7

A lot of anime are based off of the plot of a manga and/or light novels. Sometimes an anime is an original work that gets a manga story afterwards, but that isn't always the case.

I remember watching Amagami, where you could obviously notice that it was based on a game, and some are even named after the games such as Final Fantasy.

So how common is it for a anime to be based of a game? I have only seen it once or twice but is it really that uncommon? Or are they just animated in a way that you won't directly notice that it comes from a game unless you already know so?

Maroon
  • 14,564
  • 14
  • 71
  • 137
Dimitri mx
  • 22,062
  • 32
  • 118
  • 200
  • I would think they mostly serve as prequels like with Tales of Vesperia First Strike or the .hack series. otherwise the games they base off from are Visual Novels and they try and either combine all the routes into 1 or focus on a particular route (Steins;Gate, Fate/Stay Night, Cavas 2, Clannad, ef). not sure if it's common/uncommon though – Memor-X Apr 29 '14 at 00:39
  • I am not sure if it is common, but dramatical murder is a game and it is getting turned into a anime and i think diabolical lovers was a game before it got turned into an anime. – Izumi-reiLuLu Apr 29 '14 at 00:40

2 Answers2

14

Just like in this answer, let's take a look at /u/homu's data.

TV anime source material year-by-year

This basically answers your question right here: between 8% and 15% (avg. 10%) of anime in each year from 2000-2013 were based on a video game of some variety. Games are a minor but not insignificant source for anime.

Now, if you're asking "what percentage of video games get turned into an anime", the answer almost certainly rounds to 0%. There are a lot of video games out there (probably in the high hundreds per year, at least), but less than 200 anime per year, only a fraction of which are based on video games.

This data set only covers TV anime (thus excluding ONAs, OVAs, and films), but I see no reason to expect that an unusually large percentage of any of those media would be based on games.

Community
  • 1
senshin
  • 35,088
  • 25
  • 142
  • 247
  • I think i remember seeing this before in one of my previous questions. – Izumi-reiLuLu Apr 29 '14 at 01:00
  • @MiharuDante Yes, the answer I linked at the top of this post was an answer to one of your questions. – senshin Apr 29 '14 at 01:00
  • 1
    Historically, games may have been more likely to be adapted into OAVs & anime films than into TV anime series, so it's unfortunate the graph above excludes these. In the past, when gaming was a more niche demographic than the viewership of TV anime, shoujo games that got animated were [usually OAVs before 2005](http://shoujo.tripod.com/shoujoanimelist.html) (such as Fire Emblem, Angelique, Haruka naru Toki no Naka de, & Sotsugyou "M"). Since 2005, more shoujo games have been adapted into TV anime; this is likely also the case for bishoujo dating sims like Tokimeki Memorial, Debut, & Kakyuusei. – seijitsu Jun 05 '15 at 01:00
-2

Indeed. I've seen a few anime based on video games, and while they aren't that common, they aren't uncommon, either. Some anime are literally used to promote games, but these are usually card games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Duel Masters. One of my favorite anime, Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi, or Bridge to the Starry Skies, is based off of a visual novel!

Kale Slade
  • 189
  • 6
  • One of the answers above has numbers to back its claims. While your claims are largely anecdotally accurate, there's no substantive evidence to back them up. – Makoto Nov 02 '18 at 19:43
  • I understand. I'm no expert, I just want to help any little way I can. – Kale Slade Nov 02 '18 at 20:05