#QuestionOfTheDay what's an adaptation of a work you like in another medium that's superior to the original?
#fiction #books #movies #film #TV #television #anime #manga #comics #musicals #videogames #gaming
@ami_angelwings For all that I have a soft spot for the MagiRevo LNs, there's a fair argument to be made that the anime adaptation is actually the best presentation of the core story available.
Oct 20, 2026, 11:30 PM@ami_angelwings H. P. Lovecraft was a racist's racist, he is also the creator of the Cthulhu mythos. Without that I would have never gotten to play Call of Cthulhu, or watched Lovecraft Country
@ami_angelwings while it leaves out any solid conclusion to the story, the anime adaptation of Wandering Son is better because it drops some truly terrible stuff that undermines the manga in my opinion.
(I specifically hate that the Adult Trans Role Model is repeatedly shown to be a massive fucking creep in the early manga.)
Right off the bat:
That League of Legends tv show
Also, the Cyberpunk Edgerunners tv show, now I think of it. That game was alright, but the tv show was amazing.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:28 AM@heidi @ami_angelwings (but the original was the ttrpg...)
I always wanted to play the ttrpg. All my friends got into Shadowrun, and I felt like Cyberpunk would be the better game. I thought it didn’t need to be mixed with fantasy, like Shadowrun was doing too much.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:47 AM@heidi @ami_angelwings I hear good things about it but never got into it.
@ami_angelwings
I can't think of one that is superior off the top of my head, but Murderbot (TV) is as good, but different to, The Murderbot Diaries.
Actually, no, I can think of one.
The Middleman. The TV series, short lived as it was, was a vast improvement over the original comic, in no small part due to the chemistry between the four main characters (The Middleman, Dubby, Lacie, and Ida). And I have only one other thing to add.
ArtCrawl!!!
@ami_angelwings are TV and movie too close?
@xerozohar no
@ami_angelwings probably sound like a broken record but Stargate SG1 is superior to the movie in pretty much every way. And I consider it an adaptation given the pretty major changes they went through. (But if that's not transformative enough I understand.)
@xerozohar it's more of a sequel even if they changed a lot because it takes place after the movie
@ami_angelwings fair
@xerozohar @ami_angelwings
Agreed. SG-1 is under appreciated.
@jstevenyork @xerozohar given how long it ran for and the amount of spinoffs it created and that it launched Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks into a bunch of different shows, I feel like it isn't
@ami_angelwings @xerozohar
At the time, sure, but I don't feel like it's nearly as remembered or celebrated as some other shows. I think its origins on cable, vs. broadcast or modern streaming hurt the initial fanbase.
@ami_angelwings
I enjoy the comic Kick-Ass, but the movie makes everybody much more likeable. Mark Millar thought so too, to the point of adding one of the movie's OCs to the sequel comics.
@Infrapink @ami_angelwings I really wished we would have gotten the third movie.
Oct 21, 2026, 2:38 AM@ami_angelwings Foundation. The books bored me, the show is awesome. Or, at least I think it is.
@drwho @ami_angelwings Ha, I never even watched the show and I assume it's better than the books, because UGH.
Oct 21, 2026, 3:59 AM@ami_angelwings by all accounts Jaws the film is much better than the original Peter Benchley potboiler. same with the first two Godfather movies; Puzo's original book was kinda trashy
@ami_angelwings #TheAngelNextDoorSpoilsMeRotten
I tried to read the light novel, I really did, but ISTG I have NO idea how such a sweet and charming anime came from such a dreary source.
I suppose it’s possible that all the charm of the light novel was sucked out in the translation from the Japanese text. Possible. I guess.
@ami_angelwings Stardust and Coraline films, partly because films are not just the author but entire groups of people making the film work. (Obvs, like Studio Laika...) So I feel differently about them than the original works, AND the adaptations are amazing.
