One of my all-time favorite books in manga format? YES PLEASE! I loved reading this manga - it was a bit more condensed than the original (and honestly, not surprising since The Brick didn't get its name for nothing, and I didn't expect the manga to have everything that was in the original book). The illustrations were great. All in all, it was a fun, but true-to-the-book read, and I enjoyed it so much!

Esse mangá me permitiu revisitar uma história que é muito preciosa para mim. A essência da história original está contida no volume, apresentando um traça simples e belo. Uma leitura rápida e de perder o fôlego, é uma grande história que marca a vida de qualquer leitor.... simplesmente belo.

Les Mis is not an easy book to condense, even screen and theatre adaptations don't always get it right. But I think that this manga did it beautifully. I think the art was beautiful and the scenes they illustrated and portrayed had a new dimension and emotion added to them because of this beautiful art. All the scenes came alive in a way I hadn't experienced before. Les Mis is one of my favorite stories so I came in with a very critical eye and I am glad to say this manga did not disappoint. I would highly suggest this to people either trying to get into the story without reading the terrifyingly dense book or people who are already fans of the story just looking for a new medium to enjoy this story through.

My first experience of Udon Entertainment was Manga Classics: The Jungle Book, a real disappointment. So why do I feel differently about Les Misérables? The original Victor Hugo classic clocks in at nearly 1,400 pages. No young person would be able to handle that; I finally threw in the towel, and I was in my 50s at the time! Unlike The Jungle Book, whose language is accessible to tweens and teens, Les Misérables’ flowery language can be a stumbling block even for adults. A manga edition could make this beautiful tale of love and redemption, of different legal systems for rich and poor, of the inspiring Jean Valjean available to readers who would never otherwise be able to read it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this graphic novel from NetGalley and Udon Entertainment in exchange for an honest review.

I am a fan of the Broadway play Les Mis and am fond of the various movie and television adaptations. I always wanted to read the novel but was daunted by its size. I was excited to read this manga version of this classic tale. I think this is a great way for young readers to be introduced to classics in a less threatening and more appealing, visual way. While I was already quite familiar with the story, I enjoyed how it was adapted for this medium. The illustrations are delightful! I pictured the songs from the musical while reading each scene. I look forward to picking up more Manga Classics after this one.

This was so goooood~!

Thank you so much to the publisher for first of all giving me this free copy and second of all blessing me with the beauty that this one is.

I absolutely adored this volume and I can't explain it. First of all I adore Les Misérables because c'mon that story is bom.com. But second of all I loveeeed the way they drew the characters. It was perfect in my opinion.

I find it a bit difficult to talk about the story since this volume followed it so well that I didn't have many remarks. The only thing I can say is that I thought some scenes could have taken a bit longer however then this manga would be thicker and they are probably not going for that.

I loved the art in this I thought it was so simply yet so complex at the same time. I absolutely adored this.

A big 5 star for this one.

The first and only time I read Les Miserables was in grad school. I had a very boring cataloging class that was four hours long once a week, and the professor spoke in a dull monotone. I always had to swing through the campus convenience store to pick up a Mountain Dew and some sort of sugary gummy candy to get me through the lecture. Well, there was also the fact that we were encouraged to bring our laptops with us to take notes and such. Except I didn’t take notes the whole time. “Les Mis” was one of the free classics I had on my NOOK app on my laptop, and I knew it was a lengthy book, so I would read a chapter here and there while sitting in the class.

I also saw the theater production, once at my high school when I was a sophomore, and once in 2013 as a local theater production that my best friend was involved with. And I’ve also seen the movie adaptation.

But, I’ll be honest…I had forgotten some of the elements of the story…despite reading the System Divine series by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell (which I definitely recommend because it is “Les Mis” set in space.

This volume took the behemoth that is the original story and condensed it to just a few hundred pages that is a great deal less words to read, and a whole lot more art to look at. I think UDON Entertainment does a great job with adapting these long dense classics into an easier to read and much more manageable and approachable for the non-literature nerds out there. Don’t get me wrong; I love classic literature and have read a lot of it over the years, but the older I get, the more I want to just read for fun, and these manga volumes make it fun to enjoy the classics again.

The artwork was cute, and you could really see what all Fantine lost when she cut off her hair, because in true manga style her hair was pretty much down to her ankles. And Cosette just looked so sweet and innocent and naive through the whole story.

Honestly, I don’t know that this story is one of my favorites. Pretty much all of the characters seemed to just have a couple of personality traits and that was it. It’s like the only one who really showed growth through the story was Jean Valjean. But maybe I would see that differently if I read the source material again. I don’t know.

Reading this was still a good way to pass an hour or so, and I’m glad I read it. I can say that I will probably pick up more UDON Entertainment Manga Classics in the future because I have enjoyed my time reading Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, and Les Miserables.

I have yet to reach for the original novel, but Les Misérables is something I've wanted to try reading for a long time. I've never watched or read any other type of adaptation either, because I wanted to read that massive novel without knowing too much about the plot. HOWEVER. The moment I saw that book cover pop up in my Netgalley feed I was sold. I had to try this out. And I loved every single page. I almost started reading the original novel right after finishing the manga.

