Posted by Originally I wasn’t going to write an introduction post; I figured posting the first writing sample Omni requested about anime adaptations strictly following the manga would suffice as an introduction. Obviously, I changed my mind, but I didn’t want to just toss all that great writing that got me this position away (it’s either that or I was too busy with the wife and kids to come up with a new editorial). In any event, you can expect more news-related editorials soon, but for now, indulge me, since it’s my turn to bathe the kids.
One of many fiercely debated topics in anime fandom, the adaptation of manga into anime strikes a particular cord with FANS in general, because it is closely related to the topic of film adaptations of books.
Now, I emphasize FANS (with an explanation at the end of this article), because they’re the only type of people who care about this sort of thing; any “normal” person would simply want to be entertained, regardless of what came before or after it. Never is this more evident than when discussing the Harry Potter books and films with someone who is not a FAN of Harry Potter — and I use Harry Potter, because (due to its popularity and recognition factor) there are quite a lot of people who like Harry Potter but are not FANS of the series.
Harry Potter Fan (HPF) versus Non-Harry Potter Fan (N-HPF) Conversation:
HPF: I can’t believe they cut out <some part of the book> from the movie!
N-HPF: The movie was still pretty good.
HPF: Did you read the book?
N-HPF: Yep.
HPF: And you didn’t hate how they cut out that part?
N-HPF: Nope.
HPF: Did you like the book?
N-HPF: Yep.
HPF: Which do you like better?
N-HPF: I like them the same, but they’re no <other well-renown series>.
HPF: *Gasp* AVADA KEDAVRA!
N-HPF: … Why are you pointing your pen at me?
Don’t get me wrong. I understand why fans of anything would feel violated if their precious entertainment was grotesquely reworked into something hideously unfamiliar. Why, it’s almost as bad as when a creator’s work is altered without their permission …ALMOST…
But let’s not open THAT can of worms and approach this issue practically. If an original work (manga, in the case of what this article should be focusing on) is altered and the result (the anime adaptation) is of low quality, it is very reasonable to decry the travesty and claim that the manga should not have been altered. Everyone thinking of the filler episodes from Rurounin Kenshin after the Kyoto arc or the filler episodes from Naruto before Shippuuden? Good.
What I mainly have a problem with are FANS who hold on to their precious manga so dearly that they refuse to accept ANY change in the anime adaptation. There are mainly two reasons for this:
1) There are some aspects of the manga medium that simply do not translate well into the anime medium
2) Preceding Favoritism
Anime simply cannot do some things that manga can do, and thus, most attempts at that just come across poorly. While Kare Kano was a good series, both as a manga and an anime, there were certainly several scenes that made otaku wonder if Gainax was just trying to conserve on their animation budget. You’d get a faithfully reproduced scene from the manga where melodic music was playing and a single frame of words were laid over a sky-filled background (an all-too common panel in the manga), and while it was beautiful and soothing, it made me fall asleep. In the manga, it’s a single page flip, but in anime, it could be a grueling 10 seconds, which may not seem long here but can feel like an eternity when viewed.
Is this from the anime or the manga? I…I can’t tell…!
Anime can also do some things that manga cannot do at all, and thus, anime SHOULD do such things in order to make a scene that much more dynamic. Shounen fight scenes, as long as they are animated well with a healthy budget, should be elaborated on. In fact, that’s almost a prerequisite; most fight scenes in a manga can be confusing in their depiction, and it becomes difficult to discern what is actually happening. The anime adaptation is forced to (who knew?) ADAPT the fight scene and interpret it in a way that can be more easily understood.
While I was complaining about Kare Kano earlier, one of their more interesting adaptations of the manga was the use of onomatopoeia (sound effect words). However, they didn’t simply copy and paste them from the manga – they vibrantly animated them to fit what was going on (seeing the word “stress” stretched and pulled across the screen as Yukino was stressing over Arima still makes me laugh).
Fine, I’ll admit it — I’m nitpicking. Most people only care about how an anime adaptation changes a manga’s PLOT, accomplished by 1) extending it with poorly written fillers; 2) removing scenes, details, and subplots; or 3) altering the ending all together. I would like to point out, however, that while there are the horrible fillers of Rurouni Kenshin and Naruto, there are also anime that surpassed their predecessor manga in terms of plot (Angelic Layer immediately comes to mind), as well anime that greatly deviated from their manga origins but still held their own ground as entertainment equally good to the manga (such as Full Metal Alchemist). Ghost in the Shell is also an interesting one, because while the first movie followed the manga’s plot fairly closely, there were definitely a lot of story details that were cut to tighten the film up. Additionally, when you look at Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (the TV series), the plot there is VERY different, even though it retains more story elements from the manga than the films.
