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The chicken or the egg?


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Enjeru



Joined: 04 Apr 2006
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:50 am Reply with quote
_With the number anime series based from a successful manga, and vise versa, it is interesting to have two different interpretations of the same story. So here is the question:

If both the anime and the manga are avaliable at the same time, which do you prefer to complete first? why?

Please try and not include any specifics about the series or the manga unless you are going to say the name of the series/manga followed by spoiler tags. Obviously that sentence was not for those who do so on a regular basis, this was more for those who are newer to the forums. Please do remember that there is nothing worse than having a series you are currently watching or planning on watching spoiled for you.

Well to answer my own question: I prefer to usually watch the anime series first for several reasons. First off, when I read the manga later, I already know what the voices sound like and I can almost hear them as I read the manga. Also, it kind of sucks for me to read the manga first and imagine what the voices might sound like, and then I watch the series and they sound completely off from what I thought they would be like.
Secondly, the manga ususally fills in the holes that the series may have left behind. Sometimes it's little side stories, and other times it goes beyond where episode 26(for example) left off.
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blind_assassin



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 755
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:13 pm Reply with quote
Usually the anime first. I find it easier to figure out if i want to watch the show from the anime as opposed to the manga since the anime will plow through a good portion of the manga in each episode. If I really like the series then I'll probably switch to the manga since it's more convenient and I can carry it around with me.

If I had to stick to one form for the entire series though, I'd go with anime. I get generally the same story either way but with anime the fact that it has voices and coloured/moving art makes it more enjoyable visually and thus my preferred option.
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Nomigid



Joined: 04 Feb 2006
Posts: 49
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:35 pm Reply with quote
The way it usually works out for me is, I see the Anime first and really like it, then wait for what seems like forever( if ever) for the Manga to be licensed and translated.
I wish they could speed-up the process for getting Anime and Manga out.
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Enjeru



Joined: 04 Apr 2006
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:46 pm Reply with quote
Nomigid wrote:
The way it usually works out for me is, I see the Anime first and really like it, then wait for what seems like forever( if ever) for the Manga to be licensed and translated.
I wish they could speed-up the process for getting Anime and Manga out.


I can understand. Unfortunately manga is a harder sell in America than it is in Japan.
And when it comes to licensing anime, I do not know the figures because it differs from series to series, but it costs several thousands of dollars per episode for an american company to pick up a series. This does not even include all the work and money that they have to put into it themselves. Sadly, there are a large number of series that these American companies do not even make a profit from. I believe if more people bought the dvds and the manga, this would speed up the process and would also make it possible for other series to be picked up. However, this is a whole different topic that we should not really get into Razz
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free2slap



Joined: 05 Oct 2005
Posts: 210
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Not long ago, i didn't even know what manga meant and it was after watching an incomplete anime that finally aroused me to acknowledge it. Although even now i still don't read that much since already i don't like reading and i only read a manga if the anime itself is incomplete and if that anime is worth my time to follow through. Like Hunter x hunteror Berserk for example and which of course are the only manga i am currently following....oh yea and also Gantz. Therefore it's obvious actually what i would choose if both manga and anime come out at the same. But My damn, i wouldn't even bother myself to check if there was even a manga.
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coffee



Joined: 28 Sep 2006
Posts: 170
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:17 pm Reply with quote
I prefer to watch the anime first. That is because the music can totally hype up a scene, or help portay emotions that words alone can't. Also, I feel action is portrayed better in the anime, there have been times I've re-read a series of panels a few times because I couldn't figure out what was going on (not all manga are like that of course), as well as that I can turn on and anime and eat or drink at the same time without having to pause my entertainment. Wink
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4506
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 6:28 pm Reply with quote
If it's the sort of story that interests me, the medium I choose is simply whichever one I come across first. For most of this decade until quite recently, I usually read the manga first before seeing the anime (e.g. I read the first couple of volumes of Mihona Fujii's GALS! manga in French before I had a chance to see Super GALS!), but, now that I'm in an anime club again and am watching some fansubs on YouTube, it's been shifting the other way around (e.g. I saw a few episodes of Strawberry Marshmallow before buying the manga).
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LydiaDianne



Joined: 28 Jan 2006
Posts: 5634
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:56 pm Reply with quote
I'm in the anime first group as well. If I like the anime, I usually go and pick up the manga. That way I can get all of the little extra details that I may not have caught with the anime. Or, in some cases (Ceres) where entire story lines have been left out which have a definete affect to the story...or at least explains thing more about certain characters.

In fact, of my anime that have connected manga, I don't have three. Fullmetal Alchemist - I think I started the manga too close to when I started the series, so I couldn't get into it. Scrapped Princess - The manga chapters really didn't have any cohesiveness to them IMO. Angelic Layer - I HATED the manga version of Misaki's Mother's story. Beyond stupid IMO! At least the anime's producers, directors and writers had better sense.

I don't think that I've read a manga and then bought the anime...I could be wrong. But I do know usually its anime then manga.
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undeadben



Joined: 06 May 2006
Posts: 1212
Location: West Texas
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:15 am Reply with quote
I rarely if ever read manga, so I guess I'm also in the 'anime first' group, although I have only read parts or all of just 11 different manga titles. I only really pursue the manga when it is either a show that felt like there was some really good story left untold, like for Fruits Basket and Ai Yori Aoshi, or when I really liked a show and wanted more, like Ranma and GTO.

However there are a couple of manga titles that I haven't even tried to look up the anime for too, like Maison Ikkoku and One Pound Gospel. But those were works from Rumiko Takahashi that I looked up after reading the Ranma manga, so I can't really be faulted for finding a manga creator that I really liked. I also started the Inu Yasha manga before ever watching an episode of that series.

