Anime First

Anime is usually based on manga, light novels, visual novels or video games. Occasionally there are exceptions.

Anime is always more risky than manga. Pretty much everyone has a manga specifically geared to their interest somewhere, and the largely black and white format of manga makes it cheaper to produce than even the average western comic book. Producing a show is much more expensive. And while a lot of manga is made to be accessible and disposable, the demographics of TV watchers is different. This is the major reason anime is mostly populated by shounen and shoujo, as kids simply have more time. Meanwhile, Josei manga rarely ever gets made into anime, if reaching television at all.

Anime also requires voice actors and a hopefully decent animation budget. On the other hand, it's much easier to make a show based on a known money-generating property. Making a show suddenly becomes lucrative once you figure in things like new merchandise (character Image Song and soundtracks, most noticeably) which pays for the show. This is the main reason H-games made into anime are the most successful financially and on the other extreme, why most Anime First shows for youngsters are explicitly Merchandise-Driven. Magical Girl and Mecha series in particular have a high chance of being Anime First.

Occasionally manga comes out after such an anime, but only as a limited run. Some manga run concurrently to a show, so divergences are common and accepted. You don't want them to be exactly alike or the audience will wonder why you're messing with the story. You also rarely get a sort of Double Subversion where the manga comes out first, but the original project was conceived as an anime; the manga was primarily intended as advertisement. (Two well-known examples are Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Neon Genesis Evangelion.)

Not to be confused with the common gripe that all of the anime examples on a trope page come first. (Seriously, guys, it's alphabetical. Either add in some examples from advertising, or let it go.)


