I fell in love with the story of Les Misérables when I first catched a glimpse of the musical. And here again, Manga Classics gave me this wonderful and artsy version of the story so that I could finally say that I've read it once in my life. I gotta say I would have probably not read the story if it weren't for the beautiful artstyle of the Manga, but it just completed it for me. I loved it just as much as I loved all of the Manga Classics I got to read.

Thank you to @udonentertainment @mangaclassics #manga #udonentertainment @netgalley for the digital #graphicnovel in return for my honest review.
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Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Original Publication Date: August 11, 2014
👐🏼👐🏼👐🏼Aaargh! So good. A mix of book and movie version. But, still good.
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My thoughts…
Jazz Hands 👐🏼 I’m a huge fan of Manga Classics now! And the above classics were familiar to me but yet, reading them in this format gave me new thoughts and feelings. The illustrations were incredible that brought characters I’ve met before even more alive. If you’re not use to manga comics, reading back to front, will need getting used to but it’s not a big deal. If you’ve been meaning to read classics, these are great introductions to them. I want to start collecting them now!

Where to begin...
The characters' personalities are very well crafted and I felt like the writing was true to the original storyline. One thing I can say is that I wanted more dialogue and parts to the character of Cosette. I found myself getting teary at a few parts and the animation was perfect!

This manga confirmed to me that Les Miserables is my favorite classic and one of my favorite stories ever. I absolutely love this adaptation as well as how the various characters, choices, and emotions were portrayed. Hands down, this is my favorite out of the manga classics that I have read.

If you feel intimidated reading a big book like Les Miserables, I highly suggest reading this version. Reading it as a Manga makes it so much easier to digest and makes it a lot less overwhelming. Seeing these characters that are so dear to so many people's hearts, in a new way is so much fun. The art is beautiful and captures so much of the emotion of this story.

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve never been a fan of les mis but I wanted to see if a different style of adaptation would be more to my liking and surprisingly yes! The drawing style was beautiful and classic. They portrayed the clothing and time period well. All in all, an enjoyable way to revisit a classic.

Magna is hard enough to read backwards, but it’s even harder on an e book. The format made it difficult to understand the story as an ebook. The story itself was good, but I think magna needs to be in paper format.

Les Miserables (why does it not have a title in English? Because Ursula K. LeGuin already got dibs on The Dispossessed?) is my favorite book. I've watched every movie adaptation I've managed to get a hold of, I love the musical and watch it every time it is in town (in spite of its flaws).

This manga adaptation is pretty good. The original is very long, so a lot had to be removed to make it fit in a single very thick manga volume. For those that have not come across the original or its many adaptations, "Les Miserables" is a story of redemption through love, and a criticism on the penal system. Jean Valjean, an ex convict, has trouble making an honest living since no one wants to house or employ a person with a criminal record. Valjean, originally imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, starts slipping into the path of criminal activity, until a fateful encounter with a kind bishop who offers him kindness and forgiveness. After that, Valjean attempts to live a rightful life, and ends up adopting an orphan girl who brings joy to his life.

If you have not had a chance to tackle Victor Hugo's classic, give this version a try. You can finish it in an evening and brag about everything the musical missed. The art is beautiful, but grown up.

Where does this adaptation fall short? When I look at a new adaptation of Les Mis, I search for the things that made me love the original so much, and more often than not, I'm disappointed. That was not the case here - we get to see Valjean's robbery of a child and how deeply it affects him. We get to see the Thenardiers in their full glory, with no attempt at turning that despicable couple into comedic characters. We get to see Marius' callous, biased, treatment of Valjean, and we witness his stalker streak when courting Cossette. We see Eponine's scheming without getting swayed by her unrequited love. Some things were missing tho - while Gavroche had a larger role than in most adaptations, we don't get to see the heart breaking little pidgeons in the elephant (the author of this version did acknowledge Gavroche's role, also a favorite of theirs, had to be reduced). And the biggest issue was with Javert's fate - without the multi page internal dialogue of the original, I've yet to see an adaptation where what he does makes sense.