I’d like for you to engage in this mental exercise, if you know Ghost in the Shell. Pretend that the movies never came out; pretend that after the manga, just the TV series came out. Can’t you imagine how some FANS would complain how the TV series was not holding true to the original manga, in spite of how well the TV series was put together? “Where is the Puppeteer?” I can hear them cry (and, yes, in the manga, it’s Puppeteer – in the movie, it’s Puppet Master). Sure, the TV series focuses on a different part of the overall setting of Ghost in the Shell, but some FANS would demand to see the story from the manga they loved animated. The reason why FANS don’t have a problem with the TV series (and, in fact, adore it) is because a movie that followed the manga’s storyline was released FIRST. If that event never happened, I would wager there would be a lot more complaints about the TV series adaptation not following the manga. This is what I call Preceding Favoritism.
How many of you would have wanted to see this animated? (no, it’s not doujinshi – this was original manga work cut from the manga releases outside of Japan) – And yes, I photoshopped other panels from the same page in order to cover the naughty bits…(Here’s the original for those who are curious)
Preceding Favoritism refers to how EVERYONE is subject to the “well, I like what came first” mentality. It’s difficult to compartmentalize one’s emotions (evaluating an anime without letting one’s feelings of the manga interfere — again, you could replace anime with movie and manga with book), but I cannot tolerate FANS who do not even acknowledge this as a possible factor for why they prefer the manga over the anime (with obvious exceptions to those who saw the anime first and then started reading the manga second). I don’t want to get into a whole debate about “you can’t be fair when you compare” versus “comparison is necessary when evaluating” — I just want acknowledgement that previous exposure alters one’s ability to critique a piece of creative work. If you had to marathon 20 SERIES (not episodes) of Giant-Robot-Sci-Fi-Mecha shows and were forced to watch <what you currently think is the greatest Giant-Robot-Sci-Fi-Mecha show ever> afterwards without ever seeing it before, you probably would not think it was the greatest Giant-Robot-Sci-Fi-Mecha show ever.
Let’s just look at this logically from a “life-lesson” point of view. While anime adaptations that deviate from the manga could very well be bad (not even in comparison to the original – just flat out bad), they also have the potential to be better than the manga, if not great on their own accords. Isn’t the risk worth it? The industry (anime and movie) fueled by the drive for profit already becomes an assembly line churning out the same product because it sells well. There is really little room for innovation as is. Would you rather eat your most favorite food day in and day out until you grow absolutely bored of it that the sight of it makes you dry-heave? Or would you like to eat several different things all the time, knowing FOR A FACT that you will eat something vomit-inducing every now and then but also realizing you could potentially eat something that blows your tastebuds away (in a good way)?
There was a Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode about how the girls saw a really bad movie, and they criticized the movie director for it, but he ran away with the excuse of “I was only following the original.” They questioned him on why he didn’t do his job as a director and come up with new things to make the movie more interesting, even if that meant deviating from the boring original. He responded that he was worried if what he came up with was not well received, then he would have no excuse and people could directly blame him; by following the original, he could always run away with the excuse of “I was only following the original.” Is that what we really want the anime industry to turn into?
– Natrone
who doesn’t think all fans are bad…just the FANS (you know exactly who I am talking about)…
I quite agree with you fully. While I admit that I do like it when an adaption of any kind follows the original source closely. I do like it when they put new things into the mix, so as not to make it seem predictable and slightly boring.
Example:Ouran High School Host Club
@Katya:
Examples of the opposite: Bleach, Naruto.
But yea. I enjoy anime when it either follows closely to the manga or adds information that the manga didn’t have or better develop a side character. A good example would be D.Gray-man.
There are anime which follow the manga closely and succeed (see Honey and Clover, Azumanga Daioh)… and ones which don’t follow as closely and succeed (see Mahoraba), but that’s usually because they find the spirit of the original manga and craft the stories which are original, or add elements which aren’t in the manga, but keep the feel of the original, well enough that they could’ve been dropped into the manga without feeling out of place.
And then you get ‘adaptations’ like Rosario and Pantsu or To-Love-RU which deviate from the original, don’t keep the feel of it, and turn into fanservice fests which toss out any of the parts which weren’t fanservice in order to make it different and fail. I think the key here, with adaptations, is that they need to at least have the charm or the elements which made the original likeable and don’t feel like they were just inserted because the director wanted things to be different.
