Popular Anime with a vastly superior/inferior Manga version

[Admiral Woofington]

Season 1 of demon slayer was so above and beyond the Manga. The manga is by no means bad but Ufotable is not only doing a very solid adaptation its also taking liberties in the best of manners on directing and additional small moments. We meme on the moment of season 1 that was basically a single page vs a whole elaborate scene in the Anime that ended up being the hypest moment in the season enough to make the author cry after seeing it adapted. And apparently the movie is also taking said liberties of additions to the Manga that people are receiving well.

Point being when an anime doesn't need to lower the quality of the art or the pacing/story beats aren't affected then it's likely to be better if in capable hands because you can do so much more with animation and audio/music than with drawings.

 

[Narroo]

I can accept most opinions opposite to mine but this no.

Asgard is the best filler ever made in anime

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I never got to Asgard. By filler I mean stuff like the Jelly Fish knight.

 

[Flow]

Better manga versions:
Slam dunk
Tokyo ghoul
Eye shield 21

Better anime versions:
Mob psycho
Jujutsu Kaisen (so far)

 

[Flow]

Season 1 of demon slayer was so above and beyond the Manga. The manga is by no means bad but Ufotable is not only doing a very solid adaptation its also taking liberties in the best of manners on directing and additional small moments. We meme on the moment of season 1 that was basically a single page vs a whole elaborate scene in the Anime that ended up being the hypest moment in the season enough to make the author cry after seeing it adapted. And apparently the movie is also taking said liberties of additions to the Manga that people are receiving well.

Point being when an anime doesn't need to lower the quality of the art or the pacing/story beats aren't affected then it's likely to be better if in capable hands because you can do so much more with animation and audio/music than with drawings.

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this. Season 1 of Demon Slayer And Haikyuu will have people spoiled for a long time to come

 

[HustleBun]

Superior anime:
Attack on Titan
Hunter x Hunter 2011
Dragon Ball Super
Parasyte
Mob Psycho

Superior manga:
One Piece
Naruto (except the fight scenes)
Monster
Dragon Ball

 

[Aim_Ed]

Perfect thread for me, just started watching anime(halfway through s2 of both Naruto and HxH). I'll be keeping an eye on this.

 

[Akainu]

Inferior
The original Ghost in the shell movies and SAC show are much much stronger than the manga it was created from

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Inferior: Ghost in the Shell.

I don't hate the manga (although I do think it's really weird and not very good) but both the movies and SAC are much better than it.

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Masamune Shirow was too horny for his own good.

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Very much so. I enjoy owning them because of how freaking weird they are though. Franchise took on a life of its own after the movie though!

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Meh. The sequel i'll give you but the original is pretty good. I really enjoy Motoko being allowed to be a person which was entertaining.

 

[Mewzard]

I can accept most opinions opposite to mine but this no.

Asgard is the best filler ever made in anime

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You do realize a ton of the 73 episodes before Asgard were filled to the brim with bad plot changes and terrible filler right? Asgard being a solid filler arc doesn't change that what came before was pretty awful.

The Ghost Saints, Steel Saints, terrible filler. The Crystal Saint was not only bad filler, but also hurt the relationship between Cygnus Hyoga and his real master, Aquarius Camus. Something that really made a mess of the plot in the anime was:

Spoiler: Sanctuary Arc spoilers

"The Good Pope died and was replaced by his evil younger brother."

Gemini Saga's plan required people believe he was the same unchanged Pope while he subtlely manipulated events so he could obtain Athena's Staff of Nike and remove her from the picture. If he had been acting shady around the Gold Saints outside of the four who knew his identity, his plan would have no doubt been interrupted, but convincing the masses that he took orders directly from Athena and was acting in her best interest against a fake Athena let him enact his schemes. If he had been a cackling villain from the start, he'd have had to have dealt with half a dozen pissed off Gold Saints, and that could have cost him his plan.

