Beauty and the Beast was a favorite of mine long before Disney got their monopoly on it. But naturally, I enjoyed the classic animated film as well as the live action recreation that came out earlier this year. This manga tells the tale from both sides very well and you really shouldn't read one and not the other. If you liked the live action film these are based on that version and are sure to delight. (4 stars)

Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites so I was super excited to pick this one up. The artwork is great and just a fun read.

The Prince had everything he could ever want. But he was not kind. When a beggar woman came to the castle, he turned her away. She cursed him and his castle, turning him into a beast and his employees into furniture. They would stay like that until the final petal falls on his rose. Then, they would all be doomed. Everything changed when Belle came along. She went to the castle to rescue her father, who the Beast had imprisoned for trying to steal a rose. Belle took her father's place and stayed at the castle. The furniture immediately fell in love with her. They knew that if anyone could save their Prince, it would be her. 

I loved this graphic novel. It gives a fresh perspective on the Beauty and the Beast tale, since it only focuses on the Beast. Though his story is told in the movie, this manga focuses only on his side, so it is unique. 

I liked the way that the Beast's emotions were demonstrated through the art. When the Beast was angry, sharp lines were used for shading. A few times, the Beast's frame took up two pages, making him seem huge and intimidating. 

One thing that bothered me while reading this book was the order of the text on the page. In a manga, it is supposed to be read from right to left. But sometimes this one read from left to right, if the text was higher on the left. This was confusing at first. 

This is a really great graphic novel. It goes along with Belle's Tale.

This was cute. I had a nice time reading this. I loved the pictures. I also love the story obviously. I thought it was really interesting reading from the beasts point of view.

In occasione dell'uscita nelle sale cinematografiche del film "La Bella e la Bestia" con Emma Watson e Dan Stevens, la Tokyopop ha distribuito un'interessante trasposizione della pellicola in formato manga. I due volumi che compongono l'opera raccontano entrambi la stessa storia, ma ognuno dal punto di vista di uno dei protagonisti.

The Beast's tale narra la storia dal punto di vista della Bestia, e devo dire di averlo trovato migliore rispetto al precedente.
L'inizio è davvero molto bello.

Interessante la scena inedita in cui la Bestia sta leggendo su una guglia quando vede arrivare il padre di Belle. Veramente un'aggiunta molto carina!
Rispetto al volume dedicato alla protagonista femminile, troviamo qui molta più introspezione, viene indagato il rapporto della Bestia con la madre e i suoi sentimenti nei confronti della servitù.
Inoltre anche i disegni sembrano più belli, meno stilizzati. Notevoli le tavole in cui il protagonista lotta con i lupi.

Vi sono inoltre anche alcune scene divertenti, come quella in cui la Bestia fa le pulizie!
Come nell'altro volume, il manga concept art finale è piuttosto interessante.
L'unico appunto che potrei fare a questo manga, che mi è piaciuto veramente molto, è l'uso delle onomatopee in giapponese, la cui interpretazione ha richiesto molta fantasia.

When I was ten years old I became obsessed with fairy tales, visiting the public library and perusing as many books as I could find that were filled with tons of these stories from the past. One of my favorites was Beauty and the Beast, originally created by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740. However, the version I knew was adapted in 1889 by Andrew Lang in the Blue Fairy Book. The universal theme of finding love by uncovering the beauty within a person despite their outward appearance or misguided actions is appealing to all story tellers, so it's not surprising that this is one tale that has gone through numerous reinventions over the years appearing in formats ranging from stage to screen to television to animation to written word and now - Manga style.

While I love Disney, in recent years their adaptations of many well known fairy tales only retain a teeny essence of the original such as Frozen (doesn't even slightly resemble The Snow Queen), Tangled (well she did have really long hair), or The Princess and the Frog (not even close). However, many aspects of Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast actually took components from the original, especially if you leave out that whole Gaston bit. While I haven't seen the new live action Disney Movie, it is my understanding that several details were added to flesh out the story which at least have a footing in the French version.

Along with the artistic talents of Studio Dice, Mallory Reaves has created a manga graphic novel based on this movie. In order to provide some depth and present the points of view of both main charactors, Tokyo Pop has published twin companion books, Belle's Tale: (Disney's Beauty and and the Beast, #1) and The Beast's Tale: (Disney's Beauty and the Beast, #2). Their challenge was to retain the essence of the Disney renditions utilizing the Shojo Manga style which was beautifully accomplished with the location pieces superbly rich with details using line drawings to recreate various rooms in the castle and other locales. My favorite was the vast library which the Beast presents to Belle as her own. While it is difficult to capture all the nuances of a movie in a one dimensional drawing, the artist made a valiant attempt, helped along with our familiarity with the animation, stage, and movie versions so many of us have seen over the years.