Ouran as an adaptation did well, because even when they deviated from the original story… it was enjoyable either on its own merits, or because it didn’t feel horribly tacked on (the Alice in Wonderland chapter was altered significantly, as was the man-switching mania one).
“But keep the feel of the original work”, even.
a nice read. i totally agree with u as sometimes i am one of those people but i have progressed to the level where it doesnt matter about the manga adaption to the anime and how it SHOULD be different than the manga. Once agian, a very fun and interesting read indeed.
The problem comes from the “watered down” effect. In an effort to make something more marketable, the producers sometimes remove a lot of the emotion a particular story might have, or they make an effort to move around events to introduce as many characters as possible. Perfect example of this during this season is To-Love-Ru. Admittedly, a lot of the manga chapters are fluff, and it sometimes takes a half-dozen volumes before they introduce another character (lot of series do this). But a large portion of the emotional impact is stripped from that series to make it more appealing to a larger audience. Simple marketing. I understand why they have to do it, but it’s never an enjoyable thing to view.
But that does not mean that their aren’t vast improvements made. Minami-ke, Pani Poni, Lucky Star, all one of those abbreviated series that wouldn’t seem like they could be well adapted until you see them.
Nor does it stop at manga. One of my favorite harem series is SHUFFLE!, and the anime went *worlds* above the original game in terms of character development, interactions, and plots, never even touched upon in the original game.
Still, for every ARIA, Fruits Basket, or Spice and Wolf, there’s always the chance we’ll get a Zero no Tsukaima ~Futatsuki no Kishi~, Tsukihime, or Negima.
(hint: good adaptations that took different approaches vs. bad ones)
As FANS, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. No choice but to try them all and see which ones turn out great.
I see Haesslich and I think pretty much the same way.
its so rare that people even think of talking about angelic layer nowadays
+2 points
I think it is unfair when an anime is compared to its manga counterpart. You just can’t do things in anime like you can in manga. One of the biggest complaints about an anime adaptation is the art style and how it suffers in the process. Take Air Gear (I’m not saying that is the only thing wrong with that anime BTW), the artwork is fantastic in that manga, but they can’t do that in an anime (especially since the animation budget on that anime cost as much as a frapichinno at the local Starbucks, but not to get off topic, i think you may get the point.
Where did you get that Ghost in the Shell manga page? The version I have doesn’t have anything like that.
Kare Kano isn’t as good of an example (especially for the latter episodes) because they really DID run out of a budget.
@Tracer
I own a copy of the original Japanese Ghost in the Shell manga. I scanned it in, myself. I’m sure if you do a Google image search for “Ghost in the Shell manga,” you’ll find the image, too (albeit admist a ton of hentai sites).
@Salenth
Not having money is merely a reason but not an excuse for poor entertainment or story-telling. You get what you pay for. Just trying sitting through a TV episode of Violinist of Hamelin. Believe me, I love Kare Kano, but I did fall asleep during several of those recap/manga-reproduction scenes at the end of the anime series…
What ruins most anime adaptations for me is that they try to follow the manga as close as possible, but in your average 12/13 or even 24/26 episode series that’s simply impossible for everything but short manga. So they change the plot to make it fit and that leads with almost no exceptions to a bad parody of the original story. Because the anime writers can’t keep up with the original author if they are trying to imitate him. That might not be that bad for shoujo adaptations or romantic comedies, because there’s plenty of redundant plot in those where the relationships gets resetted over and over again, but especially for shounen with a continuous plot, which are my favourite type of story that’s just plain bad.
The other danger is when an anime has too many episodes. Then they have to fill each episode with redundant material or make outright filler episodes just so that they don’t catch up with the manga. And the problem with fillers are obvious. Nothing which happens there has any impact whatsoever on the story. There’s no progress at all. They are just a plain waste of time.
In conclusion I have to say anime adaptations only if the manga is complete, short enough. Or if you bring things to an premature end at a point where things fit together without changing the story too much like in Beck for example. Or if you have the guts to completely leave the manga behind at some point and tell a similar but different story instead, one where you have to regard the anime as a stand alone work.
Well, I understand what you’re trying to explain there, great comparison with harry potter FANS.. I guess there is anime(shows, movie, tv series) that are really bad compared to the manga story but some are really great and i agree with the “part” of movie’s producer taking chance to make the anime better than the original.
