Something that Yea Forums doesn't discuss often: what are some known cases of editorial meddling in manga (or where it's fairly obvious there was)? Usual examples are to give popular characters more exposure, force love triangles or harems, cut down arcs that started becoming too long, tone down or ramp up violence, create drama where the author mostly wanted comedy or viceversa.
I've seen mangaka say too much editorial indication made their series worse or too far from the original intent, where others have praised it for making the series more interesting and popular. What's your general opinion of editorial intervention?
Seems like the only examples given are editors being a cancer in the manga industry.
Mason Cruz
It shouldn't even be a thing but it was and always will be.
Asher Sanchez
All light novel adaptations, and light novels in general when they're pulled from web novels. Generally editors are the only thing that make these stories readable.
Luke Perez
It was undeniably the more profitable decision. For better or worse, I don't think I've ever seen a series get second wind as hard as Watamote did.
I sure wish Youjo senki ln wasn't such garbage. The transformation from text to anime is pretty astounding. You'd never imagine that novel to be adaptable.
Elijah Lewis
Never read the novel (and never will) What's wrong with it?
Jordan Green
Editor intervention: Star Wars the original trilogy Author having complete freedom: Episodes 1-3
Angel Rivera
Kuma mikp and slut neki.
Colton Foster
Ten Count's(BL) author was forced by the editor to put a rape scene between the two leads because they were taking too long to have sex. Apparently that's not very uncommon on some BL magazines.
I remember reading that Cell from Dragon Ball only exist because Toriyama's editor didn't like the Androids.
Carson Brown
It's just amateurishly written, the major plot are same as anime but theres lots of redundant text that for whatever reason repeats same information to the reader multiple times. The pacing is shit, you want the plot resolution payoff but you need to read yet another page of reworded information you already know
Hudson Cruz
In Attack on Titan the editor cried when Isayama wanted to kill her off in the beginning of the story so he kept her alive and then killed her anyway which was actually a better death
negima's turn from cute girls doing cute things to "Wah! We're in another world??? Everything's boring and in Latin" HAD to have been editorially motivated ESPECIALLY considering the sus circumstances of the ending
Matthew Evans
Other way around. The cute girls part was editorial meddling for "we want shota Love Hina!, please" getting in the way of the author's shonen battle manga. He had to slowly wean the harem focus off bit by bit.
Evan Walker
Pretty much this, it used to be common knowledge back then.
Josiah Rivera
Editors were right, by the way.
Andrew Lee
A good editor is good, a bad editor is bad.
Basically, editors aren't inherently a bad thing. A good editor will tell you when something's terrible and needs to be scrapped, will give good suggestions, won't be too controlling, and will give helpful suggestions.
A bad editor controls more, isn't very helpful, seems incompetent, and doesn't seem to respect you.
Jace Ward
Is that even true? I don't remember any confirmation like that, not that it would be a surprise
Dylan Hughes
A good editor can salvage a manga and stop the author from going bananas. A bad editor can ruin a manga and force the author to write generic shit and idiotic plotlines for "popularity". You can't really say the whole system is bad, only the final result mattters after all. It just sucks that the system is so opaque and that when the editor fucks up, the mangaka has to take all the flak.
William Davis
Read the manga Hitman if you want a more in-depth view of what manga editors do. And just like most jobs, an editor can be a good or bad influence depending on the individual's skill. mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=149031
Not exactly manga, but IIRC Suguha from SAO has huge breasts instead of being flat thanks to the editor.
Benjamin Hill
That's technically wrong, it was his former editor that didn't like them and not his current editor at the time.
Bentley Butler
All editors too is make those even more generic than they already are.
Aiden Fisher
BnHA's editor used to want Hori to make All Might a generic bishounen, so there's that.
Jayden Lewis
Hori also wanted to make Izuku poverty Batman like in the mediocre one-shot, and his editor convinced him to give him a real power. Imagine how quickly he would have written himself into a corner since he still had to pull the seven quirks thing to give Izuku a better moveset.
Adam Hughes
Wasn't there another series following a newly-promoted editor trying to work with an impossible but talented mangaka? I think the MC was a woman though and the magazine was a niche one, there were some BL jokes but I'm not sure the actual magazine was a BL one
Chase Powell
Was she forced to make a rape scene specifically or just a sex scene?
Gabriel Richardson
I don't know the details but doing rape was pretty much her only option either way. I forgot the name of his condition, but the MC was one of these cleaning obsessed mental cases where he's terrified of germs and at that point he had only barely managed to touch the other guy's hand without a glove. No way he'd comfortably and willingly have sex with him. Makes me wonder why the editor even allowed her to publish the manga under their label when the story was obviously meant to be one of those "slow burn" types of romance.
Jose Anderson
Uzaki-chan's mom retconned wedding ring.
Jeremiah Ramirez
Yep. Akamatsu does harem shenanigans really well and shonenshit really poorly.
Angel Howard
Tokyo Ghoul got it pretty badly, if I remember correctly he wanted to end the manga but they pretty much forced him to continue which created the abomination known as Tokyo Ghoul: Re.
Jack White
Haven't heard of this but I'd like to know the title.
Cooper Adams
That isekai with the hikineet. WN was MC struggling to come to terms with being in another world and having to take care of a loli. He could chat with people on 2chan but no one really believed him. Slowly earns their trust and they give him advice on how to be self-sufficient. As they see him become more responsible other neets start doing the same and begin venturing outside and looking for work. Towards the end of the first year his online friends to an offline meetup at his abandoned lot on earth and pour one out for him.
LN had his female cousin get stranded with him and half his interactions became "kyaa ecchi" garbage.
Bentley Walker
His action scenes are alright, but the worldbuildind and plotting is horrendous. The way he got rid of the premise of Negima to do whatever he wanted shows he lacks as much respect for his readers as for his publisher. Can't believe he has still fans to stick with him.
Kevin Collins
Oh if the good editors are allowed, I thought this was just to complain about the bad ones. >Approached the author to ask if he wanted to make a manga >works with the author to help the artist with getting the fight choreography right >seems like he has a bro-tier relationship with everyone involved
Remember the story with Shinobu Ohtaka and her editor at WSS when Magi was serialized? the editor made her life impossible, to the point to make her redo an entire chapter.
Nicholas Wood
Was that when the author wanted to have Kiriha being sold? If so, that could just be the method used that was a problem, not the virginity loss.
Mason Cooper
First I've heard of it, but I never really got into the series.
