First Form Favouritism

M

Mutsumi

Guild Member
The title refers to the tendency to prefer the first version of a story one sees/reads to any subsequent versions, regardless of the individual merits of either over the other. I am prompted to consider this after hearing that the Death Note anime is generally regarded to be better than the manga. Personally, I read the manga first, & my enjoyment of the manga is what led me to watch the anime, though I already knew before that that the anime was highly regarded. I thought the anime was excellent, but I think I preferred the manga.

Anyone else find they prefer the first version of a story they see or read? Anyone have any exceptions to this 'rule'?
 
I always thought that bar Episode 37, Death Note was basically identical. lol.

Only major difference I can think of is Mikami dies in the Anime and in the Manga you see the depressed people praying for Kira

^ Dont read if you've not finished both the anime and manga of Death Note.
 
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Interesting thread topic.

I'm forever explaining to people that there's a solid tonne of content in the Akira graphic novels that never came within a mile of getting put in the film.

Akira is the best comic book series I've ever read. Period. I saw the movie years before I read the books, and I was blown away by just how different the two entities are.

Those books are thematically dense, well characterised, full of drama and they work as thinking-man's sci-fi. Absolutely brilliant stuff. Best comic ever. I'll deck anyone who says different!
 
For me I would say I generally prefer the first version that was produced. I can probably think of decent examples both ways, I'll just have to think about it for a bit.
 
It depends on the person. You'll always come across this when turning literature into motion. Stuff will always get cut, the fathoms of people involved in taking one peice of matierl and turning it into another will always put thier own little spin on it.

I guess it's upto people to watch/read/listen to it and decide for themselves. Are the harry potter books good books? well yeah, are the films good films, absolutley.
 
I'm generally someone who prefers the original material to the secondary stuff, however i will admit there is some stuff which works just as well if not slightly better in anime form(or manga form even) than its original stuff. One Piece is a great example in that its anime is as strong as its manga most of the time. It goes through filler on occasion, but its not as common as the other two.
I personally don't like the original FMA series, as i much prefer the manga, however i do understand that a lot of people do adore it in itself, and in some respects prefer it. Brotherhood isn't as strong as the manga, even though it does follow it properly..or i should say, more closely. It can sometimes go too fast, or too slow. If it worked out the pacing a little better, it'd be closer to the manga.

Another one, probably the best example i can give of the original material being superior is Full Metal Panic! The novels are amazing to read. The anime, yes is great, but the novels are just at a level so much higher than that. And no, its not just because its ongoing(though only till the last main story novel is released in spring), its for every little bit. Character development, action, romance, comedy(at least early on and in side-story novels), it blends it all brilliantly.
 
Chun Li said:
I always thought that bar Episode 37, Death Note was basically identical. lol.

Only major difference I can think of is Mikami dies in the Anime and in the Manga you see the depressed people praying for Kira

^ Dont read if you've not finished both the anime and manga of Death Note.
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The latter half of the series is trimmed down a noticeable amount in the anime. Light's manipulation of the US president, the special forces unit that Sidoh removes the helmets of, the fact that Hal Lidner was working for Mello as well as the SPK. I'm sure there were a few other differences.

I have not read a whole lot of manga compared to a lot of you though, so I'm sure others have more to add than me.

I think that unless there is something that you found to specifically dislike about the first version of something you see or read that the latter version improves upon, that you will always prefer the first version. Therefore I would be interested to know from anyone who did not prefer the first version they saw or read why they did not prefer the first version.
 
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HdE said:
I'm forever explaining to people that there's a solid tonne of content in the Akira graphic novels that never came within a mile of getting put in the film.
Click to expand...
A long time fan of the film, I'm making my way through the manga now and it's so much better. But the two are very different entities: the film was, after all, made fairly early during the manga's run and therefore couldn't draw on much of the material (not that there would have been any time in a two-hour feature).

Let's see. Since I don't read a great deal of manga, there have been surprisingly few occasions when I've had the opportunity to compare versions. In all of those cases except Urusei Yatsura I prefer the original manga regardless of which I was familiar with first.

Aside from Akira, I can think of only two examples of where I ended up preferring the manga after first watching the anime: Strawberry Marshmallow, which is sharper and more mean spirited (in a good way) than the slightly softened anime adaptation; and High School Girls, which is infinitely funnier than the terrible anime. It'll be interesting to see how I take to the Welcome to the NHK anime, which is supposedly more faithful to the original novel than the manga (which I've read).
 
I love Full Metal Alchemist, Brotherhood I can take and leave.

I think what blew me away about the first series was the way the creation of the Homunculi was handled, the poignancy of them being the Alchemists' sin. And consequently who Sloth turned out to be. There's a whole lot of darkness and angst to that first series that I haven't yet seen in Brotherhood.

Then there's the parallel worlds thing that I really dig. I also found that the conspiracy was handled a lot more powerfully than the way Brotherhood has.
 
Hmm, it's an interesting notion. Certainly I preferred the original FMA anime over Brotherhood and, once I got over the initial weirdness of it, I liked the tv ending of Eva better than the film version as well. I know it probably wouldn't have come about were it not for the budget cuts, but I think the 'anti-ending' the series had was less gloomy and more original than the orgy of violence in the theatrical cut.

