Where Anime Stories Begin
Step into the world of anime, and you quickly realize a fundamental truth: unlike much Western animation where original intellectual properties (IPs) often dominate (especially in film), a vast majority of anime series and films, particularly for television, are adaptations. They draw their stories, characters, and worlds from pre-existing works in other Japanese media, and increasingly, from popular digital comics originating elsewhere in Asia. Understanding this deep, symbiotic relationship between anime and its source materials – primarily manga, light novels, video games, and now webtoons/manhwa – is absolutely essential to fully grasping the anime industry, its narrative conventions, and the viewing experience itself. This section investigates that crucial connection, exploring where anime stories truly begin.
I. The Foundation: Why Adaptations Dominate Anime
Several interconnected factors contribute to the prevalence of adaptations in the anime industry:
Established Audience & Reduced Risk: Adapting a popular manga, light novel, webtoon, or game comes with a built-in fanbase eager to see their favourite story animated. This significantly reduces the financial risk for the Production Committees (discussed in Section 4) investing in the anime, as there’s already proven market interest.
Source of Tested Material: The source material provides a ready-made story, established characters, world-building, and often even visual designs (especially with manga and illustrated LNs). This can streamline the pre-production process compared to developing an entirely original concept from scratch.
Cross-Media Promotion: The anime adaptation serves as powerful promotion for the source material (boosting manga/light novel/webtoon/game sales or readership), while the popularity of the source drives viewership for the anime. It’s a mutually beneficial marketing ecosystem often referred to as “media mix” in Japan.
Content Pipeline: Japan’s massive and highly segmented manga and light novel industries, alongside the explosive international growth of digital webtoons (especially from South Korea), provide a constant, diverse stream of stories perfectly suited for serialized adaptation across various demographics (see Section 3).
II. The Primary Sources: Pillars of Anime Storytelling
While anime can adapt almost anything, several key sources stand out due to their volume and influence:
A. Manga (漫画): The Undisputed King
What it is: Japanese comics, spanning all demographics and genres imaginable. Manga is a colossal industry in Japan and globally, read by people of all ages. (See Section 3 for demographics like Shonen, Shojo, Seinen, Josei, which apply equally to manga).
The Connection: This remains the most common source material for anime by a significant margin, consistently representing the largest share of adaptations. Weekly or monthly manga serializations provide the episodic structure often mirrored in TV anime. Character designs in anime frequently adhere very closely to the original manga artist’s style. The visual language of manga – panel layouts, action lines, expressive character art – heavily influences anime storyboarding and cinematography (See Section 2).
Examples (A Tiny Fraction): One Piece, Naruto, Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Attack on Titan, Fruits Basket, Berserk, Sailor Moon, My Hero Academia, Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note… the list is virtually endless.
B. Light Novels (ライトノベル – “LN”): The Rising Powerhouse
What it is: Stylized prose novels primarily targeting young adult (and adult) audiences, often featuring manga-style illustrations interspersed throughout the text. LNs cover genres extensively but are particularly dominant in modern Fantasy, Isekai, Sci-Fi, and Romance aimed at teen and young adult demographics.
The Connection: Light novels have become an increasingly significant source for anime adaptations, particularly since the 2000s, fueling many popular trends. Adapting LNs presents different challenges than manga – translating descriptive prose and internal monologues into visual scenes and dialogue, effectively pacing multi-volume arcs. Successful LN adaptations often drive massive sales boosts for the original books.
Examples: Sword Art Online, Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Spice and Wolf, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Overlord, Konosuba, Monogatari Series (originally novels, often considered LN-adjacent).
C. Video Games & Visual Novels (VN): Interactive Origins
What they are: Includes adaptations from traditional video games (JRPGs, fighting games, mobile games, popular gacha games) and Visual Novels (a distinct genre of interactive fiction, highly popular in Japan, characterized by static or semi-static visuals, extensive text, background music/voice acting, and often branching storylines based on player choice).
The Connection: Adapting games poses unique challenges: translating player agency and interactivity into a passive viewing experience, choosing which potential story path or character focus to follow (especially in VNs or RPGs with multiple routes/endings), and potentially creating new narrative tissue to connect gameplay elements or expand the world. Successful adaptations often leverage the strong characters, established lore, and compelling world-building present in the source game. VN adaptations are particularly common in romance, drama, mystery, and sci-fi genres.