Melchior: Indeed, and I have to agree that Shuffle made a major change to the harem in the game… and improved on it, whereas Kanon… didn’t, and F/SN actually got a bit worse since they had promised a new path but ultimately went and did a retread, which (combined with a bad CG’d dragon) made it feel kinda… cheap.
Minami-ke’s changes are debatable about whether they improve the manga or not, but they didn’t detract from it much, except in Okawari where the loss of the bite-sized portions in an attempt to insert more drama made things feel like they dragged on, some episodes. Parts were kept (the Kana exposed scene), and other things were added (Fuyuki), and it’s only the latter which I felt really pulled a lot of the fun out of the series by being completely out of place with the otherwise whacky cast that they’d introduced in the first season. He was like a wet blanket compared to even Takeru… whose whole purpose was to be depressed due to his lack of a love-life, somehow managing to be even more depressing without Takeru’s amusement value.
ARIA’s changes, for the most part, are positive; they shuffle around the order of stories, created the green-haired Ai-chan (whose appearance in Origination feels like a natural fit for the manga), but everything did NOT take away from the original story, or feel ‘tacked on’. It fit together rather well, which meant it wasn’t an obtrusive (and thus possibly annoying) change that anyone but the most die-hard fan of the manga would’ve griped about. Heck, Ai-chan even got inserted into the manga universe, sorta, in one of the art-book omakes if I remember it correctly.
Shana and Zero no Tsukaima, on the other hand… well, they ran roughshod over the original sources and they’re kinda.. eh. Negima, on the other hand, was unwatchable. If people thought Love Hina was bad, Negima was like that multiplied by 10.
Musashi: You can compare it only in terms of style and feel, as well as how the adaptation is handled. Art can change (ARIA does this to some extent as the lush backgrounds of the manga are VERY hard to move into the budget, although the show managed it)… but the story is the key to a good adaptation, IMO – and without translating the good parts of it, you’ve got an awful adaptation. Ghost in the Shell’s art differs dramatically from the manga’s, but the feel of the story is close enough that it hits the same points that the manga did… minus the rampant lesbian sex and things which didnt’ make it into the movie or the offshoot SAC. Mahoraba’s art differs from the manga somewhat, and there was a whole episode that didn’t exist in the manga, but could’ve come from it, so seamlessly it fit with the overall mood of the source material.
Then you have adaptations like Negima, which ape the art (somewhat) but then remove characters and storylines… and in doing so become so bland that they offend everyone. ABout the only good episode in the original series was one that developed Sayo, since it gave a reason for her to hang around the Academy and also fleshed out a character whose background is still shrouded in mystery. Note that the ‘fleshing out side characters’ is something that an animated adaptation can do quite well, and not take anything away from the story in doing so.
Holy Cow, Natrone-Sensei just blew my mind. Divine and I had an exchange expressing similar sentiments on the subject not too long ago (in a To-LOVE-ru episode synopsis I believe), but I think you really hit on all major points quite accurately. How many times have I seen FANS rant and rave about how much worse some adaption was without convincing arguments to back up their assertion. Preceding Favoritism, I say, but they don’t like to admit it.
Somy mentioned it first, but Angelic Layer is the very first example I think of for the adaptions-with-endings-better-than-the-original category (although I’m think the anime is a thoroughly superior production than the manga in many departments, not the least improvement were the action scenes, being a shounen-action show and all, albeit an unorthodox one, but I think it’s time to wrap up my aside). Also, the Kare Kano anime is one of my all time favs, so seeing it discussed at length here was a pleasant surprise! I think it’s great that we (might) share such similar interests! 🙂
To further apply the phenomena of Preceding Favoritism, I think it happens in the long-waged war of Subs vs Dubs. There may have been a time, if we jump in the Way-Back Machine, when English dubs of anime series could be described as “second-class” productions, if even that. But by now, I think the American Anime industry has developed to where such poor dubbing works are a rarity, and on the decline. Look at Disney pulling in some big name, proven actors to voice in Miyazaki’s films. I see most of the current debate lies with personal preference, with Preceding Favoritism being a major factor. Often, the first exposure a viewer gets of a series is Japanese audio w/ fansubs (just look at Random C). Then I find many of those same fans make blanket statements about the superiority of subs or whatnot, and I can’t help but think, that some people are just prejudiced against the spoken English language. That’s my take on that topic; didn’t mean to tangent like that. Perhaps you can take the idea for your next editorial, Sensei? 🙂
Needless to say, I thought this article was brilliant; a well-crafted essay on recreational mediums and fan preference; at the same time approachable and enlightening. I’m stoked for the installment.
