Adaptational Sympathy in Anime & Manga.
Examples:
- In the live action adaptation of Ajin the main antagonist, Sato, is given a Dark and Troubled Past in which he was subjected to brutal Cold-Blooded Torture at the hands of humans for 20 years, causing him to become a Well-Intentioned Extremist in order to secure the rights of ajin. In the manga and anime, however, any claims Sato has about fighting for ajin rights is nothing more than a rallying cry that he uses to gather allies. In reality, Sato is a psychopathic thrill seeker who wants to cause as much mayhem as possible because he thinks it would be a fun challenge.
- In The Creation Alchemist Enjoys Freedom, Duke Bragas Regus is just a tiny bit more sympathetic in the manga than in the original novel. In the novel, he has his son Thor literally dragged out of his combination apartment/government office, knowing the boy was working on the holy sword belonging to Crown Princess Liana, but he didn't care. He believed alchemy is something any schlub could do, as it's so, so inferior to his vaulted combat prowess. As such, it isn't until Thor is gone, and presumed dead as a Human Sacrifice, that he learns he's wrong, so he tries to scramble and rectify the situation by ordering his butler to "fix the sword, no matter what" and send him around town looking for a qualified alchemist. Naturally, when no such alchemist is found, the butler obeys his orders and has the repair faked with substandard materials. In the manga, the duke didn't possess any of this knowledge out of willful ignorance and only ordered the butler to collect the sword. The butler chose to fake the repair on his own volition and never informed the duke, the only time he tried was at a party hosted by the crown, when it's way, way too late.
- The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time:
- Vandalieu goes the Adaptational Heroism route. In the original novel, he frees some children accidentally as he's retaliating to nearly two decades of horrific experiments in death magic, his energies far more focused on wiping out the amoral researchers. In the manga, he stops his rampage and frees them intentionally, trying to lead them to safety, only failing because he's gunned down by his former classmates.
- Heinz, his Arch-Enemy, goes the Adaptational Villainy route. In the original novel, he was given a hand-delivered letter by Baronet Bestero claiming Darcia, Van's mother, was a high-ranking member of a notorious murder cult, but not enough time or opportunity to investigate, and attacks her as she's approaching the town, rightfully concerned about the hundreds of potential lives that might be lost. When he finds out he's been conned, he flees in disgust. In the manga, he attacks Darcia in the town square without any obvious cause or provocation, openly ignores seeing her suffer three days of public torture so horrific it scars her very soul, and waits until his party is openly celebrating her death in a tavern to reveal he received the letter while saying "I don't feel so good about this" and even then, he only reveals the letter to shift the blame when his lover Martina asks him why he bothered to take the quest in the first place if he's so squeamish.
- Fairy Tail:
- Erigor in the manga is a standard villain who resorts to mass murder to get back at a system that cracked down on his guild for taking illegal assassination requests, and disappeared from the story altogether after that. When he returns in an anime Filler arc after the seven-year Time Skip, it's shown that for all his crimes, he also cares for his True Companions, which helps him regain his memories after erasing them to gain more power.
- The anime delves deeper into the personal lives of the Oración Seis at the Tower of Heaven, which are only hinted at in the manga, and how that ties into their "prayers" (with only Hoteye's search for his brother being clear): Cobra wants to hear the voice of his snake Cubellios because she was his Only Friend; Racer is obsessed with speed because he could never outrun the tower guards; Angel wants to fade into the sky because of how the world's sin and vice has corrupted her; and Midnight wishes to sleep because he could never drown out the screams echoing through the tower.
- Acnologia is a Tragic Bigot who hates dragons so much that he eventually turned into one to kill them all, but the manga only barely covers his motivations for this hatred. The anime's second film and final season shed more light on him, revealing that he was The Medic who specialized in treating dragons, and that seeing how easily the dragons he trusted burned down his home—as well as cursing his own inability to save anyone—is what drove him to become a vengeful, power-thirsty monster.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), while Shou Tucker still fuses his dog and daughter together into an abomination that needs to be put out of their misery like in the manga, he is instead portrayed more as a desperate man with his back against the wall rather than a pure villain he's Spared by the Adaptation and gets a sort of redemption arc where he loses his mind trying to undo his mistake and bring his daughter back to life.
