Tomo-chan Is A Girl & Kaina of the Great Snow Sea Anime/Manga Comparisons

    Welcome back to my review blog, Beyond the Anime! For the second entry in my anime/manga comparison series, I chose to focus on two anime currently airing in the Winter 2023 season, Tomo-chan Is A Girl and Kaina of the Great Snow Sea. 

    Tomo-chan was adapted from an already completed manga, and Kaina is just the opposite - an original anime which is now also being adapted into manga. Read on for the similarities and differences between the manga and anime versions of each series! Mild spoilers ahead, but nothing beyond the most recent episodes of the anime. 

Tomo-chan Is A Girl

    The anime perfectly captures the art style and character designs of the manga, and the backgrounds which were scarce in the original add a lot to the atmosphere. Tomo-chan is adapted from a 4-koma, a manga that portrays short comedic stories told in four panels - technically standalone, but often with the next picking up right where the previous one left off. Many of these scenes are combined in the anime to make an episode which covers two or three short stories, and this format works really well for the series.  

    Tomo-chan's earliest chapters can be a little rough at times, leaning too heavily into the joke that Jun will occasionally forget his best friend is, in fact, a girl. A few of these short skits have Jun accidentally following Tomo to the girl's bathroom or, like the scene pictured below, casually saying he heard from one of the guys who has a girlfriend that bras are difficult to take off - and acts completely stunned by the realization that Tomo wears one herself. The anime focuses more on Jun treating Tomo like one of his guy friends because he doesn't want to take the risk of changing their relationship, and I much prefer that direction.

    The storytelling improves considerably after the beginning, and there's less of the "Jun actually forgot Tomo is a girl" jokes - most of which weren't adapted into the anime. There were quite a few scenes I really enjoyed in this section of the story that the anime cut short, like the scenes where their classmates discussed which boys or girls they like and how similar Tomo's and Jun's reactions were to this information, plus Misuzu asking Tomo what exactly she likes about Jun. Carol saying she didn't want to be friends with the boys because they would think "dirty things" about her was also an interesting bit of self-awareness.

    Side characters like Tomo's parents get more spotlight in the manga, which I really enjoyed. The interactions shown between them were slightly different than what was portrayed in the anime, with flashbacks giving the impression that Akemi was used to reigning in Goro when necessary (like father, like daughter) while the anime seemed to suggest she reveled in the chaos he caused. I also loved the additional scene at the playground where a group of kids wanted to play with Tomo and Jun got jealous like a little kid himself saying that Tomo already agreed to play with him, and Akemi's thoughts about trusting Jun to take care of her daughter after seeing him eat the hilariously tough sardine rice balls Tomo made.

    The scene pictured above is only shown in the manga and occurs after Tomo's hilariously fearsome dodgeball skills prompt the other girls to beg their gym teacher to talk some sense into her. She asks Tomo's friends for advice, but Misuzu turns it around and bargains with the teacher to get herself out of gym class. Meanwhile, Carol thinks it's a staring contest. The anime already does a great job of building up the main characters' personalities, so it doesn't feel like anything is missing despite the fact that some of the manga's skits don't make it into the episodes. It's more like these extra conversations add to and reinforce those aspects of their personalities that fans already know and love, providing more of the same but in a very good way. 

    Scenes like these definitely make reading the manga worth it, even if you've already seen the anime, as they offer plenty of fun new scenarios, which elevates it beyond just reading the same episodes in manga form. At the pace Tomo-chan's anime is moving through the story, it looks like this single season will finish its adaptation of the source material, but if you're a fan of these characters, I would still recommend checking out the manga. 

    Kaina of the Great Snow Sea

   

    There are only three chapters available for Kaina of the Great Snow Sea's manga adaptation on Crunchyroll at the time of this blog post, which covers material from episodes 1 and 2 of the anime. The quality of this adaptation is somewhat mixed, with the artwork ranging from very well done to overly simplistic in a way that doesn't truly show the beauty of Kaina's world, and the translation choices are not always accurate. 

    At times, the artwork of Kaina's manga adaptation is beautiful and detailed, but this level of detail is not always consistent. The background scenery in the manga often fails to capture the awe-inspiring sci-fi landscapes without the subtle, otherworldly shades of color used in the anime. The canopy and the snow sea are often simply shown as white with little shading to make it appear as any more than blank backgrounds. However, when the scenery is the focal point of the image, the difference can be quite stunning.

Kaina walking on the canopy in the anime...

...and that same scene in the manga.

    The action scenes leave much to be desired as well. Rather than portraying the flow of movement during a battle scene or during Kaina's hunt, the panels feel more like static images. It's unfortunate, because the Valghians' armor is drawn with fine detail, and the content of the action itself is actually more ambitious than what was shown in the anime. 

    There's a brief battle in the air when Valghian soldiers swing onto Ririha's basket as it floats away, and a scene where Kaina fully climbs aboard to rescue Ririha and sees the bodies of her fallen comrades still inside. These instances added some excitement to the story and ensures that the manga will not simply be a retelling of the same events exactly as they occurred in the anime. 

    The elderly members of Kaina's village have much more detailed designs in the manga that emphasize their unique qualities, making it easier to tell them apart, whereas the character models used in the anime all look very similar (and wear hoods, unlike their manga designs) in a way that portrays them like a community as a whole rather than individuals, aside from the Signkeeper. 

    The manga version of Kaina also has a few strange translation choices. Ririha's title has been changed from princess to queen - and this does not seem to indicate an actual change in the story, as a panel in Chapter 3 reveals that her father is indeed still alive. Even more odd is the translation of Amelothee's title as king instead of general. The name of the soldier who sends Ririha off in the basket, Jarge, also has a different spelling in the manga, Georges. 

    This wouldn't be the first time there were alternate spellings of characters' names between the anime and manga (like Eren Jaeger vs Eren Yaeger in Attack on Titan) or even military ranks (Captain Levi vs Lieutenant Levi, also from AOT), but the difference in the level of power between a princess and a queen is more prominent, and Amelothee being referred to as a king comes off as especially inaccurate due to Valghia not having royalty and the implication that Amelothee herself reluctantly joined Valghia when her country was destroyed by their fleet. 

Apparently, Ririha receives a slight status promotion in the manga! The snow horses are still adorable as always.

    For these reasons, the manga adaptation of Kaina is a bit of a mixed bag. I will continue to follow the release of the new manga chapters to see any additional scenes and how they impact the story, and I would recommend checking it out if you're also a fan of the story and don't mind a few inconsistencies, but the anime seems to be the definitive version. One note in its favor is that the manga is available with a Crunchyroll subscription, so if you're already watching Kaina, there's no extra cost to read the manga as well. 

    Stay tuned for my next blog post, which will be a feature on my favorite anime from the Winter 2023 season! 

*All images are from the Tomo-chan Is A Girl anime and manga & Kaina of the Great Snow Sea anime and manga (now available on Crunchyroll). Screenshots taken by me.