Greatest Anime Series (Voting)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Manga was better.

I could say the same for Black Lagoon, really. Though, I do prefer the art-style of the anime over the manga as far as that goes.

[Foggle]

Manga was better.

I could say the same for Black Lagoon, really. Though, I do prefer the art-style of the anime over the manga as far as that goes.

Really? I've read the entire manga, and when the anime isn't being a shot-for-shot adaptation of the original work, it's actually improving upon it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Really? I've read the entire manga, and when the anime isn't being a shot-for-shot adaptation of the original work, it's actually improving upon it.

Eh, By "improving" all I see is that it has cool action scenes every now and then. It doesn't do anything to improve the actual story or writing, which is fine enough for the most part, but when I think of anime adaptations that make significant changes or improvements to the manga, I think of something like more along the lines of Furahashi's anime adaptation of Hunter X Hunter (as one example), where the anime stays mostly faithful to the manga where it counts, but fixes a lot of the gunk and lazy or badly written parts that the manga had contained and replaces it with some more fitting material. Black Lagoon doesn't really do anything along those lines as far as the anime goes (at least not that I can see). With Monster, I can't really think of too much that they could improve on which is why I'm a bit more forgiving with that, though I still down-ranked it in this round because it was still a pretty plane adaptation that didn't really try to do anything new other than animate the manga panel by panel, which is fine, but in that case its not like the staff behind the anime deserve that much credit for making a great work since all of the strong points are still Naoki Urasawa's writing and art; and unlike Black Lagoon the art in the anime for Monster is almost exactly the same as it is in the manga, though to be fair that's a good thing as well.

[Spark Of Spirit]

What about Death Note? Would you guys consider that an improved adaption?

[Foggle]

The "cool action scenes" are part of the appeal of Black Lagoon, are they not? I fail to see how they could make the anime worse than the manga, in any case.

Black Lagoon anime has animated and more action, better artwork, color, voice acting, and extended/altered scenes every once in a while. These extended/altered scenes serve to make the characters more likable at times. For example, (IIRC) in the manga, Revy kills the innocent people on the boat and Dutch scolds her for it. In the anime, Dutch stops her before she can kill the civilians, and she realizes how wrong that would have been. Also, several story arcs have slightly more meat added to them, such as the first and last ones of the first season.

So yeah, the anime is much better than the manga IMO.

What about Death Note? Would you guys consider that an improved adaption?

I haven't read enough of the manga to decide.

[Avaitor]

What about Death Note? Would you guys consider that an improved adaption?

I think so, at least. While the second half of the anime lost some strong development for Mello, the staff behind it used the ability of animation and musical pacing to their advantage for Death Note. Moreso than Monster at least, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The "cool action scenes" are part of the appeal of Black Lagoon, are they not? I fail to see how they could make the anime worse than the manga, in any case.

I didn't say that it makes it worse than the manga, but honestly only a few of those added in action scenes are really well-animated and fun to watch. There are other times when the action is on budget animation and is just there for padding, so its a mixed bad more than a definitive improvement.

Black Lagoon anime has animated and more action, better artwork, color, voice acting, and extended/altered scenes every once in a while. These extended/altered scenes serve to make the characters more likable at times. For example, (IIRC) in the manga, Revy kills the innocent people on the boat and Dutch scolds her for it. In the anime, Dutch stops her before she can kill the civilians, and she realizes how wrong that would have been. Also, several story arcs have slightly more meat added to them, such as the first and last ones of the first season.

EVERY Anime adaptation has color and voice acting. You can't just give one anime special points for doing what any adaptation is supposed to do at a very basic level. I already said that I agreed about the art being better in the anime, but I can think of a lot of anime where I prefer the art over the manga, so its not like its a huge advantage for Black Lagoon that it does that. And as with the extended scenes, like I said about the action scenes, its a mixed bag for me. Some of those scenes do help flesh out the characters more and can be seen as improvements. Other times its just padding to make an episode run its length longer without covering too much of the story, or its added in to improve the story but I find the execution to be lacking. These added in scenes also aren't as plentiful as you make them sound. They are definitely there and anyone who has read the manga will clearly notice them, but for the most part the anime follows the manga's story and characters.

As for the scene with Revy, while I'll admit that I like the idea of her being restrained from killing when possible, you can't really ignore that its just part of her character. The anime cut that scene out in the beginning because they didn't want to stir up any controversy, as stuff that's allowed to fly in manga aren't always so easily allowed for anime that are aired on TV rather than released direct to video as OVAs, and this kind of shows as the anime adaptation didn't stay consistent with these kinds of changes. For instance, while the anime stopped her from killing those people in the beginning, it didn't stop her from doing something later along the lines of killing an unarmed guy who had given up fighting against her in cold blood. After all, Revy is meant to be a cold-blooded killer when you really get down to it, and I wouldn't have a problem with the anime trying to stray away from that a little bit to maybe make her somewhat more likable, but it doesn't stay consistent with it at all and by the 2nd season she is just as ruthless as she is in the manga without any real restraint.

