An acceptable manga adaptation of a classic. The art leaves a bit to be desired, and I just don't see it circulating as a result.

Basic plot:
The story is about a woman who as an illegitimate child and is condemned by the society. When she finally gets a job to support herself and the child. Meanwhile she leaves the child in the care of a family who are greedy for money and treats the child badly. Will the mother be able to see her child again? Who is Jean Valjean? Why was he convicted and what is his role in the story?

What I Liked?
A great story. I wonder why I never read it before. A very interesting plot. The illustrations are so perfect. Also the characters are so good. I will never forget them for a long long time.
I teared up many a times seeing the situation of Fantine and Cosette.
Jean Valjean was such a strong unforgettable character as well.

What I disliked?
Absolutely nothing. Everything was just spot on perfect and as usual super good like all the other manga classics.
Keep up the good job!
Looking forward to read more of them.

So, I know this was a movie, and a musical, I believe, but I initially had no idea what it was about or any interest in the storyline.

We start our story with Fantine searching for honest work with her illegitimate child. Unable to find work, they leave to a small town called Montfermeil in rural France. In order for them to experience a better life, Fantine pays the Thenardiers to watch her darling Cosette.

Five years earlier, 1815, in Digne, Jean Valjean is released from prison after serving nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread and is just looking for a nice, warm place to eat and sleep. However, no one in town is buying it and won’t give him the time of day. Bishop Myriel kindly lets him in. Blaming society for not being able to find honest work, his only means of survival turned to stealing, not only for himself, but his sister’s family, as well. Bad behavior strikes again when he steels the “silver”ware from the Bishop and gets caught by soldiers, but when turned in to the Bishop, the Bishop said they were a present to make Jean “an honest man”. And who does he end up being?! None other than the Mayor Madeleine of Monfermeil!

As the years go on, the Thenardiers request more and more money from Fantine and she slowly gives away parts of her body to keep her daughter well-kept. After a misunderstanding and Fantine is sentenced to jail, Valjean asks the townsfolk if what was said is true, and Fantine is declared innocent. At this point, Valjean makes it his life goal to deliver Cosette to her mother and help in every way he can to ensure a good life. But all too soon, someone else gets in the way.

Years and years later, when Cosette is older, Marius and her secretly covet each other without the other knowing. Marius, a young man, raised by his grandparents, dreams of thanking the man who saved his father’s life in the war, a man named Thenardier. But the Thenardiers are around and always have something up their sleeves.

After reading this manga, I want to see the movie now! What is great about these mangas is that they are light, leave out pointless description, and are fast reads! I really enjoy this one and am actually excited for the next one because I hated the book in high school.

Will Cosette and Fantine be reunited? Will Valjean stick with his promise? Will Valjean ever be able to live peacefully without Jalvert always on his back? Will anything happen between Cosette and Marius?

Was not able to download this on any of my devices I tried on my kindle and iPad and also my computer....

Les Mis is a story really close to my heart because the symbolism and how tiny details at the beginning of the book come around and affect the ending completely gut me. I have yet to brave reading the actual book, but this manga combined with the movie is a great appetizer to understand the story before I attempt to conquer the brick. I think this adaptation was faithful, showed more than the movie had time to, and was still easy to understand. Since I already know the story so well, I can't judge if it would be good for a first time reader, but my favorite parts were just as impactful as I was hoping. My only complaint is that the drawing style of this sometimes felt juvenile, and for a book about the French revolution and death and prostitution, its delivery in certain areas was lacking. Nevertheless, I'm still sniffling as I write this review because I will never get over how much I adore Jean Valjean and Marius and Cosette.

Les Miserables is one of my absolute favorite classics, and I love reading different versions of it. This adaptation didn't disappoint! The art lent itself well to the story, adding drama where it needed to be. This version allows the story to be accessible to younger readers (without being traumatizing - considering the story matter, this is quite a feat!), and allows even the oldest of readers to enjoy the story even without reading the original 1,000+ page book. I'd definitely recommend it to other fans of the art style & classic literature!

This is one of the first of four illisyrated classics that Ive read, and i highly enjoyed it. The illustrations are amazing.

The manga version of Les Miserable is a generally well done adaptation. I'm a fan of the original work and its play so I'm definitely glad I got to read this.

A really great way to read the classics if the size of them intimidate you (and Les Miserables does intimidate me). The manga was very well produced and it was so much easier to read the book when much of it was drawn instead of written. The story itself is very interesting and showcases several different characters, their struggles and lives over many years.

