Anime that deviated from the source material

Are there any anime similar to Fullmetal Alchemist which started out faithful to the source material but after the second half or so started to write their own storyline because they had catch up to the source material and made their own idea of what the ending was going to be and answered the mysteries from what the anime authors guessed themselves up to?

This isn't a recommendation thread, but I recall Fullmetal Alchemist being unique in this aspect, or maybe I'm wrong?

For example, let's say One Piece manga is still continuing, but the anime is ending soon. So what the anime does is make its own storyline where the battles with Yonko such as Big Mom and Kaido are rushed whereas they are still not featured in the manga and we see a complete retcon version of that story, then it ends with treasure being found and the anime's One Piece could be entirely different from what Oda had in mind.

Something like that. It starts out faithful, but tries to tie the loose knots by itself before it ends, while the manga is still continuing and it ties the knots entirely differently when it will finally come to an end.

Black Cat is the only thing that comes to mind, although in this case the Manga ended at Creed's defeat while the anime created new material after Creed's defeat.

Recently completed manga Claymore had a distinct anime path.

Mahou Sensei Negima! took a different path, cutting out the meat of the plot before it could get there.

Rosario + Vampire followed along for season 1 and then derailed completely in season 2.

edited 3rd Jul '15 3:10:12 PM by burnpsy

That was the case for Soul Eater I think, as well as Shaman King for an older example.

To Love Ru is a weird example, as the first anime followed a different storyline than the manga, but the anime for the sequel Darkness apparently follows the manga…

Off the top of my head, there's Soul Eater. I've never read the manga, but I'm led to believe the anime's first half is faithful to the manga's first story arc, but the second half has major changes to the next arc leading to an original ending.

There's also Trigun, whose anime ended way before the manga did. The very beginning is mostly faithful to the manga and the villains are mostly the same, but it quickly goes and does its own thing by the halfway point, with a very different final arc, and many characters not introduced in the manga yet not showing up.

And there's Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro. The anime ended at the manga's halfway point, so they skipped the manga's last arc and all the characters from it, and made their own original ending with a completely different origin for the main villain at the time.

edited 3rd Jul '15 3:15:59 PM by KuroBaraHime

To Love-Ru followed the manga for 3/4 of its run and made up an ending by simply making a part of the manga more dramatic by adding a lot to it.^Explanation Basically, the manga simply had the father show up and try to force the marriage, followed by Lala using an invention to wipe memories to resolve the situation (but it failed because Status Quo Is God). The anime added a test to see if Rito is worthy, with the entire world watching the test and then Lala wipes everything after Rito passes. It got OVAs that skipped along through most of the series (including skipping an entire character's introduction) and then another season, named Motto To Love-Ru, finished the original manga. Darkness follows along from the get-go.

Basically, it doesn't really count since they barely derailed and then immediately re-railed once they realized it was a success.

edited 3rd Jul '15 3:24:50 PM by burnpsy

Oh… I just watched the first couple of episodes but there were quite a few differences (like the whole "touching breasts = marriage" thing that wasn't in the manga), so I thought it diverged early on.

I added an explanation note to point out just how little was altered for the added ending.

The anime's only real issue was that it didn't explain that, between seasons, the giant plant Celine turned into little baby Celine. It was a big arc in the manga.

The first season did put a bit more weight on how Rito would be as a ruler, though. Rito actually points out how unworthy he thinks he is to be king of the universe to Lala, which the manga doesn't address.

edited 3rd Jul '15 3:31:02 PM by burnpsy

I want to say Eiken deviated and felt rushed, but it was also an OVA two-parter, so that doesn't count as much.

I haven't read the Black Cat manga, but the anime deviates more than just the ending. The manga starts off with Train already as a Sweeper and flashbacks to his time in the Numbers and with Saya, while the anime starts with him as a Number and transitions a couple episodes in. Train's sudden personality shift in the anime is due to it forgetting that two years passed in the manga.

Mahou Sensei Negima's anime was fairly accurate up until the Kyoto arc, where it shortcuts and crams everything into three episodes and then makes up it's own ending. Then there's Negima!?, which spends the first three episodes doing it's own version of the Evangeline arc and then completely derails to its own plot. Both animes also introduce the Friendly Ghost differently than the manga.

edited 4th Jul '15 6:39:35 AM by Watchtower

Gecko Ending covers a lot of this.

Wedding Peach deviated heavily from the manga. I find the manga much better, as unlike, say, the anime adaptations of Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura, the anime's episodes seemed more like filler and were less serious than the manga instead of developing characters/the setting.

edited 4th Jul '15 1:42:29 PM by lalalei2001

Overtook the Manga is definitely the page you're going to want to look at for a run through.

Hellsing is another case of this. It ended up getting overshadowed by Hellsing Ultimate, a more faithful retelling of the story.

edited 4th Jul '15 2:58:10 PM by Lionheart0

Tokyo Ghoul's anime deviated a lot from the manga in it's second season.

Quite a lot of manga end up changed when transitioned to the anime. The big question here is whether you can accept such changes as keeping with the "spirit" of the manga (or the original work, for that matter).

People keep on pointing to FMA as a major example, but what keeps coming back to me was Pumpkin Scissors, egads, Pumpkin Scissors.

Pokémon has never really followed the games' "plots" closely, and will even cheese on game mechanics or just make shit up if it's convenient for the writers.

Plots:

• Original Series (Red and Blue): Doesn't follow the Team Rocket plot at all, but to be fair there was barely any real plot to begin with.
• Orange Islands: Filler Arc because Gold and Silver hadn't come out yet.
• Johto Journeys (Gold and Silver): Ignored the whole "Team Rocket returns" thing from Gold and Silver because it required the original plot of Red and Blue to happen. Only thing that happened from the games was the Lake of Rage incident and Rocket Hideout infiltration.
• Advanced (Ruby and Sapphire): The Team Magma/Aqua stuff was shoved into like 3 episodes and pretty much ignored before then.
• Diamond and Pearl (Diamond and Pearl): Actually decently close to the plotline from the games, but it was sporadically paced.
• Black and White (Black and White and Black 2 and White 2): Plot was ignored until after the end-of-region Tournament Arc (which is otherwise the region finale) partially due to Real Life Writes the Plot or something, and when it did happen it barely resembled what happened in the games.
• XY (X and Y): Over a year and halfway through the region, and the game plot hasn't reared its head inside the main show. It's just in the Mega Evolution Specials that star a different character, and even then it's just barely there.

edited 5th Jul '15 12:54:12 AM by Karxrida

IIRC most anime adaptions in the 70s and 80s does this often. Adaptions like Getter Robo, Cutey Honey, Devilman, and Kinnikuman in some way deviated from their story. - With every adaption, it seems like a thing for Getter Robo and Cutey Honey to be different from the mangas with every revivals.

- The one ova for Devilman did attempt at following the original source material, so it is just the anime that is different.

- Kinnikuman is by far the only one I listed that actually follow the manga's story to a T (save for some changes to scenes from the manga and promoting minor characters to close supporting characters).

But that is animes from the 70s/80s. If its recent animes I would have to say there isn't many given the changing attitude Japan have in wanting to keep the adaption as faithful as possible that occur around the mid to late 80s.