Manga

 These brawlers took their time… with everything.

makes_me_mad: How do you prefer an anime handles things when it catches up to the Manga?  Filler episodes, making up their own ending ala Claymore, or just ending like Berserk?

Considering how much longer it takes to produce a cartoon than it takes to make a comic, I’ve always found this thing kind of amusing. I suppose it’s usually a case of an individual artist’s workflow (which can be sidetracked by whims, sickness and other circumstances) faring against the relentless production machine of an animation studio – - a train that must have new tracks laid in front of it once it gets moving.    

As a fan, I say that, once again, this is obviously something that must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  You’ve already got the usual concerns-of-change that come with any sort of adaptation, but an adaptation-in-progress introduces many more angles. Sometimes the portions that the anime makes up  is worse than the source material, sometimes it ends up being better. I’m sure that, a lot of times, the producers end up kicking themselves when they see what the manga does when it finally comes out – - because they liked it better than what they came up with, themselves. And vice versa.  Wasn’t that part of the reason for FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD? A second go-round that could afford to be more faithful to what the manga ended up becoming?

Regarding filler, I find DRAGONBALL Z KAI especially hilarious because it’s an answer to something I noticed for years, but never really understood.  See, if you were an American kid watching DBZ as you grew up – - even if you were an ardent defender of the show – - you had to admit that its pacing was slower than molasses.  Fights were stretched over 30 episodes, entire episodes were devoted to Goku getting his constipated face on while he powered-up to throw just one punch…  I just accepted it at face value until I found out later on that all of that was a result of the animators stretching the available material they had once they caught up with the manga. In other words – - it was padding. It was such a problem that they had to go back and recut the thing for KAI so it’s actually paced reasonably, now.

So yeah, I guess the short answer is that I don’t like filler. Who does? If you run out of material, then go in some bold new directions. Do some gaidens, but do them quickly, please.

Go on and send me more questions as private messages, everybody. I’ll answer all of them… within reason.

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of    HYBRID BASTARDS!  &   UNIMAGINABLE .Order them on Amazon   here   & here .

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