Manga is wonderful
We got lots of anime fans out here nowadays. Love to see it. (By "out here" I just mean, uh... the world. America. I dunno.) We have fewer manga readers, but still a lot. I'd like to see more.
But honestly, I'm not really that bothered by the difference in numbers. I accept that more people here are interested in watching a show than reading a comic. But what does bum me out is when I sometimes see a complete lack of awareness of where a lot of these anime came from. And even some of the people who do pay attention to popular manga seem to really only doing it to get ahead of anime viewers.
Regarding that crowd, I find it annoying how much drama can get stirred up with big chapters of highly popular series (often the final chapter). People want to be the first to leak pages, they want to be the first to push out crappy translations, they want to be the first to have an extreme opinion on big moments. It's like these people are not so invested in the art of manga itself, but rather in using it to receive online attention. It's annoying.
Oh well.
Maybe I'm being overly critical here, but sometimes you see people online saying stuff like, "Yeah, calling it now, [new shounen battle series] is definitely gonna be the next [old shounen battle series], just wait three years for the anime and you'll see I'm right." It's like... yeah, cool.... But if all we talk about is the hypothetical future anime and how cool it's gonna be and predicting if it's gonna blow up, are we even remembering to enjoy the manga for what it is?
Oh well.
Look people. Manga isn't just some leaked draft of a future anime. It's a wonderful art form with a rich history, and I say we should all respect and enjoy it.
Well, you don't have to read it. I know a lot of people love to experience these stories for the first time in anime form. I don't want to take that away from you.
But even if that is how you want to live, I think it's important to learn where your favorite anime came from and maybe pay the original author a bit of respect.
The thing about me is that I don't mind seeing a good story twice. Like if I read a great manga and it gets a great anime adaptation, I'm just like, cool! Frankly I tend to forget a lot what happens in the middle of a manga anyway unless I re-read parts. (I honestly wonder if other people are better about retaining stuff. Should I take notes?)
If you like anime but are not sure if you want to take the plunge into manga, what I will say is: just give it a try, because it's fun! It's a different experience from watching a show. Also, are you scared of reading panels right-to-left? It's not actually hard; you'll get used to it no time. And then you'll love all the possibilities that will open up to you.
Maybe at first you'll read ahead of a popular anime and you'll want to be like "Ohohohoho! I'm superior than other people because I knew this story two years before they did! I have the power to spoil them at any time, but I refrain because I'm nice! Ohohoho!" But that’s nothing.
The true rewards are beyond that. So many stories that may never get animated. So many pages of beautiful artwork. And other cool features of manga that I'll highlight further down.
Also, I mean, if you wanna compare to anime, one other benefit is you get to skip the padding and filler arcs. Though that's less of a problem these days, because almost no anime run year-round anymore. But yeah.
Some Basics of the Manga and Anime Industries
Reasons anime get funded
As you know, for large-scale projects to get made, they need money behind them. Companies fund TV anime because they expect they'll make money in return. Woohoo. We live in a society.
TV of course has sponsorships, so there's some money there. But if you're making a high-quality anime, you really gotta be selling stuff to otaku. There's the DVDs/Blu-Rays, of course. Those aren't cheap, and each volume only has a few episodes on it. Then you'll have all kinds of other merch, like figurines.
When it comes to non-original anime, one huge reason companies fund them is because they will often boost the sales of the source material a significant amount. Yes, a TV anime is kind of like an ad, in that way. I know that sounds cynical, but a lot of these series probably wouldn't get funded otherwise.
When you understand that element, you will begin to have more realistic expectations about what will and won't get funded. If an anime ends without any announcement of a followup season, and you're wondering what the chances are that one will be announced later, there is one question you should ask: has the manga ended/is it ending soon? Because if the answer is yes, the chances are not looking good for that next season.
Why did The Promised Neverland get a second season that differed so vastly from the manga and rushed the story to a conclusion? Well, the question we should ask before that one is: why did it only get just one extra season instead of enough seasons to cover the rest of the manga? The answer is simple: the manga had ended recently. It's like they'll fund one season for a final boost to the manga's sales, but beyond that, they don't see the profit potential anymore.
Seriously, this rule is reliable in the majority of cases.
