User blog comment:Nick D Wolfwood/Manga vs Anime for canon material/@comment-3134619-20101109231508

While the anime is a wonderful source of things like color pictures, fleshed-out ideas that Hoshino has stated but wasn't able to write into the manga and other such things, the fact remains that the anime was /not/ written by Hoshino, the creator of the D.Gray-Man concept.

If you look at the credits (or go here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6764), you'll see that the only time Hoshino is mentioned in the Japanese staff is as the 'Original creator'. Very pertinent positions like scenario directors, storyboard directors, and even character designers all go to other people.

While these people (as they usually do) have stuck closely to the original story line, they have still added their own, non-canonical material, and they still have complete poetic license once their studio has bought the rights from Hoshino's people. And, as it's been seen with Full Metal Alchemist/Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, this isn't always a good thing (another example would be the Eragon book to the Eragon movie, and even beyond that it is not uncommon for novelists to publicly disown a movie that has been made about their book, further illustrating that once the rights have been bought even the original creator can't do much about what those who bought the rights do with it).

Besides even all of that, isn't the anime over? And isn't the manga still going? That, right there, limits the anime's involvement.

While I have nothing against the anime (except the English version, but I am not fond of Funimation's voice casting skills), the fact remains that the /manga/ is what is being overseen by Hoshino directly, and written by her (when she has full use of both of her hands). Again, once the rights have been bought, the anime directors are able to do pretty much whatever they want.

Now, here's how I see it: If an anime-exclusive arc is something Hoshino is quoted as saying it /was/ her idea, but she was unable to put it into the manga for whatever reason (like Kubo with the character Ashido Kano and the location the Forest of Menos), and it fits into the timeline of the main story, then it can be considered canon.

However, if it is something Hoshino has never alluded to, has never written about in any after chapter special, has never been quoted as saying, etc., then it is not canon. It is part of the series (and here I use this as an umbrella term for the manga, the anime, and any other official work done), as a whole, yes, but it is not canon to the original story.

Furthermore, there are certain instances where the anime may state something before the manga gets around to it, and when the manga does get around to getting to it, it my conflict with what the anime said (such as when the anime states that Kanda's lotus is a /physical/ thing, while recent chapters have clearly stated that it is an /illusion/ that only Kanda can see). That, in an of itself, can discredit the anime as a viable source of canon material.

Of course, there are certain instances where the mangaka involves themselves in the production of the anime (i.e., Tite Kubo lending his imaginative skills to the Bleach anime Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc), but even then what results may not fit into the timeline of the manga (as, indeed, it was with the Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc).

However, this is a wikia about the D.Gray-Man series, both anime and manga; it says so right on the main page. We have references to both the manga and the anime; if we didn't, we wouldn't be doing our jobs to (as the main page says) "build the most informative site for D.GrayMan on the internet". What we say we must do; if it is official ('official' being it was written and published by professionals and is presented in such a way) and it falls under the name D.Gray-Man, we collect information on it, we write in a neat, precise manner, and we post it for all who need it to see, with none of our personal bias included.

It is this neat, precise matter in which we aspire to do this that calls for us to clearly define what is canon, and what is not.

So, again; if it is in the manga, and the anime simply elaborates on it in a way that does not conflict with the rest of the story line as Hoshino has laid it out for us, it can be canon. If it is something exclusive to anything but a work that Hoshino has contributed to/created, it cannot.

If we list something that is not canon but is still part of the overall series, then we must make sure to say so.

...^.^' Of course, that is just my opinion.