Anime vs. Manga: which is better?
I’ve never been a manga fan, even though many of my friends are. In fact, all my friends who are into manga hardly watch any anime at all. This is really a conundrum for me, because I can’t seem to live without anime. It’s like the bread and butter of my life.
Just look at the image above (click to enlarge). We could play “spot the difference” forever, but you can just see that in the anime the cherry blossom shine more and soft clouds are visible (they don’t even appear in the manga). Given, I will say that they look a bit more frightened in the manga, but remember, this is comparing just one frame out of the anime from thousands. Also, the anime has the advantage of taking up a lot more real estate, whereas the manga looks a bit more scrunched, since they have to squeeze multiple images onto the same page.
It’s not that I don’t read manga; it just takes me forever to finish. As I mentioned, I started reading High School of the Dead before the anime was even announced, and I still haven’t finished. To be frank, I get bored after one or two chapters and then go do something else –– like watch some anime or something. I have so much anime to watch anyway, I’d rather spend my free time on something I enjoy.
Manga to me is like watching an old black-and-white silent movie. The reason I love anime is because of the lights, sounds, and fluid animation. Anime has so many things that manga doesn’t: beautiful OP and ED themes, great cinematography, cool soundtracks, phenomenal colors, intense sound effects, and of couse, kawaii voice actors. We would never have “Desu!” or “Geso!” without anime –– at least not in the form that we have today.
Maybe it’s just my fixation towards movies that draws me into anime. They are both basically the same, except one is in 2D. I also like to compare anime studios and voice actors in the same way that I compare movie directors and movie stars.
I know that people say that the difference between manga to anime is akin to the difference of books and movies, but that’s exactly the problem. When I go to watch an anime, I want –– no, I expect –– the full immersion: movement, colors, voices. Manga only delivers half of that, so I would prefer having no pictures at all. If I wanted to read so much text, I would go read a book…a REAL book, I mean, one where the only pictures are the ones inside my head. The combination of towers of text smeared over the page (as opposed to a single line at the bottom in anime) serves as an aesthetic obstruction to the well-drawn pictures more than anything else.
Get to the next page already. *Yawn*
Of course, one of the greatest arguments is that the manga’s story is always better than the anime, and I agree. But I’ve been watching anime since 1997; I didn’t even know what manga was until my friend introduced me to it in 2004! Anime is something I’ve grown up with; it’s as much a part of my childhood as Saturday morning cartoons and Fruit Loops. In fact, even today, not once have I read a Pokemon or DBZ manga.
Most manga get adapted into anime, anyway. But if there’s one that hasn’t been, then of course I will go read it. Other than that, though, the only time I’ll read a manga is if it’s from an anime that I really enjoyed, because I want to know more of the story.
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Well, to be honest, I’ve got an issue with animes =X. They are not as loyal as what the author wanted it to be. A few examples I could say are Freezing!(the anime turned into an ecchi fest), Fractale(entire art and characters reworked lol), Gantz(crappy rushed ending) and of course, you won’t find that much fillers on mangas compared to animes like bleach/naruto. What I love on mangas is that you can feel what the author/artist want to convey to the reader, unlike some animes, that have to be edited(butchered) in order to satisfy age restriction, time issues, censorship…whatever.
Regarding the Pokemon manga you’ve mentioned on your post, I’d recommend you to give Pokemon Special/Adventures a try. It’s totally on a different level compared to the anime. It’s over 9000!
The reason Gantz ended the way it did was because (like with most anime) the manga was still in production (I’m still hoping for a new season). Although, it did get an exclusive arc not included in the manga, which I liked. Same with Excel Saga: it’s completely different from the manga, but it got extras that the manga didn’t — like a DVD episode called “Going too Far” and many appearances by the director himself in the series. XD
“What I love on mangas is that you can feel what the author/artist want to convey to the reader…” Although, personally, I still prefer anime for the visual and audio FX, you make a good point there. :D
The Fractale anime is technically the “original”. Planning started with the anime, but a manga started serialization with the prototype art first, before the anime aired with the finalized designs.
The “disloyalty” in the Fractale anime is a complete myth.
Not to say anime aren’t often egregious in adapting manga, or that I disagree necessarily. Just wanted to sort the tidbit out.
The advantage manga has over anime though is that it is able to convey much more information in less time. I can consume much more story in 20 minutes of reading manga than a whole episode. Still, sometimes you do need to have the full experience of sound and color and visuals and movement.