"But Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was a ‘remake’ years after the first anime that covered the whole manga kind of, so what about that?" Bro check the dates. Brotherhood aired when the manga was getting close to its conclusion. The final episode of the anime aired just a month after the final chapter of the manga. It follows the rule.
Now, some series reach legendary status where new anime adaptations do get funded long after the manga ends. I mean, somehow we got a complete adaptation of Fruits Basket a decade after the manga ended, which I am incredibly grateful for, because that story rules. And we got two whole remakes of Rumiko Takahashi series in recent years. I'm not saying "no new anime announcements six months after the manga ends" is some absolute rule. But being aware of this pattern will keep your expectations realistic.
At the end of 2022, there was the movie-that-wasn't-really-a-movie of a certain arc of Kaguya-sama. The manga had ended quite recently. This anime non-movie ended with an important moment, though it also skipped some things in kind of a strange way to get there. I had doubts about the possibility of another anime season. And I was right to give up... until 2025 when they made a TV special because Kaguya-sama is popular enough for that! Woooooo! (What's weird about me is I never watched it, because honestly I just wanted the anime to continue the story where they left off; seeing a few chapters animated just felt bittersweet to me, and I was content having read them years earlier). They're also making a movie, which will be anime-original. But see, there are no more anime seasons, because those would be expensive. Yet somehow I see fans who don't understand any of the financial reasons behind all this and think that this was all just creative decisions, because I don't know, maybe we have an internet full of children who think all this anime stuff happens because creative people just do stuff they feel like doing and don't have to worry about money, which would be a nice world to live in but is certainly not the world we live in—
Sorry. I got a little crazy there. The point is, it takes money to make anime. If your favorite anime gets its story told to completion in a way that follows the creator's wishes, you are lucky indeed. It probably only happened because that series was popular enough to financially justify it.
Now wait, why does Oshi no Ko get a complete adaptation, even a couple years following the manga's conclusion, but not Kaguya-sama? Wellll it's a little shorter, first of all, but what you have to factor into the equation is IDOLS. You can usually find lots of ways to print money when anime idols are involved. The seiyuu of B-Komachi have done a few real life concerts, so, you know. And besides, maybe Kana Arima is just that good. She can't get happiness, but she can get anime.
The cultural relevance of manga
Why is manga such a big deal? Why do anime studios get money to produce shows that promote manga so often, rather than getting to produce original works?
First of all, you gotta understand that while we think of anime as a bigger deal in the west, manga is simply the more widely-consumed media between the two in Japan. Ok?
While I'm on the subject of Kaguya-sama, there was a whole chapter (which accompanied the announcement of the series' anime and was itself adapted into anime for the announcement of the third season) where Shirogane accidentally makes Fujiwara think he's an anime otaku, while Ishigami the actual otaku tries to hide his shame, leading to Shirogane desperately trying to convince everyone that liking an anime doesn't mean you're an otaku who wants to marry an anime character.
Ok so maybe my understanding of the social norms leans a bit too heavily on that chapter, but I'm just saying. Newly converted weebs sometimes assume that everybody in Japan watches anime regularly, but that's definitely not the case. A lot of the real good stuff is on super late at night anyway. Only the hardcore fans will tune in for that.
I'm not trying to tell you everybody there reads manga regularly either. I'm just saying if your perspective is that anime is the king, some things, like how a lot of series never get complete adaptations, are not going to make much sense for you.
If anime was just easy money, then the whole industry would be recycling old manga all the time to turn into anime. And you'd certainly see a larger number of totally original series rather than the relatively small number we see today. TV anime's role of promoting a video game, light novel series, or manga is definitely an important one.
The many types of manga, and where to find them
There's a lot of manga out there. There are manga intended for children, there are manga intended for adults. There are manga about all sorts of subjects, in all sorts of genres.
Most manga is published first in magazines (the publishers do online versions too, of course). There are weekly and monthly manga magazines, all targeting different demographics and interests.
Weekly Shounen Jump has been the best-selling manga magazine for a long time. It's been the home of Dragon Ball, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen...yeah you get the idea. It's targeted at adolescent boys (shounen), but other people read it too. Weekly Shounen Jump has a lot of battle series, as I just listed, as well as sports series like Haikyuu. These series certainly exhibit a certain Jump vibe (have you ever heard of the power of friendship?), but Jump also has plenty of comedies, and sometimes you'll find really unique stuff.
