As suggested by its title, Nichijou is a comedic story about the daily life of a group of high school girls and their seemingly mundane activities. From a student who comes to the school on a goat to the bald principal who wrestles against a deer on the school grounds, there are countless absurd things happening in every scene.

Nichijou can make you laugh through every frame and panel. And therein lies the problem. Because if there is one thing that is extremely important in comedy, it is timing. You can ruin a good joke with bad timing. Which is why the manga is inherently a bit problematic, because take one glance at the page and you’ll see the punch line before even reading the setup.

On the other hand, If you watch the anime, then everything will be set up properly. You will be there to follow along as the humor builds up and will be floored when the punch line finally comes up. The manga is certainly great, but the anime elevates it to an entirely different height.

Since One-Punch Man first hit the shelves and appeared on the screen, it became a worldwide phenomenon. And the one who is responsible for that is a writer named ONE. He wrote and drew One-Punch Man as a webcomic and managed to garner quite a lot of fans until one day he caught the attention of the legendary artist Yuusuke Murata. They decided to re-launch the series under Shounen Jump, with Murata responsible for the art. And the rest is history.

What’s even more surprising is the fact that while One-Punch Man was being published, ONE actually created another series called Mob Psycho 100. Just like the early days of One-Punch Man, ONE was also responsible for both the story and the art for Mob Psycho 100. However, unlike One-Punch Man, he decided to publish this new series as a manga using his own original drawings.

This story of a super psychic kid who gets entangled with all sorts of absurd supernatural phenomena in Mob Psycho 100 is just as good and as funny as One-Punch Man. That being said, no disrespect to ONE, but it is clear that his greatest talent lies in creating amazing stories. Because the art of Mob Psycho 100 leaves a lot to be desired.

And that’s where the anime comes in. The hilarious story of Mob combined with the elevated art and the mindblowing visual effects of the anime is the reason why Mob Psycho 100 becomes as great as the iconic One-Punch Man.

Blue Period is a coming of age story of a young man named Yatora who tries to find his way in life through painting. Ever since he witnessed the calming blue sky of Shibuya, he became infatuated with art. So he decided to learn about art, particularly paintings, and apply to one of the most prestigious art colleges in the country.

The story of Blue Period is dramatic, interesting, and inspiring. Once you start reading the manga, you won’t move out of your chair until you reach the last page. However, since it is still a manga, it comes with certain limitations that prevent the story from reaching its full potential. That limitation is the black and white illustrations.

Throughout the story, we see numerous paintings that are supposedly rich in color. But since it is a manga, we can only see them in black in white. The anime, on the other hand, can display mesmerizing paintings in all of their glory. When you watch Blue Period on the screen, your eyes will be blessed with a whole spectrum of colors, arranged into all sorts of beautiful paintings. This is the kind of thing that you won’t be able to experience in the manga.

The story of Sakamichi no Apollon is relatively similar to Blue Period. The main difference is that Blue Period talks about paintings, while Sakamichi no Apollon talks about music, particularly jazz improvisation. Through the sound of sparky drums and serene piano, we learn about jazz just as much as we learn about the lives of the characters in the series.

At least that is the case in the anime. Because in the manga, all you can do is simply enjoy the story and imagine how good the characters actually are at playing their instruments. Sure, the characters clearly tell you the title of any songs that they are playing, so that way you can look for the songs yourself and enjoy them.

That being said, seeing them moving and playing the songs live in the anime is an entirely different experience altogether. There are things that we can leave to our imagination, such as the movement or the feelings of the characters. But there are also things that are infinitely better to be seen and listened to. Music is definitely one of those things that you have to experience, not imagine.

Bakuman is a manga about manga. Therefore, reading the story will tell you every process of creating a manga. The story doesn’t really need an anime, because manga as a storytelling medium is more than capable of conveying all of those technical aspects of making a manga.

That is not the case at all with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. The reason is simply because. rather than manga, Eizouken tackles the subject of anime and all of the complexities of creating an animation. It’s hard to understand what the characters mean by “fluid animation” when we’re staring at a picture.

Not to mention one of the unique aspects of the story is its tendency to take you into the insane imagination of the characters as they brainstorm ideas for their animation project. All of those are nothing more than a series of static images in the manga.

However, when the anime aired its first episode, then suddenly everything made sense. We can finally understand what the characters mean when they talk about the difficulty of creating certain scenes. And we are finally able to enjoy the fruit of their hard work as proper animation, instead of mere illustrations in the manga.

To other entries in this list, an anime adaptation will simply elevate the original manga. To Eizouken, the anime is the one thing that breathes life into the story. This is the one time when manga as a medium actually restrains the story. Eizouken desperately needs the medium of anime, and it should’ve been conceived as one from the start.