For me, I don’t mind so much which version came out first (i.e. manga or anime) as long as I like it. If the manga came out first but the anime did a better job IMO of presenting the story and the characters then I like the anime better. What’s interesting to me is that with a lot of popular (and non-main stream series as well) once the anime comes out there’s also a manga version that follows (or in the case of Gundam 00 there are two versions, both following the anime story line). Some will decry that as just milking the money out of fans, and in a realist sort of way it is. But I wonder, can these secondary manga adaptations have any merits of their own? Can they really contribute something new to the series as a whole? Personally I think so, but it’ll take a mangaka or writer with real skills to do so.
Heh…on the HPF and N-HPF debate. I’m a N-HPF but I was still annoyed that they cut out stuff in the movies….particularly movie 5 which cut out almost every instance of the emotional development.
Rozen Maiden is my best example of accepting both sides. I got into the series from the anime and then read the manga. And now I don’t even say which is “better”. The anime reaaranged the scenes in such a way that the first season felt very very good as a stand alone work.
One thing that is particularly good in the adaptation scene is the Kara no Kyoukai novels and movies.
Kinoko Nasu (the original author of the novels) refused offers to have the novels made into a anime because he thought it wouldn’t retain the story well. Ufotable then had the movie-per-chapter idea. And now they’ve made a great adaptation while even putting in some elements of their own.
The example at the end about the movie director really spoke to the aphorism that, “You can’t please everyone.” By making a faithful adaption, people are upset he didn’t exercise more creative storytelling, and if he did change it, he would’ve invoked the ire of purists and the hardcore fans. There will always be someone angry about this element or that design choice. I guess what we can do as viewers/consumers is look for the good and focus on that rather than dwell on the bad things all the time.
Well, I’m nbot all that sure I catch that. I mean, I just watch it. But I do understand that, although in a reverse role. Mainly movies with tie-in books.
Guess I need to pay more attention.
Personally i dont give a shit! I read manga and watch the anime i like the differences because it allows the author to go with a new direction, if it is always the same then there is no substance to watching the anime. I agree some anime orginal stuff are bad but some of them are really good. A great example is FMA come on the Anime is awesome and so is the Manga! Another example of the two going two total different directions is darker than black, the anime and the manga are two separate story’s and personally i like them both 😀
Great example with Harry Potter
my gawd I went to the midnight release….I guess I should call it the 8 o’clock release since that’s when it was released I was second in line and I came at 4 o’clock and I waited 4 hours to see shit….
I mean it was horrible up till that point I thought of the Harry Potter movie franchise as above average since it still left stuff out but overall it was great but this one was just.. horrible I can’t even watch it without cringing
another thing you brought up was Rurouni Kenshin which I couldn’t agree more to since it just ended on a horrible horrible note i mean a filler? WHY!?
But the OVA was GREAT
I thought reflection was great to just really choppy..
But basically it gets you straight to the point and its a lot sadder than the actual manga
Holy crap… this is certainly interesting and I’m just a bit disappointed that I cannot really contribute to the discussion.
Wow, keep it up Natrone-sensei.
Taking a jab at AMV’s? I LOVE YOU ALREADY! :>
This really boils down to the expertise and ability of the studios, who can get it very right or very wrong. Sure, some people will object to their manga being altered in any way – but from my experience these people are very few and far between. Plenty of good anime has deviated from the manga it was based on in recent years, and when I do see serious objections about series’ I tend to think they’re justified. But, then, I ignore the retards that complain on the basis of alterations being “JUST NOT RIGHT” so that may be why I’m not angry about this like you seem to be :p
Question to Natron-E.
What would you recommend, then? The manga to be published first, and then an anime adaptation, or the anime as the original source and the manga published afterwards going into greater depth?
I wholeheartedly agree with this blog. I myself am a huge fan of the Tsukihime universe, and I watched the anime about two years ago. Now, I will admit that the anime adaption wasn’t EXACTLY like the original game story, and some parts were a little bit confusing, but I ultimately found a satasfaction with the end result that I didn’t even find in FullMetal Alchemist.However, it seems like alot of the other fans of the universe either dig endlessly for things to criticize the movie for, or they simply say there is no anime adaption. I can’t stand it. Sure it may not have been the best, but I never see any of these people complain about how rushed Fate/stay night felt, and that had more episodes than even Tsukihime. I guess it’s just a matter of taste, but like I said, the article hits the nail on the head.
