When we review Anime, one of the common factors is how well a studio adapts the source material. This can range from Manga, Light Novels, Visual Novels, and Video Games since the whole industry rides on it to sell related merchandise. Since production committees have different approaches to achieve this, expectations will never be the same since printed media doesn’t have any voice actors to begin with. This is why I wanted to share my thoughts about adaptations since it has always been a hot topic. (Image Source)
Throughout the past few years, there were some great and bad adaptations. In an ideal world, adaptations should cover the source material page by page. Sadly, reality wouldn’t allow that due to constraints. Unless the show is One Piece, Naruto, or Pokémon, the chances of any series getting 52 or more episodes are slim since it takes a lot of money to produce one show. To use the funds efficiently, most adaptions only have 12 to 26 episodes to tell most of the story. While some people can say that having these limits pushes the committee to use its resources efficiently, it’s a lot harder than it looks. The source material has to get changed around with some things getting cut. This is where things get fishy when the show is virtually complete and starts airing. Fans will start complaining about things getting left out or changed around. From my experience, I’m going to explain some of these complaints that are commonly voiced: unfaithful adaptations, missing details/pacing issues and animation.
The first complaint that you might have experience some time in the life is unfaithful adaptations. The problem is that studios like Kyoto Animation and Ufotable can’t animate every adaptation on the planet. As a result, we have studios like Toei Animation, Studio Deen and sometimes JC Staff literally throwing most of the source material out the window and do it their own way. While fans familiarity with the source material can be a contributing factor, the problem is that studios focus mostly on producing shows, not getting familiar with the source material. Unless people who are working on the project are fans of it and/or working with the creator, they will just do their job without any thought. In a perfect example with the first Idolmaster Anime, Sunrise changed all the character designs, literally threw the original voice actors from the game under a bus and made it into a very clichéd mecha anime that has zero relation to the actual game. As you would expect, most of the fan base clinched their fists in rage after watching a few episodes. Obviously, this doesn’t hold true anymore since A1 Pictures created a more faithful adaptation of that show. Even so, it’s a good example showing why being faithful as much as possible is important. If more people enjoy it, they are more likely to support the series and buy merchandise.
The second concern when it comes to adaptations is length and pacing problems. Most adaptations are usually given 12 or 13 episodes to work with (24 to 26 episodes is uncommon). Therefore, it’s not possible to adapt everything. Besides changing some stuff around, the scriptwriter can leave stuff out. Depending on how important it is, it can lead to pacing issues where the show is either going too slow or fast. To make the problem worse, if they decide to leave important details out, it has an adverse affect to the story. This is why I think RPG and Visual Novel adaptations needs at least 24 episodes or two seasons since the actual story is long. Just recently, I was disappointed with the Shining Hearts anime, except for the character designs and the animation as it focused way too much on bread rather than the actual plot from the game. When I started playing the game several weeks ago and dived into the Japanese text, I soon realized that a lot of important stuff was missing in the Anime such as keys that unlocked Kaguya’s feelings, Mistral’s appearance who wanted the pendent and exploration of other islands in that world. Obviously the original game is long like most Japanese RPGs and it’s more than just baking/delivering bread. While there were successful adaptations like Air that can fit most of the important points in 12 episodes, depending on the medium and amount of material available to adapt, I think some series needs more episodes or a second season to feel complete rather than stuffing as much plot within the 12 episodes.
Lastly, Animation is the last issue that causes viewers to go nuts. Although this doesn’t necessarily apply to adaptations, this is usually important since most people want to see great looking art on the screen. As a result, this is usually the number one reason people drop at the first episode because some can’t stand the art direction. The animation quality will always vary from studio to studio as there are always ones that give gorgeous animation like Kyoto Animation, PA Works, Production IG, Shaft, etc. However, not everyone can be a winner and there are studios like Studio Deen that gives the worst possible animation to their show. Studio Deen usually the studio I hear a lot of complaints from as they make an okay adaptation story wise, but the animation is terrible. I don’t really need to mention any examples as you can compare Fate/stay night with Fate/zero and see a big difference already. While animation depends on the eye of the beholder, if the plot is good, it can overcome this weakness even though it might leave a slightly bad taste in the viewer’s mouth.