Oct 21, 2026, 4:25 AM@ami_angelwings American Psycho. The book was hamhanded, adolescent drivel. The movie was a brilliant satire of the book while somehow simultaneously doing a much better job of getting the author's point across.
@ami_angelwings Children of Men movie is better then the book. PD James did not take her dystopia and authoritarian rule far enough. The movie does a better job examining what that could (would) look like.
Also the end of the book is weird.
@ami_angelwings Honestly a lot of older(?) anime adaptions improve on the manga just by virtue of just stopping before it starts going bad, mostly because it wasn't finished yet.
Like Get Backers not going all the way to "it's all a simulation" or 90's Berserk just doing the flashback and not spending 20 years adding awful humor & being weird about women.
@VilhelmMattson Berserk gets better though by adding all the girl characters, and i wish we'd see that part where it becomes a full fantasy story and Farnese gets to be the main character basically
Usagi Drop is definitely in the "good thing it stopped before they got to the end" tho
@ami_angelwings @VilhelmMattson Oh, to quote Delenn, ABSOFRAGGINLUTELY.
I ADORED Usagi Drop when I didn't know what came after the anime/quite charming live action movie. If I pretend that those don't exist, I still can (and do).
@arcadiagt5 @VilhelmMattson my library stocks the end books of Usagi Drop in the YA manga section and it horrifies me
Oct 21, 2026, 6:31 AM@VilhelmMattson @ami_angelwings I need to verify this for myself but it seems that one of the aspects of the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime adaptation, which is the utterly fascinating way they personalize the seven cardinal sins, with each Homunculus apparently corresponding to the deadly sin committed by the alchemist(s) who created the Homunculus in the first place, has no counterpart in the manga. One good friend of mine says the 2003 anime is simply better than the manga but I haven't yet determined that for myself.
@ami_angelwings Conan the Barbarian. The original stories are mostly pretty fun but sometimes grossly racist, and rarely aim above their weight class. The movie trims out the racism while adding a solid character arc and themes.
Oct 21, 2026, 7:20 AM@ami_angelwings Imho American Gods the first two seasons of the tv show were better than the books after that .. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ nevemind
The Peripheral tv show was much better than the books mostly because IMHO the story needed the visual medium to be told… Im sure a comic would've been better than de books as well
@ami_angelwings “Sandkings”. I first saw The Outer Limits episode and only read the original story a decade later. The main character in the TV version is compelling, a scientist driven to murder in an attempt to save an important discovery. G.R.R. Martin’s gazillionaire meanwhile exists in a featureless void and seems to have no life (or inner life) beyond organising fights between exotic alien animals once a week. What do I care of his horrible fate?
Oct 21, 2026, 3:53 PM@ami_angelwings Do musical adaptations count? If so, Little Shop of Horrors comes to mind
@ami_angelwings Most Nero Wolfe adaptations. They really focus on the dynamic between Wolfe, Archie and the rest of the regular cast, sans Rex Stout's racist/misogynist shit, which was always more of a draw than the actual mysteries. That side of things feels like it plays better in the radio show, because they have to keep it concise and it relies on the actors' punchy performances.
@ami_angelwings do covers count? 👉👈
So there's this song, by reasonably successful Australian band The Presets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GytGiD_8l8M
And then during the covid lockdowns, a smaller profile band from a smaller Australian city covered it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgUP_FScDk
(Voyager later went on to represent Australia in Eurovision, which is I am told pretty much everything they ever wanted)
@ami_angelwings (alternate answer, but I feel this is cheating): Dune.
I was introduced to it by the 1992 game Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis, a game my dad bought. It was the predecessor of the modern RTS genre (many argue that Herzog Zwei was actually the foundational game, but in my opinion having played both, 1992's Dune 2 essentially plays basically the same as 2010's Starcraft 2. Herzog Zwei does not. Anyway, pedants hopefully headed off, onward we go...)
That game had a massive influence on young me, far outside of the actual novel.
My profile pic is a cosplay of a take on the fremen from this game, where big visors were critical.