- Moriarty the Patriot adapted the Sherlock Holmes canon into Professor Moriarty's perspective in order to make him a sympathetic Tragic Villain.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- In the original Pokémon Red and Blue, Brock and Misty were both just gym leaders the player faced on their journey. The anime, which made both of them main characters and Ash's traveling companions, took the time to give them more motivation beyond giving out gym badges. In Brock's case, he wanted to be a Pokémon breeder all his life, but had spent many years having to take care of his siblings due to both of his parents being absent, only getting the chance to live out that dream when his father comes back. Misty, meanwhile, was the youngest (and most frequently picked on) of four siblings and left so she could finally get out of her sisters' shadows as the best water-type Pokémon trainer in the world.
- Sabrina from the same games was given a Freudian Excuse in a three-part arc in the anime, where she had become a cold and ruthless gym leader who physically claimed trainers as property whenever they lost to her extremely powerful Pokémon—something that never happened in the games. It turns out that she spent so much time on her training as a psychic, she missed out on her childhood, which manifested itself as an evil Split Personality that drove her into doing what she did. It took a Haunter that temporarily traveled with Ash to get her to laugh and restore things to normal.
- The Shiny Gyarados, in a Pokémon example, gets put through some suffering too. In the games, it was just a guaranteed shiny the player could catch in the Lake of Rage. In the anime, it was a Magikarp that was forcibly evolved into a Gyarados—with its skin tone not changing with it—as a result of Team Rocket making a device that forced evolution on any Pokémon in the area. Consequently, it went on a mindless rampage until Lance and his Dragonite calmed it down and added it to his team, giving it a good home where it wasn't hurting itself.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire presented May as either the protagonist and daughter of Petalberg Gym Leader Norman or Professor Birch's assistant and daughter, depending on the choice of gender the player made. The series held May to the former interpretation, but showed her as only becoming a Pokémon trainer due to the pressure of being Norman's kid, not really having an interest in them. It takes journeying with Ash to help her see the wonders of the Pokémon world, along with the trials she faces when she decides to become a Pokémon Coordinator.
- This process would be repeated for Dawn from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, who in the games is either the protagonist or Professor Rowan's assistant, depending on the player's choice. The series establishes her as the daughter of a top Pokémon Coordinator whose own journey with Ash sees her struggling to compete early on. It too was redone with Serena from Pokémon X and Y by having her become a Pokémon Performer, while also giving her ties to Ash from when they both were kids, as well as giving her struggles with not wanting to follow in her mother's footsteps as a Rhyhorn Racer and become a Pokémon performer instead.
- Another Sinnoh example, Maylene, the fighting type gym leader, goes from another game-based obstacle to a miserable wreck thanks to Paul pulling a Kick the Dog moment on her after he sweeps her gym and calls her "weak". The batch of episodes following Ash's battle against her sees the heroes as well as her Lucario help her snap out of her funk.
- Pokémon Black and White had Iris as yet another gym leader, while the sequels made her the Pokémon champion of the Unova region. In the anime, she was Raised by Wolves, had No Social Skills, and had a particularly disobedient Excadrill and Dragonite she struggled to get to obey even the most simple commands.
- Chairman Rose from Pokémon Sword and Shield is made into this during the Journeys arc. While the original game depicts him as wanting to unleash Eternatus in order to solve an energy crisis that won't occur until several thousand years in the future, the anime shows more context behind this reasoning; he lost his father in a mining accident, and he doesn't want to keep relying on fossil fuels that pose a dangerous risk to those extracting them.
- Transformers: Armada: Starscream is the Trope Namer for The Starscream, and nearly all versions before and after have been the traditional back-stabbing schemer trying to take leadership of the Decepticons for himself. Here, Starscream's hatred of Megatron comes from being constantly mistreated in spite of his loyalty, leading him to temporarily switch sides when he can't stand it any longer. He also comes to recognize that the threat of Unicron is too great for both sides to handle alone, so he willingly sacrifices his own life to get Prime and Galvatron to start cooperating. Then, Transformers: Energon has Megatron bring him back without his memories, turning him into the traditional backstabber once again by the time of Transformers: Cybertron.
- The novelization of Weathering With You does this to Hodaka Morishima, the movie's teenage protagonist. The original film depicted him as a runaway who just hated his home life for no specific reason and went out of his way to escape to the city of Tokyo where he meets new friends. The aforementioned novel gives Hodaka a Freudian Excuse as to exactly why he ran away: he was physically abused by his own father…among other reasons hinted at.
