Anime adaptations have a reputation for being fairly faithful to their source material while also altering or enhancing certain scenes with stunning animation. The industry's commitment to providing fans with an authentic experience is quite admirable. This is part of the reason why so many people love watching anime, given the knowledge that this medium does generally try to do justice by the manga they're adopting... Barring a few exceptions, that is.
However, some anime adaptations end up truncating the events of the manga to such an extent that the pacing suffers greatly. This can result in rushed storytelling, poorly developed characters, and plot points that are either summarized hastily or ignored altogether. On the other hand, there are other anime that end up stretching out certain scenes to such a degree that the story loses momentum. Both situations are not ideal and lead to an anime's pacing being handled poorly as compared to its manga counterpart.
9 Akame Ga Kill!
Akame ga Kill! Is the poster child of frantic pacing in anime, going so far as to spoil plot points that weren't even seen in the manga. There was no reason the adaptation had to jam-pack so much content that most scenes were left with no room to breathe.
Akame ga Kill's first episode makes for one of the strongest openings to any anime, which is precisely why fans were disappointed by the rest of the experience. Any person interested in experiencing this story should just check out the manga instead, which is way better when it comes to pacing its events.
8 Tower Of God
Tower of God is a manhwa that is arguably the most popular webtoon around. With Crunchyroll taking the initiative to adapt this story among many other manhwa of the same caliber, fans were hoping to see something truly special.
While Tower of God started off on a strong note, this 13-episode anime tried to fit in way too much material given its runtime. The end result is a poorly-paced anime where characters feel quite threadbare and uninteresting, mainly because the show spends too little time developing them.
7 Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo Ghoul's first season is a blast to get through, with the animation and story being in a class of its own. Watching Ken Kaneki transform from a quiet, reserved boy into a battle-hungry ghoul after being tortured extensively makes for a great watch.
Unfortunately, the second season completely bungled up the pacing, going through major plot points at an unnecessarily frenetic pace. To make things worse, it also changed certain plot points that only served to make the narrative even harder to engage with.
6 The God Of High School
The God of High School is perhaps the worst example of poor pacing out of all the manhwa that were adapted into anime. The show spends absolutely no time at all developing its characters, choosing instead to animate a wealth of battles with bombastic set pieces.
This may not sound all that bad, but the fights lose a ton of emotional weight when viewers don't care about the characters participating in these battles at all. The God of High School is a flawed adaptation, and anyone interested in this series should check out the webtoon instead.
5 Arifureta: From Commonplace To World's Strongest
Isekai has become all the rage in anime, so it's easy to see why many people were excited to see that Arifureta would get an anime adaptation. Unfortunately, the show completely glossed over important plot points right from the very first episode.
This set the stage for an inadequate adaptation that hastens the pacing of the source material to a ridiculous degree. Arifureta definitely had the tools to be a successful anime but ended up royally dropping the ball in this regard, becoming another what-could-have-been story instead.
Arifureta debuted as a novel before being adapted into a light novel and manga. The anime was last to arrive on the scene, so while it might not be solely based on a manga, it warrants a mention regardless.
4 Dragon Ball Z
Dragon Ball Z is notorious for stretching out its fights. While certainly iconic and influential, the anime can be somewhat difficult to revisit in this day and age due to its pacing, especially if someone did not grow up with Goku.
The release of Dragon Ball Z Kai also ensures that people can experience this masterpiece without having to sit through copious amounts of filler. It's a good way to enjoy a legendary shonen anime that pretty much everyone is familiar with, including people who have no knowledge of anime. That said, a lot of people prefer the original version of Dragon Ball Z.
3 One Piece
Speaking of shonen anime known for stretching out scenes, another series that comes to mind is One Piece. The story of Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates is a blast to experience, but there is no denying that the anime has an annoying habit of padding out its content. Although always an issue, the story's pacing got notably slower following the time-skip.
At times, One Piece does not even adapt an entire chapter in an episode. It should be noted that many other shonen anime adapt around 2 to 3 chapters per episode.
2 Noblesse
Noblesse chronicles the story of a vampire called Cadis Etrama Di Raizel who wakes up in modern-day South Korea and decides to live out a normal life as he attends high school. The sheer number of changes made to its anime adaptation turned off many fans from the get-go.
It changed the setting from Korea to Japan, while also altering the personalities of beloved characters. All of these changes, coupled with the hasty pacing that every other manhwa adaptation suffered from, led to Noblesse being another missed opportunity.
1 The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland features a first season that is genuinely engrossing, doing a great job of adapting the manga in this stellar adaptation. No one expected the second season to be such a huge downgrade in quality, but that is precisely what happened.
All of a sudden, the impeccable pacing of the show was gone in the new season, leading to many moments feeling half-baked and uninteresting. It's a huge disappointment in every way, especially since this rushed adaptation completely killed the hype around this series after starting out so strong.