You really could go on and on with the issues the filler and plot changes had for the story, which all came down to the issue that the anime started the same year the manga did, they couldn't give Kurumada any time to develop plot points before establishing their own decisions that provided issues.

Spoiler: Sanctuary Arc spoilers

In the anime, Saori doesn't know she's Athena and doesn't find out for quite a while into the series...but in the manga, she's known since before Chapter 1, and only reveals it later. They couldn't do that though, because they already gave her extra scenes establishing elements to her character that didn't work.

The Ghost Saint filler makes Ophiuchus Shaina's falling in love with Seiya super awkward, given he murdered her sister.

The anime makes a different Gold Saint the one who killed Andromeda Shun's master, before later fixing it to Pisces Aphrodite, meaning his Silver Saint Master somehow fought off one Gold Saint before being killed by another. He wasn't some Super Saint in the manga, he was just reluctant to heed Sanctuary's calls, so Pisces Aphrodite killed him, since he was one of the few Saints who knew the Pope's true identity.

Hell, changes the anime made in the 80s would have an impact on an adaptation of Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, which is currently ongoing:

Spoiler: Saint Seiya: Next Dimension spoilers

Phoenix Ikki isn't disintegrated by Gemini Saga's Galaxian Explosion in the anime, so his Cloth is reborn using Virgo Shaka's blood, not Shun's Andromeda Cloth.

This doesn't sound important, but because of that small change, a major plot point in Kurumada's current Saint Seiya story has to change if it's ever adapted.

The Bronze Saints travel back in time 243 years into the previous Holy War to destroy Hades' Sword, so Seiya won't be cursed by it in the present day, as it's left him dying. At one point, Andromeda Shun and the past Pegasus Tenma are facing a manifestation of the current Virgo Gold Saint, Virgo Shijima, the Silent Man. All hope seems lost, when Virgo Shaka projects his will from Nirvana to 243 years in the past through his blood in Shun's Andromeda Bronze Cloth, leading the two Virgos to face off in the most absurd battle, where galaxies and life are created and destroyed between the two as Virgo Shijima unleashed the Ungyo, the Sound Representing the End of the Universe and Virgo Shaka countered with the Agyo, the Light Representing the Birth of the Universe.

In the end, Virgo Shijima recognizes Virgo Shaka as the greatest Virgo Gold Saint since the Age of Myths, and Virgo Shaka reveals he protected Shun so intensely because he will be his successor, the next Virgo Gold Saint.

Pretty major point in the story to change.

Toei's filler work very rarely ends up good. They have moments, but more often than not, it causes problems.

 

[Lulu]

A lot of Seinen have poor adaptations.

It really depends on if the source material is a manga though, like most are.

GitS is a good example of superior anime though.

 

[Night]

Nah. Most horror stuff works better in manga. Manga has an interesting combination of both allowing for more detailed individual frames than anime, while also forcing the reader to use their imagination more. Look at Junji Ito's manga compared to the recent anime. The upcoming Uzumaki adaptation seems more promising, but only because it seems like they are going for something more like a motion comic than full animation.

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That's not how it works, at least not for anything that isn't action-based. Monster's anime is practically scene for scene for the manga, but I'd say the manga is superior. A lot of tension and pacing can be lost in more methodical manga, ones that rely on the impact of a single frame rather than any action panels.

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I respect your differing opinions. I hold animation in much higher regard than comics myself. I believe pacing can be achieved expertly in motion pictures and/or animation, as evidenced by many very well done movies. Art is quite amazing so I still love manga and comics, but animation will always be king.

LOL

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[lunarworks]

Meh. The sequel i'll give you but the original is pretty good. Also Motoko was allowed to be a person.

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The manga was good, I've still got an original TPB release, but it was extremely self-indulgent and all over the place in tone. Also, dude was not only horny, he had an insatiable military fetish, if I remember the abundance of footnotes correctly.

The movie took it and put it in coherent form.

 

[MetatronM]

Nausicaa is a great movie that basically allowed Studio Ghibli to come to be in the first place.

