Ask John: Why Does Television Anime Often Differ From Manga?

Question:
Why are so many anime TV series incomplete compared to their manga source? For example, in Saint Seiya, the TV series finished in the Poseidon saga, but the manga finished with Saga of Hades. Or Rurouni Kenshin; the tv series finished with a saga very different from the Revenge Arc or Saga of Enishi that the manga ended with. I don’t understand why companies don’t make the final volumes of manga into anime. Everybody knows that Saint Seiya and Rurouni Kenshin have been very successful in Europe and America, so why, don’t they complete these series?

Answer:
I can’t provide an authoritative response to your question because I simply don’t know the answer. All that I can do is provide you with some theories. In the case of manga serials that are popular enough to spawn long animated adaptations, for example, St. Seiya, Rurouni Kenshin, Berserk, Ranma 1/2 and City Hunter, the manga stories are best-selling titles, very well known to Japanese fans. When these stories become anime, often times the original creator has very little involvement with the animation. The series’ creator may provide suggestions, but usually is too busy with other manga works to be directly involved in the creation of animation based on his or her original concept. Because the staff of the animation is separate from the story’s original creator, the animation staff may want to create something new and fresh that will appeal to fans that are already familiar with the manga story. In some cases, such as Dragonball, the animation is extremely faithful to the manga. In other cases, such as Berserk, the animation story is wildly different than the original manga source. I’m sure that this has a lot to do with the creative vision of the animation director.

A second factor that will effect the transposition of manga into anime is feasibility. If a manga story isn’t complete when the animation is produced, naturally the end of the animation will differ from the end of the manga. This has happened with the Akira and X movies. Animation also has to conform to more outside influences and demands than manga does. Within reason, a manga-ka (manga creator) has only to meet a deadline for publication. Animation has to fall within its production budget, has to remain accessible and marketable to the widest possible target audience, and must conform to the standards approved by its financial sponsors, whether they be the production studio or television broadcast standards or corporate sponsors that pay for advertising time and commercials.

Although market consideration for anime is changing slightly, and slowly, in Japan, the anime industry remains a very isolationist industry. Japanese animators focus their attention on creating animation for Japanese audiences. For Japanese animators who see little of the direct profit generated by anime (most of the profit goes to the studios rather than the creators or animation staff), America and the Western market is totally foreign. While a series like Rurouni Kenshin or Tenchi Muyo or Sailormoon or Dragonball may be wildly popular in America, if it’s not popular in Japan any longer, there’s very little chance that Japanese animators will be interested in spending the time, effort and money to create more animation for a particular series. Particularly for that reason, I honestly don’t think that we will ever see more Rurouni Kenshin or St. Seiya animation produced.