More often than not, the anime adaptation of the manga series is cause for celebration. Now the story will be shown to a much wider audience, and fans will see all the exciting moments that they moved to from the original cartoon in color, and then part of the watchers of the cartoon will go to read the manga.
However, some things change in the process of adaptation. The only thing specifically is that very often the actual art style of the manga or manga author is changed. So, let’s look at some examples of serializers that have done this.
6/6 How to rebuild a realistic hero kingdom
First up is an isekai story called How a realistic hero rebuilt the kingdom. In it, a young man named Kazuya Souma is suddenly transported to a fantasy world, handing over the position of king, and asking him to reform Elfrieden’s country for the better. Honestly, Soma is doing a great job. But the anime not only changes the pace of events from the original Light novel and later manga, but also has a completely separate style from both as well:
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LN artstyle has its own mysterious look and the characters and costumes tend to be more provocative and fan-serving.
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The manga has a more detailed and professional look, but the designs and art have this unique flair that makes the characters look old.
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Meanwhile, the anime has a very stereotypical art style that’s not bad and also not great, it’s just good. But it lacks the charm of the LN style and the mature look of the manga characters.
There are fans who don’t prefer one style over the other, but most of them tend to have a style they adore and usually anime isn’t.
5/6 The Epic of Tanya the Evil
Yugo Senki, known as The Epic of Tanya the Evil, is an interesting case. This story, like real heroIt originally started as a light novel, then adapted into a manga six years later, and finally an anime adaptation three years later.
And along the way, fans have developed extreme opinions about each of the three mediums, considering they all have different artists and directors. For example:
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The LN source material contains less action and more explanation of Tania’s plans or monologues. And when there is art, as in the volume covers, the style is incredibly detailed and colorful, plus the proportions of the characters are more realistic.
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In comparison, the manga is a lot more balanced with action scenes, political scenes, and monologues, but it’s very stylized (even more than LN), lots of backgrounds and background objects in a realistic art style while Tanya and the other characters aren’t.
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Then finally, anime is generally seen as good but generally has the fastest pace with an art style that blends style well with realistic aspects.
Overall, the general consensus seems to be that manga is the best compromise for both art and writing style.
4/6 Gate
Another example of a series that started as a novel, was turned into a manga series, and eventually was made into an anime. Among all so far, Gate It probably contains the most differences between the art styles of all three media:
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The art of the novel is very stereotypically mainstream anime in its art style but still a few steps away from the style of the actual anime character.
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The manga art style is the most polarizing of all because the line work is intentionally rough, bolder in violence, and has more fan service. The character’s facial features, in particular, look a lot different than LN or anime.
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Anime has basically made the art more modern. The character’s eyes are larger, more colorful, and their proportions are much different. In fact, if one looks at Shino Kuribayashi’s design in LN, manga, and anime, she looks by far the youngest in the anime.
None of these art styles are considered “bad” by any means, and they each have unique pros and cons.
3/6 Bungo Stray Dogs
While the art style varies between Bungo Stray Dogs The manga and anime are remarkably enough to warrant inclusion on this list, it’s kind of a mid-way example.
The reason for this is simply that the anime is mostly loyal to the style of the characters in the manga, but not the style of the art itself. To explain this a little more:
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The manga artist, Sango Harukawa, clearly has a lot of love for character designs and isn’t the most enthusiastic artist in the background. Most of the face-to-face conversation scenes in
Bungo Stray Dogs
They have almost no background behind them with the characters speaking in white space. For the dramatic moments in particular, this choice makes it even more impactful. -
Meanwhile, the anime simplifies the style a bit while also including a lot of background work. Other than that, the style is mostly the same with a little less detailed work saved so the characters are easier to animate.
To be fair, the difference between the two versions of the story can be found in a lot of different anime adaptations, where white space moments or harsh black and white contrast moments work well on paper but not so much when animated.
2/6 Jujutsu Kisen
This next example is one where the differences between anime and manga are entirely up to the individual as to whether one is better or worse and why.
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The
Jujutsu Kisen
The manga, by Jig Akutami, has an intentional “rough” action style that adds a lot visually to the chaotic moments. Akutami obviously has a really special way of drawing specific things like hands, eyes, and even blood. And as the manga continues, his art becomes more stylized and coarse in a way that gives JJK and the unique Jujutsu its own identity. For comparison, perhaps the closest thing to comparison is Sui Ishida’s style
Tokyo Ghoul. -
In comparison, Jujutsu Kaisen is a bit more “cleaner”, as it should be. It’s not that anime can’t have these unique styles to them, as people have seen them with things like
order of kings
But Mappa chose to remain as faithful as possible to the manga while maintaining a neat art style and doing more with the backgrounds. For a perfect example of why they made this decision, just take a look at the popularity Jujutsu Kisen 0 Movie. Having said that, they obviously want to keep it as close as possible to the Akutami style, and this can be especially seen by how they do influences on some Jujutsu exorcism techniques like Itadori’s.
1/6 Made in the abyss
Enough fun, for a lovely like Made in the abyss The fantasy world exists in the anime, the actual source material didn’t put as much detailed work into the backgrounds or the environmental art of Abyss itself. To compare the two:
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The
Mia
The manga contains a lot of details in the clothes of the characters, the talents they wear on their clothes, etc. There is a lot more detail that goes into the characters (especially the characters that look like talking animals like Nanachi or Faputa) compared to the backgrounds. Additionally, action scenes, especially those with heavy action, have a much stronger graphic-like quality for them to give that “inhuman” aspect to them. -
Meanwhile, the anime has some of the best background work in years. Every animation of the abyss itself or the environments in it is amazing (or terrifying, depending on the class). Whereas, by contrast, the character’s art is OK. It is faithful to the proportions and general appearance of the manga, but the expression and details of the characters are a bit lacking.
And let’s not forget the latest game released too, The binary star falls into the dark, And it’s beautiful in a completely different way.