Visual-novel Games to Anime - do they ever cross over perfectly?

[darktruth]

I believe it is possible to have a visual novel game make a perfect transition to anime in terms of keeping the original storyline and characters intact.

Having watched Kanon (2006 version), I was touched with each arc and was quite surprised how strong each one was in keeping me interested. It managed to incorporate all 5 stories from the original game into the series and flowed quite well with each story intermixing with each other.

There are some badly produced ones of course. Lunar Legend Tsukihime takes the cake for that as many character background details were sacrificed in order for it to focus on the true ending of the Tsukihime game. The best example is the lack of focus into Kohaku and Hisui's characters as they had a more prominent role to the main story in the game but were presented as one-dimensional characters in the anime.

I think the problem when it comes to visual-novel games making a transition to anime is that the game has multiple routes where different characters and stories are focused in detail while the anime tends to stick to one route. This would probably result in changes to storyline where the anime tries to incorporate a few, if not all, of the routes into one seamless plot thus character background information and major plot points would be sacrificed. I do still believe it is possible to make a perfect transition of a visual-novel game to anime though.

[pingu^]

Haruhi did a decent transition, as well as Fate/Stay Night.

[Archer]

Originally Posted by pingu^

Haruhi did a decent transition, as well as Fate/Stay Night.

Haruhi's not a visual-novel, and Fate/stay night was horrible in that regard.

[Klashikari]

as long as there are "several routes" in a visual novels, there are almost no way to give a perfect rendition of it.
Stitching altogether needs adaptation which will always have a big impact on the "mood". If not, how the original source did "different routes" then?

adaptation is kinda peculiar, in a sense that it requires lots of stunts to give a new plotline, giving enough sense and fleshed points from the source material. but "something perfect" is nowhere near possible I believe, until the VN is linear, that is the issue...

OTOH, it is kinda sad to stick on only one route, so extending and adapting the some parts of the other routes is a good deal.
though, it isn't always done in a good way (Shingetsutan and Fate/Stay Night were horrible in that aspect, especially the former)

[cicido]

another thing is that sometimes, there aren't a real heroine because it all depends on your choice, when that happens, the anime have to just choose one girl, focus on her and leave the rest alone. when that happens, if it is a standard 5 girl game, 4/5 of it's fandom will be some how damaged

[Calawain]

Originally Posted by pingu^

Haruhi did a decent transition, as well as Fate/Stay Night.

Like someone said before, Haruhi was not a visual novel, it was a light novel. But I would say that FSN was a good adaptation of the Fate path in FSN.

[Kyomi]

Fate wasn't horrible, but it clearly didn't get my attention like the novel did, in fact, I though the series was quite average. (That's coming from someone who watched the show before playing the game)

[Kamui4356]

Perfectly? Can't be done. An adaptation can be well done and faithful to the original, but it can't be perfect due to the difference in mediums. This isn't just for visual novels adapted into anime, but anything that has an adaptation. No matter what they do, there will always be faults, and people will complain.

[Pell14]

Fsn replacement scene for the hscene was hilarious although lawl

[Calawain]

Originally Posted by Pell14

Fsn replacement scene for the hscene was hilarious although lawl

Haha yes it was, it was one of the most awkward scenes in anime I've seen. I was like, what the hell are they trying to do here.

[Hemisphere]

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

Perfectly? Can't be done. An adaptation can be well done and faithful to the original, but it can't be perfect due to the difference in mediums. This isn't just for visual novels adapted into anime, but anything that has an adaptation. No matter what they do, there will always be faults, and people will complain.

I wouldn't say it's just because of the medium. It's also because of the content, and in this case, Visual Novels have varying content because of the various routes, often conflicting with each other.