How great to read Les Miserables and not have to invest weeks in the almost 1500 page book! Even my 12-year-old daughter wanted to read this and enjoyed it! How cool to take a classic and turn it into something that will excite a preteen enough to read it. Maybe one day her and/or I will venture into the very lengthy original, but for now we are both very happy to have read this classic in Manga form. Maybe this is not for all readers, but for those who enjoy Manga and wanted to read a classic, this is very cool and enjoyable

As the story of Les Miserables itself is not novel, most of this review is about the adaptation choice of this work.

Personally, I enjoyed this manga. It fits as an in-between medium versus reading the novel or viewing the musical and/or films. Visually gorgeous, the graphic novel style really suits the story and certainly engages the reader. I love that the format allows for some great visual emphasis such as the exaggeration of caricatures like the Thenardiers, as well as "silent" but visually sustaining moments, like longing gazes between Marius and Cosette.

That being said, the choice to go classic manga style, with the direction of panels and text going right to left in the traditional Japanese manner, perhaps makes this title (and series) a little less approachable and uncomfortable for its potential audience. I love how graphic novel interpretations of classic works can engage students who find the novels too difficult to slug through, and I would purchase this whole series for my students, if it weren't for the right to left reading. It's catering to a very specific audience with that choice.

So, while I love this work and recommend it whole-heartedly to my fellow manga-loving colleagues and friends, I don't recommend it for the average library collection unless they have a huge Japanese Manga loving crowd.

This was an excellent re-telling of the original "Les Miserables," with beautiful anime illustrations. I liked the quick-pace of the story and found that the illustrations complimented the plot nicely. For someone who has not read that many manga books, it was a good one to start with.

Book Review
Title: Les Misérables
Author: SunNeko Lee (Art), Stacy King (Goodreads Author) (English Script), Crystal S. Chan (Adaptation), Victor Hugo (Original Story)
Genre: Manga/Classic
Rating: *****
Review: Les Misérables is a book I own (both volumes) and never read but seen the movie so many times and love it so much, I sing along especially to I dreamed a dream. Having a manga version of this story I am hoping will inspire me to read the original story and the manga and movie versions will have left things out is it the nature of adaptations. The cover artwork is stunning, and we learn from the contents that the story is going to be told from multiple points of views, those of Fantine, Cosette, Marius, St. Denis and Jean Valjean.
The first person we are introduced to is Fantine who has been abandoned by her lover, so she seeks work to support herself and her daughter Cosette but is unable to find any and is forced to leave. I immediately feel sorry for Fantine especially since I have a good idea of where her story is heading. After moving to rural France Fantine meets Madame Thénardier who she feels is good person and she leaves her daughter with them and their own children for a price and promises to one day return for her darling Cosette.
We then jump backwards five years where we meet Jean Valjean who has been released from prison but can’t find any help from anyone until he stumbles upon a church desperate and he is welcomed warmly by the bishop. We learn that Jean was imprisoned after becoming a thief, but he had no choice, in that moment he decides to steal from the church and is caught by the police but rather than turning him in the bishop saves his life and gives him purpose sending him on his way with all that he needs to get by in the world. We see Jean Valjean rise in the world becoming the mayor of the town where Fantine is now living and working to pay for her daughter’s upkeep. However, when her employers learn of her daughter she is dismissed and as the Thénardiers ask for more and more money even saying Cosette is desperately ill to get it she sells everything from her hair, teeth, clothes and eventually her body until she hits rock bottom all for the sake of her daughter. Despite all this hardship Fantine is unaware that her beloved daughter is being treated no better than a slave but the better she trusted to look after her.
When Fantine is going to be sent to prison for what she has been forced to do Jean hidden as the mayor sets her free when she takes ill. All Fantine wants is her daughter and Jean tries to make it happen but the Thénardiers refused. However, when he learns an innocent man is going to be convicted as him he knows he must do the first thing but asks that he be allowed to find Cosette first and is refused. Fantine dies shortly afterwards and Jean is sent back to prison however he manages to escape again although he is relentlessly by the officer who arrested him twice before. On his travels he manages to find Cosette and eventually gets to become her parent as he promised Fantine before her death. However, the pursuit of the law forces him to flee with Cosette more than once but for short periods of time they have peace.
We then jump forward eight years where Cosette would now be a teenager and Jean is in his 50’s. We meet Marius Pontmercy whose father who saved in the battle of Waterloo fifteen years before but Mister Thénardier. We learn that Marius is a well-off man who is working against the monarchy and we know that this is the first sparks of the French Revolution. Marius is also in love with Cosette although she is living under a different name with Jean but after a con goes bad Jean is almost caught by the police again and Marius is now suspicious of Jean and wants to find out what is really going on.
Despite helping Marius find Cosette in the hopes he will love her Eponine is shocked when Marius is falling hard for Cosette and begins planning something of her own. Eventually she writes a letter to Jean telling him to clear out thinking his identity has been compromised Jean and Cosette leave for England and Marius tries to get the funds to go with her, but the revolution starts, and he feels he must honour the promises he made to the other rebels.
As the revolutions looks like it is failing many die including Eponine to save Marius the man who she loved who loved the girl who could have been her sister, but Marius’ grandfather refuses to consent to their marriage. However, Jean steps in and rights all the wrongs from his past leaving Cosette to her happiness but when Marius learns that Jean didn’t kill the officer he was accused of killing he takes Cosette to him where they reunite, and he tells her of what become of her mother shortly before he dies himself.
While this story doesn’t have a traditional happy ending it does feel happy, Cosette can finally live a life that is her own with a man she loves, and Jean is finally free in death to be reunited with Fantine. If you haven’t read a classic or don’t like classics I highly recommend the manga version of Les Mis.