As far as the plot is concerned, Belle's point of view will be the most familiar to the readers, but the Beast's tale is definitely a companion piece meant to be read in conjunction with the first. While Belle's story could easily stand alone, too much is missing from the book featuring the Beast's perceptions, despite the duplication of many panels. Yet I found it fascinating to listen in to the Beast's thoughts and reactions as he experienced the same events as Belle, helping the reader undergo his transformation from Beast to man in a way which makes us root all the more for true love. While there are a few "holes" in both stories, the manga style necessitates brevity over explanation forcing the reader to interject their own aesthetics into the saga. It was clever how the artists were able to differentiate the character's thoughts from the dialogue.

Both books contained several pages of concept art at the conclusion of the story.

A thank you to Netgalley and Tokyo Pop for providing this ARC in the exchange for an honest review. Four stars. This review also appears on my blog, Gotta Read.

'Beauty and the Beast: Beast's Tale' by Mallory Reaves with art by Studio Dice is a manga version of the Disney movie. It is a 2-part series with this part being told from Beast's perspective.

Of the two volumes in the series, this is the more interesting one, since the movie mostly follows Belle's perspective. There is a bit of liberty with the story here and how the Beast got to be the way he is. The story overlaps with Belle's, but from the Beast's point of view, so you get his inner thoughts.

The artists worked with the Disney team to get the characters close, and yet still give them a manga sensibility. This volume includes some character concepts and other sketch details at the end.

I received a review copy of this manga from Tokyopop, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this manga.

This comic is called "The Beast's Tale," but it's actually just a repeat of "Belle's Tale" with maybe two different pages. Instead of giving us all of the Beast's background and telling the story entirely from his point of view, we just get a repeat of everything we read from Belle's perspective. And, just like the other one, there was a huge watermark on every page.

“She will never see me as anything but a monster because I have never been anything more.”

The second volume in this series and I have to admit, I liked this much more than the first volume which had Belle's side of the story. The illustrations were better and more suited to the story then in the last volume and surprisingly I didn't find myself wishing for color as I did in the last one. Maybe, because I got accustomed to the way these manga adaptations are, but I'm pretty sure it was also because I felt like the artwork's quality improved and became really story/scene appropriate.

Beast's thoughts and feelings that we almost never get to see in all the Beauty and the Beast adaptations were calculatingly filled in the manga and perfectly executed in all the scenes. I loved how realistically the Beast was portrayed - well, as realistic it gets at least - but his reactions were evidently authentic. His interactions with the enchanted help and the way his background parent story was involved made the tale make much more sense as readers got to saw why the Beast became the way he was even before the curse. I was swooning over this beast. Period.

All in all, I liked it and would definitely recommend it to Disney princess fans!

I was quietly watching emails when suddenly I get the usual NetGalley newsletter with the manga/comics news. Sometimes I avoided watching to not fall into temptation but sometimes I get it and here I am! Two manga volumes of Disney's film "The Beauty and the Beast", what do I do? Do not I ask them? Of course not. And time to connect and download them, I'm reading in PC.
The story is identical to that of the film, the designer has faithfully reproduced it, but has also added backgrounds depending on the subject matter. Obviously for the volume dedicated to Belle has been deepened a little bit more her character and we notice sprays of her childhood and her deeper thoughts. For Adam/The Beast was the same but I found his point of view more interesting perhaps because he does not go to talk much about him in the other transpositions and why he behaves so coldly. Yet I found sweet him thoughts for Belle changing page after page and him heart melting with the girl's presence.
The fact that I did not give a full score is because as far as the designs I have liked, what Gaston did was not convincing at all. He looks like a distant relative of Zenigata (Lupin III) with him hair at Elvis Presley and that's all to say. Then, I do not know, there is a lack of insight into Belle that would not have been wrong.

GORGEOUS and fun for all ages! I loved it so much!

A few days ago I posted my review of the first instalment of this collection, Belle's Tale.

There's not a whole lot extra I can say about this one, as I mentioned the art style last time. I did like how this featured the Beast's side - as the title suggests - and therefore provides more insight into his own experiences and feelings. It was nice to read these two parts together; the same story but from different perspectives. I think it was a pretty unique was of telling the classic fairytale.

