Out of all the manga series I’ve ever read, D.Gray-man’s character designs got slaughtered the most when made into an anime. (DN Angel comes in at a close second.) I’ve already ranted on this once, but I feel the need to reinforce my point by providing proof. A picture’s worth a thousand words, after all. ^_~
Shall we start with our lovable main character?
WARNING: Tons of pics in the full article. Those of you with slow internet have been warned… ^_^
Allen’s appearance in the beginning of manga is that of a lovable yet fairly GAR young man. In the anime, though, he ends up looking older and less adorable. I think the primary cause of this is the change in his eyes. They become more oval in shape, instead of being almost completely round.
Later in the manga, his hair gets messier and his face matures. The anime doesn’t seem to pick up on this change as much, partly because his face starts out a little more mature
The only aspect of Allen’s appearance that is almost perfectly portrayed in the anime is Crown Clown. That final evolution of Allen’s Innocence is well-drawn in the manga, and I don’t think they missed a single detail when animating it. Even the previous incarnations of Allen’s Innocence aren’t always drawn accurately.
Kanda is considerably less bishie in most parts of the anime, though in some episodes he’s drawn quite well. I think the main difference is that his eyes are smaller in the anime. His trademark ponytail does seem… just different somehow. Maybe it’s just less detailed? Either way, it’s a shame that he’s not as attractive as in the manga. His face was the only thing he had going for him… ^_^;
Lenalee’s character design is pretty much the same. Her eyes aren’t noticeably different, but I think her skirt is a little longer. The only thing different about her hair is that in the manga, her pigtails seem thinner as she battles with Eshi. The anime seemed to miss this change.
Lavi is the character I have the most gripes about. For starters, when we first see Lavi in the manga, he has this big mound of floppy orangey-red hair on his head, right?
But in the anime, it gets turned into this half-spikey, half-floppy red mess, which totally kills his cute-as-a-newborn-puppy factor. His hair eventually becomes this way in the manga, though it’s presumably because of a haircut or battle taking some of it off. And Hoshino-sensei draws it better than the animators… >:
Lavi’s eyes also change. In the anime, they become a little more serious and less droopy. The only noticeable change made to his uniform was his scarf, which became orange instead of white.
Komui’s character design gets mauled as well. His eyes become less well-defined, and his nose becomes pointier. That damages his handsomeness quite a bit, but at least we still get the scenes with him sleeping on the couch and all…
And the the manga, we get little scenes of glasses-less Komui, which is hotter than a fresh cup of coffee in the middle of Lavi’s Hi-Ban. xD;
Poor Reever, who’s supposed to be 26 in the manga, ends up looking like he’s 32. His face gets mauled, as does his overall body proportions. ;_; It’s painful to talk about… And somehow, the rest of the Headquarters science staff escapes mauling. That’s just not fair.
Miranda 1.0 (lol) has a slightly less caricatured appearance in the anime, and that actually works for me. Later, though, when Miranda 2.0 appears, her hair is less detailed and wavy. While the lack of individual waves in her hair is a little understandable, she just doesn’t look as cool.
Road is actually uglier in the manga, as are Tyki Mikk and Bak. I think it’s partly because their foreheads are larger, or maybe their bangs are just longer. Road’s practically moe in the anime, partly because her eyes are changed as well. And Bak… well, let’s not go into Bak in the manga. He’s drawn rather inconsistently. n_n He’s actually almost cute in the anime, too.
And speaking of moe and Bak (quantum leap~!) Fou gets moe-fied too. While Fou is fairly chibi-ish in her body proportions and face in the manga, she gets skinnier and has a smaller forehead in the anime. It’s not necessarily a bad change, but I ended up liking her better in the manga… @_@
The rest of the Asia Branch Staff escape pretty much unharmed. The only noticeable change is the size of Lou’s braids; they’re thicker in the manga.
