Anime vs. its Source Material
This season’s shows include Chaos;Child and Rewrite: Season 2, both adaptions of visual novels. KonoSuba’s there representing light novels, and there are plenty of manga adaptions, including Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon and Sousei no Onmyouji. In other words, there are a lot of anime being made based off of stories told using another medium.
A common point of discussions about these, and other, shows is “is the anime doing a good job in comparison to the source material?” Of course, there are good and bad examples of anime adaptions for any medium, though whether an adaption is good or bad is usually pretty subjective. But, each medium has unique advantages and disadvantages when it comes to anime adaptions.
Manga
I think more adaptions have been done of manga than of any other medium, and it makes sense, because it’s probably the easiest one to adapt — not to mention having been around, and popular, for a longer amount of time. For the most part, the scenes are already created and all that’s needed is transitions and, depending on the manga in question, some backgrounds. Generally, complaints about manga adaptions go in two different groups. Either they changed the art style or they were adapting a series that wasn’t finished and had to do something when they hit the current end of the manga.
For the first, the most obvious example I can think of is Sailor Moon. The original anime had a lot of original content too, and that arguably made the story better than the manga, or at least fleshed out the characters enough that it felt like a better story, but the art style was quite different. One of the main attractions of Sailor Moon Crystal is that they promised to remain faithful to the manga’s art style. They more or less succeeded in that at least. Poor animation or use of bad CG also tend to be lumped into this group, but these can happen with any show, and both can retain the basic style of the manga while still looking terrible.
In the case that the manga wasn’t finished yet, different adaptions go different routes. Some just cut off the ending, leaving fans eternally hoping that there might be a season two. This happened with Usagi Drop — though I usually see differing opinions on whether or not there should be a second season. Amaama to Inazuma also stops before the end of the manga, but, because of its episodic nature, it wasn’t all that upsetting. Even when that’s not the case, while disappointing, cutting the story short is probably the option that leaves the fewest people the least irritated.
Another option is to produce filler. One only has to look at the numerous posts asking “which episodes should I skip of Naruto/Bleach/whatever to miss all the filler?” to realize that filler is not something that most fans enjoy. Not that no one enjoys it, but people who’ve read the source material inevitably get antsy for the next plot point they know happens, while fans new to the series eventually start to realize that the plot is going absolutely nowhere and get similarly frustrated. Filler does have one benefit, however, in that it can be used to explore characters’ personalities and motivations or do more world building. It’s not the ideal method of doing either of these, but if the manga didn’t do a very good job of it, it’s the easiest method to fix that in the anime.
The last option is my least favorite: create an anime-original ending. This is what happened in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003). The manga wasn’t finished, so, around episode 28, they just fully cut ties with the manga’s story and finished up with something completely different — though there were some contradictions in the first 28 episodes as well. It also happened with Hellsing, and it seems to be the route that Sousei no Onmyouji is going as well — given the trend, maybe Sousei will end up with a remake in another several years.
Anime-original, non-filler content makes sense in a way. The producers don’t know what’s going to happen in the manga (though, really, I’d think they could just ask), they don’t want to have no ending, and they don’t want to waste money driving their fans crazy with endless filler episodes. So making up their own ending is the logical conclusion.
Actually, when I put it that way, I find it hard to defend my dislike of anime-original endings. The fact is though that I can usually detect an anime original ending well before I know anything about the source material. Not to say I look at it and go “oh hey, that’s obviously anime-only content,” but I do find myself suddenly struggling to watch a series I had been enjoying. Perhaps it’s a shift in the writing style, or maybe subconsciously I’ve been picking up on subplots that the new writers don’t decide to continue. Whatever there is, there’s definitely something different. Of course, plenty of people also dislike this option retrospectively — they may not have had a problem with it at the time, but, once the manga is finished, they can go back and dislike the direction the anime took.
Light Novels
The most positive part of adapting a light novel is that… … … Okay, to be honest, I can’t think of any real advantages light novel adaptions have over any other kind. As Gi(a)rlish Number, itself originally a light novel, recently put it, light novel authors “ …can’t draw, can’t do music, can’t put on any sort of performance, but just can’t help but cling to this industry anyway.” I don’t exactly agree with this opinion — I like light novels and some of their adaptions quite a lot after all — but I can see where Chitose’s coming from.
Light novel adaptions get a bad reputation largely because light novel series tend to be really long and not finished when the anime is made, and unlike manga adaptions, pretty much every anime in this situation with a light novel just ends mid-story. Shows like No Game No Life, DanMachi, or Hai to Gensou no Grimgar may be enjoyable, but knowing that they’re going to end without any resolution makes it hard to want to watch them. Anime like these are known as being essentially just long commercials for their source material.
Not that being a light novel adaption is equivalent to no resolution. Most prominently, the Monogatari series has done quite well for itself. Part of that is probably because it’s more concerned with individual arcs than the broader, overreaching plot. That makes it easier to accept when a season ends without feeling like “but we still haven’t finished the story!”
And some light novel adaptions do get more than one season. Right now, KonoSuba’s second season is airing, Spice and Wolf has two seasons out (though a third season is dubious), and Sword Art Online has two seasons with a movie to be released soon — and expectations that season three will be announced sometime soon after that. The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi had two seasons and a movie. It also inspired a manga, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, which in turn had its own anime adaption. So it’s not that all light novel anime are nothing but commercials. Just a lot of them.
