Back to JyuSan's Profile JyuSan's Profile

If I've never read the manga, I'd probably enjoy this anime for the crack that it is. But knowing how really great the manga is, I'm really disappointed with the anime adaptation.

I know that when animes are set with a strict 24 episodes border they have to leave out things from the original story and alter things so that it makes a coherent story in tha anime, too. Lovely Complex, for example, managed to pull this off well - even though they changed many things and left out a lot of chapters, the general mood still remained the same, so it was enjoyable for ... manga readers, too.

But I feel like Special A isn't being true to the manga, and it's really bad adaptation wise.

Even if the anime makers change a story a bit, manga readers can usually enjoy any kind of scenes with their beloved characters. The main problem with SA is that it didn't manage to grab the character's personalities at all. It seems like they looked at the characters, remembered a few traits they have then they animated them between these traits, without really paying attention to the character's depth. I don't want to get into spoilers, but the anime couldn't portray Kei's relationship with his brother well, and the end of that episode had a completely different message then it originally had in the manga.

Another problem is that the anime doesn't have the same mood as the manga at all. In the manga, these 7 people are extraordinarily talented, but still, normal people. The anime made them look really out of this world, especially in the first and the seventh episode. What most of the readers liked about the original story is that these characters were normal people, just outstanding ones. The anime completely took this aspect away.

The SA anime is only really enjoyable for those who hasn't read the manga, so if you want to watch all of the episodes while enjoying it, I'd like to recommend you not reading the manga. However, when the anime is over and you had your fun with it, I'd like to ask you to read the manga, which has a lot more levels.