Weekly Shounen Jump is not the only magazine targeting the shounen demographic. If you look at Weekly Shounen Sunday, it's a whole different vibe. Then there's Weekly Shounen Magazine. Yes these names are very similar. And there are several more shounen magazines I could list.
But obviously, shounen is just one demographic. There's shoujo for girls, seinen for young adult men, etc., etc.
Western fans like to butcher these terms and put each one into a small box. "Oh shoujo is romance! Seinen is dark and violent!" NO. Those oversimplifications get on my nerves. And part of why it happens is people think these words describe genres rather than demographics. It would be weird to assume a demographic only likes one kind of thing, though, wouldn't it?
Anyway, each magazine contains a bunch of different manga series in every issue. I don't think local grifter Logan Paul understood any of that when he decided to buy "the first issue of One Piece" and all that. He posed for a picture with the magazine open to a random page which wasn't even the manga he bought it for. That crud is funny. But yeah, each issue of Jump is pretty thick and you'll find both battle series and comedies.
After their initial publication in the magazine, a group of manga chapters from a single series will subsequently be compiled into a volume. Which means volumes are what you buy if you just want to read through one specific series. You won't be completely up-to-date...especially if you wait for the English versions to come out. But that's ok. A nice thing about volumes is that they contain a few extra drawings from the creator, some comments, all that good stuff. Also, the art of some chapters may be improved in the volumes. Actually, I remember there was one chapter of My Hero Academia where Horikoshi and his assistants just weren't able to finish a big scene on time, so it was really just a rough sketch still. It was finished in the volume release.
The serialized manga format shares a particular downside with television series: the possibility of getting cancelled. Attracting readers is tough, and it's not uncommon at all for a new series to be cut after just a couple months. Sometimes you can feel the desperation to attract new readers. Historically, a lot of male-oriented manga have thrown in a half-naked girl in the first or second chapter, just to be on the safe side, which seems silly considering how many series have succeeded without this. Even if it gets some eyes on the page, readers are still going to ditch if they don't like the story overall. But I see why they would think it's worth a shot. But yeah, the battle to keep a spot in a magazine can be brutal. Unfortunately, this format is not like novels, where even if no one buys your book, at least you got to finish it. There's always a very real possibility that a manga writer won't get to finish the story they began.
Another downside of any serialized medium is the impossibility of changing what you already published. Some manga series are really making things up as they go, which has resulted in some fun stuff, but there is also something particularly satisfying about those series that are carefully planned out in advance.
Of course not all manga are series, as one-shot manga get published too. And sometimes a mangaka writes a one-shot before later getting to turn it into a series.
While those only casually familiar may think of anime and manga as... well, you know, just the Jump stuff... the truth is that manga is fantastically diverse. From totally silly to brutally dark, all moods are covered. And the stories touch on a surprisingly vast variety of topics. I've talked to non-anime people who found it curious that there can be an anime series and movie about a kid competing in figure skating (Medalist), or that there would be an anime that would teach you so much about farming (Silver Spoon—yes I'm always referencing it because it's my mission to get people to read it). But I'm like, I dunno man. That's just manga for you. You can really do any topic you want.
So anyway, hopefully that all gave you a sense of what the manga industry is like and how anime relates to it. Companies gotta sell stuff. Manga publishers fund anime because not only can they make more money from selling the anime, but they'll sell more manga too.
Getting manga in English
Now here in the USA, it's a better time than ever if you want to read officially licensed manga, buuuut admittedly finding officially licensed anime is still a fair bit easier.
With TV, probably most of us are all mostly relying on streaming services. There's a lot of anime you can get on those. Even on the non-anime specific ones, the variety is pretty good, and when you add in the anime ones, you can really get almost anything. (But not Silver Spoon. What the heck)
With manga, however, there's not a subscription that offers you as much variety. Viz does have two inexpensive subscriptions that get you a lot of manga, and you can read new chapters when they come out without paying anything at all. The problem for me is that when I get interested in a new manga, usually it's not in Weekly Shounen Jump.
