What are some adaptations with huge disparities in quality between the source and the anime?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Butts@ani.social⁩ to ⁨anime@ani.social⁩

This question straddles all three of anime, manga, and light novels, so I figured I’d just drop it in the anime community first. Though if it doesn’t belong here, feel free to delete it and I’ll go somewhere else.

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I’ve only been watching anime for a few years. This year, I’ve started reading manga and LN of some anime I’ve seen. There are a few titles where I feel like the anime adaptation was just as good and there are some where I feel like it was better. Fortunately, I haven’t encountered any cases where I think the anime completely dropped the ball, but I know there probably are some like that.

What are some titles that have huge disparities in quality between its anime adaptation and the source?

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mo_lave@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Source > Adaptation

Steins;Gate

Clannad

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan

A Silent Voice

Adaptation > Source

4-komas, typically (Bocchi the Rock, K-on)

Senpai is an Otokonoko

Violet Evergarden

Your Lie in April

Insomniacs After School

Say I Love You (except for episode 12, which I think is anime-original)

Sound Euphonium

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- pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think Steins;Gate is very subjective. The original visual novel translates quite well into a linear anime format, especially considering it was not hit with the 12 episodes curse like Chaos;Child. You do miss Okabe’s internal monologue, but IMO it is not a probelm.
  
  Steins;Gate 0 however, was impossible to make into a loyal adaptation. They did a good companion for the visual novel though.
  
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  - mo_lave@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m more certain of my opinion in SG:
    
    spoiler
    4°C is in the VN
    
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- Vibi@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I LOVE music anime, especially the ones you listed off. It would feel so off not having the accompanying music with their stories.
  
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Butts@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My personal list:

-Haruhi Suzumiya - LN - Anime somehow remains nearly 100% faithful to the LNs yet takes what was otherwise kind of a silly and meaningless story and elevates it to masterpiece level. Maybe a hot take: KyoAni already adapted all the best parts of the LNs, it’s almost like I can feel Tanigawa’s creative exhaustion seeping through his words

-Mushoku Tensei - LN - The LN just took the web novel and published it. Yep. This was definitely an amateur web novel, a step above fan fiction. But the anime is terrific.

-Sousou no Frieren - Manga - Actually the source itself is terrific. The anime takes that already terrific source and jazzes it up a bit more. The anime hasn’t even gotten to the best parts yet.

-Jujutsu Kaisen - Manga - The manga itself is a rough gem. The excitement and genius is here. All of Akutami’s humor and personality is fresh here and was adapted faithfully into the anime, though the sheer coolness and style is unique to the anime. Also, some of the character designs look cuter in the anime, notably Nobara.

-Kobayashi-san chi no Dragon Maid - Manga - Bwahaha. They are both extremely good. Though similar to Haruhi, I think all of the best parts have been adapted so far.

-Oshi no Ko - Manga - I personally disliked the anime while liking the manga a lot more. To me, the real substance of this story comes from its characters and their well-written psychologies, which is something that is just inherently more difficult to show in anime format as opposed to writing.

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- mo_lave@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  -Haruhi Suzumiya - LN - Anime somehow remains nearly 100% faithful to the LNs yet takes what was otherwise kind of a silly and meaningless story and elevates it to masterpiece level. Maybe a hot take: KyoAni already adapted all the best parts of the LNs, it’s almost like I can feel Tanigawa’s creative exhaustion seeping through his words
  
  On the other hand for me: Nagato Yuki-chan manga > anime: let’s just say I yearn for a complete animated adaptation. The story itself, I love it very much. The anime stopped at an awkward point.
  
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  - Butts@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I haven’t gotten around to reading the Nagato Yuki-chan manga yet, though it is on my list of stuff to check out.
    
    I watched it immediately after watching the entire Haruhi series for the first time, which is probably a mistake - they are two completely different types of shows that just happen to take place in the same universe. Maybe for the first 8-9 episodes (whenever the black and white episode happens) I wasn’t in the right mindset to properly enjoy the laid back slice of life type that was Nagato Yuki-chan. Also, I couldn’t stop comparing the art style and animation to the KyoAni series, which is naturally going to be an unfair comparison lol.
    
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MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet, but there’s the entirety of Full Metal Alchemist’s first TV Series that starts pretty close but ends up diverging significantly. Many people find the ending of this original anime to be a huge disappointment – to the point where they completely redid the anime.

Trigun manga and the original TV series diverged, but it’s really up to debate whether the TV show is “worse” as I really think the quality of the show is mostly good but starts to show rough edges on the occasional episode. The last episode is pretty fantastic though, so they stuck the landing IMO. I think the story of the most recent Trigun Stampede is quite a bit worse than both the manga and the original series, though I would say that even the manga made some of the same mistakes but in different ways if… that makes sense lol.

Also, and this is a bit of a cop-out, but many of the Leiji Matsumoto manga projects are adapted completely differently with each movie / series / book having a completely isolated but similar continuity. This is an intentional design and is even true with all of his individual manga works. I’s part of his “Rings of Time” system, which allows characters to exist across multiple continuities and timelines. Anyway, while most of these projects resulted in some of the greatest shows and movies of anime legacy, there are also notably a few duds so it’s always worth reading reviews of a specific series / run and see whether people recommend a different series if you are interested in the characters.

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Endmaker@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
One of the recent disappointments would be Chained Soldier.

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- jabathekek@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  One Punch Man season 2
  
  That was so rough. It’s like some one seen the rough drafts that were made with an ancient flash engine and said “good enuf”.
  
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- jherazob@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wait, Bofuri S2 was inferior to the novels? Oh man, then the novels must be freaking awesome! Gotta get to that! Any details of from where to where is adapted from the novels to the anime?
  
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  - Endmaker@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not a 100% sure, but season 2 adapts volume 5 to 9 of the light novel.
    
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- Butts@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Scorching hot take: for last season’s ecchi offerings, I liked Chained Soldier more than Akogarete.
  
  OK, mods may now ban me forever.
  
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Unboxious@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Way of the Househusband’s anime adaptation was more of a voice-acted slideshow than an anime.

The Mob Psycho 100 manga’s writing was excellent but the art was merely passable. Studio Bones took that simple artstyle and went absolutely nuts with it, turning it into one of the most beautifully-animated works I’ve ever seen.

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erin@lemmy.sidh.bzh ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Samurai Deeper Kyo, without a doubt and the anime is objectively pur trash. In the anime they changed samurai ennemies into aliens with sekigara battle becoming an alien invasion. In the manga we are in a classic seinen chanbara with light fantasy (the two biggest fantasy element are kyo and kyoshiro sharing the same body and nobunaga’s almosr immortality with his body rotting).

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- Butts@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I haven’t even heard of that title before, that’s interesting. I wonder if those differences were made out of creative intent or out of compromise somewhere in the production process.
  
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  - erin@lemmy.sidh.bzh ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    it’s an old manga. the change on the anime was to tone down the story and makes it appeal to younger audience (the manga is highly adult only with a lot of bodies cut with lot of blood but because ennemies are monsters blood was changed to vomit kind of green). The sad thing is that the manga is reaaaaaally, lots of action, tragedy, politics and highly deserve the Shaman King treatment of a kai version (even badly animated as long they stick with the story, characters personnality and background because it would be better than what we had)
    
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  - nyan@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The anime is a good twenty years old at this point. In isolation, if you’re not familiar with the source material, it’s an okay-but-forgettable action series.
    
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What are some adaptations with huge disparities in quality between the source and the anime?

Comments

Source > Adaptation

Adaptation > Source