[CelestialChild]

It depends on a lot of things. For example, in terms of simple story, I liked the first season of Magic Knight Rayearth better as portrayed by the anime rather than the manga; the manga was short-paced and didn't take much time to appreciate the world of Cephiro. As far as Part II, the manga was certainly better.

There's also the fact that not all anime began with manga, and sometimes the process happened in reverse.