Its manga is nevertheless vastly superior.

 

[PAFenix]

There are no words that can describe how much of a hack you need to be to completely write out the mother of the main character (who has a decent minor role in the original anime) only to replace her by , revealing at the very end, that Yuya actually comes from the future (what?) rejects Yuzu´s confession (WHAT? BUT THEYVE BEEN FLIRTING THE WHOLE TIME?) and then having him fuck into space promising that they are guaranteed to meet again in his future, and then having the AUDACITY to end the manga by having Yuzu meet her "true love" who turns out to be a young version of Yuya´s father from the anime....because she was his mother this whole time.

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The fuck did I just read?

 

[Slaythe]

After a few tome of being a decent shonen, it shifted to being near exclusively slice of life style chapters.

And they were incredible. Funny, witty, refreshing, one of the best manga I've read. The anime didn't handle the switch very well and tripled down on romance and serialized plots. The humor also ended up not translating as well as it could.

 

[XaviConcept]

Superior Manga:
Dragon Ball/Z
One Piece
Slam Dunk
Haikyuu
Bakuman
Knight in the Area
Detective Conan
Berserk
Dai no Daibouken


Inferior Manga:
Dorohedoro
HunterXHunter
Saint Seiya
Sailor Moon
FLCL
Tokyo Ghoul
Attack on Titan

Undecided:
Naruto
Ace of Diamond
Ranma 1/2

 

[Blackie]

Vastly superior anime: Hunter X Hunter, Demon Slayer, Mob Psycho 100

Vastly superior manga: Berserk, One Punch Man (S2 fucked it all up), My Hero Academia

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This post appears to be extremely accurate ^_^

 

[DragonSJG]

I don't know; I read up to the end of the first major arc (the end of the 'civil war') and the manga didn't devolve into a mindless super sentai/power rangers show. Like, the filler and plot changes in the show were bad. That said, both the anime and manga were overall bad. Entertainingly bad though.

Anyways, the manga up to that point was a lot more consistent and a lot less brain-dead.

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How is SS a sentai?

 

[Skoje]

Holy shit. 66 replys and no one has mentioned Akira?

 

[Reym]

Vision of Escaflowne.
From what I understood, each version was given sort of a bare-bones idea and were otherwise able to make their own story.
...so they're almost not similar and all, and the manga characters are comparatively generic and dull.

 

[Narroo]

How is SS a sentai?

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....They literally fight a guy in a jelly fish costume at one point.

 

[Yappa]

For Inferior

Based on my previous posts, you probably expect me to say Dragon Ball Super right? and yes DBS Manga fucking sucks from reasons ranging from unoriginality to blatant misoginy...but oooooh boy my pick makes all that look like FMA Brotherhood by comparison.

Here it is.

Look I know Arc-V anime isn´t exactly the best Yu-Gi-Oh! but I am strongly on the "The characters and character driven moments were great" camp despite the shit Kingdom Hearts II-ish finale.

But the manga, oh the manga is just shit, the one thing I will give it is that having a woman villain with boss cards inspired by all the previous antagonists in the franchise was cool.

But everything else was just shit, the characters, the events, their motivations, Yuya having a split personality disorder that does pretty much nothing for the story and the completely anticlimactic reveal of the "Actual villain we must go defeat now so bye" and my god ending the story on "Yeah I was trying to bang my mother the whole time" was...A CHOICE.

There are no words that can describe how much of a hack you need to be to completely write out the mother of the main character (who has a decent minor role in the original anime) only to replace her by , revealing at the very end, that Yuya actually comes from the future (what?) rejects Yuzu´s confession (WHAT? BUT THEYVE BEEN FLIRTING THE WHOLE TIME?) and then having him fuck into space promising that they are guaranteed to meet again in his future, and then having the AUDACITY to end the manga by having Yuzu meet her "true love" who turns out to be a young version of Yuya´s father from the anime....because she was his mother this whole time.

I can safely say that I have never experienced anything as cursed as this final manga page.