Examples (Games): Persona 4: The Animation, Persona 5: The Animation, Danganronpa: The Animation, Azur Lane, Uma Musume Pretty Derby, Castlevania (Western production, Japanese game source), Nier: Automata Ver1.1a.
Examples (Visual Novels): Fate/stay night (multiple adaptations covering different routes), Steins;Gate, Clannad, Higurashi: When They Cry, Kanon, Muv-Luv Alternative.
D. Manhwa (만화) & Webtoons (웹툰): The Digital Wave from Korea & Beyond
What they are: Manhwa are Korean comics. “Webtoon” specifically refers to digital comics designed for vertical scrolling on smartphones, a format popularized in South Korea but now a global phenomenon with dedicated platforms (Naver Webtoon, KakaoPage, etc.). While Japan has its own web manga formats, the “Webtoon” term and vertical scroll format are strongly associated with Korean originals. Manhua (漫画) refers to Chinese comics.
The Connection: In recent years, you’ll notice a significant and rapidly growing trend of anime adaptations of popular South Korean Manhwa and Webtoons. This is often facilitated by global streaming platforms seeking popular IPs (e.g., Crunchyroll Originals) or direct collaborations between Japanese animation studios and Korean publishers/platforms. These adaptations translate popular vertical-scroll narratives – frequently featuring action, fantasy, and drama – into the traditional horizontal framing and episodic structure of anime. Adaptations of Manhua into Japanese anime are currently less common but do occur, existing alongside the separate, growing industry of Chinese animation (Donghua) which primarily adapts its own Manhua and web novels.
Examples (Anime adaptations of Manhwa/Webtoon): Tower of God, The God of High School, Noblesse, Solo Leveling, Lookism.
III. Anime Originals & Other Sources:
The Exceptions Prove the Rule
While adaptations form the bedrock of the industry, it’s crucial to celebrate the significant body of anime that doesn’t originate from these primary sources, showcasing the medium’s capacity for unique, self-contained creative visions.
Anime-Original Works: These are stories conceived and created specifically for the medium of animation by studios, directors, or writers, without a pre-existing manga, LN, game, or webtoon as direct source material. They offer complete creative freedom to tailor the narrative and visuals perfectly for animation from the outset but carry higher initial financial risk due to the lack of a built-in audience or proven concept. Many critically acclaimed masterpieces and influential, franchise-spawning series are anime-original.
Examples: Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Neon Genesis Evangelion (while spawning manga, the anime was the original genesis), Kill la Kill, Psycho-Pass (original concept), Shirobako, Gurren Lagann, Odd Taxi, Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song, many works by Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki.
Other Adaptations: Less frequently, anime might draw inspiration from or directly adapt:
Standard Novels/Literature: Both Japanese works (e.g., The Tatami Galaxy from Tomihiko Morimi’s novel, Legend of the Galactic Heroes from Yoshiki Tanaka’s novels, Shinsekai Yori from Yusuke Kishi’s novel) and occasionally foreign literature (e.g., Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle based on Diana Wynne Jones’ novel, the long-running World Masterpiece Theater series adapting Western children’s classics like Anne of Green Gables or Les Misérables).
Other Sources: Children’s books, Japanese webcomics (often distinct in format from Korean Webtoons), mobile games (beyond direct story adaptations), toys, trading card games, even pachinko franchises or regional mascots can sometimes inspire anime adaptations, often serving strong promotional goals.
IV. The Art & Challenge of Adaptation
Translating a story from one medium (static panels, prose, interactive choices, vertical scroll) to another (time-based, audiovisual animation) is a complex creative endeavour fraught with unique challenges and artistic decisions.
Fidelity vs. Reinterpretation: Adaptations rarely achieve a perfect 1:1 conversion and exist on a spectrum:
Highly Faithful: Aiming to stick very closely to the source material’s plot beats, dialogue, pacing, character arcs, and visual style (e.g., Monster, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’s manga adaptation). This approach is often demanded by dedicated fans of popular sources.
Condensed/Altered: Making necessary changes to fit broadcast constraints (e.g., fitting multiple manga volumes into a 12-episode season), improve pacing for an animated format, update outdated content, or streamline overly complex plots. This sometimes involves cutting side stories, characters, or nuances, which can be controversial.