At the end of the day, Sturgeon’s Law will always kick in, thus not every adaptation will be successful. Withholding any exceptions, a person’s view on a successful adaption is subjective for the fact that everyone will have different views. In some cases, the anime can actually expand upon the source material, especially for 4koma since the plot is very simple. Regardless, the success will depend on how the studio addresses these issues and execute it.
So, I’ll leave this question to discuss: Which shows do you think has the best or worst adaptation?
> this is usually important since most people want to see great looking art on the screen
I think most people are so obsessed with pretty animation they forget the story underlying it all and just think it’s all shallow without nice animation. But there is even such a thing as “over animation”, where a story is overshadowed by gimmicky animation that doesn’t really add anything substantial to it. This is a questionable thing to do when adapting something meant to be story-driven.
Still, most (young?) people seem to not care about that; they seem less interested in the story aspect as the pretty animation. They’ll give a well-animated show a pass just for being pretty, and pass over the amazing stories of yesteryear just because they’re not 1080p. This in spite of the fact that the pretty animation of today will be just as bad in ten years, while a good story is timeless.
I think this problem doesn’t only stem in Anime, but in video games. It seems that gamers only care about pretty graphics opposed to game play or story line. Of course as you mentioned, the graphics get overshadowed by the things that supposed to be important. Just as an example, some reviewers criticized the latest Pokemon Game being disappointing because it still uses a mostly 2D stuff without realizing the improvements in game play and battling mechanics. It also applies to a variety of JRPGs as well. This stuff kind of bugs me since people who are saying these remarks are playing overrated shooting games and western games like Call of Duty, Battlefield and Skyrim. But yes, I agree that visuals isn’t everything and if the plot is weak, it’s still going to look bad even with pretty art direction. There needs to be a balance between the two.
I think those reviews are kind of bogus as well, especially since Pokemon is a JRPG for the DS, and considering that, the 2D graphics aren’t bad for the platform. Shooters like Call of Duty, on the other hand, use way too much bloom and copious amounts of gray that they end up looking ridiculously pretentious. Same goes for anime taht try to come off as intellectual and dark, I guess. What ever happened to color? PCs and consoles could do much more than that, so in retrospect, those visuals are very lacking in comparison to Pokemon games which offer as much as its platform can give it. Though I do think Pokemon would look rather nice if it were given the same visual treatment that Nippon Ichi gives to its games, at least for the next generation.
If they make another generation, I think the transition to the 3DS would probably allow them to do something like the Pokemon Colosseum/XD with it being a fully 3D Pokemon Game. But still, the graphics in the fifth generation is a lot better than the fourth generation as the Pokemon fully moves and there is better animation. What it’s holding it back is it being on the DS as the install base for the 3DS isn’t large enough for a 3DS only Pokemon Game. Probably in the future after they do the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire remakes is to start working on a 3DS only game with 150 new Pokemon. Not sure how they will do it, but we’ll see.
As for the lack of color, It’s kind of noticeable in most western games as they only choose a small palette of colors for some reason. I don’t play shooters or any western games besides Portal, which means I can’t say much. If you compare any western game with a Japanese game, there is a big difference. Japanese games always seems to have a lot of color, which makes it pleasant. The only problem in the westerner’s eye is that it’s too childish and not “manly” enough… I think it’s cultural differences.
I was talking more along the lines of 2D sprites with better resolution on the 3DS. I honestly think JRPGs like Pokemon don’t have to be in 3D to look impressive, at the very least, 2D seems like the style that fits Pokemon best and I don’t think the franchise needs to cater to the ignorant masses who doesn’t play anything besides 3D games. Though, a 3D-styled game in the likes of XD wouldn’t be unwelcome. At the very least, I never see any complaints with games like Disgaea where the 2D graphics look awesome on the platform.
