Manga Classics: The Count of Monte Cristo

Full feature for this title will be posted at: @cattleboobooks on Instagram!

You say "Monte Cristo", and I say "I am weak", that is the general feeling I experienced when finding this volume among the downloadables.
The story of Edmond Dantes is widely known, so I won't talk about it, but let me tell you about this manga: I want to read all Manga Classics now.
The drawings are absolutely beautiful, the story is very loyal to the one in the book, and from the notes at the ending you can see the sketcher made a huge effort to make every table in the manga as accurate and pretty close to reality as she could (i.e. the explanation of how she had to draw again the scenes in the Chateau D'If after visiting the castle).
If you are a fan of the Count and his story and love beautiful drawings, this is absolutely the manga for you.
I will surely read more Manga Classics.

It was highly entertaining and I love that the Count ended up feeling more like a hot vampire than the completely changed man I thought he was in the book. They did a great job of condensing the story down, but naturally had to lose a lot of depth. There was a lot of explanations done through text boxes just because there was no other way for them to.

I feel like it's a decent primer for the Count of Monte Cristo, but should be read with the book itself.

This adaptation was done so so well! The author somehow managed to condense a 1000 pages long epic revenge story into 400 pages long manga without making it feel like something was missing. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire story - plot, characters and of course illustrations. The only thing that bothered me a little was a big cast of characters - I was sometimes at loss who exactly was who in some scenes even though the characters were illustrated amazingly. I will definitely be reading the original book in the future, this manga absolutely convinced me to do so.
All of these manga classics adaptations make otherwise quite intimidating books so much more approachable and easy to get into!

On the very day of his wedding to the beautiful Mercedes, a young merchant sailor named Edmond Dantès is falsely imprisoned for life, laying to waste his plans of marriage and hard-earned fortune. Following several long years in prison he has managed to escape and reinvent himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Christo. It is the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Count has been plotting his revenge on the three men who had him falsely imprisoned. With a new identity, an incredible education abroad and a vast fortune, has returned completely unrecognizable to those who had committed their crimes against him.

Artwork is beautiful and it was eary to read. Amazing adaptation.

The books did an amazing job of turning a very detailed and complex story into a manga. The art and writing were great. They did a great job of cutting just enough but keep the right amount so that the story would not lose that amazingness that is the original version.


I revised a free copy from NetGalley and decided to leave a review.

After unsuccessfully having tried to listen to the audiobook, I DNFed the novel thinking I wasn't meant to ever finish it. So the Manga Classic adaption was my chance to learn the basic plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and finally be able to read some retellings of this story that are waiting on my shelves.

The story is very cohesive and easy to follow (unlike the unabridged audiobook with the additional plots). I really liked the notes at the back explaining how the team went about adapting such a lengthy and complex novel to the manga format and I thought they did a great job.

The art is just superb.

Thanks to NetGalley for a chance to read this manga.

While I'd been looking forward to reading this for a long time, the pdf I received from NetGalley was very difficult to read and did not account for formatting errors. I've read Manga in the past, and can read right to left as needed, but the type quality was horrifically fuzzy.

4/5

i was not familiar with the story, so i can’t say how accurate this is in terms of comparing it to the original, but i can say that i really enjoyed it. i was quite confused at times but personally i didn’t really mind it was still entertaining and the art was beautiful!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Stacy King, who adapted the original with Nokman Poon as illustrator, and Udon Entertainment for a chance to review this book. I was given this book for free in exchange for my fair and honest opinion. I have not felt compelled, in any way, by the author, the publisher, or NetGalley to alter my sincerest thoughts on this book. Every word of this review is solely and completely mine.
The original novel The Count of Monte Cristo written by Alexandre Dumas is a classic tale of conspiracy, revenge, and justice told in lyrical language. Edmond Dantes is imprisoned for a crime never committed, bereft of even the pretense of justice, he wallows for years until a fellow prisoner reveals knowledge of a treasure on the Isle of Monte Cristo. Determined to escape and use the treasure to plot the destruction of the men responsible for his incarceration, he creates an identity to assist him in his scheme. This is my first reading of a Manga Classic, and although the art is gorgeous, I did not enjoy the work. Reading left to right while scrolling from down to up is so counter-intuitive that it impeded the experience. IMHO the whole graphic novel should have been reversed. In other words, the beginning part of the story which lies in the final pages should have been placed in the first pages. Less chance of revealing spoilers as the reader scrolls up. Clearly this will not be a problem for readers with a physical copy. Strong adaptation, but still bothersome.

I haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo in many years, so I was excited to revisit this classic in manga format!
First of all, the artwork is STUNNING. Absolutely gorgeous, beautifully detailed but not overly busy, with both scenes and facial expressions perfectly illustrated.
The somewhat convoluted yet gripping plot is also done justice: the original novel is fairly large even among its contemporaries, and yet this manga managed to summarize it well for the most part. The pace is occasionally a little off. Probably due to so many narrative threads; and while some of the subplots are conveyed clearly and smoothly, others not quite as effectively, ending up a bit confusing and cumbersome — a bit info-dumpy, if you will. However the novel recovers well and said subplots become easier to tell apart and follow as one keeps reading, making up for what may have been a bit of confusion.
One remarkable thing is how well this manga manages to evoke the general feel and atmosphere of the original work — that is truly well done and it’s in the end why I’m giving this 4 1/2 stars.