There are several other big publishers in the English market, a couple of them being extensions of some of Japan's biggest publishers. Kodansha has a lot of good series, and they even launched an app. But in comparison to Viz's stuff, their app and monetization model is really a pain and isn't really designed with western internet sensibilities in mind. Square Enix's app may be even more difficult. At that point, I'll just go back to buying volumes, whether it's in print or the ebooks. But buying all those volumes gets expensive quicker than you expect (manga in English can be overpriced don't you think?) So, yeah, when it comes to getting manga through legal, official methods, you just don't get as much bang for your buck as you can get for anime. (At least if you buy a book you own it forever though. Owning anime on Blu-Ray can be stupid expensive).
Honestly though, check if your local library has manga! I absolutely love doing that. It's a really fun way to read manga for freeeeee! You know, without any piracy.
There is another challenge for getting the manga you want to read in English: what if no publisher even picks it up? Well, probably no one is going to blame you for finding a fan translation in that case. And there are a lot of fans out there translating stuff.
But yeah, this is another way where anime feels ahead of manga for the English market. The variety of anime that get picked up is pretty amazing. The streamers seem to be working to make sure they reach a greater variety of people.
Last week I watched Ikoku Nikki/Journal with Witch, which aired during the winter 2026 season, and the writing is some of the most moving and mature stuff I've ever experienced on a screen. I see parts of myself in so many of the characters and I just find myself thinking about my life and family and how to treat people. And you know, this anime is on Crunchyroll. But did any publishers pick up the manga for English release since it began its run in 2017? Nooope.
I do get why a realistic and thematically heavy comic that ran in a magazine targeted at adult women would not seem to have massive sales potential in our manga market over here. But we gotta change that.
You know, sometimes I look at the Barnes & Noble manga section as being mostly all the stuff that's gotten a popular anime recently, plus some pervy-looking stuff. Who's buying the pervy stuff at B&N anyway? But nah I shouldn't complain too much, I'm just grateful for what we get, and what we get is a pretty solid amount of manga.
Anyway, this is why I need more of you to buy manga. You buy more manga, licensors pick up more manga, and the original creators get more of our money. Everybody wins.
Reading manga is awesome
I kinda wonder if some anime fans in the west think of manga as "that thing that exists that's like storyboards for the thing we ACTUALLY care about." I dunno. In any case, I want people to understand that manga is a beautiful art form on its own, and a great manga is a great manga whether an anime version of it exists or not.
A manga has unique qualities that anime can't fully replicate. I'm not saying it's superior. They're different mediums, each with their own strengths.
Perhaps the most important unique element of comics is paneling. With TV, unless you do something really unusual, every frame is going to be the same size. With manga, there is no standard size. You can have panels as big or as small as you want. You can have characters outside the panel. This flexibility gives manga some powerful weapons.
Before reading a good amount of manga, I never realized the power a page-turn can have. A skilled mangaka can create an unforgettable impression if they carefully build tension and surprise the reader with a full-page panel at the right moment.
Or they can use page-turns for comedy, which is also fantastic. One of my favorite manga creators Hiromu Arakawa is a pro at using page turns for both drama and comedy.
4-panel manga give up the whole freeform paneling thing in favor of a consistent comedic rhythm, but even these like to break from their normal format on rare occasions when they want to make a moment feel super important.
Anime can create a similar effect as page turns with editing (an abrupt cut showing a dramatic change creates a similar feeling to a shocking page-turn), but I don't think they can quite replicate the feelings paneling can create. The size of the picture is not in and of itself a storytelling device in television in the same way.
Another thing: did you know black-and-white art can look pretty cool? I understand that there are a lot of practical reasons why manga needs to stay black-and-white. I doubt the industry could produce so much of it, especially for such a reasonable cost, if the artists had to start coloring everything and the publishers had to print it on nicer paper. But even if they could do color... would you even want it? There's just something special about the black-and-white style, man. Not that I generally want anime to be in black-and-white, of course. Each medium has its own lane. Manga gets the impactful black-and-white art, and anime gets colorful animation.
