Faithful is not the same as good

Every season, someone argues that a faithful adaptation is the highest goal an anime can have. Every season, the best episodes of the season disprove it.

Faithfulness is a floor, not a ceiling

A panel is a still image the reader controls the pace of. A cut is a moving image the director controls the pace of. Transposing one into the other unchanged is not fidelity — it is a refusal to translate.

Three adaptations that changed things and were right to

1. An anime-original cold open that gives a late reveal somewhere to land.
2. A cut subplot that existed to pad a weekly serialisation schedule.
3. A reordered arc that fixes a pacing problem the manga never solved.

None of these are betrayals. They are the adaptation doing its job.