General Cross is unchanged as far as I can tell, though in some scenes in the anime his hair seems… fluffier. ^_^;;;
Overall, though, it seems like the main characters got it worse than the supporting characters. Notice that I didn’t have to rant about any of the Generals, the Millennium Earl, Suman, or Krory. But perhaps I’ve been a little harsh on the designs I did critique… ^_^;
~CJ
CJ
stardragon
alexkun
Crisu
Janette
rakuen42
Dave
Heh, I like how you pointed this out. And yeah, some of those designs got mauled. Especially Allen’s, in my opinion.
It would be interesting if you did a series of these comparisons for various shows. For instance, in the manga-to-anime transition for Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed’s design gets considerably more aesthetically pleasing. As does Roy’s, for that matter. I don’t know if it was the lack of color or minimalist shading or the art style or WHAT, but at certain points in the manga, Ed just looked… evil, almost. Especially when his eyes had small pupils. I’m not dissing Arakawa-sensei’s art style, it’s one of my favorites, but it would be an interesting topic to address. Anyway – great post, and I hope there’s more along the same lines.
…I kind of hate these kind of things. A person can gripe and complain about an anime being different from the manga, but it’s not going to change. Artwork will change from episode to episode because there are different animators whom all have a different base style. I mean at least the dern series is well animated! To me, the depiction syou’re griping about are pretty dern faithful, all things considered.
Rurouni Kenshin also has some episodes where the entire art style looks like a different series.
I believe one of my fav series,Naruto, desensitized me to such things…Naruto is just awful!-animation, directing, music, fillers…I could go on…
Anyway, I’d say that a person really shouldn’t expect a perfect transition from manga to anime unless it’s a movie. And even then the story, layout, or execution could still suck. But as long as a decent company got it the artwork and animation is generally nice.
My point…Anime is never great when compared to a really good manga. The only people that rejoice and pretty much stay happy are the people that watch and read series like Sailor Moon. This is most likely because with a manga like Sailor Moon the animators have more free reign.
Whereas, D.Gray-Man has a particular Style and way of drawing things that cannot be done over and over again throughout the course of a tv series.
…………. I still don’t quite see the diference
well, if you compare other anime to their original manga work, these changes are nothing. i think the anime producers did a good job at trying to keep it similar to the manga. you should see other stuff. you can hardly recognize the characters at times.
ha…
When we animate, the animators talk with the mangaka and the mangaka tell them what he/she would like to change from the original stuffs. So, if there are changes it’s with the knowledge of mangaka and some stuffs are said to be changed by the mangaka.
Working on anime is different from manga, dating-sim games and visual novels. People have to work extra hard on this group project.
In Zone, Linalee has her forehead shown and the hairstyle is a little bit shorter than the current Linalee.
As you all know that Allen’s original character design is Robin and Robin has longer hair and he’s an Akuma with a girl soul inside Robin.
All of the changes were made by the Hoshino-sensei, when sensei turn Zone into D.Gray and sensei ‘might’ want to change some character design from the manga ‘cus sensei doesn’t want the drawing to change too much like Murakami-sensei did to Gravitation. It’s kind of scary to see the drawing to change too much.
Anyway, it could be because of the sketch/character designer but no one can draw completely the same as the manga in anime.
Anime has to draw like thousands of picture to do this one little scene, and sometimes little details can be ignored because of the fans’ demand on the continuation.
It could also be because of the coloring.
Both of the anime and manga have different style of drawing and both of them are enjoyable, so comparing both at the same time is good fun. ^^
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Nice review!
I agree with some and disagree with others.
Not going to rant about anything, but it does take a lot into putting together and anime and a manga. you can’t really blame very small inconsistencies like fluffier hair really…
But all anime’s have their inconsistencies to the mangas and so and so forth..
The only thing that killed me was during the arc invasion… arc (lol) during the episode when the exorcists were caught in a continuous chain of Jasdevi’s pranks, Allen’s hair (which has been been more spiky in both the anime and manga) pulls a Sasuke duck-ass for about 1 minute. It was subtle and you had to pause to examine it, but it does.
I agree about the Allen things, and YES, Lavi definitely looks better in the mangs. Though he’s still lovable in the anime, so as long as they get the characters all right, it’s all good!