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Wha...I don't know anything about Arc-V or Yugi Oh in general, but that sounds shitty, lol. They should have made clear from the beginning that Yuzu is his future mom instead of "surprising" you like that.

 

[DragonSJG]

You do realize a ton of the 73 episodes before Asgard were filled to the brim with bad plot changes and terrible filler right? Asgard being a solid filler arc doesn't change that what came before was pretty awful.

The Ghost Saints, Steel Saints, terrible filler. The Crystal Saint was not only bad filler, but also hurt the relationship between Cygnus Hyoga and his real master, Aquarius Camus. Something that really made a mess of the plot in the anime was:

Spoiler: Sanctuary Arc spoilers

"The Good Pope died and was replaced by his evil younger brother."

Gemini Saga's plan required people believe he was the same unchanged Pope while he subtlely manipulated events so he could obtain Athena's Staff of Nike and remove her from the picture. If he had been acting shady around the Gold Saints outside of the four who knew his identity, his plan would have no doubt been interrupted, but convincing the masses that he took orders directly from Athena and was acting in her best interest against a fake Athena let him enact his schemes. If he had been a cackling villain from the start, he'd have had to have dealt with half a dozen pissed off Gold Saints, and that could have cost him his plan.

You really could go on and on with the issues the filler and plot changes had for the story, which all came down to the issue that the anime started the same year the manga did, they couldn't give Kurumada any time to develop plot points before establishing their own decisions that provided issues.

Spoiler: Sanctuary Arc spoilers

In the anime, Saori doesn't know she's Athena and doesn't find out for quite a while into the series...but in the manga, she's known since before Chapter 1, and only reveals it later. They couldn't do that though, because they already gave her extra scenes establishing elements to her character that didn't work.

The Ghost Saint filler makes Ophiuchus Shaina's falling in love with Seiya super awkward, given he murdered her sister.

The anime makes a different Gold Saint the one who killed Andromeda Shun's master, before later fixing it to Pisces Aphrodite, meaning his Silver Saint Master somehow fought off one Gold Saint before being killed by another. He wasn't some Super Saint in the manga, he was just reluctant to heed Sanctuary's calls, so Pisces Aphrodite killed him, since he was one of the few Saints who knew the Pope's true identity.

Hell, changes the anime made in the 80s would have an impact on an adaptation of Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, which is currently ongoing:

Spoiler: Saint Seiya: Next Dimension spoilers

Phoenix Ikki isn't disintegrated by Gemini Saga's Galaxian Explosion in the anime, so his Cloth is reborn using Virgo Shaka's blood, not Shun's Andromeda Cloth.

This doesn't sound important, but because of that small change, a major plot point in Kurumada's current Saint Seiya story has to change if it's ever adapted.

The Bronze Saints travel back in time 243 years into the previous Holy War to destroy Hades' Sword, so Seiya won't be cursed by it in the present day, as it's left him dying. At one point, Andromeda Shun and the past Pegasus Tenma are facing a manifestation of the current Virgo Gold Saint, Virgo Shijima, the Silent Man. All hope seems lost, when Virgo Shaka projects his will from Nirvana to 243 years in the past through his blood in Shun's Andromeda Bronze Cloth, leading the two Virgos to face off in the most absurd battle, where galaxies and life are created and destroyed between the two as Virgo Shijima unleashed the Ungyo, the Sound Representing the End of the Universe and Virgo Shaka countered with the Agyo, the Light Representing the Birth of the Universe.

In the end, Virgo Shijima recognizes Virgo Shaka as the greatest Virgo Gold Saint since the Age of Myths, and Virgo Shaka reveals he protected Shun so intensely because he will be his successor, the next Virgo Gold Saint.

Pretty major point in the story to change.

Toei's filler work very rarely ends up good. They have moments, but more often than not, it causes problems.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

Is it ever said Aphrodite knows in the manga?

 

[NeonZ]

After a few tome of being a decent shonen, it shifted to being near exclusively slice of life style chapters.