 * Neon Genesis Evangelion is an unusual example of a single show's popularity lasting over two decades due to careful merchandising which is still regularly released. Various spinoff manga exist, including the intermittently produced one that ran alongside the original show (see below).
 * Even though the manga began publication before the anime began airing, it was made as a tie-in for the anime which was in production at the time. Amusingly, this manga is still ongoing 16+ years later...because of Schedule Slip.
 * Serial Experiments Lain
 * Soukou no Strain
 * Please Teacher! and Please Twins!: The manga adaptations differ significantly from the anime plot toward the end.
 * El-Hazard: The Magnificent World
 * El Cazador de la Bruja : Has a Manga side story to it.
 * Every Yu-Gi-Oh! manga except the original is this; each the same characters, as well as some new ones, but a totally different plot which bears no resemblance to the original.
 * Cowboy Bebop. Two manga series for this show do exist, but they were developed as tie-ins to the anime.
 * Actually "Shooting Star", which came first, was more of an original Alternate Universe type story that doesn't really tie in to the anime at all.
 * Samurai Champloo. A two volume manga was published that was a series of mostly original side stories (the only adapted story was a shortened version of the first episode).
 * Tenchi Muyo!
 * RahXephon
 * Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and most other shows made by Tatsunoko Productions (aside from very early stuff like Speed Racer)
 * Even then, the Mach GoGoGo manga was made primarily to generate interest for the anime. The anime diverted from the manga in many aspects.
 * My-HiME was an Anime First, but despite popular belief Mai-Otome could better be described as "Anime Simultaneously". The thing was the production teams for the anime and manga were both given the same settings and characters, but worked with them in entirely different ways. So despite what people think to the contrary, the manga isn't, nor could it have been, an adaptation.
 * Heat Guy J
 * Ojamajo Doremi, the (now second) longest-running Magical Girl show in existence, is an example.
 * Princess Tutu is a notorious example as its manga removed many of the anime's original plot elements, pretty much screwing with the actual point of what the story was really aiming for.
 * Every installment of Pretty Cure, another Magical Girl show.
 * With Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, it has now passed Ojamajo Doremi for longest Magical Girl series.
 * Kamichu! was probably a safer bet, as the animation style is derivative of Studio Ghibli and therefore an integral part of the series (not to mention guaranteeing a certain amount of fandom).
 * Tweeny Witches (Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu) also depends on quirky animation for much of its impact.
 * Mahou Tsukaitai started with an OVA series.
 * Every Gundam TV series ever, and ALMOST every OVA series with the exception of Gundam Unicorn.
 * Bee Train's girls with guns trilogy - Noir, Madlax, and El Cazador de la Bruja.
 * Darker than Black
 * Texhnolyze
 * Last Exile.. The sequel series was weird here; The first episode technically predated the manga, as it was shown at a con. Most viewers were able to see a few chapters of the manga before airing began, though.
 * Mononoke, although it was already proven popular as a part of the multi-story Ayakashi series.
 * Noein
 * Samurai 7. (Loosely) Based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, though.
 * Wolfs Rain. There is a 2-volume manga adaptation, but the story (and especially the ending) has numerous differences.
 * Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: There was a direct manga adaptation, a School-AU spin-off, and a different AU-manga coming out.
 * The Eureka Seven manga has a different ending to the anime, plus its own manga-only Prequel.
 * The sequel, Eureka Seven AO had the manga come out first - but since the anime was announced at around the same time and was released three months after the manga's first chapter, it's clear the manga is more of an advertisement, in the vein of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
 * The Big O. The order went First Season -> Manga -> Second Season, so the Manga version goes off in a completely different direction from the show (particularly regarding Beck and the ending). Some ideas from the Manga made it into the Second Season, if somewhat obtusely.
 * ...which was followed by Manga (unreleased in the US) based on the Second Season.
 * Kujibiki Unbalance - originally an entirely fictional manga series from Genshiken, it later spawned a fictional anime - when Genshiken became a real anime, Kujibiki Unbalance got three real episodes, and then became a full-fledged anime series in real life - the manga was released alongside it.
 * Infinite Ryvius. The manga is a POV Sequel.
 * Code Geass: has four manga, only one of which could be considered anything besides an AU.
 * Innocent Venus
 * Blood Plus
 * The quality of the manga actually suffers for it; they have a lot of action shots that look like freezeframes from the anime, and the dialogue is a little bit too simple and sparse.
 * Blood C likewise.
 * Najica Blitz Tactics
 * Anything by gímik. Which is really just Kiddy Grade and Uta Kata. Gigantic Formula also counts.
 * Burst Angel. The manga was also a prequal to the anime.
 * Hell Girl. The anime and manga began releasing almost simultaneously, but the former is the original and the latter the adaptation (anime has a longer lead time than manga). The manga's quite different, and lacks Hajime and Tsugumi except in omakes.
 * Xamd Lost Memories.
 * Bubblegum Crisis.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's and StrikerS. What manga they had were supplementary material for the anime series. The first season isn't an example since it's (loosely) based on the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha mini-scenario of the Triangle Heart 3 ～sweet songs forever～ fandisc, though most fans don't know that.
 * Uchuu Senkan Yamato
 * Kaleido Star
 * Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and its sequels (Macross Plus and Macross Zero are the exceptions to subsequent manga adaptations, being OVAs and all).
 * Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo. Mecha show? Check. It's even co-sponsored by model and garage kit maker Good Smile Company.
 * Candy Boy is an odd case. It was originally just an original net animation used to promote a music video. However, the concept for the show proved popular enough that more episodes were created.
 * Basquash!. Mecha show and shameless Nike shoes advertisement.
 * S-Cry-ed. Despite what some people might claim, the manga came out second.
 * Brigadoon Marin and Melan had a two-volume manga adaption. The manga's plot was somewhat simpler.
 * Himawari!
 * A Little Snow Fairy Sugar was adapted into a three-volume manga with the first volume released a couple months after the show's premiere. The manga followed the anime's plot pretty faithfully for the first two volumes then diverged significantly from it in the last one.
 * Figure 17
 * Heroman
 * The Anime no Chikara project aims to create entirely original anime, and so far has resulted in:
 * So Ra No Wo To
 * Senkou no Night Raid
 * Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
 * Kyo Kara Maoh
 * Star Driver
 * Martian Successor Nadesico, which was shortly after adapted into a much different manga.
 * Paranoia Agent
 * FLCL, with a two volume manga afterward.
 * Ashita no Nadja
 * Rakugo Tennyo Oyui
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica, with a three volume manga adaptation released concurrently with the anime (but after the anime aired the episodes depicted in each volume). It also has two manga Spin Offs: Puella Magi Kazumi Magica and Puella Magi Oriko Magica. Kazumi Magica began serialization while the anime aired and is still ongoing. Oriko Magica skipped serialization entirely and was released as a two-volume series shortly after the anime's conclusion. A (noncanon) anthology manga series was released several months after the anime ended.
 * Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt
 * Tenshi ni Narumon
 * Dog Days
 * Revolutionary Girl Utena: the anime and manga were made simultaneously.
 * Hanasaku Iroha
 * Gregory Horror Show
 * Tamayura
 * Ano Hana
 * Control
 * Tiger and Bunny
 * Guilty Crown
 * Ookami Shonen Ken (lit. "Ken the Wolf Boy"), a mid-1960s black and white anime which was Toei Animation's first animated TV series, is believed to be the Ur Example.
 * Mawaru Penguindrum, similar to Utena (which was also by Ikuhara), has novels being released simultaneously.
 * Digimon Xros Wars. While the manga debuted first by around a fortnight, the anime was announced and presumably in production for months beforehand and the manga specifically adapts it, so it still qualifies for this trope.
 * Very similar to Evangelion, above, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a weird example wherein the manga was released first, but primarily to help the production of and promote the anime film. This example is further atypical in that the manga wound up being a major Adaptation Expansion, starting its run two years before the film ultimately came out... and finishing ten years after it, a total run of twelve years. (And unlike with Evangelion, this had nothing to do with Schedule Slip.)
 * Saint October
 * The Boy and the Heron is an original story by Hayao Miyazaki. It does feature a real world novel, How Do You Live?, whose name served as the tentative English title, but the story of the film is all original. It's further distinguished from other anime in that it doesn't have a production committee, meaning all production funds came out of Studio Ghibli's pockets. This allows for a level of creative freedom rarely seen in any animated production, not just anime.