I have, on occasion, complained about slack editing in anime and particularly about the half opponent of the week syndrome. However I’m starting to think that anime adapted from light novels has the opposite problem of over editing.
This is mostly speculative as there are very few occasions where I’ve had the chance to read the original material.
One of those was Rocket Girls where the anime covered the first two volumes [1]. The over editing isn’t too bad here, but the 2nd flight in the anime is at least Yukari’s third flight in the novels, and Matsuri’s second. Much of the 2nd flight in the anime depends on Yukari’s confidence and leadership, and the justification for this was much stronger in the novelisations. Matsuri is also much less of a caricature in the novels.
The other was The Twelve Kingdoms where I’ve only read the first novelisation covering the first arc. This is a counter example as the Twelve Kingdoms anime actually took the time to do a proper adaptation that covered all the major points. [2]
The first time I really noticed this as a problem was with Scrapped Princess. The over editing in Scrapped Princess is mostly in the ending, which needed to be a couple of episodes longer with a monologue or two.
There have also been two painfully obvious examples of over editing this year. The first was Bodacious Space Pirates where squeezing one too many story into the run led to dropping far too many details along the way.
The second, and most egregious, is Sword Art Online which started so well, only to be cut so badly. Several of the early episodes show massive time jumps, and I’ve often seen online commentary to the effect that “X is explained in the books so the anime doesn’t have to! Isn’t it cool!” [3]
Well, no, it isn’t cool. An anime should not have to rely on viewers having read the novels. An anime should be a standalone version that can be assessed on its own merits, and Sword Art Online has been failing badly in this respect.
It may be that most light novel adaptations aren’t quite so over edited and that I just haven’t seen enough to make a fair assessment. For the ones I’ve seen however, it would have been wise to either cover less of the source material or add more episodes to cover them properly.
If you know of a particularly good example (in either direction) please leave a comment to point it out.
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Pirates of the Burley Griffin 
I haven’t read any novels, so I cannot say whether the adaptations are good. Although I did hear the adaptation of Chaos;Head from the visual novel was bad because they didn’t give it enough episodes. Steins;Gate, on the other hand, has a very good adaptation because it sticks to one route and has enough episodes. Haven’t watched either of them in the small hope that one day we get the VNs.
I’ll have to take your word for it – I haven’t really noticed Visual Novels as a source material, let alone noticed a pattern re editing.
This is partly due to my indifferent status as a computer gamer, partly because of a prejudice on my part that VNs are often the foundation for harem anime (not my favourite genre).
I haven’t played nor watched those either, but that seems to be the general consensus by fans of the games. I’m taking their word for it as well. xD The Higurashi anime had a pretty good adaptation from what I can tell. It made sense (albeit you had to watch both seasons). I only played the first part of the game and I’d say the first arc of the anime covered it quite well. Things were definitely cut out for compression purposes but the major scenes were all accounted for. That’s the only example I can provide where I personally have watched the adaptation and played (a bit of) the source material.
Yeah, it is probably cause dating sims are a popular subsection of VNs and those tend to be adapted into harem romances. Even some regular VNs have optional romantic routes because it’s just an easy way to extend replayability. That said, the few date sims I’ve played, they were never like any harem anime. You don’t shack up with all the girls and you can only go for one route (usually there is a certain scene and player response that locks you into a given route). I guess the harem aspect comes into play in adaptations that try to cover all the routes. I think that’s a shame because it weakens the emotional impact that you get when you slowly get to know that single girl (or guy in the dating sims for girls).
“Even some regular VNs have optional romantic routes because it’s just an easy way to extend replayability.”
The one that always freaks me out is the concept behind Sakura Wars: a combination of a tactical wargame and a dating sim.
https://piratesobg.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/sakura-wars-1997-the-opening-is-the-best-thing-about-it/
I actually have the one game that made it to the west from that series (Sakura Wars 5 for Wii). Haven’t actually played it yet (too many games, too little time D: ). So I can’t really comment on that series, but I would be shocked if the game does go full out harem on you (since dating sims or games with dating sim elements like Harvest Moon for example, rarely let you have a romantic relationship with more than one girl/guy. You can usually romance more than one girl/guy, although once they reciprocate the feelings and you accept them, you are locked out of all other romantic relationships. And the romance bit is more for being flexible about picking who you want to romance in the end than really trying to cater to harem enthusiasts. From a gameplay perspective, it really is a must). Anyway, I personally like dating sims that have good character development. It’s like an interactive romance novel for me and I find it very entertaining, but I do see they aren’t for everyone, especially since you have to do some research ahead of time as there are offensive ones out there (I won’t deny that!).
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