about Peach Girl? it’s a pretty decent shoujo manga, but the anime sucked balls so bad I downloaded just to bury the cd somewhere i would never find it.
I also loathe DNAngel’s anime. The manga is superb, but the anime transition left me cursing the world.
Only thing I would have liked from xxxHolic is better animation, not movie-quality but at least a little better (Soul Eater quality). And I wish Clamp got their hands on Tsubasa earlier; took them 50 episodes to draw the line…
Well, there was some boobage, actually there is a lot more nudity in the manga, as the anime was pretty edited. But that was part of the problem, as they spent an annoying amount of time falling into the standard anime cliches of ecchi and whatnot that they didn’t bother to focus on the rest of the plot that needed tending to. Baadly
@yakuri, I was actually planning on watching Peach Girl this week. Looks like I’ll need to really work up it to it….
@Inuhanyou, are you referring to Peach Girl? Boobage in anime? It can’t be (>< )!