Every manga artist has their own style. You see an Akira Toriyama character, you're like "Yeah, obviously that's him." It's impressive how anime character designers are able to bring a manga's specific style into a production that will be touched by many more hands while still maintaining that look. Even so, sometimes when you go back to the original, the difference feels stark. If you look at something like Chainsaw Man, Tatsuki Fujimoto's art style has this crudeness that kind of gets sanded off in animation (and yes this was still true in the movie, which had a more colorful style than the live-action-film-inspired TV season that preceded it). That's not a bad thing for the anime, but it just makes me even more convinced that you should take a look at the manga. 'Cause there are some really funny panels in there.
The Compromises of Adaptation
How to fit the story into a set number of episodes?
Ok, so hypothetically, let's say you're an animation studio hired to adapt a manga, and they want you to do every single chapter, because it's gonna go a long time. It should be simple, right? Well, not really. There's a lot to consider here. I mean, nowadays, you're most likely going to be doing the anime in seasons, which is, in most ways, preferable to the old "go every single week and start the filler arcs when we're about to catch up to the manga" way, but you do have to take into consideration how to best fit the chapters into a season. Still, if you have enough time/budget to get the episodes looking good, and you don't have to make filler arcs, you can't ask for much more.
Outside of ultra-popular shounen battle series, it's pretty common for an anime to only get 12 or 13 episodes total. Maybe 24 or 26 if you're lucky. Unless the manga happens to perfectly align to that length, it's quite a challenge to decide what you want to tell in that time. Do you just go straightforwardly through the manga without giving the viewers much of a conclusion to the overall story? If the manga is still ongoing, that's probably the safer way to go, because who knows? The series might really take off, and then you might get a second season. If you don't get one, though, at least people can pick up the manga right where the anime left off with this approach.
It can be kinda funny when anime has its own semi-original ending. The anime adaptation of the shounen harem romcom series Bokuben (We Never Learn) probably ticked off some fans by hinting at the very end that (spoiler I guess) Uruka is the destined winner in the battle for MC's heart. As for how the manga actually ended up going, well that's even more interesting, but I won't spoil that.
You know what was really unique? Horimiya's anime jumped to what I assume was near the end of the manga, because the manga was ending around that time. But then a couple years later, they actually got to make another season, so I guess they just went back and adapted a bunch of the chapters they skipped. I never actually watched that season. Pretty cool for fans, though. (You may note that this is another exception to my rule from before, so uh, yeah, cool stuff does happen sometimes.)
Anyway, having a limited number of episodes to work with is quite understandable. Most manga just aren't powerful enough to command studios to adapt entire manga into anime for the sake of the art I guess. We enjoy however many seasons we can get, even if it's just one.
The convenient thing about reading a manga that's gotten popular enough to stick around is that you don't have to stress about this stuff. You get the story the mangaka wanted to tell. Well, maybe you might get some "bonus" story, because when a manga gets popular, then suddenly the magazine wants to keep it going as long as possible. Which, hey, maybe that results in the story spinning its wheels in some cases, but that can be fun. (Why am I thinking about Nisekoi? Honestly bingeing Nisekoi was fun even when the story was spinning its wheels). And at least manga are allowed to end eventually. It's not like The Simpsons or SpongeBob. So a story getting dragged out a bit is definitely better than it being cut short.
There is also a secret other possibility where a manga goes on hiatus for a long, long time and you really don't know for sure if it'll get an ending. That's a tough one.
But the majority of the time, there's no ambiguity with manga. Once it officially ends, whether prematurely or not, it's not coming back.
It surprises me how even if fans are super invested in an anime’s story, they’re still very reluctant to jump into the manga—I guess it’s just because they’re holding onto hope that one day there will be more anime and they’ll get to watch it with fresh eyes. So I can’t fully blame them. But waiting does seem like a risky thing, to me. With those new Kaguya-sama specials, I saw so many anime-only people complaining about how so many chapters were skipped. And I can't help but to think... You could've just read the manga. You had all this time. Some of the skipped chapters from the middle of the series are hilarious! And the post-season-3 stuff, I mean, it's some good drama and funny antics. So if you're gonna wait, you gotta understand the risk you're taking.
Art disappointments
Sometimes being a fan of the manga can actually make the anime disappointing in ways you simply wouldn't have cared about if you hadn't been cursed with knowledge. Like why is dude's face in this scene in the anime not as funny as in the manga??
