There’s no denying that anime is an important artform that must be preserved and appreciated. But the manga industry must also thrive to give birth to new and exciting anime. And because the manga typically comes first and is not restricted by time or audience guidelines, it has more freedom to capture the true message of the story. And that’s why manga often ends up being better than the anime counterpart.

With so many things competing for our time, most of us only have enough time to invest in either a manga or an anime. So if you’re interested in a story, it’s important to pick the best medium to experience it. With that being said, here’s the list…

5 Manga that is better than the Anime.

Tokyo Ghoul

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While the anime version of Tokyo Ghoul does look stunning, the fact is that that the anime version deviates far from the original story depicted in the manga. Without spoiling anything, the second season of Tokyo Ghoul sees Ken Kaneki joining an entity, while in the manga he actually opposes them.

Changes like this are a big deal, and sometimes they actually pay off and make the anime superior to the manga. But in this case, the anime begins to lose substance as it focuses more on cool action scenes than story development. Therefore, if you want to experience Tokyo Ghoul in its true glory, you should stick to the manga.

Death Note

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Death Note is a series I hold close to my heart. Its unique twist of Sherlock Holmes-like physiological mind games is crack to me. I love it so much that after reading the entire manga, I relived the story through the anime twice.

To Death Note‘s credit, the anime is almost a 1-to-1 telling of the manga version, with not many deviations from the original story. However, the ending of the series is the major difference. In my personal opinion, the ending in the manga is much darker and twisted than the anime version. The anime chooses to grant a softer ending to the evil mastermind, while the manga doesn’t hold back on dishing out the punishment.

Ultimately, I feel like the manga’s ending does a better job of showing the brutal consequences to the chain of events that led to that moment. And within that uncomfortable ending is a valuable lesson about what happens when you abuse power. Therefore, the Death Note manga will always be superior in my eyes. But I do also recommend the anime if it’s what you prefer.

Berserk

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Not only is it confusing to piece together the anime versions of Berserk—with there being one in the 1990s and another in 2016—but there’s also a chunk of story missing from them. That means you’ll only get the full history of this story from the manga, which isn’t a bad thing considering it’s an incredible piece of art.

On top of the missing story content, the 2016 anime was also ripped to shreds for having very questionable looking animations, which is another strike against the anime.

Definitely stick with the manga on this one. But also be warned that Berserk is a brutally dark manga series that is not for the faint-hearted.

Akame Ga Kill

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There are some notable differences between the Akame Ga Kill anime and manga that have left many fans split over which is better. I’ll avoid some of the notable differences due to spoilers, but let’s just say that the anime misses entire story arcs from the manga, as well as interesting characters. There’s also a difference between some of the deaths in the story, and the ending is vastly different, with the manga expanding on the end much more than the anime.

The anime also leaves out the Wild Hunt story, and without this, viewers never get the full context of Run’s story.

I’ll also add that I found the anime difficult to take seriously, but whenever I read the manga it was able to catch my interest in a way that left me longing for more. Certain stories I feel translate to the manga format much better than on the screen, and Akame Ga Kill is one of them.

Gangsta

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Gangsta is a story with great depth, and a ton of nuance. Both the main manga series and the prequel—Gangsta: Cursed—do a great job of worldbuilding. But the anime misses out on some of the nuance. It also sets up a lot of story threads that never get tied up.

It’s important to note that the studio who worked on the anime went bankrupt, and these complications could certainly have been a factor in how it turned out in comparison to the manga.

If you want to experience this deep and meaningful story, make sure you priorities the manga version.

In the future, we’ll also look at some anime series’ that ended up being way better than the manga source material. For now, drop some of your thoughts on this list in the comments, and also share some manga series you feel outperform their anime.

I’m currently reading three manga series’, including: Monster by Naoki Urasawa, Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, and Gangsta: Cursed by Syuhei Kamo. While tearing through these manga series’, I made three observations that have hooked on them.

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The depth of storytelling

This is not to discredit comic writers from the western world, as I’ve read some incredible graphic novels over the years. But something I’ve found with manga writers is that the stories they tell are so layered. And because they go so deep with their stories, they’re able to spring incredible twists on the reader that feel authentic.

While some graphic novels read as though the writers are making things up volume by volume, mangas tend to feel as though the writer has mapped out every single instance of the story ahead of time. This may not actually be the case, but the stories are so well plotted that it feels that way. I also find myself being on the edge of my seat and talking out loud while reading, something I never do with books or comics.

Perfect example: in Death Note—(small spoiler alert)—when L’s task force is about to track down Higuchi, I was yelling the entire time because I knew L was about to learn all about the notebook.

What’s even more interesting about this, is that the book is essentially making me side with the wrong-doers in the story.

Light Yagami can be considered both the protagonist and the villain in the story, and that’s because these characters have so much depth that it creates a gray area on whether they’re right or wrong.

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Manga artists can do so much with so little

One of the most standout things about manga—besides the fact that you read it from the opposite way that you’d read a western comic—is that they have no colour. The books are inked completely in black and white…with maybe a few pages in each book having actual colour (including the front and back covers).

This is because it saves time and expense for the manga creators. Colourists are extremely expensive to hire, and the work can take months. So in order to get the stories to the readers faster, it was decided long ago that manga creators would ship their work in black and white.

But this in no way reduces the quality of the work. In many cases, it shows the true talent of the artist as they are able to do so much with so little. You could make a case for some of the artists that the black and white makes their work even more detailed. The way they shade the illustrations to account for the lack of colour is pretty incredible. And having no colour also makes them get more creative in terms of how they illustrate some elements where colour would be important.

To put it simply, the black and white manga style has become its own unique artstyle. And it has garnered respect globally, even though it was originally done to cut time and costs. And even with the lack of colour, artists are still able to develop their own distinguishable styles.

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Manga has darker stories

I love me some grim and gritty storytelling, and it seems that Japanese stories are grimer and introspective by nature. Both Monster and Death Note have shown me just how casually dark manga stories can get.

For a book with young adults, Death Note has some weighty subject matter that involves humans having the power to decide people’s mortality.

And in Gangsta: Cursed, the main character Marco Adriano has to battle with the question of whether it’s morally okay to murder Twilights, even if they are monsters disguised as people. These Twighlights never fight back or provoke humans, but the Cristiano Family believes that the Twilights must be slaughtered on-sight.

Death is a part of western comics also, but I’ve never seen these themes so casually embedded into the story, especially when it concerns younger characters. And as twisted as it may sound, I kind of enjoy these darker themes with morally gray areas. (I’m not a psychopath, I promise.)

What do you love about manga?

If you’re reading this and you also have a love of manga, please share what you love about them in the comments. Also, feel free to recommend some more manga series’ to a new reader like myself….