[Uberchu]

Originally Posted by Midonin

I think this is the easiest thread to bring it up in, since it's adaptation related. There's a trend I've noticed with a lot of light novel discussion around the forums. Namely, since not all LNs are translated (they require a lot of work, of course. The only thing more daunting is a visual novel.), the anime version, though this is decreasing lately, is compared to the manga version, which is itself also an adaptation that presumably had to go through the same filters of creative interpretation that any adaptation does, including the anime. Yet the anime is compared to the manga as though it were the original source, though the source was never a manga to begin with.

I know the reasons why this happens - manga are easier to scanslate, have a broader reach across the internet, etc. - but at the same time, these manga also-an-adaptations are treated with generally more respect than the TV version. Is it because the TV version introduces the uniquely TV concepts of fixed pacing, editing, voices that a manga version doesn't have? Just that, looking at it, it's like judging a film of a book not against the original literature, but against a novelization of that same film.

I rarely read the light novels myself, but it's an odd phenomenon that seems limited to the English speaking fanbase for reasons already listed above. Any thoughts on this?

The plain and simple reason is that we can't read Japanese and resort to manga adaptations. Pretty much the only reason. I recall doing this OreShura since the LN wasn't translated but the manga was. The anime had done a bad job adapting a certain part but we still wanted to complain, so we used the manga instead.