The most common disappointment people tend to have with anime adaptations is... well, you know. It’s a lack of movement and overall quality.
I mean, when anime have no budget they rely a lot on still frames where the only thing moving is a character's mouth. And also shots where they just pan slowly over a still image. Most anime are going to have a little bit of these things at least. You just hope to see some actual animation too.
It’s natural to be disappointed when an anticipated series ends up being poor quality. Unfortunately today we have an internet of manchildren whose solution to everything is to harass whoever they find in the credits on Twitter. Don't do that. When you become employed you may realize that people are often doing the best they can, but simply aren't able to achieve ideal results because the timeline given by management is impossible.
Why try to make an anime for cheap even though it’ll irritate some fans? Hey I think we all know the answer: it’s all about profits.
I don't really know how the math works out with anime people dislike, of course. Do they still boost manga sales? Well, maybe. I mean, an anime with a good story but unimpressive adaptation does make me want to read the manga.
Heck, I thought Steins;Gate 0 the anime was disappointing, but I ended up playing the visual novel, so I guess the anime kind of served its true purpose, huh?
Can you surpass the manga?
I believe that occasionally, there are anime that are better than the manga they're based on. Some people may always prefer the anime to the manga as long as the quality is decent, and that's fine. But for me, I just feel like if we're going to move a story to this animation medium, I want to see the studio make the absolute most out of it. And a lot of the time it's just like, yeah, they did a solid job, but I wasn't blown away. Did I get much more out of watching it than I did reading it? Not really. At best, it's equally as good as the manga.
But when an anime really elevates the source material? It's my favorite.
Dandadan? I love the manga. And the anime? HOOOOO wow what a good adaptation. But Science Saru is one of those special studios, you know.
Possibly my favorite example of an anime surpassing its manga is Bocchi the Rock. I actually feel like some fans have been a bit too dismissive of the manga by this point; the characters and story and a lot of great jokes are all there in the manga, and it's great. But the anime adds so much to so many jokes, often with insane visual gags and hilarious voice acting. Plus, since it's a story about a band, the anime got a bunch of prominent rock musicians to write songs, and it really paid off.
Heh. You know why they can do all that? Remember what I said earlier about idols? I'm pretty sure it applies for any anime with musical performances even if they're not technically idols. And Umamusume is primarily about racing, right? But they had to make idol performances a big element of it too, because then you can go to the concerts and see the seiyuu perform. Here comes the moneyyyyyyy
Anyway. What was I talking about? Uh, yeah, something about whether anime can surpass the manga.
You know, as much as I appreciate a faithful adaptation, I think sometimes anime go a bit too far in being faithful to the manga. What do I mean? Well, many battle manga use dialogue to clarify what happened in a fight. Even for skilled artists, action is a challenging element to communicate, so dialogue is there to help you understand what's going on. But when you're seeing a fight in motion, it should be a lot easier to tell what's going on. Soooo we don't need the dialogue anymore, really. Right? The dialogue kind of feels like stating the obvious now. But nah, a lot of anime tend to keep the dialogue.
The example I always come back to where removing dialogue makes for a better show—though it has nothing to do with action scenes—is The Promised Neverland (don't worry, we're talking about season one this time). It's the scene where Norman knows he is gonna be in some real trouble, and in the manga, he's having an inner monologue like "oh no, what do I do." But in the anime, they take that out. It's a scene of silence, and it's fantastic. We know just from his face and body language what he must be feeling. The tension and anxiety are palpable. I think the manga could have done it that way too, to be honest, but I guess nobody thought of that until the anime. Whatever the case, the scene demonstrates that omissions can improve storytelling.
Just, you know, be careful with what you choose to omit, I guess.
Another little thing I think about: in manga there are often those pages where a character, often a cute girl, is standing outside the panels so that their full body is visible. It seems like in anime they still want to show you the full body, so you get a pan from their shoes to their head. I dunno, maybe these types of shots are just more common on Japanese TV, but they usually just feel unnecessary to me. I think we don't gotta do that stuff. Boom, there's another omission you can have.
