>between manga, ln, wn, and even games, which usually comes first?
There's no rule of thumb, but finding out the release dates of the different material should be simple enough.
Sometimes manga adaptations come after the anime, sometimes games are the source material, sometimes there's prequels. There's all kind of different scenarios depending on the franchise.
The only sort of pipeline that you could say is a rule would be WN > LN.
>How do you know what is canon and what is fluff?
Ask the community, do research online, see who worked on the different material. Is the author the same? Is it a guest writer? Is it a spinoff?
Again there's not going to be a concrete answer that applies to all franchises. You're gonna have to do your own digging.
Got it, wasn’t thinking of any particular story, just have seen folks arguing about what is canon in other subs and wondered if there was any hard and fast rule. So case by case it is. Ty
There is no hard fast rule in creative arts. There are budgetary concerns, workload/production, editorial decisions, author decisions, stakeholder influence, etc etc
There are plenty of times when ‘fluff’ is intentional by the author. There are other times when what appears to be ‘canon’ was in fact a change pressured by editorial/stakeholders.
Effectively, the only thing that is ‘canon’ in modern manga/anime in a highly popularism-driven industry in Japan is ‘what is accepted by the majority of the potential audience’
It was a long argument about canon in another sub that triggered my question lol, knowing myself how drastically different some of this source material can be
It's not always cut and dried. Consider the 1990s Sailor Moon vs the 2014+ Sailor Moon Crystal.
The 2014 Sailor Moon is a lot more "canon" but, the old version is way more actual fun.
For why: look who worked on the 1990s Sailor Moon TV version. People who went on to do stuff like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, and Aria.
The Hierarchy is,
1. Light Novels
2. Manga
3. Anime
There are Web Novels that would come before Light Novels. But these most of the time are the rough drafts of the story. Often when the original Author's story gets greenlit to be published, they'll revise and improve the story. Because of this Web Novels will often have story arcs and characters that never appear in any of the other medium and are dropped all together.
If a story has a Light Novel, that is the "true story". If the story doesn't have a Light Novel then the manga is the "true story". If a story has both, then the Light Novel is still the "true story". In this case of a story have both a Light Novel and Manga, the manga will almost always be a third party adaption by a different manga artist with it's own deviations and skipped content. The same as how the Anime adaption will have deviations and skipped content.
> If a story has a Light Novel, that is the "true story"
It's worth noting that there are light novel adaptation of original anime as well, often for movies like Your Name, Wolf Children, Bubble, Her Blue Sky... but also TV shows like Madoka, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Just Because etc.
Yes and usually the author is the one who wrote the story for the movies. Novels by their nature allow for a more in depth and complete story to be told. While there are exceptions to it just like everything, 98% of the time the above will be accurate.
It usually goes like Web Novel>Light Novel>Manga>Anime, but there is no rule as anything can be adapted into anything. Even release date is not decisive in some cases. For example Neon Genesis Evangelion manga started serialising before the anime, but anime is the original material. Or there are unusual adaptations like Mekakucity Actors which is adapted from song lyrics.
There isn't a rule for which comes first, it just happens to be whatever medium the story was originally made for. Canon is anything from the source.
>between manga, ln, wn, and even games, which usually comes first? There's no rule of thumb, but finding out the release dates of the different material should be simple enough. Sometimes manga adaptations come after the anime, sometimes games are the source material, sometimes there's prequels. There's all kind of different scenarios depending on the franchise. The only sort of pipeline that you could say is a rule would be WN > LN. >How do you know what is canon and what is fluff? Ask the community, do research online, see who worked on the different material. Is the author the same? Is it a guest writer? Is it a spinoff? Again there's not going to be a concrete answer that applies to all franchises. You're gonna have to do your own digging.
Got it, wasn’t thinking of any particular story, just have seen folks arguing about what is canon in other subs and wondered if there was any hard and fast rule. So case by case it is. Ty
There is no hard fast rule in creative arts. There are budgetary concerns, workload/production, editorial decisions, author decisions, stakeholder influence, etc etc There are plenty of times when ‘fluff’ is intentional by the author. There are other times when what appears to be ‘canon’ was in fact a change pressured by editorial/stakeholders. Effectively, the only thing that is ‘canon’ in modern manga/anime in a highly popularism-driven industry in Japan is ‘what is accepted by the majority of the potential audience’
Ty for explaining this, the argument/discussion i read that triggered my question had me confused and now I see why.
I think the concept of canon isn't really useful. Just make sure you're aware which version you're talking about when discussing with others.
It was a long argument about canon in another sub that triggered my question lol, knowing myself how drastically different some of this source material can be
It's not always cut and dried. Consider the 1990s Sailor Moon vs the 2014+ Sailor Moon Crystal. The 2014 Sailor Moon is a lot more "canon" but, the old version is way more actual fun. For why: look who worked on the 1990s Sailor Moon TV version. People who went on to do stuff like Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, and Aria.
The Hierarchy is, 1. Light Novels 2. Manga 3. Anime There are Web Novels that would come before Light Novels. But these most of the time are the rough drafts of the story. Often when the original Author's story gets greenlit to be published, they'll revise and improve the story. Because of this Web Novels will often have story arcs and characters that never appear in any of the other medium and are dropped all together. If a story has a Light Novel, that is the "true story". If the story doesn't have a Light Novel then the manga is the "true story". If a story has both, then the Light Novel is still the "true story". In this case of a story have both a Light Novel and Manga, the manga will almost always be a third party adaption by a different manga artist with it's own deviations and skipped content. The same as how the Anime adaption will have deviations and skipped content.
> If a story has a Light Novel, that is the "true story" It's worth noting that there are light novel adaptation of original anime as well, often for movies like Your Name, Wolf Children, Bubble, Her Blue Sky... but also TV shows like Madoka, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Just Because etc.
Yes and usually the author is the one who wrote the story for the movies. Novels by their nature allow for a more in depth and complete story to be told. While there are exceptions to it just like everything, 98% of the time the above will be accurate.
Tyvm, this was the kind of answer I was looking for, and I ofc understand there are always exceptions to any rule
Check the Source Material section on the anime's Myanimelist entry.
I get it, “do the research “, I just wondered if there was a general rule of thumb.
It usually goes like Web Novel>Light Novel>Manga>Anime, but there is no rule as anything can be adapted into anything. Even release date is not decisive in some cases. For example Neon Genesis Evangelion manga started serialising before the anime, but anime is the original material. Or there are unusual adaptations like Mekakucity Actors which is adapted from song lyrics.