But when the extent of my manga reading is only 11 titles and only a passing interest in a handful of others that I have never even bought, and contrasted with over 200 anime that I've seen, my preference is well one-sided.
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zliplus



Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 27
Location: St. Jerome's, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:23 am Reply with quote
I almost always favour the manga to the anime of any particular series. In fact, I will often simply skip the anime completely, if I am satisfied with the manga and am not particularly curious about the anime.

The first reason I prefer reading manga to watching anime is convenience. It requires less hardware to read manga, and also less of a time commitment. Manga chapters are faster to absorb than anime episodes, and I've found that in general, I can read through a series faster than I can watch it.

The second reason I prefer manga is the simple fact that the manga is usually the original work. This generally, as far as I've found, makes manga more detailed, complete, and accurate than corresponding anime.
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Enjeru



Joined: 04 Apr 2006
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 11:57 am Reply with quote
_this is quite suprising so far. Most of the people I know read the manga first and I thought I was in the minority. Of course the great thing is that there is no wrong answer at all. Watching the anime or reading the manga first both has it's good points.

Some of the reasons to read the manga first:
You get the origional idea from the manga-ka.
There is less worry about a budget, so that means you get all the story in the manga.
The price of manga vs. anime dvd
Much easier to take it with you (unless you have a laptop)
**feel free to add to the list**

Some of the reasons to watch the anime first:
You can watch it with friends, much harder to do with a manga.
You hear the seiyuus, so when you do read the manga, the voices are already in your head.
Music in a anime can really set a mood/tone.
After you watch the series, the manga is great for filling in the holes.
**feel free to add to the list**
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6895
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:04 pm Reply with quote
LydiaDianne wrote:
I'm in the anime first group as well. If I like the anime, I usually go and pick up the manga. That way I can get all of the little extra details that I may not have caught with the anime. Or, in some cases (Ceres) where entire story lines have been left out which have a definite effect to the story...or at least explains thing more about certain characters.

In fact, of my anime that have connected manga, I don't have three. Fullmetal Alchemist - I think I started the manga too close to when I started the series, so I couldn't get into it. Scrapped Princess - The manga chapters really didn't have any cohesiveness to them IMO. Angelic Layer - I HATED the manga version of Misaki's Mother's story. Beyond stupid IMO! At least the anime's producers, directors and writers had better sense.

I don't think that I've read a manga and then bought the anime...I could be wrong. But I do know usually its anime then manga.
One of these days, I'm planning to get that Ceres manga, but some other manga always seems to come up...I always think, "Oh man, that Ceres manga is 14 whole volumes...", but yet I recently started getting Ai yori aoshi, which is even longer Embarassed And for Scrapped Princess, it's best to think of the manga as a collection of sidestories about the characters, not as a cohesive story--after all, the manga was done after the anime, but the novels that the anime is based on are well worth the read.

I've always been an "anime first" type--if I get manga that an anime was based on, I usually do so to get more of the story or just to "collect 'em all." The first manga I ever got, Love Hina, was out of dissatisfaction with the ending in the Love Hina Again OVAs. (It's kind of funny, I first bought Vols 13-14 just to get the ending, then 10-12 to see the expanded story of the OVA events, then finally took the plunge and got 1-9.) And sometimes, I'll get manga that was adapted into some unlicensed series that I saw on fansubs as a way supporting the artist/industry, especially for series like Aishiteru ze Baby whose anime are unlikely to ever be licensed. I think the only manga I got before the anime was Chobits, and while I don't regret doing so, it did taint the anime's ending just a bit.
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EmDiPi_Micke



Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:01 pm Reply with quote
In Sweden, an anime isn't released as a manga and vice versa - because it's "too much". So, when DBZ, Naruto, One Piece etc. was released as manga here, they stated that they wouldn't import it as an anime. It's like that with many shows, except for Yu-Gi-Oh after tons of emails to some publishing company, who published the Yu-Gi-Oh books, but they didn't sell well anyway (mostly because there was no advertising at all). So, I'd never be in that situation, since the "if it's in manga, it won't be in anime"-rule.

But IF it would happen, I would prefer the anime, no doubt. Like mentioned before, in anime they're animated and they have a voice etc. Isn't that more fun? And with this new technology you can actually carry around anime on your Ipod/cellphone or whatever. Isn't that great?

There's an exception though - I would never ever prefer to watch One Piece as an anime. That's totally wrong for me. I've seen a little bit from the anime and don't think that it's any good. I'll stick with the manga, which is much better Smile
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EVA fiend



Joined: 19 Nov 2006
Posts: 314
Location: Somewhere in the UK.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:05 am Reply with quote
My choice in manga is predominantly dependent on whether I liked the anime or not. It's rare for me these days to pick up manga on a whim, whereas I do it all the time for anime, so as a consequence my manga collection is completely dwarfed by the volume of anime I own. And even if I did enjoy the anime series, I don't necessarily go out of my way to find the manga; the manga has to be really good to keep my attention span, whereas I'm generally more forgiving when it's comes to anime.

There's only one manga-ka that I like where I will buy the manga series, irrespective of whether I liked the anime or not, & that's Masamune Shirow; I have enjoyed all the manga series he's has penned, yet when it comes to the anime based off his works, currently only the GitS franchise is worth watching IMO.
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The Seventh Son



Joined: 27 Nov 2005
Posts: 380
Location: Where your missing socks end up.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:29 am Reply with quote
if theyre the same, then id look at both at the same time. Bleach did that, so when the fillers end, ill start watching it along with reading the manga scans.

but that kind of thing barely happens. it doesnt matter for me. all i care about is if either version is good or not.
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