This has never been my favourite story, but I still enjoyed it. I preferred this book to the first one, as it seems a bit more original and took a bit of a new turn on the original story. Overall, a strong 3.5 stars.

I loved it! The Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite stories since I was a child, so this manga about the new movie from the point of view of the beast is a great discovery!! We allways watch the movie thinking about Belle, but looking everything with the eyes of the beast is lovely!! Thank for this story!!!
nd I also love the illustrations! So simple, fresh and nice!!!

Everyone knows this "tale as old as time," and if you have not seen the Disney live version of their animated version, get to the theatre! However, what Tokyo Pop does with this manga is different in that we finally get to see the separate points of view of the two characters. By moving beyond the known tale through the use of manga, the Mallory Reaves offers up a new tale for a new time and a new generation.

For the most part, the movie focuses on Belle's point of view so the manga version does not share any kind of new insight, but volume 2 from the Beast uses the genre of manga to fully exemplify Beast's fear, depression, anger and self-doubt through its darker drawing style and uneven shaped panels.

Another plus for the manga version is that I was not disappointed by the transformation of the Beast back to human form. He is a typical manga stylized hero. This type of hero does not usually translate well on screen, either animated or live.

Finally, the "artist" notes at the end of the books are always a nice breaking of the third wall that appeals to me as a teacher who is interested in process as well as reflection on process.

An advanced copy provided by Net Galley.com and the publishers for an honest review.

4.75/5.00 stars.
I am going to start by saying that the graphics of this manga were exquisite. (Oh! Look at me using big words.) The overall story was not very far from the original Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the cartoon. I know. I haven't seen my most anticipated 2017 movie, yet. Notice the "yet."
Since it is based on the movie, there may be lots of spoilers.
We learn more about the characters' backgrounds. Belle's part was confusing-ish and felt cut short, in a way, while The Beast's was intriguing. Probably because we knew so little about the beast in the previous Disney's adaptation. Or the manga story makes more sense the second time and it happens to be The Beast's point of view. The overall dialogue combined with the images made the tale to flow rather nicely. Since the manga focused on Belle and The Beast, we do not see too much of Gaston and LeFou. Some plot holes are here and there because of the shift from third person - seen in the movies - to first person in the manga (e.g. the crowd from the castle).
This was a great quick read. And if you are a Beauty and the Beast, you might want to ask Mrs. Potts for some tea because this might be your cup of tea. ;)

This is my sole opinion. ^_^

I would like to say thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than Belle's version. (And I really don't know why...) The are was good in places, but often appeared only half finished. The art was beautiful on one page, then lacking on the next. Disappointing since one of my favorite parts of Manga is the art! The story was good, but I felt at the beginning he looked much too old, as he was around 11 years old when he was cursed...but manga's like that XD Over all I did enjoy this one, and though while not my favorite version, it did remind me once again why this is my favorite princess story.

Beautiful graphic novel the the story of Beauty and The Beast. I loved the illustrations, very delicate and descriptive. The story was loyal to the movie, the vol1 has Belle's POV while vol2 has the beast POV and I loved them both, even though it could have been made in one only book.

Wonderful story and beautiful art. And I back up my opinion with all the bias I can feeñ towards everything related to this story. Amazing everywhere you look.

*I received this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Let me start this review by saying that I do really like fairy tales and I also really love manga.

When I picked up this manga, I was hoping it would be more than the new live-action movie-- some insights and extra scenes... no, there are less scenes because we don't get the scenes without Beast. Because of this, the story goes very fast and seems choppy. This scene-- then to this one-- And then here! Although, I'll admit that I think this one was better than Belle's Tale.

The other thing I disliked was how the speech bubbles were. I have never read a comic like that. Usually they low, left to right top to bottom, or right to life top of bottom of the page. This one is right to left panels and within the panels top to bottom bubbles. That is the ONLY WAY the story makes sense and it is so annoying. And the page in the back explaining how to read it, is not accurate for what is in the book.

I will say I enjoyed the artwork and thought they did a good job capturing the background.

Therefore, I'd recommend this story to younger children and hope they understand how the bubbles work.

This is not a particularly unique presentation, not much in the way of new material. Yes, we get some new elements, information about the prince's childhood and Belle's mother. Usually presenting two perspectives draws in all kinds of new information. But really we get a lot of both stories in the Disney movie. Most enjoyed by fans of the movie, I'd suspect.