Adaptational Backstory Changes in Anime and Manga.
- Bokurano:
- Jun Ushiro, and, by extension, his mother, Misumi Tanaka. In the manga, Jun's mother left him with her former teacher, then disappeared not long after he was born. In the anime, Jun's father was killed by his enemies from the Yakuza, and his mother left him with her sister.
- While Kanji's mother is connected with the Ascension Towers, the circumstances differ between the manga and the anime. In the manga, Kanji's mother helped design the Ascension Towers before she committed suicide, while in the anime, she's a scientist who works in the towers.
- Both versions of the story show that Machi is from another universe, but while the manga indicates that she and her brother(Koyemshi) were holdovers from their universe's team of pilots, sent to the next one, the anime suggests that she and Koyemshi have gone to several different universes, helping each one win the game.
- The Doraemon short, Typhoon Fuuko, was later expanded into a long story (and feature-length film), Doraemon: Nobita and the Windmasters, where in both stories Nobita becomes the owner of a new pet, a sentient, adorable wind elemental born from an egg which he names "Fuuko" ("wind's child"). In the original short, Fuuko was an artificial lifeform created by meteorologists from the 22nd Century to study tornadoes and cyclones, but the remake instead has Fuuko being one of three ancient Cosmic Eggs which forms the all-powerful Wind Deity, Mafuga the Storm Dragon, which unexpectedly ends up in Nobita's possession after it's hatched.
- Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) changed the order in which Winry's parents died. In the manga they died after Trisha, while in the 2003 anime they died beforehand. While they both died in the Ishbalan Rebellion in both versions, their killer is different- it was Scar in the manga, and Roy Mustang in the anime.
- Why Clark Still wears his signature Cool Shades differs between the actual The King of Fighters games and their manhua adaptations — in the former, he wears them to hide a scar resulting from Ralf nearly accidentally slashing his eyes out with a knife, while in the latter, he wears them to honor a personal oath to never see God's light ever again after serving in Vietnam.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Yuu Mishouzaki's The Legend of Zelda had Link as a bullied, half-elf boy. Unknown to him, he's the older half-brother of Princess Zelda. Link's backstory is never given in The Legend of Zelda but it's never mentioned that he's anything but a Hylian Kid Hero sent to save the (unrelated) Princess Zelda due to him being The Chosen One.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), Link's pre-Ordon orgins are elaborated upon, explaining how a Farm Boy would be so handy with a sword by revealing he isn't really a Farm Boy—he was an aspiring knight-in-training who backed out of the Call to Adventure after it destroyed his hometown to answer the Call to Agriculture two years before the story begins.
- Lyrical Nanoha:
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Precia Testarossa's fall from grace and the death of her daughter were stated to be the result of an experiment she was performing causing a massive explosion. The movie continuity changed her to an Ignored Expert and the explosion was due to a reactor she was designing that was activated before it could be properly tested. Given the Recursive Canon nature of the movies, Fate probably insisted on these changes so that her mother would be portrayed more sympathetically.
- All of the video game original character have different backstories in Reflection and Detonation. For starters, all of them have past ties to Eltria rather than just the Florian sisters.
- Unlike the original Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Asuka of Rebuild of Evangelion is the last of a series of clones similar to Rei instead of naturally-born human.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- The anime removes all references to May and Serena recently moving to their hometowns. This means that they're likely Hoenn and Kalos natives respectively.
- Iris is now a newbie trainer instead of a Child Prodigy. In the games she is a seasoned trainer who can lead a gym and eventually becomes a Champion, but in the anime she only just received her Axew, though she becomes a Champion later on.
- Adaptation Expansion on Misty and Brock's backstories caused this. Nowhere do the games imply either have large families, nor that Brock's parents ran off and left him Promoted to Parent. Despite her young age, Misty in the games is a Gym Leader, while in the anime her three older sisters are the actual Gym Leaders until they eventually hand Misty the gym at the end of the Johto arc.
- Lillie doesn't meet Nebby until after she's already met Professor Kukui. In the games Nebby was the reason she ran away from home in the first place. Lillie isn't even a runaway in the anime as it's shown she still lives at home. In the anime, Lillie is afraid of touching Pokemon, not just seeing them get hurt in battle like in Sun and Moon, as well.
- Lillie's brother Gladion isn't associated with Team Skull, which changes his backstory greatly.
- Rose's father is revealed to have died in a coal mine collapse. In the games, such a thing was never hinted at.
- Adaptation Expansion causes this to many, many Pokémon Adventures characters whose backstories are largely or completely unspecified in the games, and in many cases just straight-up changes things:
- All of the protagonists (except for Blake) have this to an extent by virtue of already having a Pokémon before they get their starter. One of them, Black, even has a fully-evolved one. The characters who aren’t supposed to represent the player character and don’t appear in-game are also given completely different original backstories, hailing from completely different towns.
- Silver and Green were kidnapped as little kids and were raised, alongside the Johto Elite Four, by Pryce. None of this is from the games. Years afterwards the games showed Silver's background in the Pokémon Gold and Silver remake. Silver and his father Giovanni parted ways only three years ago, right after Team Rocket disbanded in FireRed and LeafGreen.
- Lance is a villain in this series because he grew up with abused Pokemon. He also has magical healing powers. Absolutely none of this is in the games.
- X, Y, Shauna, Trevor, and Tierno are all childhood friends. In the games only Serena and Calem live in the same town and one of them (the protagonist) only recently moved as a teenager. X also used to be a famous battle prodigy who was hounded into becoming a Hikikomori and already has a Keystone, while in the games both protagonists are new trainers, and they get a Keystone later in the game.
- Ruby and Sapphire used to play together years ago. In contrast, Brendan and May only just met in the games.
- Red's backstory is never mentioned, but it's implied he has no parents, unlike in the games where Red's mom is one of the only mothers to appear in two separate titles. Also in the games, Red and Blue are childhood friends but in the manga they only recently met.
- Blake is an Interpol Officer at the ripe old age of 12. His game counterpart, Nate, is an average kid just like the other game protagonists. Rosa’s counterpart Whitley also used to be part of Team Plasma, while obviously this isn’t the case in the games.
- Professor Oak was a powerful trainer and is a Champion in his youth. Granted, this is a popular fan theory for the games, but this is never stated.
- Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure! is loosely based on Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. In the games the protagonist and their rival are normal childhood friends living in Twinleaf Town. They meet the opposite-gender protagonist the day they get their Pokemon. In the manga Hareta is a Wild Child who was abandoned by his dad. Hareta meets Mitsumi when Professor Rowan sends her to get him. Hareta and Mitsumi don't meet Jun until several days after Hareta goes on his journey.
- In the Welcome to the NHK manga, Misaki lied about being abused by her parents. In the anime and original light novel that is the truth.
