Animes usually come from Manga, yes.
In Japan, there are 3 big name weekly Manga Magazine.
"Jump", "Magazine", and "Sunday".
Many famous Animations title come from the Jump Magazine.
Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X was it?),
And there are dozens of bi-weekly or monthly Manga magazines.
For example, "Oh my Goddess" was published thru a magazine called "Afternoon KC".
For animations, there are 3 large categories.
#1. Original Animation
#2. Based on something else, but don't really follow the original
#3. Based on something else and (mostly) follow the original story
Example of #1 is ... like all Ghibli movies. they are (well, Nausica has original but) not based on a manga.
Example of #2 are... Dragon Ball GT, Ghost in the Shell SAC series, etc... they use characters from Manga, but new stories are made for Animation.
Example of #3 are most of the series Animations. but as I wrote "mostly", animation is usually not completely the same. Some animations try very hard to be like the original manga tho. We say these Animes are "Gensaku ni Chujitsu" (they stick to the Original).
And ahh... 1 comment on BO-BOBO... it's for kids :p and there are many animes that are ... like that... unfortunately :animeswea
I think the original manga was published in "KoroKoro Comics" and the target age is under 12 so you know... lol
it's fun for kids to watch people fighting with their nose hair, lol
For Record of Lodoss War, it's written by Ryo Mizuno and Group SNE. but original idea was from Hitoshi Yasuda. It has a few mangas that aren't the same with the original novels.
oohh.. post got too long...