Source Material

So what do you prefer your anime to be adapted from? A visual novel? Manga? Light Novel? Or something else completely? Or do you prefer OVA's? Do tell us why you prefer that source as well!

I prefer that they are original and not adapted from anything, but barring that, manga. Original material means that the people making the anime are more invested in the story, characters, art, etc. They aren't just taking something popular and capitalizing on that. I think you get the best stories this way.

I have no preference, if the anime is good then the anime is good.

Mentalii said:

But I noticed the better ones were often based on a Visual Novel. So I'd go with this answer.

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I'd like to know which series you had in mind when you said this, I can think of a lot of VN adaptations that are awful series. On the good/decent side you have Clannad/Phantom/S;G(although that's a stretch) and on the bad side you have too many to name.

It depends on the series, manga adaptations exist in the highest amount, but I do like to see how creative the studios get with Visual Novels and what liberties they'll make to make the series work (I'd say Steins;Gate did a good job of that, which is interesting considering how long the game is). In the case of games (not counting VN), I'd say that, from what I've seen, it's usually better to play the source material for various reasons, in most cases the game is the better form of media (due to script-writing, tie-ins to gameplay, etc). Still, some great anime are usually anime originals, such as Cowboy Bebop, Madoka Magica, and Lagann-hen.

-Lapras- said:

I'd like to know which series you had in mind when you said this, I can think of a lot of VN adaptations that are awful series. On the good/decent side you have Clannad/Phantom/S;G(although that's a stretch) and on the bad side you have too many to name.

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Yes it's true, there are also many bad visual novel adaptations... But when they're well-made, they're great ^^
I was indeed notably thinking of Clannad, but the first anime that came to my mind is Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. You have also School Days (that I don't really like to tell the truth but I know that a lot of people do), and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.

Mentalii said:

Yes it's true, there are also many bad visual novel adaptations... But when they're well-made, they're great ^^
I was indeed notably thinking of Clannad, but the first anime that came to my mind is Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. You have also School Days (that I don't really like to tell the truth but I know that a lot of people do), and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.

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You think the Higurashi and Umineko animes are good adaptations? Well, each to their own I guess... I mean I don't think they're down-right awful and terrible adaptations but I think they could have been done better. I'm reading the Higurashi visual novel right now and I'm kind of shocked on how much the anime missed out. Can I ask you why you think they're good adaptations?

Anyways, getting back on the question at hand; personally, I don't really care what my anime is adapted from. If I had to pick one, I guess it would be visual novel, since there generally tends to be more for the animation studio to work with, in terms of dialogue and whatnot.

Another vote for VN. Hmmmm.

11eyes - Awful anime
AIR - Passable anime but nothing special
Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka - Horrendous anime
Chaos;Head - So bad it's funny anime
CLANNAD - Ok, I liked this one but I noticed a lot of flaws on my rewatch
ef - a tale of memories. - decent but not great
Fate/stay night - Meh shounen
H2O ~FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND~ - Can't even remember this one
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni/kai - Acceptable but the manga versions were better
Kanon - Like Clannad without the charm of the second series
Myself;Yourself - Can't even remember it
Phantom of Inferno - Ok, this was a massive iprovement over the source, well the later series was
School Days - Babby's first bad end
Shuffle - Can't really remember it
Steins;Gate - Acceptable but only the funny main character and character were good.

My experience says VN adaptations are worse than the rest.

@-Lapras-: Oops, forgot to add to my original post - while I did say that if I absoluletly had to pick one it would be visual novels, that doesn't neccessarily mean I think that every anime I've seen adapted from a visual novel is good; as you listed there is indeed quite a lot of mediocre/bad ones. I just picked visual novels as you would tend to think that something which has generally more content than that of light novels and manga would turn out to be somewhat good, but alas this isn't always the case.

if i sound confusing then please just ignore me lol

Quantity of source content isn't really an issue. Most visual novels are heavily targeted at the "otaku" audience and well, that doesn't make for a quality product 99% of the time.

Biggest issue with VN/eroge adaptations is that there generally needs to be a generally linear storyline, major event that happens in all routes, or a true end to qualify to be good, and frankly, a lot of them don't have that. In addition, the producers need a good idea of their target end instead of just winging it. I've seen too many instances of 6 episode romcom, 5 episode character story rush, last episode or two drama with cover girl end. Best example I can think of how a difference in planning and execution can improve an eroge adaptation would probably be between Toei's Kanon (2002) and KyoAni's Kanon (2006).

As general flaws for each adaptation type goes:
Manga adaptations have a bad tendency of getting picked up while running, so filler and cutoff endings occur a lot. In other cases, longer series will be undercut to fit a 13/26 episode season.

