Spoilers for Fantasy High and for the Fantasy High comic.
I think first and foremost for fans of Fantasy High, we have to acknowledge that this isn't just an adaptation, it's an adaptation from an audio medium to a visual medium. The analysis video Lost In Adaptation: The Adventure Zone explains it a lot better than myself if you wanna give it a watch, but basically this is a different ballpark than adapting a book to a movie. A book gets the benefit of having descriptions of settings, designs, internal monologue, that the adapter can work with for a visual movie, they have a guide to get everything as close as possible.
But Fantasy High, all we really get is hilarious voice acting and some art designs of the cast. That's it. That's just dialogue and any descriptions that is thrown out about the place, which won't be as extensive as a book because they are moving on with character interactions and plot. So to put that in a comic setting, now you really have to think of blocking, setting designs, backgrounds, foregrounds. That is a lot to transfer in order to touch the story, a lot to fill in the gaps with.
Seeing Riz being Anime Protag-Kun was wild but a good choice! Not only do I love the design of a classic plucky shonen character , but it's smart that he's the driving force of the comic. Riz the Character was created as a "Plot Hound" by Murph, meaning he's going to be the one that is most invested in solving the mystery. The other characters, our protagonists, aren't even aware there is a mystery in the first place. Riz has a reason to go to school beyond going to school. Mix that in with his inquisitive nature and questions, we have a convenient way of pushing the narrative and setting exposition while being natural about it.
For anyone who hasn't watched Fantasy High or played D&D before, because of Riz we learned the basics of what the school is like, an adventuring party, who Penny is and why that's important, who is Helio as a religion. He is naturally going to be the best option for people reading to get answers, at least in the start.
Following that, again it is smart to have all the character introductions happen at the school. The show has the luxury of 2 hour episodes, so a lot of time was dedicated to each player and character of who they are. Webcomics do not have that luxury. We can't just see everyone's family dynamic exactly as the show plays it out before school, that is at least 6 episodes right there before they get into the door.
Instead the Comic did a brilliant move of showing the home-life of everyone inthe beginning as a prologue before reaching Riz.
Fig is being a punk brat to her mother leaving for work. Gorgug is taller than his neighbors as his parents wave him off to school. Kristen healing her brother in her suburban mom's mini-van. Fabian putting on the blood-rush jacket but completely alone in his large house. Adaine arguing with her sister to her parents' indifference. And Riz staring at a cork board while information of the case is being told to us via radio. Like we get a general outside look of their lives before we slowly but surely learn who they actually are.
They also made changes to the story beats, in my opinion for the better. Adaine going into the library as "initiation to a mage guild" makes a lot more sense than "Augfort kids are insane they'll just steal books to be cool". And Riz getting detention for trying to spy in the girl's bathroom for clues rather than stealing tea to convince someone else to do it for him. Easy to understand and still gets the job done. Fig using the student crowd to her advantage by starting GoldenRod chant, which lets be real is the funniest thing to do to just not be someone's name. There's a lot of stuff like this as the story to squish in for time or just make it naturally make sense, because again, we can't have scenes drag out like they can in an improv 2 hour D&D show.
We are also slowly expanding the side characters and technology. The phones are Crystals that's visually shown. And we meet famed pirate Bill Seacaster, as dangerous and bombastic as we remember. I love how we are visually planting the seeds of Fabian's home life, of his struggles with his family legacy and trying to match it. It's obvious they love each other, but there's still that bit of Fabian reaching those expectations and not as confident as he portrays himself.
We only have so much time in just 3 episodes of a webcomic, so we got to go one character at a time.
With being a comic not only is it tightening up scenes, but we are expanding them as well. We get to actually see Fabian and Gorgug fight instead of just two punches and call it good.
Dayne actually has a personality, like my god who would have thought. Plus there's actually more than 2 people on the Blood Rush team. They haven't talked yet, but they exist. And supportive. That's what we need in a comic and adaptation, expand on ideas and parts that weren't really touched on. I can already think of future scenes that were glossed over for time that can actually be shown in comic.
The art itself, it can be pretty wonky at times not going to lie. There's a habit of turning the background people into blobs of shapes or shadows if they are just extras in the scene.
Like the crowd around Fabian and Gorgug's fight? Yeah they are just standing ovals with heads on. Not really dynamic or expressive or anything. Even having arms moving sometimes would at least show it's a riled crowd.
But I understand why, at least I've read enough Webcomics to figure the why. You get to the point where you don't need to be detailed to get a point across. Don't need to completely fill the room with bodies for readers to clock it's a crowded room. Also using CGI for backgrounds, food, horses, is pretty common trick in webcomics too.
But the colors are bright and vibrant. Really pops and get your focus that this is a fantasy world with fun vibrant character designs.
It's also uses color a lot in place of backgrounds. Part of it is just easier to cover the full screen than to continue to draw backgrounds. But it's also a stylistic choice, the colors can be used to represent the characters and mood lighting. Gives it more pop and pizzaz rather than keep it to the same locker shot
Also we are leaning in hard with fantastic serious character designs up close
And cute little chibi character designs for comedic parts. It's pretty common especially in manga so it will fluctuate between the two different modes.
Overall, I think this is a fun adaptation, which is what Fantasy High is supposed to be. Again, this is only 3 episodes and just barely over halfway through the 1st episode. But it is chaotic, vibrant, the 1 scene Arthur Augfort is in is so in-character that's just straight up canon. It's never going to be exactly the same, but that's not fun if it is. We can just watch it off of Dropout if we want that. The webcomic is fun, and as fans we should enjoy the effort that was put into it.