Divergent/Original Endings: A common occurrence when an anime production catches up to or overtakes an ongoing source material, forcing the studio to create an “anime original ending” (Fullmetal Alchemist 2003, Akame ga Kill!, Soul Eater). These endings can be highly divisive among source readers. Sometimes, significant changes are made purely for thematic resonance or a specific director’s vision (The Promised Neverland Season 2 being a notable example).
Pacing Problems: Translating pacing across media is a major hurdle:
Catching Up / Filler: A classic issue with long-running weekly manga adaptations (One Piece, Naruto historically) where the anime production moves faster than the source material release. This often leads to significantly slower pacing per episode (stretching out scenes), numerous recap episodes, or the creation of “filler” – anime-original story arcs or episodes designed solely to create distance from the source. Filler quality varies wildly, from enjoyable side stories to episodes widely disliked by fans.
Condensing/Expanding: Adapting hundreds of manga chapters or multiple dense light novel volumes into limited anime seasons requires difficult choices about which plot points, character moments, or world-building details to prioritize, condense, or omit entirely. Conversely, adapting a very short manga or a single LN volume might require significant expansion with original scenes or subplots to fill a full season.
Visual Translation: Converting static source visuals (manga panels, LN illustrations) or unique formats (vertical webtoons) into dynamic animated sequences involves significant artistic interpretation. This includes decisions about movement, timing, colour palettes (manga is usually black & white), sound design, background details, and cinematography (linking back to Section 2). Adapting Visual Novels requires bringing largely static character sprites and background art vividly to life through animation and direction. While anime character designs are often closely based on the source art, they must be adapted by an anime character designer to ensure consistency and feasibility for animation teams.
Fan Expectations: Adapting beloved source material inevitably invites intense scrutiny from pre-existing fans. Changes from the source (omissions, alterations, additions like filler), pacing issues, casting choices (voice actors), animation quality fluctuations, or perceived misinterpretations of characters or themes can lead to significant online discussion, debate, and sometimes backlash within the fandom.
Did You Know? The infamous “Read the Manga/LN/Webtoon” comment often arises online when fans feel an anime adaptation has failed to capture the depth, detail, correct plot points, or spirit of the original source material, urging others to experience what they consider the “true” or “complete” story. Learning about the source can often provide valuable context for understanding adaptation choices.
V. How the Source Shapes the Anime
The nature of the source material profoundly influences the resulting anime’s structure, style, and reception:
Structure & Pacing: Manga adaptations often inherit the panel-to-panel storytelling flow and distinct story arc structure (chapters/volumes) of the source. LN adaptations might feature more internal monologue translated into voiceover or character dialogue and often structure seasons around concluding specific light novel volumes. Game adaptations might incorporate elements reminiscent of gameplay loops (e.g., repetitive training/battle structures), route structures from VNs, or focus heavily on established game lore. Webtoon adaptations face the unique challenge of translating the continuous vertical scroll format into traditional horizontal shots and episodic pacing.
Visual Style: Character designs and general aesthetics are frequently based heavily on the original manga art, LN illustrations, or Webtoon style. This provides immediate visual recognition for source fans and often sets the initial, foundational direction for the anime’s art team, even if adapted for animation.
Target Audience: The demographic target (Shonen, Shojo, etc.) and established fanbase size of the source material usually carry over directly to the anime adaptation. This heavily influences the anime’s broadcast time slot (e.g., prime time vs. late night), marketing strategy, merchandise potential, and initial viewership expectations.
VI. Conclusion: A Symbiotic Relationship
The deep connection between anime and its diverse source materials – especially manga, light novels, video games, and increasingly manhwa/webtoons – is one of the defining characteristics of the modern anime industry and its surrounding media ecosystem. While creatively vital anime originals offer unique, unfettered visions, the vast majority of television anime productions leverage the established worlds, characters, and audiences of existing Japanese and other Asian media.
This symbiotic relationship fuels multiple creative industries. It provides anime studios and production committees with a rich pipeline of proven stories, reducing investment risk, while simultaneously acting as powerful promotion that boosts sales and visibility for the original creators and their platforms. For viewers, understanding whether an anime is an adaptation, what its source medium is, and how faithfully (or unfaithfully) it adapts that source adds crucial context. It enriches our appreciation (or critique) of the animated work, highlighting how anime often functions not just as a standalone art form, but as a vibrant, central part of a larger cross-media landscape. For many fans, engaging with the source material becomes a rewarding next step, offering the complete story as the author intended, original pacing, or a different, often deeper perspective on a beloved narrative universe.