[aohige]

I think it is true, that original anime has the advantage of not being compared to an existing source.
Having an anime adapted from manga or novel, the divide among opinion is pretty much inevidable.

Nevertheless, the adopted-anime has an advantage that it already has an established base fandom it can feed on.
Which more often than not, works in favor for the franchise.

So there's advantage for both format.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I would also say that, in general terms, there appears to have been an increasing emphasis on faithfulness to the original work in anime adaptations in recent years. Part of the problem with that is that, as this increases, people become that much more picky about all the little things; if you know it's going to be really loose, you give up on comparing, but when it's pretty close but "not quite", you start getting uptight about what was cut and what wasn't. So I think it's a bit hard to get a good read on what is a "good adaptation" and what isn't. For example, with SAO you have a lot of bellyaching (there are a *lot* of novel readers), but in truth I think most novel readers appear to be fairly satisfied with the adaptation. So not sure that we can mistake this sort of pickiness for outright complaints; some of it is more passion and wishful thinking than intentional or severe criticism.

Then there's the opposite extreme.... like oh I don't know, ZETMAN maybe?
I totally understand having to cut material for anime series. I am totally fine with it for the most part.

But I think I'm gonna have to draw the line when they cut out like, 80% of the source material, AND completely change whatever was left of the 20% from rich chocolate to vanilla lame.

God that was a trainwreck.