Western games are capable of more color, and I’ve seen it, but sadly enough, many companies think that having endless shades of gray “adds to the dark atmosphere” (which is a false pretense). Sure, that would be true if they were making an emotional and realistic war story along the lines of Saving Private Ryan, but for the most part, the games that do this have no substance in story and are just “shoot and kill”, so color would be welcome to make it at least look attractive. I very much think the same for anime, if the animation is impressive but the color palette is limited for absolutely no reason, it has absolutely have some sort of interesting story in there.
At the very least, I like it how every time I play a Japanese RPG or a game that doesn’t appeal to the younger and more immature fanbases of the west, the trees are the right shade of green.
I honestly think a good adaptation comes in two variants. One would obviously be an adaptation that follows the source material to the bone, along with art that is on par with the quality of the source (or better). The second variant would be an adaptation that isn’t necessarily faithful, but has elements that you wished could have been in the source material even though there are elements from the source that didn’t make it in. In other words, a somewhat divergent adaptation that stands on its own. Ufotable shows this quite nicely with the Tales of Symphonia OVAs, where they expanded on certain points of the game’s story even though parts are skipped or changed. A good supplement, I will say. Or in an extreme case, the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime, where even though it isn’t AT ALL faithful to the manga, it manages to be a good series in its own right.
Sometimes cons found in anime adaptation are merely because anime isn’t a medium suited for elements found in the story, even though it’s faithful to its source for the most part. Visual novels and light novels usually get the short end of the stick because they either condense the anime adaptations or feel the need to change certain elements of the story. KyoAni does mostly a good job at adapting Key VNs, but Clannad’s ending sure feels like a cop-out compared to its visual novel counterpart, where all the routes were significant enough to make the ending feel like an accomplishment rather than something served onto a silver platter. Then there’s the Tales of the Abyss anime, where even though it followed the game line-by-line, the anime suffered *because* of its faithfulness – the pacing was horrid because it was originally an RPG where the characters became giants on the World Map and traversed from location to location in seconds. Light novel adaptations suffer the most because most of time, they’re condensed to an insufficient amount of episodes because the animation company is just testing the waters with it, and they often try to make the end of the “first seasons,” the beginning of the novels, feel like conclusions. Ouch, kind of a lose-lose there.
In my opinion, bad adaptation happen when, as you said, the animators just produce the show without any thought. Other times, it’s because they feel the need to disrespect the original story and act as if they are better writers than the original creator(s). Yu-Gi-Oh!/Game King is an example of this, where the anime’s fillers were an attempt to overthrow the original manga story and the anime producers tried to derail the canon material with card-marketing and altered elements of the story to go along with it, and overall, betrayed the spirit of the original manga which was less obsessed with cards and more focused on a story that merely uses games as a plot device.
And then there’s Toei, who are REALLY messy with their productions. Honestly, trying to make your own background stories for things that are obviously going to be explained later in the source material is just common sense not to do. It doesn’t help that their filler is left ignored. Worse case example is in Dragon Ball, during one filler episode, where a character throws a tantrum and flies off, only for the next episode to show him standing in the same place he was at the beginning of the previous one. SERIOUSLY?
I think many adaptations could do better provided that there’s input from the original author. CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura anime, even though it was somewhat different from the manga, managed to replicate the feel and spirit of its source despite its alterations because it was overlooked by one of the CLAMP women. Given JC’s track record with adaptations and the fact that Key isn’t overlooking the project, I’m scared that Little Busters! may end up being another bad or JUST DECENT adaptation.
Of course, not being 100% faithful can also have successes as you mentioned. True Tears was a pretty good example of that, which doesn’t focus on the visual novel, but rather create a spinoff story. However, it depends mostly on the story and the fanbase. You wouldn’t make a completely different show compared to the source material and expect people to like it.
At the end of the day, adaptations success will depend on the medium of the original anime. Obviously, it’s difficult to adapt a visual novel and RPGs since they have different breakpoints compared to light novels and manga. It depends on the effort the studio puts into the production as half of that will lead to a mediocre or bad result.
Talking about Toei, their adaptations of three Key visual novels are garbage… too many changes to the story line and the animation is just outdated… Although not written that well, I had a review on the Clannad Movie and it wasn’t that good.