A review by kazuchuu
Manga Classics Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

4.0

"Though the people have abandoned us, we will not abandon the people!"

3.5/5

I've always loved reading manga. It's a thing I get teased about in school (all in good humour, of course), but I truly love the style and the art and those hilarious reactions of some characters. (If you've ever read a manga, you know what I'm talking about-those angry white eyes and that popping vein is one of my favourites.)

I have not read Les Mis. I tried to, but the writing style was just too difficult, and I remember I'd been crammed with work by then, so I'd just left it. I could read it if I wanted to, but I always get discouraged when I look at the 1200-something pages. I have watched a bit of the musical though, as well as the movie, so I'd known about half the plot when I'd started reading this.

While I have never finished the musical, I can tell that that the author and all the people involved did their best to get the facts as accurate and correct as possible. The first half of the plot, the one I did know, was presented like how I remember it, so the accuracy of this adaptation isn't an issue at all.

In fact, I think this is a good read for those who don't want to get through a thick book, or watch the musical/the movie. It's fast, and gets the most important parts of the story, while maintaining the poignancy of it all. Some scenes were really heart-breaking for me.

Whether you would like it or not, however, depends on you. A lot of people aren't used to the manga style, so they may not find this enjoyable. Others may not want to read a dark, touching tale in such a format. However, there are some issues that I came across, which kind of spoiled the experience for me.

To start with, the art of Cosette as a child, compared to the art of Cosette as an adult, are both very similar. In fact, I think there's hardly a difference, besides the height; she still looks a lot like a twelve-year-old. This becomes even more off-putting when she starts to fall in love.

Not to mention, the story is very fast-paced. We jump from oppressed-and-abused-Cosette to happy-and-in-love-Cosette real fast. And then comes the fight for freedom, and Jean moving away and coming back-and while I loved the illustrations of the scenes and the portrayal of every character's joy/pain/disappointment, I do wish another hundred or so pages were added to give the reader some time to process what was happening. Of course, it's impossible to include every thing from a 1200-page classic into a manga-kinda like how it is when making a movie based on a book-but more development would have been welcome, as well as more background info on some secondary characters.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy this adaptation; the artwork is really beautiful, and it's really faithful to the original plot. Looking forward to reading more of these!

(Thanks to Netgalley and UDON Entertainment for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.)