I'm looking for any good animes that are either better as the anime or that are exclusively an anime and isn't based on a manga or light novel.

Thanks and advanced. ^-^


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My lists are a mess, and most aren't public, and the public ones are still being updated.
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"Hindsight is fifty-fifty"

Full Moon wo Sagashite anime was waaay better than the manga imho.
Trigun anime was better (and very different).
Haibane Renmei is great and there isn't really a manga to speak of, just an art book type thing.
Kaleido Star has no manga worth considering.
Kamichu!'s manga was based on the anime and isn't nearly as good.
Onegai Teacher is the same in that regard.
KURAU Phantom Memory is a good sci-fi anime.
The Twelve Kingdoms is based on a light novel series and surpasses it in some ways. One of the greatest anime to ever air.

I could go on but I'll stop there....

Original Anime:
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (all around great anime)
Angel Beats (fun and sad)
Darker Than Black (great concept but lost potential, and the second season is kinda bleh)
Ano Hana (haven't watched it yet, but it's supposed to be really good)

Anime Better Than Manga:
Death Note (still not really good, but it cut a lot of the useless stuff from the manga -- live action movies are the best of this franchise)
Yami no Matsuei (more focused than the manga, cuts a lot of the shoujo cliches, and has an actual ending of sorts)
Gravitation (still a pretty "eh" series but doesn't jump the shark like the manga did -- you'll probably only enjoy it if you really like BL, though)

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Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0
Hanasaku Iroha

Yes, Nanoha started as an anime, not a light novel.

Could the adaptation be better?: http://mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=48085
@crazyboutcute The Death Note anime works better than the manga till ep. 25 (Silence) and then rushed like crazy (most of one volume was adapted into one Episode!) and all the slow character moments for the new cast are skipped so they came off as bland.
The changed ending is inferior too and the 2 epilogues are missing so the manga needs to be read from the second half of vol.7 alongside. Nanoha started off an eroge btw and not as an anime . Season 2 is good though.

Movies tend to be original: A lot of Satoshi Kon´s films are original so go for all,
Ninja Scroll, Princess Mononoke, Redline, Wings of Honneamise and so on.

More superior adaptations: Haibane Renmei is better as it has a real story arc.
Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is the best thing that happed to Lupin in over a decade. Jin-Roh is somewhat based on Kenrou Densetsu which i reviewed.
The Metropolis movie is better than the manga (and the classic film is now hard to watch).
All 3 Patlabor universes are good but it started as an ova (and movie 2 is a 10/10).
The Revolutionary Girl Utena tv show is the best part of that muti-media franchise.
Afro Samurai (2 is ok) and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust are the best of these franchises.
The best original tv anime is Cowboy Bebop but it is "only" my 2nd favorite show after Legend of the Galactic Heroes which is an adaptation.
A LOGH re-boot is coming and Samurai Champloo is another Watanabe classic.

More original Content not in the link: Captain Tylor (+ ova ep. 1-2), Darker than Black + the ova (skip season 2), Death Parade, FCLC, Gundam 00 to go modern but the movie is trash and Zeta Gundam is the best one, Gunbuster, the 2 Ideon films,
Martian Successor Nadesico (skip the movie), Occult Academy is overlooked,
Panty & Stocking, RahXephon, Real Drive, Rumbling Hearts (based on porn...)
and Time of Eve are a random selection of quality original anime. I have another 2000+ graded entries in my linked ANN profile.
ANN´s top 50 anime list is a reasonable selection (the top 50 manga list is superior):
http://animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ratings-anime.php?t op50=best_bayesian

Edit: I again noticed how rare anime with zero adaptations of their own are and how even more infrequent original anime became after looking in my ANN profile again.
Brand recognition is everything it seems but it wasn´t like this even 15 years ago.
Way too many animes fall apart in the last second too and sequels tend to be problematic.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:40 am, May 22 2015

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Jigoku Shoujo, great anime. I second Madoka Magica as well.

You should check the tag : Based on an anime

Most if not all of the mangas based on anime are not as good as the original. This includes : Summer Wars, Gurren Lagann, Speed Grapher, Samurai Champloo, Eureka Seven, Princess Tutu, etc...

Other than that here are some anime I found better than the mangas they were based on :

Initial D : Street Racing. It might be obvious but car races translate much better in the anime, and the music (old 80's-90's Euro) also add a lot to the mood.

Hellsing Ultimate : Supernatural/Action. I liked the manga but the anime's action scenes are just too good to pass up.

Gintama : Comedy. Probably the only anime where the fillers are actually good. The team animating this also have a lot of fun doing it and it shows.