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?
Source > Adaptation
One of the recent big-name disappointments would be Chained Soldier (source: manga).
Another prominent one is One Punch Man season 2 (source: manga).
For non big-names, Bofuri season 2 dropped the ball (source: novel).
I also felt that the anime adaptation for Undead Unluck could have been way better (source: manga).
Adaptation > Source
Probably most adaptations involving music, such as K-ON! (source: manga).
There are probably lots more out there but these are just the ones where I have consumed both the adaptations and their source materials.
I find that in most cases, when a non-original anime is crap to me, it is because of a weak story and poorly-written characters. As such, the root cause of the crappiness is the source material.
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”.
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?
Not a 100% sure, but season 2 adapts volume 5 to 9 of the light novel.
Noted, thanks!
Scorching hot take: for last season’s ecchi offerings, I liked Chained Soldier more than Akogarete.
OK, mods may now ban me forever.