Series where you know of the Manga/Game before the Anime

[winstein]

Anime is quite a popular way to grant exposure to a series, for it is the most accessible, since it doesn't normally require a purchase of the material to access, and even if you do, that material has the potential to be aired on TV (I could be wrong here), similar to how movies would occasionally get a regular TV airing. Because of this, it's common for someone to recognise a series from the anime first.

There are bound to be exceptions for certain series to anyone, in which they would recognise the series as a manga first, or maybe in some cases, the video game based on the anime. Now, in order to qualify as "knowing the Manga/Game", you must:

• Recognise the story/premise from the manga/game, enough to know what's it about
• Read the manga or play that game, even if it's just a little while (browsing a manga or testing a game in a store qualifies)
• You must do the above before you even watch one second of animated footage of the anime, even screens (footage in a video game is considered game, not anime)

So to start, these are some of the series where I knew the manga before the anime (currently don't remember examples for games):

• Kiteretsu (Thought the manga was a derivative of Doraemon, but soon I recognised it as its own thing from the same artist. Ironically, Doraemon is something I knew as an anime first)
• Ranma 1/2 (Seen a screen of the game, read a few chapters of the manga before knowing there is an anime series)
• Mushishi (Saw a compilation as a bargain and read this)
• Magi (TVTrope referred, manga first)
• Tonari no Seki-kun or My Neighbour Seki (Was browsing a manga list and this interested me)
• Centaur's Worries (TVTropes referred, and as there was only the manga at that time, it's bound to happen, since the anime won't be up till Fall)

Thanks for reading.

 

[Almonds]

Naruto and One-Piece. I think those are the only two that I got to read the manga first before watching the anime, as far as I can remember. I read Naruto before it got an anime adaptation; One-Piece before I got to see a dubbed airing on TV.

Almost everything else I watched the anime first before getting to know the manga/game. Pokemon might count, but I can't remember if I played the game first or watched the anime first.

 

[----]

I read the Blood Lad manga before I ever heard it was getting an anime adaptation. I still haven't seen the anime.

 

[Elysion]

Manga
Ranma 1/2
Full Moon wo Sagashite
Vampire Knight
Love Stage
Ao Haru Ride
Blue Exorcist

Games/Visual Novels
Amnesia
Dramatical Murder
Persona
Valkyria Chronicles
Togainu no Chi

 

[Parma]

I knew of Devil Survivor 2 before the anime was a thing. The resulting anime wasn't very good.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

I didn't know manga even existed until I got some Dragonball Z manga for Christmas one year because I loved watching Dragonball Z as a kid. The first manga I ever read asides from that was One Piece, even though I knew it had an anime adaptation before then. This was actually before the infamous 4Kids dub of One Piece came out.

I didn't know Rave Master (from the same person as Fairy Tail) and Hunter X Hunter even had anime until years after I read those manga series, and even then I never really read much of the Hunter X Hunter manga.