Besides the issue of how much of the light novels the anime covers, light novels provide their own challenges when adapting them. For one, while light novels generally do have a couple pictures interspersed throughout, or placed at the beginning, some characters may never get their own official image, and an art style is difficult to discern from just a few pictures. Also, light novels can include things like a person’s motivations and thoughts and feelings without any dialogue. Any anime adaption has to try to find a way to show these things without just having some narrator info-dump it all.
Finally, while it really isn’t the anime’s fault, there are a lot of light novels, and they end up covering some pretty similar ground. Recently, Gakusen Toshi Asterisk and Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry were noted for having a lot in common for the first several episodes. Another commonality, many (most) light novels have a bit of a self-insertion sort of theme going on. It makes sense — it’s easier to put yourself in the MC’s shoes if he’s someone you can identify with — and I very much mean he, since the majority of light novel anime have a male main character. Another common theme is the “stuck in another world” fantasy, which includes Sword Art Online, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar, and Log Horizon, with plenty more light novels on the same theme just waiting to be animated (I’d like to see Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari myself).
Visual Novels
Before beginning to talk about visual novels, we need to distinguish between the two types of visual novels. Some, like Higurashi, are just stories you click through, while others, like Grisaia, are more like those choose-your-own-adventure books that used to be popular. Adapting the first kind isn’t too different from adapting a light novel — though I imagine it was tricky to put together the many Higurashi games and their question/answer arcs in a coherent manner.
The second kind though is pretty much impossible to adapt in such a way as to make everyone happy. Usually these games have a first half with no real choices, and that’s, relatively, easy enough to animate. Once major choices start appearing though, there’s very little an anime can do but either pick one or make their own route. Since there usually are a multitude of fans for any given route, no matter which you choose, some fans are going to be upset — though choosing one of the good ends will probably upset fewer fans than choosing a bad end, I have to say that I’ve played some bad ends that I really enjoyed.
Grisaia chooses to kind of meander between routes. Each route in the game gives a different character’s backstory and some manner of conclusion, with the good ends usually resulting in the MC ending up with one of the girls. In the anime, however, rather than go with any one route, they tweak events in each route so that they can move on to another girl’s route before the conclusion. It’s nice that each girl gets her backstory told, but it’s a bit frustrating from a pairing standpoint.
Fate/Stay Night’s anime adaptions have done something different. The first one mostly follows the Fate route, though it does include parts of the other routes. The Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works anime, as the name implies, adapts the Unlimited Blade Works route, and a movie adaption of the Heaven’s Feel route is coming soon. This method is pretty nice in that you can enjoy whichever route you like (assuming each anime is made equally, which they weren’t, but that’s beside the point), but if you want to see all the routes, it does mean watching a lot of repeated scenes.
On the other hand, Rewrite’s anime decided to make its own, anime-original route for the first season, then do the Moon and Terra arcs for its second season. This has, mostly, turned out terribly, though that’s probably less the original route option’s fault and more just bad directing. It hasn’t finished though, so they might still manage to make something worthwhile. (The first two episodes of the Terra arc are actually pretty encouraging.)
Visual novel adaptions have another difficulty to overcome. Visual novels are inherently pretty much told through one person’s point of view with a lot of internal monologues. That’s just the general format of the medium. However, an anime with the MC constantly monologuing would quickly become annoying. You can’t just cut out all the monologues, because there is vital information in them, but neither can you keep them all, so it becomes a balancing act between too many monologues and too little information.
It’s not all bad though. Visual novels often have their own soundtracks, which makes choosing the soundtrack for the anime easier, voice actors are usually already determined, and many settings are already drawn, so animators have a visual guideline for what the backgrounds should look like.
Other
Not every anime that isn’t based off of one of these three mediums is an anime original story. There are anime based off of myths and legends and anime based off cell phone and browser games. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis and KanColle were pretty well-received adaptions of such games. Additionally, Square Enix used six anime episodes to give more background to the characters in Final Fantasy XV. None of these, the last especially, is quite an adaption, but neither is the story totally just made up for the sake of the anime.
Overall, I think it’s hard for an anime adaption to be better than its source material. Not impossible, but difficult, certainly. Still, I’m a fan of adaptions. There’s just something wonderful about seeing something you love animated.
However, I think it’s important to recognize that the anime of a good source is not necessarily a good anime, and the anime of a bad source is not necessarily a bad anime. The first influences the second, certainly, but the anime should be judged on its own merits, not those of the material behind it. All too often, fans of the original try to defend the anime, saying “well, but this is why such-and-such is happening, which I know because I read the manga/LN/VN/etc.” I understand completely — I’m tempted to do the same. But you can’t. If the anime didn’t convey the necessary information, then it didn’t do a good job and wasn’t a good adaption. Similarly, you can’t say “well, the original didn’t explain that either” to excuse a deficit in the adaption, because that just means the anime’s creators didn’t care enough to fix the problems inherent in the source. While I think it’s difficult for the adaption to be better than the source, I do think that every adaption should strive to achieve just that.
