Manga Would you rather a manga receive a bad anime adaption but have potentially more fans, or no anime and remain obscure?

[Mochi Panic]

Me and some friends had this argument on discord. Their points basically boiled down to a bad anime is overall better for a series as more people watch anime than they do read manga. The potential audience from the anime could keep a niche manga from being cancelled. My points were a bad anime would ruin interest in the series and leave a negative stain on the manga as a whole.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

Maybe a manga that has no anime adaptation and remain obscure? I'm not sure really.

 

[MasterEn]

this mostly depends on the country.
anime acts like an advertisement for the comic in japan. the whole point of it is to sell more issues of the comic.
in america, more people tend to watch the show over the comics. i've watched a lot of dragon ball over the years, but i only ever got one book in the series and read like 3 in total ever. i did read some tenchi muyo books because of the show but those had new stories in them, rather than being just a retread of the show.
a lot of the time the anime goes off rails and deviates away from the comic or the comic is taking too long to be made, so the anime does its own thing. sailor moon and hellsing are a couple of good examples of this.
and nowadays, you have people who make abridged versions of animes which usually are considered better than the original or stand next to it as being fantastic, like hellsing ultimate and its parody series.
adaptations have a very strange place in storytelling. you never know what will result because of them existing. we have dragon ball super because of the dragon ball evolution movie existing.
so, that might be a good thing depending on who you ask.
the built up interest in sailor moon sparked up a full live action show [which has sailor mercury go over to the dark side, and she looks very cute as a villain] and a full remake of the cartoon series.
i'd say that it would depend on the comic's story and whoever is put in charge of making the anime adaptation. if you can't get anyone good to make the anime, it might just be best to let it remain a comic only series. if you can, then hope for the best.
apologies if i derailed this thread so early. there's so much stuff to talk about and cover with adaptations in general, let alone just the anime variety. and sometimes i bring up stuff that's tangentially related to the topic.

 

[Pinballbuzzbro]

As an ex-Spider-Man fan, I've seen the types of people bad adaptations can attract, so I'm gonna go with remaining obscure lol.

 

[diapered]

My points were a bad anime would ruin interest in the series and leave a negative stain on the manga as a whole.

Counterpoint: Berserk (2016) was bad (well, I didn't like it), but I don't think it hurt anyone's view of the manga... To be fair though, that is probably an extreme example because Berserk is not obscure at all, so no adaption could ever "stain" it, no matter how bad, but I think that generally holds true for any anime adaption of even an obscure manga...

The potential audience from the anime could keep a niche manga from being cancelled

I would agree with that. The fans will keep reading regardless (their support already made enough interest to green light the adaption in the first place), and people that don't like the anime weren't going to pick it up anyway. So why not roll the dice and try to get some more interest?

 

[Soma_Shotgun]

Im a gatekeeping A-hole so I'd rather have my favorite manga not get an adaptation if it means it's going to be bad.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I actually have a lot more faith than it's probably warranted on studios delivering good adaptations, so I'm all-in for anime adaptations of obscure or semi-obscure manga -- if they could turn My Master Has No Tail into such a fantastic thing, then the sky's the limit.

 

[Adrastia]

I dunno. It's always possible that if the anime gets a lot of traction there could be a better remake someday. Maybe a game with a better story. I think it's worth taking a chance just to see what happens.

 

[DrunkenButterfly]

I cannot really think of any anime adaptation that has repelled people from reading a manga, i do know a bunch of bad adaptations that have let people into people getting into the manga (Tokyo Ghoul, Mekaku City Actors, general VN anime adaptations...)

so yeah, bad adaptations all the way imo

 

[wilddogsdivorce]

bad animes can be ignored, and they can often jump start side projects, sequel projects, etc. muv-luv got a horrendous anime, but i appreciate the attention it brought the series.

but if the anime is as bad as aku no hana, maybe not such a good idea... i wonder how many people saw the terrible rotoscoping for that show and thought the manga must be just as ugly.

 

[Scotty]

It depends on the series.

 

[Dr.Kisaragi]

Nah, I don't want my favorite manga to have a bad adaptation that ruin the series I rather keep them as niche.

You know what they just keep searching until you find a real diamond on thr sand.

 

[Rorisu]

I think that not having an anime and remain "obscure" is for the best, it won't make the manga get "cancelled" in my opinion, after all, manga that are cancelled are usually pubblished in MAGAZINE before being printed out, and people still BUY that magazine... so POTENTIALY, if the mangas are good, they won't get cancelled.

With that said, of course an anime can affect the sales of that manga, and probably because it make it better known to the people, INCREASE the sales of that same manga.

But STILL, it will have the same effect a live action or movie or games could have on it... its just, ONE OF THE WAYS that one have to make it better known... and for that reason, i think it should be done WELL if it has to be done, because if not, it have the same effect of a tv commercial...

