Should more visual novels get anime adaptations?

I think it very much depends, since some VN adaptations have been amazing (Steins;Gate) while others have been terrible, like the other VNs from the same series as S;G like Chaos;Head/Child. I'll mostly be talking about that series, Science Adventure, since its what I'm familiar with but a lot of this applies to other VNs.

To me the two major determining factors of whether or not a VN adaptation will be good are the length of the VN compared to the anime, and the structure of the VN.

As for the length, its kinda impossible for a VN adaptation to be good when a 50-60 hour VN is crammed into a 12-13 episode anime, which is what happened with both Chaos; VNs. Compare that to Steins;Gate, which was about half the length, at 25-30 hours, and got 25 episodes for its anime adaptation.

The other major thing is the structure of the VN. Many VNs have multiple different branching routes which all need to be played in order to fully understand the story. For any of these VNs, there are two options for how to adapt them. First, you can try to combine all of the important information from each route into one route, and leave out lots of extra content, which is what happened for the Chaos; adaptations. The other option is to do what Fate: Stay Night did and adapt each route separately, but then that leads to a VN taking literally 15 years to fully adapt, and would really only work for something as popular as Fate.
(plus the original fate daptation did try to include stuff from all 3 routes, which is why its still impossible to experience the story in the correct order via the anime since the first adaptation mostly covers the first route, but with spoilers from the other 2 since they assumed it would be the only adaptation)

However, for VNs that have a much more linear story, like Steins;Gate, which has one true ending route, and multiple short side endings that were easy to omit from the anime, making an anime adaptation is much easier.

Myself:Yourself
Yosuga no Sora
Ayakashi
Canvas 2
Da Capo
Phantom of Inferno/Requiem for the Phantom
Grisaia
Shuffle
Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka
11eyes
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
H2O: Footprints in the Sand
Akane Maniax

All anime I've watched that were adapted off a visual novel. They're all of varying quality, but length and faithful adaptation certainly helps. Any adaptation that actually includes h-scenes in some form gets bonus points.

I think it very much depends, since some VN adaptations have been amazing (Steins;Gate) while others have been terrible, like the other VNs from the same series as S;G like Chaos;Head/Child. I'll mostly be talking about that series, Science Adventure, since its what I'm familiar with but a lot of this applies to other VNs.

To me the two major determining factors of whether or not a VN adaptation will be good are the length of the VN compared to the anime, and the structure of the VN.

As for the length, its kinda impossible for a VN adaptation to be good when a 50-60 hour VN is crammed into a 12-13 episode anime, which is what happened with both Chaos; VNs. Compare that to Steins;Gate, which was about half the length, at 25-30 hours, and got 25 episodes for its anime adaptation.

The other major thing is the structure of the VN. Many VNs have multiple different branching routes which all need to be played in order to fully understand the story. For any of these VNs, there are two options for how to adapt them. First, you can try to combine all of the important information from each route into one route, and leave out lots of extra content, which is what happened for the Chaos; adaptations. The other option is to do what Fate: Stay Night did and adapt each route separately, but then that leads to a VN taking literally 15 years to fully adapt, and would really only work for something as popular as Fate.
(plus the original fate daptation did try to include stuff from all 3 routes, which is why its still impossible to experience the story in the correct order via the anime since the first adaptation mostly covers the first route, but with spoilers from the other 2 since they assumed it would be the only adaptation)

However, for VNs that have a much more linear story, like Steins;Gate, which has one true ending route, and multiple short side endings that were easy to omit from the anime, making an anime adaptation is much easier.

No, please! :p I know that there are some good VN adaptations out there, but I see a linear adaptation of a non-linear story as a recipe for disaster (unless we're talking about the fully linear VNs or too many creative liberties, of course). I'd only be cautiously optimistic if someone decides to make several parallel series or episodes that are meant to be watched separately and culminate in some kind of a "true route" or epilogue series. Otherwise, when it comes to a typical linear anime series adaptation of a non-linear VN, it's a matter of both luck and skill, and it usually seems to fail spectacularly. Some of the worst and nonsensical anime series I've ever seen were VN adaptations, which makes me even more biased against the standard anime adaptations. And don't even get me started on the censorship if something has eroge content, especially if it's supposed to serve more purposes than just being an eye candy. That's like a nail in the coffin.

In any case, I've made a rule for myself to never watch a VN adaptation before playing the original. Yes, I know that series like Steins;Gate are supposed to be very good adaptations, but I'm not going to watch it until I play the VN. Whether it's a mistake or not, I've gotten to a point where I'm genuinely afraid to even try a VN adaptation lol I've become a visualnoveltoanimeadaptationphobe :p but I guess if I decide to make an exception, it's certainly going to be something like Steins;Gate, acclaimed by both the general public and, more importantly, by people whom I personally trust. Even if I won't like it, at least I'll be more or less sure that I watched a good adaptation.


I'm not familiar with the Science Adventure series (yet) or their adaptations, but I've seen this happen in other VN adaptations all the time! It's like they just think "oh well, let's mash those routes together, ignore all the context and see how it goes" :/ all the other problems you've described, like the inadequate adaptation length, are also prevalent, of course.


I'm in favor of bashing my head against the wall if someone decides to adapt a VN that I like lol to me, it equals to saying something like "I'm on a mission to mock and ruin something that you hold dear, and you can't stop me, ha-ha-ha" :p I don't really mind creative changes or some personal touches here and there, but I'd be extremely worried about transferring the overall atmosphere and "vibe", and what the narrative structure would look like as a result of such an adaptation.