So what else does an anime need to do to surpass the manga? Well, the boring obvious answer is just "great production values all-around" I guess. Great animation, great music, great voice cast.
I think there's a lot of little decisions a director makes that takes an adaptation beyond just "we made the manga move in color" to "this is a great work of animated storytelling."
Dandadan season 2 (spoilers right here) had a big hand-touching scene, and not only did Science Saru animate those hands, they added an element that wasn't in the manga by taking the car through a tunnel. In this medium, you have more you can do with lighting and color than in the manga. So you put the car in a tunnel to totally transform the atmosphere of the scene into something that really gets my heart thumping.
I don't really have that much insight into art and animation stuff, because I'm not good at drawing. All I can do is be honest when I see something that impresses me, and when I see something that just seems ok. And many anime are just ok, production-wise. Those exceptional series, though, are a true joy to witness. Even if I'm very familiar with the original manga, it's incredibly gratifying to see a high-quality production bring it to life in ways I couldn't have imagined.
Of course in my heart I think I still find it difficult to say an anime "surpassed the manga" if it didn't adapt all of the manga. Going back to Kaguya-sama yet again, it's like... well yes the anime is completely superb... but they skipped that movie theater date chapter at the beginning, and the art class chapter, and they also placed that one Ishigami studying chapter in a point in the timeline that doesn't make sense, oh and who could forget the Kaguya cosplay chapter?? So you have to read the manga, folks. All that said, I think the anime is one of my absolute favorites and I hold no ill will against it for skipping chapters, because that's just reality, baby.
Should the context of adaptations matter when reviewing anime?
Sometimes I'll see a review of an anime episode that discusses it the same way they'd discuss any old TV episode. This seems logical, in theory... but I don't like it.
Every form of media comes with expectations that we as a culture have acquired over time. With TV shows, particularly any with a large storyline, we expect that if the final episode of a season is airing, it's going to be a big deal. Something crazy might happen. How could I forget being 10 or 11 and watching the finale of Book 2 of Avatar, which ended with the line, "The Earth Kingdom has fallen." I was like HOW COULD IT END LIKE THAT?!!! D: This expectation of a crazy season finale is sometimes applied to anime too—but when the anime was adapted from manga, I have to object to that. The mangaka wasn't writing a TV season, they were writing a manga. So should the TV version mess with the story just to make it fit that expectation?
Personally, if the anime knows it's getting another season already, I think I'd prefer it just stick to the normal chapter order, even if it means the season finale is kinda nothing. Which is kind of hypocritical of me since I just talked about anime making the most of the animation medium, I guess.
Ok, so rearranging some chapters is not necessarily that big of a deal. Anime I like have done it and it's worked well. I just feel like expecting TV anime adapted from a manga to go crazy with hype whenever they hit a 12-13 or 24-26 episode mark is silly and is one of the only downsides we see from moving into this seasonal model instead of the old "one big continuous production" model. But yeah, as an anime, you do hope to end at a good stopping point, somewhere near the end of a story arc.
But sometimes that doesn't work out. And that's ok. Although... Dandadan went into their first break at particularly cruel point, I thought (cruel to Momo, not to the viewer). But that was because of the specific scene they chose for the cliffhanger (be nicer to Momo in the future, guys—hey wait, they kind of bullied her again with the last episode! Though it was much less egregious and was actually absolute cinema with the way it paralleled the first episode). The general practice of going ahead with the next arc even when it results in an abrupt cliffhanger that won't be resolved for months is something I don't object to at all.
Anyway, it's not that big of a deal, but reviews of anime that don't acknowledge the source material at all feel weird to me.
And if a rando person ever talks about "the writers" in regard to an anime based on manga, maaaaan they do not know what they're talking about. What writers, bro? A person wrote the manga! It is a typical thing in TV discussion to talk about "the writers" because many shows do have a lot of writers, but I think it's good, before you open your mouth, to be aware that this is different.
Conclusion
In conclusion: manga is very cool. I know I talked about a million little related things, but the most important message is that manga is cool. I hope more people will try reading some. However, manga is probably easier to read than this post, so if you think about it, the chances that someone will read manga are a lot lower than someone reading this entire post. Ah whatever, I got to say a bunch of stuff that was on my mind, so mission accomplished!