I think what Manga Classics is doing by bringing in adaptations of literature classics is fantastic, making intimidating behemoths more accessible. I'd love to see War and Peace.

I have always been intrigued by the idea of reading Les Mis, but I'm not sure I could commit to the actual reading of that monster of a book.  This was a great way to tackle it in a much smaller and. more accessible way.  The art was well done and the characters were well designed.  It was a great adaptation.

I am a huge manga fan and I enjoy Les Miserables. Why haven't I read a Manga Classic before? This was a great adaption. The story was fast paced and the art was stunning. I loved seeing the Les Miserables characters brought to life in manga format. I highly recommend this volume (that is a nice lengthly volume over 300 pages) to anyone that wants to start getting into classic literature or anyone who loves Les Miserables and wants to experience it in a different format. I will definitely be reading more Manga Classics in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and UDON Entertainment for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fascinating story. I only picked it up because I felt a manga interpretation might be more approachable than the original. Story was well presented and much more engaging than I expected.

Uhmmm the drawings are good, like always manga classics do not disappoint, but the story is very hard to introduce to younger children, I recommend this book for older teens up, the story gets very grim and very soon, but again is a good way to make someone interested in reading the complete book.

Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. It has been published in September 2021.

"Manga Classics: Les Miserables" was a bit underwhelming.
I love the original, and I thought this manga quite banalized the story for the sake of simplicity. While I do realize an adaptation is bound to leave bits and pieces out, especially when drawing from such a ponderous masterpiece, I really didn't appreciate how this manga made it all about Cosette and Marius' love story: it reads almost like a soap opera, for goodness' sake!
The social and political parts were reduced to mere background setting; the character of Javert, who is so complex in the original, came out as flat as any one-dimensional villain in this version.
Kudos to the storyboarder and the artist for trying to introduce a larger part of the public to "Les Misérables", but it could have been done better.

I’m a sucker for Les Mis adaptions as I find it to be such a powerful story. I always love the manga adaptions of stories I’ve already read. Combining Japanese art with this powerful story of the French Revolution is so interesting. The characters are very realistic for manga. They do a good job of making them look serious and not too cute. The scenery is gorgeous and of course the outfits too. This is a great way to experience Les Mis and I really enjoyed it.

I usually pick up Manga because they’re fast paced and keep you engaged. Les Mis was definitely one of those Manga novels. It was engaging and fast paced and kept me interested. The reason for the 3 stars? Knowing how great and emotional of a story les Mis is this just didn’t cut it. The emotions just weren’t screaming at me from the pages like I thought they would. It was lacklustre for me and didn’t make me FEEL like I thought it should. The graphics were great I just felt it was for rushed and didn’t touch on the feels.

Copy received from publisher in exchange for an honest review.

-Disclaimer: I won this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.-

I actually liked this alright. I don't like Les Misérables with Anne Hathaway and will never be reading the book itself. This was a lot better alternative for me that flowed and delivered a lot of drama. Considering the other Manga Classics, this was a lot better put together. Jean Valjean was an interesting character (and the rest just filled in the blanks). The plot was quick and the writing was decent.

The artwork was okay in certain places. There were checkered lines everywhere. I did get tired of trying to look past those. Some parts were too blurry to read. Also, some illustrations looked more like a sketch than the finished product.

If you like the original story & enjoy mangas then you might enjoy this!

Long and winded, but considering the story I think this did a great job. Loved the art work of course. I think this is a great one to add to your manga collection.

The art style was really well done and I found the story a more enjoyable experience to consume through this format

I am a huge fan of Les Mis, and this manga version was so gorgeously drawn and written, and I am completely in love. Absolutely recommend!

As someone who has a tracking comprehension disorder, the classics like Les Mis have always been daunting, I've found graphic adaptations to be a good way to transition to the main book itself. This Manga did a move job of simplifying a complex plot with lots of historical context and a web of characters one could get easily tangled up in. It took the core of the story and told it understandably and without judgment. It was well done for such an oft-adapted work of literature. I truly enjoyed it more than I expected to.

*In exchange for an honest review, I received an advanced readers copy courtesy of Manga Classics and Netgalley.com.