Beautiful pictures to entice students to read the classics. I loved the book. I know my students will be sucked in to reading it probably thinking they found something new! I can't wait to tell them how long the story has been around.

I was given the opportunity to read this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A great adaptation to the Manga format of this amazing classic.

A great portray of the characters, with a design that makes them even more beloved/hated, followed with a great selection of the core scenes of this complex novel, provides a great understanding of the story and the topics it brings to light.

The soul of this story filled with envy, treason and revenge.can now reach a new audience in this accesible and delightful format.

An e-ARC of this book was kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

**Thank you to Netgalley and UDON Entertainment for the eArc in exchange for an honest review. This in no way changed my rating**

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books. It's one of the few Classics I've read more than once and enjoyed. It's HUGE and a very complex story, interweaving multiple plot lines and characters conflicts into the story of Edmond Danté's revenge. Knowing the text is well over 1,000 pages, I was intrigued to see how they would be able to adapt this into a manga.

Overall, I would say this this was easily my favorite of the Manga Classics series that I've read. The adaptation was very well done and the author was able to condense the main plot into a 400 page manga while keeping the integrity of the main storyline. This obviously isn't going to be a replacement for reading the original as they were (rightfully) unable to include some of the side plots, but no going in that that will be missing if you attempt that. There was a nice part at the end explaining how they made the decisions on what to cut or streamline that I appreciated. There was also a nice chart/Family Tree at the back of the book to explain the large cast of characters and how they relate to one another. I think I would've liked this more at the front of the book as, due to the nature of the book, you're likely to accidentally spoil yourself with it being in the back if you're using it for reference often. It was a helpful resource, however.

The artwork, as always, was beautiful and added to the story. These are always done well and I appreciated the work that went into a Historical Fiction Classic as detailed as this one.

Overall, this was a great addition to this series and one I would happily buy or recommend others add to their collection. 4/5 stars.

Special thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review

This is yet another Manga Classic in which I haven't read the classic it's based on, nor have I ever cared to before. The original book is over 1000 pages long. I never imagined wanting to read that. But this is such an interesting story! There's so many different plots, all tied to the Count. It's like 50 different stories all in one. I was genuinely surprised at how invested I got in everything. All this book has made me do is want to read the original text this is based on. From my experience, these are very closely adapted from the source material, so I find myself strangely excited to read the original story some day


This review has been posted to Goodreads

I had read the story of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ when I was in my school for an assignment, which was long back and I vaguely remember the story being of a guy who gets wrongly accused for something which he is not aware of and gets sent to prison on an island far away and is locked in for many years. He then escapaes and plans a revenge for all the people who did him wrong.

I didn’t remember the story in detail since then and reading this manga version of the story was a good refresher. I haven’t read the original book written by the author, never got around it and felt intimidated by the sheer size of the novel. The one I read in my school, that version was toned down as a grade read. So is the manga version. I absolutely loved it as it was the the right amount of story development and the way it unfolded was a page turner.

The artwork as usual is splendid. My favourite characters are Edmond Dantes and Haydee. Dantes’ character development I would say is one of the best. The way he was in the start – friendly, easily trusting others and caring without thinking twice – transforms after the unfortunate incident that occurs with him. He greives and tries to understand what could have caused his misery until he meets his mentor, who grooms him in many areas and teaches him as much as he knew of the world, the philosophy and other knowlegdeable areas. Haydee on the other hand is a strong willed young lady. Her circumstances are similar to Dantes but she has developed incredibly in character.

In short, I would definitely recommend this manga version to all. Also, thank you Netgalley and Udon Entertainment for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for the chance of reading this book. This was such an amazing book. I do not have the words to collect a coherent reason to why I love it so much. It was just amazing. It was heavily plot driven which is something that I admire in books. Everything is connected to the Counts plan for revenge and when those plants to come into play they will leave the reader shocked and wanting more. It was such a page turner for me. I could not even put it down for even a moment without wanting to go back and read more. I know now that I need too read the original. I will admit the 400 pages for this manga did worry me, but it pales in comparison to the 1276 of the original. I think they did a fantastic job in compressing the original as it did not feel at all that it had been shortened. I would recommend this book to those who have the read the original and loved it or people who love carefully thought out revenge plot driven books or anyone who likes books that will keep them on their feet.

Another thrilling manga adaption of a classic full of action based on the false accusations and resulting imprisonment of Edmond Dantès in the grim island fortress of marseille. Beautiful illustrations, a great way to introduce a younger reader to the story.

Quickly got bored of the convoluted plot... made it about 75% of the way through and just couldn't force myself to continue. I do think that the manga aspect of this allowed me to make it this far through though.

Tema balas dendam sampai keakar-akarnya membuat Count of Monte Cristo jadi buku klasik yang wajib kubaca. Tapi jumlah halaman yang melimpah lumayan mengintimidasi. Jadi saat Netgalley menawarkan komik (yang juga halamannya melimpah) ini untuk ditukar dengan review, aku gak mikir 2x.

Secara cerita, walaupun disederhanakan tapi tetap setia mengikuti alur aslinya. Setiap detail digambarkan dengan goresan gambar yang indah termasuk perubahan wajah para karakternya. Ini adalah salah satu alternatif yang menyenangkan untuk mengenalkan karya klasik pada generasi muda.