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?
My personal list:
Anime > Source:
-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 in the later novels
-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.
-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.
Source > Anime:
-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.
Source ??? Anime:
Now that I think about it, these bullet points don’t even belong in this discussion topic, sorry I got carried away nerding out over anime lol
-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.
-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.
Edit: edited for better organization
-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.
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.