@thenightsshadow
I recommend people keep an open mind when watching an adaptation after watching an original without constantly comparing the two. It shouldn’t matter which came first (the anime or the manga). There’s a big difference between saying “I wish they didn’t change that” versus “the story-telling is poor.” Like I said, it’s hard to compartmentalize, but good critics will say something to the effect of, “maybe I’m just being biased because I read the manga first,” as opposed to some FANS who refuse to acknowledge their Preceding Favoritism.
@Ruk
The expertise and ability of the studios to tell a story well applies whether or not they’re doing an adaptation or an original work. There are plenty of original anime that are great and plenty of original anime that suck. My beef is with the people who criticize without a solid basis (i.e. “it’s different from what I’m used to so I don’t like it”). Such people are NOT few and far between (just listen to any random conversations in a line at an anime convention, especially if you’re standing there as a volunteer or staff), and while I do not get all up and in their faces when they say something stupid (I didn’t even reply to posts and comments about this, up until recently), I apparently am incapable of completely ignoring and forgetting their stupidity. Some of my students are stupid about this issue (and other issues), too, but at least as a teacher, I can discuss with them and mold them toward a more mature and balanced way of thinking about the issue.
This article is interesting~ I agree that some FANs love the original story soooo much that they b!tch about any difference in the anime/movie version. That is so annoying. If the producers change sometime or add some stuff and they do it well, why wince like an emo? If the said change/additional stuff ruin the great story, then one would have his/her full right to angst about it.
The only reason i hate some anime adaptations is that they use crappy material as filler ( original anime material like in Naruto, Inuyasha, some Bleach episodes are really awful ) .. besides .. it feels like they are cutting, pasting and adding extra pieces to the original story and adding random parts to it .. that makes it feel like some random collage .. it is no longer how the original story was intended to be … and mostly it doesn’t even add any value to the characters or the plot.
Hi Natrone-sensei —
I once heard somebody say that when adapting something into another medium, it’s more of a crime to stay loyal to the original and lose the quality than to change some things and keep the feel. So I think you’re right, hey, I agree. Adapt means “to modify”, so sometimes it’s just better.
And YES to the FMA anime shoutout! I’ve long wondered why more people didn’t notice that for an anime-original ending, it was pretty damn interesting.
(Of course, then there are things like Bleach, where not only are there fillers, but the filler material starts invading the actual storyline. Whoever thought that was a good idea, it… wasn’t.)
So hey, great first column, man!
First of all, orginals are normally the better if you consider yourself a fan of something. While there are exceptions, typically, it is the orginals. You can think of it like this, if the anime adaption (feel free the switch the order, manga adpation) followed the manga completely, not only are all of the twists gone, but most of the feel for it too. While I don’t mind filler episodes (Good break from the main plot line and good suspense builder), I do mind if they f***en last for a whole year! Straying off topic again… Back to the point, if you enjoyed the orginal of a series, don’t be so quick to hate the adaption (of any kind) if they shortened say… A boring sky watching scene. To conclude my statement, I support changes in adaptions as they allow for expansion on the characters, plot and/or feel of the series.
Well, if you REALLY feel that you want the anime to follow the manga completely, you could always make the manga rather literally into the anime like this.
To be frank money is the primary reason why some series strive and others just die, the reason why we get so much crap endings from studios if the manga is till being published is mostly because of the deadlines and cuts that most be made in order to suit the broadcast needs and if there is not enough interst within the staff to continue they will usually just make something up to save themselves the embrassment of cancellation and move on to anther project. A perfect example is GONZO who is we all know is infamous for their lackluster adaptations and even worser original works, Trinity Blood is a great example because the author of the original work passed away so they were stuck and like true Gonzo fashin gave us something of low expectations(you can see that they were hoping for some continuation, put th popularity waned)oh and remember GANTZ, I’m not opposed to filler material since they truly are devices to flesh out characters who get no background info in their original source(FMA comes to mind) but in most shonen wors particularly Nauto and Bleach they seem to be there some they don’t catch up to the author which is why the majority of fans get there complaints from.
Anime filler arc are spoiler arc for the next manga arc to be be animated.
Okay this is going off on a tangent but what about series that were anime first, then adapted into manga? What kind of response does that get from fans generally, can manga adaptations screw up series just as badly as anime adaptations, etc.
Hi, cool site, good writing 😉