Light novels tend to lose a lot of detail going to animation, and are also prone to the same issues as with manga, though usually there's enough between books to be able to make it work for a short season due to them being more episodic.

Visual Novels and Eroge have an issue with being similar to each other, and after having seen the better series out of the bunch, most other series can feel like more of the same with different tropes applied. In addition, either story and/or character development will usually take a hit since most adaptations are slotted to 13 episodes.

Originals are very much hit or miss and can change dynamically based on ratings.

And in general, most endings suck. Not many series have a good solid conclusion.

I enjoy them all the same, though usually manga will come first since that's what I read the most, so familiar names will pop up. Next would be visual novels and eroge since I'm generally familiar with which companies make decent games. Light novels I generally don't keep up with much, but if there's one that I've been following, I'd probably like it, and originals tend to fluctuate a lot cuz I'd actually have to do research to figure out if I might like it based on staff, and usually I'm too lazy to do so.

-Lapras- said:

Quantity of source content isn't really an issue. Most visual novels are heavily targeted at the "otaku" audience and well, that doesn't make for a quality product 99% of the time.

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Anime aren't much different, they have quite the ota following as well (though as they integrate with Western territories more and more, that becomes less true), though I don't really think that it's so much that they have a choice in the matter; there's little existing appeal to most other audiences, and with good reason, it's probably one of the more niche aspects of Japanese (and in some cases, Western) media. Though I feel that the problem with Visual Novel Adaptations as they are, more often than not, longer than manga and Light Novels in terms of content (though not always in terms of story), thus the anime itself is more dependent on the studio and the predetermined length of the anime than what they have to work with, which often means cutting out vital information and a lot of what gave the Visual Novel it's charm to begin with.

Uh... I can say visual novels tend to be the worst. It's not a format that lends itself well to being both linearised and condensed, and they're all very similar (one boy, five girls, pick a path; whatever else happens, that is the basic premise).
I would have the most inherent respect for an OVA for the reasons Scarf put forth.

Hagumi said:

You think the Higurashi and Umineko animes are good adaptations? Well, each to their own I guess... I mean I don't think they're down-right awful and terrible adaptations but I think they could have been done better. I'm reading the Higurashi visual novel right now and I'm kind of shocked on how much the anime missed out. Can I ask you why you think they're good adaptations?

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Higurashi is really one of my favourite anime, so it'd be hard for to have thought they were bad adaptations :P Well, I know, that is not an argument. I haven't finished Higurashi Visual Novel (but watched walkthrough), I'm more interested in animes to tell the truth, bur for such a twisted plot, I think they made a very good anime. The chara design is also very well made, we still have the cute/scary contrast is even more pronounced in the anime.
Maybe the Visual Novel is better for some(even if that's not my point of view), but the adaptation is still a great anime :)
I just talked about Higurashi since I didn't take an interest in Umineko's VN so far :P

Ill answer my own question!

Personally I prefer manga, especially if its a little different (but only a little, the main premise has to all be the same) to the anime and continues on from where the anime stops, thats my favourite because then I can pick up the manga afterwards and continue on with it.
I dont read LN that often because so much reading kills me at night, especially trying to read it on my phone.
Visual novels rarely get a look in for me.. None that I really want to read are translated so kinda stops me pretty hard just there.

It always seems to me that when anime comes from a light novel it's much more planned out and well-constructed and coherent, but there's also the problem of a lot of the novel's content being missed out which is a sacrifice that needs to be made :P But yeah, in general I'd say I prefer anime that comes from light novels as it usually tends to feel much more like a complete story in my experience.

AlexOzzyCake said:

It always seems to me that when anime comes from a light novel it's much more planned out and well-constructed and coherent,

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Yeeeeeeah, I'm not going to agree with that at all. Here's a list of things I've at least tried (dropped most) that don't fit the criteria you mentioned at all.

Accel World
Akikan
Aria the Scarlet Ammo
Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko
High School DxD
Infinite Stratos
Kaze no Stigma
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?
Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!
Shakugan no Shana
Sword Art Online
Zero no Tsukaima

I prefer when it's original, like Gundam. They have Freedom over their work (pun intended). When they adapt something, they have to follow the source (unless they create a loosely based show) and sometimes problems come with that. Mainly VN and LN adaptations. Most Visual novels tend to go from 30-50+ hours of content (not counting Nukige), and it's difficult to put it all in a 10 hours long show. And they often go for the main heroine's route, and it's not rare that the main heroine is inferior to others (most notably Key novels). Manga adaptations are the easiest, but it's boring when they adapt the manga panel to panel without any new content.