The Animators Interpretation

Animators. There's Sunrise, KyoAni, Toei and Shaft. There are more of course but these are the only ones that I know of.

Everyone should have heard of Kanon before. Well, if you haven't, I suggest you watch it. There are two versions of the Anime adaption if you didn't know. One that was produced by Toei Animation released in 2002 and a remake made my KyoAni release in 2006. I have never seen the Toei Animation but KyoAni did a great job on it. But why did decide to animate it if someone already did? Well, the only thing that I could think of is that KyoAni wanted to do another KEY animation and that they felt that they could do a better job than Toei, which I'm assuming they did.

Let's take two stories, Clannad and Code Geass. These are fairly popular shows of course. Let's say that there is a remake of these shows and we switched the animators, Clannad goes to Sunrise and Code Geass goes to KyoAni. Being the great companies they are, do you think that they would the show better than the previous company?

Let's compare Haruhi and Code Geass R2. One got Endless Eight, the other got a timeslot change which fucked up some of the plot. They're more or less equal in my mind. In other words, they both would fuck up if they tried to adapt a work of the other.

Timeslot change? Wha? How would that fuck up the plot?

New timeslot, new audience. Rolo was written into the plot specifically to help ease in new viewers into the plot. It's also why the first episodes paralleled the first season one episodes.

Timeslots can often decide the success and popularity of said series.

I honestly doubt switching companies would amount to a better series in most cases simply because their influence reaches a lot further than the animation and they exhibit clear differences in style and targeted audience.
Sunrise for instance would butcher Clannad since most of the work they partake in is based on action, faster pacing and plot twists while the show relied on the emotional buildup. Toei would prove more capable here (they did the Clannad movie if I'm not mistaken) but beating KyoAni still seems impossible.
As far as Geass is concerned KyoAni would probably have a chance of making an equally good product out of it as long as the FMP staff was mobilized. Would still be a substantially different show though.
Shaft ... Shaft's awesome and all but handing a show to them often results in pausing countless times throughout each episode to read all those damn words written all over the background. Not a good thing if a anime relies on mood or action.

I remember that 100 page+ Code Geass thread talking about this on here. There was so much side story and events that could've taken place. Also about 3/4 of the way through R2 they just up and switched animators. I'd really like to see how more badass that series could've turned out if it wasn't constrained by timeslots and TV channels and budget cuts getting in the way.

HELLSING comes to mind. The 2001 13-episode TV series was animated by Gonzo (aren't they bankrupt yet?) while the ULTIMATE OVA series (which began in 2006) got animated previously by Satelight (up to episode IV), and currently (episodes V & VI) by MADHOUSE. Seriously, there's just NO comparing the two adaptations.

MADHOUSE no doubt is the most successful animation studio out of the three that were mentioned and I would definitely attest to that. They've already proven year in, year out how skillfully they can adapt various genres and types of material into anime (TOO MANY TO NAME! TRUST ME, YOU WOULDN'T WANT ME TO START). However, no matter how true that fact is, it doesn't necessarily mean that they should get all the credit for HELLSING's OVA awesomeness/success, particularly since they're not even the ones who first animated it. There are still some other factors/aspects to consider/note such as the project's time-frame, budget, the form itself (TV series, OVA, Movie), etc.

Do I even need to elaborate? It's rather self-explanatory already; For example, a typical TV series has to be divided into and compose of 20+ minute airing duration per an already predetermined number of episodes and not to mention the restrictions of TV broadcasting (censorship) that would highly affect the entire series' planning/development, where such an adaptation usually ends up being toned down; having less if not none at all: violence, brutality, blood, etc.

Well, all I'm really saying is that MADHOUSE is a very awesome animation studio/production company that you MUST never forget to mention whenever discussing such a topic. :D