Japan is up in your moon, alright with your otakus… Or so you think…
I don’t know if you should take this account, since I might be the only one noticing and giving some “importance”. But take a very long look at a piece of popular otaku visual material. Let’s try an anime adapted from a novel, or a game adapted from an anime, which was adapted from a manga. Better yet, try thinking of a title that’s prized enough as to have a lot of influence on different visual genres. Got one? Good. Now, if you have a keen eye, or have a better understanding on the title’s material transition, you should already know the point I’d like to get across.
It’s always the same old drill. Repetitive, crappy, and ultimately disappointing. They can’t even stop the habit! I’m not saying I’m against a broader “multiverse” for the little worlds they try to bring to life, but it’s not like all people would like something different from what is already canon. Who would like to have their favorite character changed from something cool to something awful? What if they changed hair colors? Eye colors? What if they changed how the story goes? What if one material strays from what is already told from another? Would you be happy? Would someone with the same taste be happy? Of course not.
Material transition opens a lot of possibilities for fame and fortune. For example, if a novel is good, there’s a high possibility it would have its own anime. And when the anime is branded as a hit, they make games out of it. The title gets even more famous, and sales of new and existing material that is based from said title would flourish. Okay, let’s just say it applies ANYWHERE. However, the moonland has its own way of handling material transition, and it really makes some otakus go UGH.
It reminds me of an instance when I first got my hands into Love Hina, specifically the anime. I swear to God, I finished the whole thing, and I thought that all was well in Heaven and Earth. Then I got the complete manga set, and found out I was too naive. It was stupid to think that any other stuff is good enough as the original one, especially if it’s not canon.
The way we see it is just way too narrow, that even those who make the stuff don’t seem to understand the consequences out of what they’re doing just because they get profit either way it goes. Perfect example of this is the Negima franchise. In desperation to build a potentially good market out of the series, they made a TV series from the manga. First shot at it was good for first part. It went through the School Teacher and Kyoto arcs, then went nut crazy without any redemption from the harem black hole that sucked it into oblivion. Plague reached to its second attempt, and games, along with the spin-off, didn’t do much to redeem everyone’s disgust on the anime series. If it weren’t for the recent Ala Alba OVAs, we have all lost hope. But the damage it has done on the previous arcs seem irreparable. Ala Alba’s the last resort for the animation franchise, Negima-wise.
But not all adaptations are as worse as this one. There are still those that garnered good interest. But these instances are a rarity, and the ratio for such is near 50-50. Take the anime adaptations of Shakugan no Shana, Lucky Star, or Zero no Tsukaima. For the near-canon anime series to be able to launch multiple seasons and games, the most viable method is BE CANON WITH THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, AT ALL TIMES. Variations and changes may be thrown in the concoction, but it must still remain canon or else people will sport an “Uh… what?” face after you tried to make the story spin 360 degrees, for N times, before going off with the rest of the highlights.
Still, not all get the opportunity to get as much material, but we should always remember that not all series vie for such. The Haruhi franchise didn’t (more like they tried, but knew they’ll fail, so they didn’t), but it still got famous, especially in Communist Russia, where Haruhi is revered as Mother Russia, as well as being the Goddess of Pirated Chocolate Images. As for the remaining gap, it’s up to the doozin people to fill in, and they did. Now we’ll just have to wait till Haruhi invades Communist China.
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