Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph
Actually now that I think of it, it seems odd that a cartoon/anime can be animated faster than a manga.
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I read once (years ago) the entire premise and reasoning why so many Japanese manga stories eventually translate into
anime as we now know it, but my answer is going to be in much simpler terms: it is feasible and a highly lucrative media move because if an already existing storyline has enough 'popularity', it can easily transition itself into syndicated weekly televising (although, in Japan, "re-runs" is a virtually nonexistent word.) while also reaching a greater targeted demographic.
Think about it: the only real step in making a tv show from a comic book is to colorize and animate it. They (the producers, writers) don't need to do much of anything besides because the original authors have already provided dialogue, scenery, plot, conveyance, & above all, familiarity.
Moving onto your "cartoon surpassing the comic"... this happens regularly because although some stories are picked up for television in the early or middle stages of the greater plot, the tv episodes can combine/condense around 2-3 "chapters" of the comics every 1 week. So it's gaining by a factor of 2 oe 3; even moreso if the originating source was not a weekly feature, (which is
grueling work for an author, to imagine a continuance, sketch the framework, and add dozens of pertaining character reference points) but one that comes out only once every month.
Citing a choice example from anime: The first animated series of
Full-Metal Alchemist (2004?) can be likened to a re-imagining. Up until the 15th or 16th episodes, it remained somewhat faithful to its predecessor manga origins, but at that time, the manga was nowhere near its running feature completion, so it was an installed architecture from the beginning that the televised version would have a divergent (origin) story. and ending, than what could be considered the
canonical (the original monthly comic chapters of FMA). To me, the compact original anime version of FMA actually made a heck of a whole lot more sense than what I remembered of the manga's eventual concluding plot arcs (I stopped around chapter 85 or so).
Darn. That's a lot of words. I didn't mean to get so invested.
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