I think there’s a gulf between the ideas of work and intellectual property; I consider the latter to consist, in artistic/creative if not legal terms, of those core ideas you mention that run through all derivatives (it gets pretty vague anyway), while the former consists of that plus all the derivatives themselves. The work, then, would list beneath its “Taiga” heading not just the general idea of the character that all Toradora adaptations get across, but every nuance of the character from every adaptation — contradictory though some may be, Taiga as signifier can be said to encompass all of them, from the standpoint of the work.

Of course, this is just looking at the issue of narrative adaptations of a media franchise. There are certainly other modern complexities to the situation… it’s doubtful that you had rabid collectors of 1/65 scale figures of the Knights of the Round Table circa 1200 AD. (Perhaps even with a mail-in special offer? Collect all twelve and receive a limited edition Holy Grail?)

I cite statuary. ; )

In a similar manner to potentially some medieval orators and scribes (and completely opposite Chaucer’s point of view about the integrity of the text), media franchises at the end of the day only hold certain elements of the intellectual property constant. Hence, in all ToraDora expectations we expect to see iterations of Taiga, Ryuuji, Ami, Minorin, etc. But aside from that, anything goes. This is even more evident in long running franchises, such as Batman, where many authors and artists have tried their hand at the character with very different results.

Essentially, the structure of a media franchise is not so different from what Zumthor describes – the distinction between the “work” and the “manuscripts” is pretty much legally enshrined in franchise law: the first being the “intellectual property” and an “adaptation” (or, if you’re particular cynical, “the merchandise”).

Of course, this is just looking at the issue of narrative adaptations of a media franchise. There are certainly other modern complexities to the situation… it’s doubtful that you had rabid collectors of 1/65 scale figures of the Knights of the Round Table circa 1200 AD. (Perhaps even with a mail-in special offer? Collect all twelve and receive a limited edition Holy Grail?)

Man, Gundam is just Gundam to me.

On the post, there’s an interesting experiment going on right now in the Haruhi franchise. Kadokawa has taken fanwork and made a series of cartoon shorts based on it, using the original voice actors of Haruhi Season 1. There you have some mouvance maybe. It really does your head in when trying to think in terms of canon. Then there’s Leiji Matsumoto, who’s a one-man oral culture phenomenon.

I’m hesitant to start making flat-out value judgments about adaptations because the reception thereof is very situational. They differ from translations in that the story of the source material is very often deliberately altered, whether slightly or heavily. Supposedly the Toradora anime diverges from the novels quite a bit in certain areas, but that doesn’t make it bad — for all I know at this point (which isn’t much — I still haven’t read past the first chapter of the first novel), it may make it better, in my estimation.