On the other hand, I really did not like the first Golgo 13 film when I saw it some years back. Even for a series as nihilistic as Golgo, the film is exceptionally bleak and surprisingly draggy for its relatively short running time. The recent tv series and the snappier Queen Bee oav are much more entertaining.
 
It depends for me, I've had it many ways with manga/anime I've seen first or second. I see it more to "I am true to the core media."
I usually just get either one or the other, not both. However, when I do, I always prefer the one that have more depth to it which is usually the manga.

For example, I've watched the Negima series after I started reading the manga (it's ongoing, but the point will still stand...) and I found the manga superior as it had more story and it made more sense. Plus the animation was more degrading than the book's illustrations.
However, with Chrono Crusade, the animation brings a very strong feel to the action and the story is pretty solid. I tried to read it as a comic, but I lost interest afterwards. Much better when there's things happening, like is some action-based anime.
Final point is the thing with FMA/FMA: Brotherhood - The 1st series was good, but the second one is true to the original work and has more intriguing developments (even if the baddies die quicker...)

Like I said, I usually just pick the media that explains or entertains me the most in assumption, but if I choose to pick more media for one series, it's all vague on which type I like the most and whether it's my 1st item or the later works.
 
At first i always preferred the version that i watched/read first, this changed though when i read the manga version of Shaman King. I understand that the anime version needed to wrap up while the manga was still ongoing, hence the filler ending (and pretty much filler second half of the series), but once i read the manga, it became the definitive version for me. So i guess in that sense i can be grouped with Arby in the way i like the originals more then the adaptions :p.

Another example would be the Tsukihime anime, loved it when i first saw it and it became my favourite for a good while, then i looked into the game and the manga adaption. This lessened my love for the anime as i came to realise that it was an inferior version, the amount of things it cut from the original plot was staggering (i can understand the cutting of some of the scenes like Shiki's almost rape of Arcuied and the "pleasant" dream that shiki has after the Nero fight) but some of the changes seemed stupid. Now, apart from sentimentality sakes , the only improvements i can see that the anime has is the music score.
 
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fabricatedlunatic said:
HdE said:
I'm forever explaining to people that there's a solid tonne of content in the Akira graphic novels that never came within a mile of getting put in the film.
Click to expand...
A long time fan of the film, I'm making my way through the manga now and it's so much better. But the two are very different entities: the film was, after all, made fairly early during the manga's run and therefore couldn't draw on much of the material (not that there would have been any time in a two-hour feature).
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Ain't that the truth!

Something I particularly like about manga when it's done well is that, in spite of being comprised of static panels and images, it can have a very cinematic quality. There's parts of Akira that read very well and carry the story in a manner that's very reminiscent of a motion picture.

Masamune Shirow managed something similar with book 4 of Appleseed.
 
I tend to just prefer the Manga, regardless of which version I find first. I suppose it's because:

a) The manga nearly always provides the creator a lot more space to flesh out every aspect of the story (and when anime is fitted neatly into those 13, 26 or 52 episode blocks, it tends to get bloated or heavily compressed).
b) The manga typically comes directly from the pen of the originator of the idea. The anime is interfered with by a much, much larger team of people just trying to earn a wage.
c) If we're honest, the vast majority of Japanese TV animation moves so little, you wonder why it's called 'animation' at all. So a Manga becomes an anime so... we get it in colour? With a slightly simplified, more conventionalised approach to the character designs than we'd get with the Manga Author's originals?
 
i read the Love Hina manga first and then i watched the anime, which to be honest was rather dissapointing, the Manga just had a better story and it actually had a conclusion

i like both formats equally for most things and when it comes down to Slice of Life stuff, it doesn't matter what the format is because there was no story to begin with
 
I started off with anime and am only really just getting into manga. So yeah, if I had to I'd pick anime over manga.

The only exception to that rule has been Berserk, I'm firmly faithful to the manga and I will stick to that as I'm having so much fun with the series. Although I hear the anime is great, it's still an unfinished product since it only covers a certain amount of the manga volumes.
 
Interesting topic, some thing first form is the best for me, others not. But then, I generally prefer anime to manga on the whole so it's not really a fair call.

I much prefered the Death Note, Trigun, and Ouran anime series over the manga, but I think with DN, the lack of music and colour (which the anime plays up for the Light/L duality) made it less enjoyable for me.

For Trigun I didn't like the way the manga progressed and all of the changes made for the anime I felt were well justified, especially concerning Wolfwood, plus the art was messy and hard to follow in the action scenes.

For Ouran I felt the comedy was just much better presented when animated, for timing and delivery purposes too.

That said there are exceptions, I much prefer Hellsing Ultimate to Hellsing (save the lack of the awesome OP), and in a non-anime example I prefer the Jurassic Park book, which I read after, to the film
 
Oh just thought of a rather odd example, I actually prefer the Pokemon manga to the show, I think I'd still read the manga today, but I wouldn't watch the show (not cos it wasn't good, but I don't thnk I'd still enjoy it).

By the pokemon manga I mean the Electric Tale of Pikachu and it sequel (I think eletric tale was the first one right?)
 
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