So in my opinion, a bad anime is just as a bad commercial, it makes the cut to make the product known, but that doesn't assure good sales, a good anime could surely make better sales, as a good commercial does, but it will probably make more sales on the anime side still... so i think it's better if the anime is done well, but not for the sales of it... just because it can be appreciated by fans and non fans of the manga... while a bad anime adaptation? well... it will make a fan drop out from something he likes, like the recent ubelblatt anime adaptation... i had already read all the manga and i really liked it... but the anime? well... i dropped it after a few episodes... it doesn't do the manga justice at all...

 

[Netra]

Animes derived from manga are primarily designed to attract more potential readers to the manga or light novel on which the manga is based.

Animes are like consoles: they're made and sold at a loss so that console can sell games, which is where the profits come from. Anime is simply a loss-making investment to further expand the franchise's popularity and sell more volumes and merchandise.

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Well I have a soft spot for Please Save My Earth, the manga remains obscure as a hidden gem among older shojo for people wanting more story than beats for the demographic that was until recently heavily romance trope saturated (2010s). Did it get an anime adaptation? Yes, but it's not a complete one and the english dub is well what you'd expect at the time. Lackluster in how it was made with the manga half in production but not the worst adaptation and remains obscure in anime circles. I think as long as the adaptation serves it purpose in promoting the original manga into more sales it did it's job and while terrible ones taint the memories of the reader a watcher might be inspired to read and have a better experience.

What shouldn't exist however is film adaptations. I have yet to find a decent film adaptation that did better than anime due to overperformance of emotion and having to make plausible the improbable storyline or situation.

EDIT: Actually, I'll correct myself Rurouni Kenshin is my sole exception probably because it's historical and the care taken to not appear overly anime comical and remained faithful in drama beats. Maybe more historical ones can benefit from this but from the romance ones I've seen it's a no from me dawg.

 

[SliperyHippo]

I don't really know a lot about anime, but there's this series called Utopia on Channel 4 that got an awful remake but it was advertised enough to where a lot of people (including myself) went out to watch the original series after watching the reboot. So as bad as an adaptation may be, it can drive people to find the art that you may have originally resonated with and I think that's great!

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

I rather it had a good adaptation, ive seen my favorite manga just die or stop being made cause of horrible adaptations.
Why would you want a manga to be obscure?
Black Bullet and Rokka no Yuusha had great adaptations but no one gave a hoot, so they stopped being published.

 

[AncientBehemoth]

Obscure. Tourists ruin everything. Popularity is the first killer of all franchises.

 

[bjork]

What about a case of something like Bleach, where the early story is popular enough to warrant a show, which then in turns leads to the manga continuing past where it probably should've stopped and became subpar for probably the back 40%? Though I know that's also subjective, someone might love when they fight the people with alliterative names or whatever.

 

[yourdemise]

That's also what lead to Naruto getting that terrible plot twist thrown in almost at the end in order to set up for Boruto.

But situations like that are rare so usually getting too popular from an anime doesn't usually hurt story too bad.

I'm curious what people think about light novels getting a bad anime vs no anime and being obscure.

 

[qw90700]

Dude bad anime adaptation ruins fanbase. For example Eminence of Shadow's anime is nothing like manga, it's so bad people would ignore reading its manga and when people had liked its anime but wanna read manga they would dislike the manga due to how different it's. I wish its anime never had existed so I wouldn't waste 20 minutes of my time watching a BS lolol.

 

[Tortuga]

Bad anime going to bring tourists who think manga is bad too, so what the point
Not to mention making something popular especially with bad product not necessarily a good thing

 

[Janunba88]

A bad adaptation can attract a good audience to the original material, but high fan-bases tend to be horrible 90% of the time. Obscure things never have this problem, so it's hard to choose.

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:46 PM

Obscure. Tourists ruin everything. Popularity is the first killer of all franchises.

I agree 100%. I don't know how many franchises I like whose fanbases ruin almost everything. Even worse when they are ultra-mega-popular.

 

[gekiganwing]

A common two-part problem from the 1990s:
1. The OAV series adaptation gets localized. There's no ending or a rushed ending.
2. The original comic doesn't get localized for a decade. If you're lucky, the translation is finished before the company goes out of business, or the books stop selling.

Video Girl Ai was one example. The six episodes on home video were easy to find. The comic translation was eventually finished, but it progressed slowly through the late 1990s. Tokyo Babylon was another example. Only two episodes with no conclusion, just hinting at a larger story. Tokyopop released all seven books before the company flatlined. Here is Greenwood is yet another example. If I recall correctly, there's a fourth wall joke about the anime episodes being just promotions for the manga. It took years, but the main story got localized, without the side stories.

For what it's worth, Sweat and Soap has never been adapted to animation. The cast are average successful people, mostly in their twenties, so a live action version was created. Liar Game has never been adapted to animation. Since it's about a bunch of messy post-college people, it's received two live action versions.

 

[fake-kun]

I don't care.