So yeah, the anime is much better than the manga IMO.

The anime adaptation is a mixed bag in terms of improvements and detractors, IMO. Its all opinions, anyways.

For what its worth, the fact that I said its great kind of shows that I don't really have anything against it in particular. I just feel that GTO and Death Note do more things in their respective anime adaptations that make the experience really interesting for me despite having read the manga (with Death Note it takes an intentionally over-the-top stylistic approach compared to the manga that I actually really enjoy, and it also cuts out a lot of needless fluff from the 2nd arc). As for Monster, I wouldn't say that its any better than Black Lagoon as an adaptation. But in this case I feel that Monster is just a flat-out better and more interesting story than Black Lagoon, and it just so happens that there wasn't enough stuff that the Black Lagoon anime did in its adaptation for me to rank it over Monster. For what its worth, Monster is flat-out better than GTO and Death Note as well, but in those 2 cases I feel that both of those anime made quite a few more significant changes that I personally enjoyed in terms of adapting their respective source material than Black Lagoon did with its source material. That's really all that there is to it. I still like all 4 of these anime, anyways (the fact that all of them are among my top 10 favorites should tell you something about that ).

[Dr. Insomniac]

Hook, line, and sinker. My dear parrot.

Also, there's a difference between killing civilians and killing a Nazi who just put his gun down.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I do wish the GTO prequel would get a proper anime adaption, though. It is one of the best delinquent manga I've read.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, there's a difference between killing civilians and killing a Nazi who just put his gun down.

I wasn't referring to the Nazi. I was referring to one of the hoodlums that were among a group attacking Rock and Revy in the Yakuza arc. There was one dude who dropped his weapon and said "I give" once his friends were dead. In this case, you could tell just by looking at him that he was a punk for hire who didn't know what he was getting into. The Nazi that you are referring to who she killed would have clearly just stabbed her in the back the moment he got the chance if she let him live, whereas some punk kid would just run away with his tails between his legs. One she needed to kill, and the other wasn't really necessary, so I see it as a pretty big difference in terms of circumstances.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I do wish the GTO prequel would get a proper anime adaption, though. It is one of the best delinquent manga I've read.

The 5-episode OVA isn't bad for what it is, in terms of adapting select portions of the manga. But, yeah, its no substitute for a proper adaptation. Unfortunately that'll never happen since old-school delinquent manga are not very popular among the modern shonen audience in Japan. I wouldn't mind if the author at least went back every now and then and did a few Shounan Junai Gumi short stories. He already ran GTO into the ground with the mediocre sequel that he produced (which takes place in Shounan, but misses a big opportunity by hardly bringing back any of the original characters from SJG).

[Dr. Insomniac]

Also, there's a difference between killing civilians and killing a Nazi who just put his gun down.

I wasn't referring to the Nazi. I was referring to one of the hoodlums that were among a group attacking Rock and Revy in the Yakuza arc. There was one dude who dropped his weapon and said "I give" once his friends were dead. In this case, you could tell just by looking at him that he was a punk for hire who didn't know what he was getting into. The Nazi that you are referring to who she killed would have clearly just stabbed her in the back the moment he got the chance if she let him live, whereas some punk kid would just run away with his tails between his legs. One she needed to kill, and the other wasn't really necessary, so I see it as a pretty big difference in terms of circumstances.

It's the rule of a gun fight though. You don't trade a gun for a white flag. That punk should've known better, and paid the price.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It's the rule of a gun fight though. You don't trade a gun for a white flag. That punk should've known better, and paid the price.

My point is that he was a punk kid who clearly didn't know any better. Not a real trained killer like the types that Revy usually kills. She also toyed with him by mocking him a bit before killing him, if just flat-out killing him in cold blood wasn't enough.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It's the rule of a gun fight though. You don't trade a gun for a white flag. That punk should've known better, and paid the price.

My point is that he was a punk kid who clearly didn't know any better. Not a real trained killer like the types that Revy usually kills. She also toyed with him by mocking him a bit before killing him, if just flat-out killing him in cold blood wasn't enough.

For all Revy knew, letting the guy survive would risk him coming back with backup. It was better to be safe than take the moral route.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

GTO
The Devil went down to Germany
God Complex
Bitches Be Crazy