Anime is cool. Sure it is. I’m much more partial to manga, myself, but anime is still pretty cool.
Anime is cool. Sure it is. I’m much more partial to manga, myself, but anime is still pretty cool.
…It’s what I say all the time. Usually people have the opposite opinion, though — pictures are much more interesting than text. But, it is kind of important to read your manga, especially if you’re watching an anime you really enjoy.
I will use Attack on Titan as my first example. It’s been all the rage lately. This is one show that leaves out a lot of important information that could actually be important to the plot! That’s why I hate it when people only watch the anime. It’s all in the manga.
Now would be a good time to say that for almost every anime, there was a manga started before. But if there isn’t, you actually may have found yourself an awesome anime. Or a really bad one. But I digress.
Another system that animes use is filler episodes. With filler story arcs and filler sub plots, it all gets tedious to watch, and I completely lose interest.
Bleach is a good example of a manga with a lot of useless fillers. I’m using this example because it’s a show I grew up with, and it’s one of “The Big Three” that comes out in the weekly Shonen Jump Magazine. This is a magazine that contains a lot of manga, and a lot of useless advertisements. While Bleach is catered to a more adolescent/teen level than some readers may want, it is a great point from which to go off of. Everyone should know about “The Big Three” (Naruto/Naruto: Shippuden, Bleach, and One Piece) because they’re a big deal. But the point is that the anime version of Bleach has a ton of these stupid fillers. When you go in and actually read the manga version, it should just take a couple of days of reading and you’ll be all caught up. There are a couple of story arcs in Bleach that weren’t even in the original manga!
Why do they do this, you ask? It’s simply to allow the manga to catch up to the anime. The mangaka, or manga artist, sometimes has to take personal days, or the magazine will let their mangakas take some time off. But the anime keeps going through these days, and sometimes they will do a double showing, which is basically back-to-back new episodes. It’s exciting in the moment, but you know that you’re going to end up with filler episodes to slow the progression of the anime. A lot of times, filler episodes, especially in Bleach, have nothing to do with the plot whatsoever. Sometimes they’re silly, nonsensical episodes. So. Annoying.
You want to get back to the actual story? Read the manga. I’m not outright saying that manga is better than anime, because it’s not. But if you don’t want the producers of your show to screw around with you by making you watch useless fillers, manga is the answer.
Manga is love. Manga is life.
Kirsten Lindsay is a sophomore studying creative writing. Do you read manga or watch anime? Email her atkl840712@ohio.edu
