A Short Note About Manga from An Anime Fan
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Sep 9, 2006
Updated:  Apr 25, 2008
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/manga.txt

After years of cartoons, followed by years of dubbed anime, followed by
years of subtitled anime, I'm now officially a manga nut.

I've long subscribed to the notion that books are almost always better
than whatever comes after them, such movies, plays or other
adaptations.  I now subscribe to the notion that manga are almost
always better than the anime that comes after them.  [1]

This is not to say that the anime isn't good or isn't worth watching.
It usually is and some bits of anime I've seen I wouldn't want to trade
for anything.  For example:

The final scene from _The Wanders El Hazard_ when Mokoto returns
The _Am I Pretty_ _Ranma 1/2_ episode
Much of the second _Slayers_ (especially Veronica Taylor as Amelia)
Much of _Pretty Sammy_
Everything but the idiots in _Azumanga Daioh_ and _Love Hina_
Almost all of _Super GALS!_
All of _Cardcaptor Sakura_

I could go on for pages.

Anime resonates a different chord than manga for me.  It's usually
fast, colorful and musical.  

It's the music that really makes a difference.  Ever get chills when
you hear something so good you can't stand it?  The opening notes from 
_Love Hina_ or _Super GALS!_ or _Kodomo No Omocha_ send ice down my spine.  
Other songs move me to tears.  The amount of good music originating from 
anime is nothing short of astounding.  Manga simply cannot compete here.

In addition, nothing beats listening to the Japanese language for 
learning phrases, proper pronunciation and regional accents.

But ...

I've often felt while watching anime that something really didn't make
sense.  It was fairly bad when watching dubbed anime, less so while
watching the subtitled vintage.  Still, I'd often come away with a nice
glow but a nagging suspicion that I'd missed something.

_Love Hina_, for me, blew the doors off.  It was everything an anime
should be and it had both good writing and great music.  I was
captivated.

Still, there were many times where I found myself thinking "Huh?"

There is an episode where the main character plays what appears to be a
Super Famicom RPG and he plays it so much that, exhausted, he falls to
sleep and dreams.  During the dream, one of the other characters puts
him in a blender with many eggs (?) and another character appears with
a large frog and newt, both of whom attack him.  This bit is never
explained.  It really doesn't fit.

The manga makes it clear.  Our hero is simply sick (no RPG storyline here)
and the other two characters are trying to help him on the road to
recovery.  One offers to make him an ostrich egg-and-beer concoction,
while the other believes that both frog and newt as ingredients will
help him get better.  With that background, his feverish dreams now
make sense, something they most certainly did not in the anime.

Score one for manga.

Also, most anime stop far short of the series end.  _Love Hina_ the
anime ended long before _Love Hina_ the manga.  Sure, they made a three
episode _Love Hina Again_ to try to cover the rest, but it was awful
and it still didn't explain everything.  On the other hand, _Love Hina_
the manga ran for 14 volumes and it came to a very satisfying
conclusion.  _Kare Kano_ (_His and Her Circumstances_) is perhaps the
best example.  The manga runs 21 volumes.  The anime ends abruptly in
the middle of volume 8, leaving the entire story unresolved.  Worse,
Yukino's attitude towards her relationship with Arima is completely
opposite of her attitude in the manga.  Rewatching the anime after
reading the manga is not for the faint of heart.

Score another for manga.

The only unfortunate bit about manga is the translation.  Most manga
are written in Japanese so unless you can read Japanese, there is a
level of indirection built in.  The sadder part is that the unofficial
scanlations are often better than the official release.  For
_Yotsubato!_ this is certainly true.  I read the scanlations first and
was enthralled.  I then bought the only three volumes available in
English and was more than a little disappointed.  Still I'm glad I
bought them because the format is nice to read somewhere other than a
computer screen and because I want to support this silly new hobby of
mine as much as I can.

On the other hand, I've found that scanlation people are sometimes a
bit lazy and will fail to translate certain bits based on their whims.
Also, many of the scanlations use the original magazine scans instead
of the book scans, so the author's notes from the books are missing.
_Kodomo no Omocha_ was like that.

(My biggest gripe about translation is when it isn't.  For example, 
I'll be happily reading Azumanga Daioh when some dim bulb decides that the 
characters talk of money in dollars instead of yen or they karaoke
from _The Jungle Book_ instead of from _Doraemon_ or they omit the word
kotatsu because "not everyone may be familiar" with the word. For crying out 
loud, the setting of the manga is Japan, not the US.  I want to learn about
Japanese culture, not have it excised.  I'm *know* I'm reading manga, so
instead of insulting my intelligence, why not try to teach me something? 
This is one area where the scanlations beat the "real" stuff hands down.)

At any rate, if you tried anime but long for something a bit more
satisfying, manga is an easy jump and it's very tasty.

*********

Notes:

[1] The only exception I've found so far is _Strawberry Marshmallow_.
The writing is better in the manga, but it seems so flat and colorless 
in comparison.