And they were incredible. Funny, witty, refreshing, one of the best manga I've read. The anime didn't handle the switch very well and tripled down on romance and serialized plots. The humor also ended up not translating as well as it could.

Click to shrink...

The issue with the anime is that it becomes very filler heavy halfway through the 3rd season, and the filler somehow was written under stupidly restrictive rules, like how every time we got a martial artist with a special power it turned out there was some kind of trick behind it, even after the manga started introducing actual special attacks (and some of these stories were adapted by the anime). In some of the early filler episodes they varied this with some actual supernatural creatures, but even these are mostly avoided later on.

The last season is bizarre when you go from one story where Ranma and Ryoga learn how to release energy blasts in a manga adaptation to anime original stories where they're astonished by some martial artist doing them and go on to attempt to figure out how there must be a "trick" behind it (the OVAs and movies avoid this though), in spite of the anime having done that plot many times before.

 

[Deleted member 52442]

in for later

 

[808s & Villainy]

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Name a faithful anime adaptation that has superior art to the manga because that's where even the most faithful adaptations often fall short

 

[TheGameshark]

The Nausicaä manga is one of the best manga ever made and is vastly superior to the film

 

[Geist 6one7]

 

[Laser Ramon]

The Trigun/Trigun Maximum manga has cool art but doesn't live up to the anime storytelling IMO.

Cowboy Bebop also has a mediocre handful of volumes of manga that was made in conjunction with the anime, I believe.

 

[Crossing Eden]

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I will never envy any animation studio that attempts to animate Berserk's arcs past the golden age.

 

[808s & Villainy]

The Trigun/Trigun Maximum manga has cool art but doesn't live up to the anime storytelling IMO.

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I preferred Maximum for the most fleshed out backstory and more about plants (which was the coolest concept from Trigun IMO) and for more Legato (although they took him in a strange direction), but I can see it being a toss up

 

[Fj0823]

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LMAO

 

[Deleted member 18021]

Honestly, just go ahead and read any of the Rumiko Takahashi series you're interested in. It'll actually be finished, and not overly burdened with filler episodes, lol.

just make sure to listen to the OPs and EDs on youtube or something

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maybe one day it'll get a good one

 

[Protoman200X]

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Yeah, Berserk is one of those rare cases where it's better to just stick to the manga & not bother with the various anime adaptations (either the 1990's OVA, the Golden Age feature films, or the comically terrible CGI series).

 

[Akainu]

Anywho the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is better than all the adaptations same goes for Hunter x Hunter.

Oh also Trigun/Maximum is better than the anime.

 

[Mewzard]

Spoiler

Is it ever said Aphrodite knows in the manga?

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Saint Seiya Sanctuary Arc Spoilers

To quote Pisces Aphrodite, and I'll be changing the few name changes Viz used (Master instead of Pope, Mephisto instead of Deathmask, Knight instead of Saint):

Shun: No! The Pope is the traitor! He tried to murder Athena and he usurped Sanctuary! Don't you know that?
Aphrodite: I do indeed.
Shun: What?
Aphrodite: Unlike the other Gold Saints, Deathmask, Shura, and I...pledged our allegiance to the Pope with full knowledge of his deeds.

 

[Nakenorm]

We meme on the moment of season 1 that was basically a single page vs a whole elaborate scene in the Anime that ended up being the hypest moment in the season enough to make the author cry after seeing it adapted.

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What scene is this?

 

[Dark Knight]

Death Note anime is good, but the manga crushes it, especially the ending.

Scryed also has a great manga but the anime is quite generic.

 

[Night]

Name a faithful anime adaptation that has superior art to the manga because that's where even the most faithful adaptations often fall short

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Pause an animation and it'll never look better than the best frame of a manga. That wasn't really up for debate.

Again - this is subjective... my likes and dislikes. I prefer animation to manga when digesting the story. Animation fills in the gaps and conveys the story much better than manga ever will.