I absolutely Love Les Miserables and I loved this if your a fan check this out i promise you wont be disappointed with it !

The art of this book adds much to this story by Victor Hugo. The original novel is rather tedious to read and this version made it so much easier to enjoy it and in a timely manner. Definitely would recommend this book to other people who are interested in reading Les Mis but don't want to read the full novel.

This was thoroughly entertaining! As a lover of manga and musicals alike, I really enjoyed seeing the two blended together in artistic and intricate storytelling in the form of manga.
The characters were well designed and the art was amazing, the story itself is entirely tear-jerking, but I find it even more so when I'm following along the story in an art form. I just truly appreciated this as a manga.
I will say, however, that the way in which this is downloaded required me to go to the end of the story to read it at the beginning, as manga is read the opposite way, but the book was downloaded as a typical English book, so I got a few pages in before I determined I was reading it the wrong way. Also, the pages turn left to right, where I'm used to reading manga right to left but turning the pages that way too, this was a tad confusing downloaded as an English book but still having the traits of a Japanese manga.
That being said, I really enjoyed this not only because I love manga, this is a great way for visual readers to enjoy an utter classic in a shortened amount of time and without the songs, should one seek to find a medium without the musical numbers. I'm excited to read more from this publisher.

Writing and art style: The art is fantastic. I have nothing to complain about. The writing part I find at times being a bit short to actually explain what was happening. I think this book in particular could've benefited from maybe having a second manga volume to accompany this one.

Characters: Jean Valjean is and will always be the greatest character in this book. Though I have to say that Marius was a breath of fresh air, I really liked him a lot. There are a lot of characters to follow in this story so I can see why they felt the need to maybe give some of them fewer scenes. But some of the most important characters are hardly mentioned at all which takes away from the story as a whole.

Plot: So here's the thing, I love the movie. It's one of my all-time favorites. And though the movie is a compromised part of the actual book I feel like it had a lot more details than this manga. There were lots of times were things were moving too fast and it felt like the story was being rushed. I do enjoy the story but that's because I knew of it before I read this. I think I would've had a hard time enjoying this as much if I didn't know anything beforehand.

Such a sad story that turns into a heartwarming tale. Les Miserables in the form of a manga was very captivating. The way the poor girl and the mother were done in the story was heartbreaking, However, the gentleman in the story was so loyal and a wonderful protector. I really enjoyed the manga and felt that it was a very good read. I loved the artwork as well. The story had a lot of twists and turns and kept me entertained throughout the whole manga.

Was the original novel a bit much to digest? Were you depressed half-way in? Have you only seen the musical? Well! Manga Classics is your answer! You'll still be depressed, but the illustrations will distract you. Let's face it, Les Miserables is an amazing novel and masterpiece, but the message is sad though important. Manga Classic's version made it easier for me to re-read and enjoy. A+ to you!

I've always struggled with this story, it's made very sad in the past and the manga has done that as well, but in a less intense way. The expressions and emotions were conveyed well through the drawings.

I think for such an enormous story they writer handled it very well to break it down into comparatively so few pages. I didn't feel like I was missing anything from the novel. But the down side is somethings were very quickly brushed over and it could make it less understandable to someone just coming fresh to the story.