I have logical methods for the consumption of entertainment when it comes to the 4 sources of all goodness.
The 4 sources of all goodness.
(1) LNs, Webnovels
(2) Manga, Manhwa
(3) Anime, Movies
(4) Visual Novels, Games
It all comes down to entertainment efficiency and utility. I only have so much lifespan. There are already more stories than I can consume in my lifetime. New stories are always coming out at a rate much faster than I can ever catch up to. Therefore, I favour the medium that will allow me to digest the entertainment I crave in the most efficient way possible. But it's pointless to just focus on speed if the quality drops off. Therefore, both time efficiency and quality are entangled factors that determine what entertainment I consume.
Various series are often adapted to other mediums so a person has to choose which medium they want to read/watch/play the entertainment in. Most often the original format of the entertainment is the best. It hasn't been altered, adulterated, truncated, or subjected to budget limitations.
Anime is an expensive endeavour to produce. Usually, a story is never created as an anime first. It is usually adapted from an already popular book, game, or manga. This is for profit reasons. Anime are usually subject to budget restrictions that directly effect the quality of the final product in a negative way. But when an adaptation is done well it truly is a superior product to manga because manga is a storyboard art style that attempts to approximate motion picture.
Manga and anime can be consumed at roughly the same rate. What I mean is that if you spend 1 hour watching anime or 1 hour reading manga you might find yourself roughly in the same point in the story. Well, rates can vary by person. I favour the fastest way to consume the entertainment first. As I go I assess my personal opinion on how much I like the series, premise, or concept. If I find myself truly interested then I will look at the other mediums the series has be produced in and assess their qualities. After that point it's a balancing act between preference, quality, and time efficiency. I need to figure out which medium will produce the maximum entertainment value per unit time!
Adaptations to any other format from the original format always have problems. Problems due to budget and interpretation. I've already mentioned budget, but not interpretation. The producers who are adapting the media have their own interpretation and vision for the work (eg. character design, plot, and pacing), which may not be the same interpretation as the audience. Thus some people become very unhappy because the adapted product does not correspond to the interpretation they developed in their minds from the original.
Here is a major point in favour of Manga, Manhwa, LNs, Webnovels, Visual Novels, and Games over anime. Anime usually is mainstream media that has to be tailored to a more general audience. There are so many stories that would never be published on as anime and movies because of themes being unsuitable for audiences or profit concerns. The other formats of entertainment can get away with plots, characters, themes, premises, and content that motion picture cannot. So you can find a lot more selection and extreme variety outside of anime. The anime version isn't better than the manga version if it doesn't exist.