When Adaptation becomes Adulteration

Many great movies, TV shows, and animated projects start off as written stories or comics. There would be no Avengers without the original Marvel Comics, and there would be no Harry Potter without the original novels. Yet sometimes these adaptations do not give the original artists and writers the respect they deserve. Sometimes these directors, producers, and animators act like the source material murdered their entire family. Examples like this are a dime a dozen in the world of anime. But the most egregious examples of this are two infamous anime: The Beginning After The End and One Punch Man season 3.
The Beginning After The End (TBATE) was originally an American Webnovel series published on the web fiction platform Royalroad written by TurtleMe. TBATE is one of the most popular web novels (even hitting the top of the webnovel charts at its peak and surpassing 20 million likes on the Japanese digital platform Piccoma in just one year and winning the “Piccoma AWARD 2021”) and thus fans were incredibly excited to see how the novel was adapted into an anime. Now, however, 57,000 of these fans are signing a petition to get it remade. This is because this anime has more in common with an early 2000s powerpoint slideshow than an actual tv show. TBATE has special effects that look like they came straight from Capcut and they pan so much that it would make you think it was a national geographic documentary. While there is no public data about the Anime’s budget, we can assume that it either was not enough, or was not properly managed. Also, as an amazing cherry on top, the anime did not follow the original source material! They often change character behavior and plot points seemingly arbitrarily. Some of the  most egregious of these changes include: making the main character more detached, removing his adventures before he went to the magic academy, and warping the elves personality to be less unique than they were in the original novel.This put fans over the edge and finally caused them to create a petition on change.org in an attempt to have the show remade with respect to the source material and upgrade from powerpoint to at least google slides.

But web novels that have more recently gotten fame are not the only pieces being disrespected. The famous Manga “One Punch Man” was also desecrated by studios that don’t care about the original source material. Even worse, its mangaka (Yusuke Murata) is famous for his amazing art pieces both in manga and as an outside artist. Famous panels include (find art pieces) and his drawing of a glass cup of water  titled “Practice” that looks true to life. Originally one punch man season was animated by madhouse studios and it was beautiful. The community loved it and it respected the source material beautifully. One of the best examples of this animation was the fight between Saitama and Boros. But, after season one, things started to go downhill. The anime was sent to JC staff to be adapted for a second and now sadly a third season. Even though the budget remained the same (2-3 million dollars), the quality went downhill. The third season was where it got absurdly bad. If there was one sequence that shows the quality of this show it is this clip. As you will see, the png of the man in the corner is just being dragged down the hill. There is no animation, it’s as if you dragged an image on google slides. This adulteration of the beautiful art made by Muratata caused fans to treat this season with nothing but disdain. 

Every piece of art has its own pros and cons and deserves to be respected in its own way. These shows are not art. They are an adulteration and degradation of stories and works made by people who truly love their craft. The reasons fans hate these shows are not specifically tied to their budget (again One Punch Man’s budget remained roughly the same)  or the actual animators who made it. It’s because these shows were made for the express purpose of making a quick profit by using an established intellectual property. These shows could have been great, but they were not. If you are interested in the stories that these shows would have adapted just read the original source material, please.