When I say source, I don’t necessarily mean the source material for a series. In this case I’m more referring to the medium in which the original work was created. The most common sources judging from reports on AniChart and from my own experience are manga, light novels, video games, and studio originals. Sure every now and then a studio adapts a children’s picture book or some other shit too but that’s rare. When I first started watching anime I couldn’t care less where the fuck it came from, just give it to me. Nowadays as a seasonal anime watcher I don’t have time to be screwing around, I need to try and pick up as many good anime as possible while weeding out the bad ones. And looking at the source can tell you a lot, or very little, about what a production has in store.
The most reliable source in my opinion is when an anime is based on a manga for a couple of reasons. First, the manga had to be worth something in terms of writing quality because it probably sold well and generated some hype among readers if a studio is about to pick it up and spend tons of money to make an anime about it. This isn’t always the case but it weeds out the absolute trashiest of trash manga (with the exception of Rent-A-Girlfriend I guess). Most anime I watch that are based on a manga are at least decent if not good or great.
How the hell did this make it through the cracks?
For the second place spot I really have no idea where to put more faith between light novels and studio originals. Each one has their own drawbacks. Light novels are mostly books with a few pages of art here and there so the studio will have character designs to work with, but that’s about it. In a manga a studio can literally go panel by panel and just add a bit or reduce a bit where needed. They have to really struggle to fuck it up. On the other hand light novels are mostly in text, and text is pretty detail-oriented. A lot of the time anime that are based on light novels, like this season’s Adachi To Shimamura, can feel like they’re leaving out some key details because they’re trying to cover all these pages and plot points in 12 episodes. This was especially the case with the Boogiepop anime where it’s hard to even know what the hell the theme and morals of the story are. Studio originals are scary too though because the studio sat down one day and said “fellas, enough of this drawing other people’s shit. we’re drawing our own shit today” which is great if they actually have a story to tell. Otherwise you get a Darling In The FranXX scenario where the art and animation are banging because people are passionate about it, but the story and characters are whatever. With a studio original it’s completely up to the in-house writers and unless they have an established history you’re tossing a coin.
At least it gave us some good lewd material.
But the absolute, fucking awful, without a doubt, cross my dick and hope to cum, worst source category is video game. Anytime you see the words “video game” listed for an anime’s source it’s likely time to head out. Most of the time these are anime based on mobile games that rake in a ton of money and then try to expand their franchise to other mediums. Either that or it’s based on some random game RPG that nobody’s heard of called like “Wolfenvlagen’s Die Stando: The Christening”. Occasionally, very occasionally, you’ll get a When They Cry situation where an interesting visual novel is made into an anime. That shit is one in a million though.
Should of been called When They Luck Out.
I should emphasize that none of this is an exact science, of course there’s exceptions to everything I said here. I’m merely stating my experience with watching anime seasonally for several years now. It will be interesting to see if you guys drew some similar conclusions or if you all even care about checking the source in the first place. Do you share my opinions about sources? Have you found some different patterns? Do you even check the source? Drop a comment with your thoughts below!
