Anime/Manga 10 Weeks of Anime Week 6 - The Manga Was Better!

Whoops, a few days late with this one.

What is a series where you think the manga or light novel was a substantially better version of the story than the anime? Why is this so? Conversely, what is a series where you think the anime is far better than the manga or light novel?

One Piece.

Fairy Tail anime was better because it's not yet reached the awful Alvarez arc.

Erased. A lot of things had to be cut from the manga, including an entire arc iirc. The anime had a great and faithful start, but the ending was rushed because it was limited to 12 episodes.

Furuba. Fruits Basket. While the anime stopped somewhere half through and never quite resolved the romantic tensions (basically "both guys" lost), the manga built up more and more and had twists that were quite interesting and made the characters evolve a bit differently than in the anime. Maybe I should rewatch it some day, it's been like a decade or so since I saw it haha.

On some scale, I think I preferred the manga of DN Angel and Shugo Chara as well, since the anime took some things less far and didn't feel as fleshed out as the mangas did. But I don't quite remember what differences there really were, since it was super long time ago I watched those as well.

To answer my own question, I have a few on both sides. Negima! and Love Hina both had better manga than anime as the anime for each didn't adapt any serious parts of the stories for either. And then for anime that's better than the manga: K-On!, but that's a case of a very good source material being adapted into a masterpiece by adding audio, fleshing out some stories of the source material and then adding some well-written anime original stories.

Not really the most detailed response but it's a response.

The manga of Majikoi is wholly superior to its Anime counterpart. I could rant about the Majikoi anime all day, but all you guys need to know is that it was bad. No substance, Fanservice, Ecchi, Harem garbage. Completely missing the VN's themes, motivations, relationships of the characters. Also it lacked the appeal of the VN itself.

The Manga's amazing, not only expanding on one of the best arcs of the VN, but also adding more character development, more family driven themes, and reinforcing the friendship the main cast is known for.