I think Attack on Titan is beautiful though. I was trying to think of any example to answer your question and after scanning some manga frames I'd say it's objectively better. I'm sure there's probably some glorious panels though.

 

[Kewlmyc]

Superior Anime:
Demon Slayer (manga art's not that great)
Mob Psycho 100 (sorry One)
Attack on Titan *for the most part* (early manga art is rough, and they condense a lot of the pacing issues in a certain arc, less gore though)
Gintama (mostly a comedy show, so filler works in its favor, especially since they can get away with a lot more anime references and meta humor)

Superior Manga:
Berserk (no brainer, every adaptation is kinda crap, even the 99 version, compared to the manga art)
Any long running shounen series that's not Gintama (filler in a story driven show fucking blows, just read the manga)


Part of me wants to also include MHA in the "superior manga", but the anime still does some things better than the manga, so I can't say the manga is superior with complete certainty unlike the above.

Same with Kaguya-sama. While the anime skips a lot of great chapters, the chapters that they do adapt tend to be better than the manga.

 

[Eila]

A lot fo original anime has half baked manga adaptations. One example would be Cowboy Bebop. But I guess they are rather low priority.
Evangelion, too. Some people stanned for the manga back in the day, but I don't think it ended on a good note.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Never ever ever ever ever read the manga version of Usagi Drop.

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Nah, if anything I would suggest anyone to read it, if only to see for yourself one of the craziest and ballsiest moves pulled off by an author of a popular manga, lol.

I could not believe both the mangaka and her editor allowed that ending to happen, hahaha.

 

[Aloysius]

One Piece the thread. They aren't even close in quality. Manga is incredible.

 

[Fj0823]

A lot fo original anime has half baked manga adaptations. One example would be Cowboy Bebop. But I guess they are rather low priority.
Evangelion, too. Some people stanned for the manga back in the day, but I don't think it ended on a good note.

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The manga removed all consequences from Shinji's decision with the whole "3rd Impact rewrites reality" stuff and ended with "Go see Rebuild now!"

That said, it has some great divergences like Shinji maturing and taking a stand every once in a while. Him actually rescuing Asuka before getting entangled into the 3rd Impact was pretty neat. Its nowhere near as good as the OG anime, but its an ok companion piece at best and a meh retelling with cool deviations at worst

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

One Piece manga is a true work of art, the anime is...uh...not.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

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[OhSatan]

Saint Seiya's manga is shit.
Kuramada can't draw for shit for most of the manga

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Not like this Platy, not like this.

Story-wise, the manga is vastly superior, which is the most important element. Also, I'd argue most of the Cloths and what have you looked way better in the manga, tons of detail and depth had to be removed for ease of animation. And while I ended up enjoying Asgard, a vast majority of the filler before it was terrible (Asgard was the first arc with a new head writer, so that could be why it was better).

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Imagine badmouthing Docrates, imagine living that life.

Spoiler

Is it ever said Aphrodite knows in the manga?

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This is a plot point in Saintia Sho and is sooooo good.

Inferior
The original Ghost in the shell movies and SAC show are much much stronger than the manga it was created from

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Nah the OG manga and 1.5 are on par SAC and the 1st movie butchered that arc but it did made a good movie out of it, second one is trash.

 

[Fj0823]

The fuck did I just read?

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Trash.

 

[Akainu]

he had an insatiable military fetish, if I remember the abundance of footnotes correctly.

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Shirow just puts a insane level of detail in everything that's what makes him great. Read appleseed again a few weeks ago. i love how he details everything concepts, weaponry, different governments. I love his footnotes.

 

[RochHoch]

The manga is still good, but Gintama's anime really helps to make it the all-time great series that it is.

The voice acting and comedic timing really serve to elevate the source material.

 

[Nachos]

Inferior Manga:
FLCL

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The FLCL manga can't stack up to the anime, but I remember thinking it was still worth reading. It shoots off in a completely different direction compared to the anime, and I think the art style is pretty neat.