The Advantages of Reading Manga:

  1. Reading manga doesn’t consume as much time as watching anime. Fast readers can easily finish a manga chapter in five minutes. An average anime episode takes twenty-three minutes to cover the same material.
  2. Manga doesn’t have filler.
  3. Enjoying manga requires active participation on the part of the audience. The difference between reading manga and watching anime is analogous to the difference between reading a book and watching a TV series.
  4. Anime lags behind manga. For example, the director of FMA created his own version of the plot based on an outline from the mangaka. He made a good series but the manga is better.
  5. I mentioned this in earlier posts but light humor and slapstick comedy is funnier in manga.
  6. Each anime episode has to be a certain length with appropriate stop-points for commercial break. For example a Naruto episode cannot should not cut to a commercial break in the middle of a climatic punch. A director working with a manga-based script will arbitrarily divide the chapters to fit the appropriate time slots. He’ll extend some scenes and remove others. In consequence an anime series based on a manga doesn’t have the same flow as the original script.

The Advantages of Watching Anime:

  1. If you like watching TV more than reading books than of course anime is better.
  2. Artsy shows like Kaiba or Mononoke work better in TV format. In fact those two shows don’t have a manga counterpart. On average anime series created for TV programming have better flow than series adapted from manga.
  3. Good voice actors can make a series better. They can add an emotional dimension not found in the manga. Example: Mushishi.
  4. Anime has color. Scanlated manga does not. An example where this is an advantage: Mushishi.
  5. Reading a book or a manga is, by definition, solitary . Watching TV with friends is a more social activity.
  6. It takes about a week of reading manga to get used to its format. This barrier and the stereotype that manga are “comic books” are the major reasons why otherwise intelligent people watch anime but don’t read manga.

So… Which is better: Manga or Anime?

It depends on the series and the person. I understand this answer is a cop-out but I don’t want to offend anyone it’s true. Shonen series like Naruto, Bleach, and FMA are more entertaining in manga than in anime format because they have less filler. More artsy series like Kaiba, Mushishi or EF are better in TV format. However, if you’re a busy person reading manga is better hands down because you can get the same amount of entertainment in a quarter of the time.

You can read manga for free at www.onemanga.com.

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