I couldn’t agree more!…ww
And also sometimes the manga’s drawings are out of proportion…orz
I agree. Anime is certainly more entertaining to watch than manga is to read…..sometimes.
Have you ever watched a show that had no ending or something because it either caught up to the manga, didn’t get a second season, or something similar? Yet, the manga DID have an ending and WAS completed?
I’d say that for me, I used to be the same as you are now. I was all anime, and manga was just….meh. Not for me. Then I watched InuYasha, which never had an end animated (at the time anyway). Needing and yearning for an end, I utilized the manga and read everything in about a week. Same thing happened for shows like Claymore, FMA (original series), and Elfen Lied. I read these only because the anime endings were either non-existent, or not to my liking. Or because I just wanted more.
This is what really got me into manga, and now I like it almost just as much as anime. Some weeks I’ll go on a manga binge and watch zero anime, while other times I’ll watch anime and read no manga. But the good thing about manga is that it’s really quick to just read a chapter before you go out or something. Like say you only have 10 minutes. You don’t need time.
So what’s the point of this long and stupid comment?
Manga is kind of an squired taste.
“I read these only because the anime endings were either non-existent, or not to my liking. Or because I just wanted more.”
Basically the same reason why I’ll pick up any manga. XD Some people watch the anime if they like the manga; on the other hand, I’ll read the manga if I liked the anime. ^^
I like manga
I have to agree with that other guy though because Soul Eater didn’t follow the manga at the end and I was disappointed.
I’d go to Moonphase and see the upcoming anime, then check their adapted sources.
Not a lot of people get a headstart in an anime because 1) you don’t know which publication will get an adaptation, sooner or later (e.g. Beelzebub, Nurarihyon no Mago, Hourou Musuko), or 2) the anime wasn’t adapted from a manga.
Most of the time, you’ll just have to treat the anime version as independent from its original.
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I prefer anime, I watch it large batches. I find it’s a lot more economical of my time to watch than to read.
This is just a preference of media, though. Ultimately I think most works are best in whatever media they were first written in. It’s very rare for an adaptation to surpass the original, unless there are very large changes made, and the adaptation becomes a beast of it’s own (prime example being the Gungrave anime, adapted from the first Gungrave game).
Personally, my difficulty with manga is just finding time to read it all, along with the fact that I hate following manga serialization schedules. Anime’s really beautiful since it fits into this neat, weekly release schedule and is almost always guaranteed fast fansubbing unless it’s particularly obscure or niche.
On the other hand, manga, outside of the ultra popular ones, are prone to scanlation group deaths, irregular release schedules, and hiatuses. I just can’t even conceive of dealing with guys like the Hunter X Hunter author or Miura, lol. And individual chapters are often just way too little content for me to feel satisfied between the insanely long stretches of time.
So either the manga’s too time consuming to read, or it’s release is just way too irregular for me to want me to follow. Yup.
4koma aren’t too bad though.
I hate it when authors go on a long hiatus. XD At least most anime finish on a timely schedule, like you said. I find anime more economical, as well. I tend to get bored reading manga (which makes me read slower), and I think to myself, “I could be spending this time watching that new series everyone is blogging about right now.” ^^;
Ironically, I find 4-koma harder too read — too little content. In manga, the plot is thicker, which makes the pacing smoother and more cohesive (less jumpy).
If you are talking about art wise , based on ur first paragraph , of course the fucking anime will have better art since it came out so much later compared to the manga from about 5 yrs b4 the anime was released ==
By art I meant like the lighting, colors, backgrounds, and animation–not just the quality. And not necessarily, either: there are many anime out there that look WORSE than the manga due to poor budgets.
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As many I started from anime but now I strictly prefer manga/light novels/visual novels. Or, to be correct, I prefer to start from the original: now I rarely watch anime (=adaptation) before reading the original.
The reason is simple – original is ALWAYS better.
Most of anime adaptations are like Hollywood films comparing to the original book/game – it’s shorter, simpler, jokes are more straight, characters are flanderized, their thoughts and inner dialogs are cut. Not to mention – more fanservice/ecchi. To put it simple – anime adaptations are just plain stupid.
For me the only one anime adaptations that came out better than the original (light novel) is “Toradora!” (in light novel it’s very obvious from the start that Ryuji and Taiga have feelings for each other (=be together). In anime it’s not so clear).
Well, that’s because I prefer good story (and good jokes) over cute animation.