I find the art to be absolutely lovely, I like how polished it is and let's be honest, without that beautiful Cosette on the cover I might have overlooked this title as I had other plans.
I cannot judge how close this manga is to the original story, as I've yet to read it, but something I usually feel while reading adaptations instead of the original version is a certain dullness, the feeling you're just touching the surface of the story and not going deeper. So I want to praise this adaptation because it actually impacted me in a profound way, and while I know it's not possible to adapt a 1400+ pages novel in a 337 pages manga without leaving out parts of it, I found myself emotionally involved in the story as I was reading. Overall it's been a very positive experience for me.

I am in love with these Manga Classics! Beautiful art and classic stories seamlessly woven together.

These characters all face long winding roads, not many leading to a happy ending. Hardships they face shaping them, breaking them, and bringing them to where they need to be. Jean Valjean has some of the best character development I have ever seen. 

Les mésarable is one of my favorite things in the world. I love the musical, I love the movie, but the book has always intimidated me. Have you seen it? Massive. Now thanks to Manga Classics, I have read a version of it. Now I can compare the play and movie to this. See how similar and different they are. 

Not only was this a new form of one of my favorite stories, but it opened the door to me wanting to read Hugo's novel. These mangas are a fantastic way for readers to digest hard the sometimes hard to read classics. And for some people, like me, reading these will be that final push needed to jump into the full novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this review copy. This is my honest review.

The artwork for this manga is beautiful. It is such a faithful adaptation of the story, but it is a bit easier to read than the novel itself. It was able to show more than the movie or musical can.

I am going into all of these manga adaptations with this one particular question in mind: is it going to get someone who would never read the source material, to engage with the source material in a meaningful or substantial way?

And in this particular case, yes.

Probably more so than the musical or movie ever would. The original work is long and meandering in a way that is exceptionally hard for a novice reader to engage in. The original book is SO descriptive, it is a tad tedious to get through. The fact that this is a visual adaptation does the source material a justice in the way that it makes it much shorter and cuts to the points of the plot rather than the rat infested streets of Paris.

It is simplified in the best way, cutting out some of the unnecessary additional story-lines that I, as a reader, never particularly felt inclined to delve further into.

Definitely makes the story engaging to young or novice readers!

I really enjoyed reading this version of Les Miserables. I have never been able to make it through the original, and this was a wonderful alternative. I thought the illustrations were gorgeous, and that the important parts of the story were conveyed to the reader.

I was first gifted the Pride and Prejudice manga classic edition for my birthday, and I was a bit skeptical at the format. I thought that the art being so "cartoony" would take away from the story so I never read it.
Fast forward a couple years and I decide to give this a chance.
Boy, was I wrong!
There aren't too many illustrations throughout the book, and when there is one it's stunning! It helps add to the story, the atmosphere, the overall feel of the characters.
I could not recommend this enough, and I will be buying all future editions of a manga classic!

Thank you to Netgalley and UDON Entertainment for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This in no way changes my rating.

I have tried multiple times to read Les Miserables to no avail. It's a beast of a book and one that scares me off with its length each time I try. However, I am a fan of the musical, so I knew the basic plot to it. This was a gorgeous adaptation of a classic and allowed me to feel like I had read the book.

The author did a nice job condensing the plot into a 300+ page manga. I can imagine that was no small feat and took a lot of hard work. The main plot points I knew from the musical were all there and made sense. I felt like I had a better understanding of how everyone is related and how the relationships intertwine. With so many characters, that can be hard to keep track of in a large book or during a stage musical, so that was a feature I appreciated. Additionally, it made the book more accessible to me. A 1,400+ page book in English is much harder for me to attempt than a 300+ page manga, so it's a nice way to introduce the story to more readers in a more feasible way.

The artwork is beautiful! If you're a fan of manga to begin with, the style will be more familiar to you, but all of the characters look very aesthetically pleasing. If I had any critique for this aspect, I think it's that this is a book about war. The characters are beautiful even in death. Fantine is still objectively beautiful with her hair shorn off and her front teeth missing. The art could have been a little grittier to depict these parts, but other than that, I had no issues with the art. I thought it was a nice addition to the story and would help visual learners as they start to read this classic.

Overall, this was a very pleasant read and I enjoyed it very much! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars!

I ended up buying this because I absolutely love Les Miserables. I fell in love with the musical and attempted to read the book many times over the years but it’s not the easiest book to follow. The illustrated version, while I’m sure a lot was cut out, still seems pretty on point. I look forward to being able to share this with my daughter when she gets older

I enjoyed this manga version of the classic story. It was a fun way for a new generation to learn about the classics.

Les Misérables is one of my most favorite classics, so I was excited to read this one! Les Mis is the story of the convict, Jean Valjean, who had been imprisoned for nineteen years, solely because he stole bread to feed his starving family. After being released, he abandons his former life and creates a factory, bringing a town from poverty to prosperity. That is when we meet Fantine, a young woman doing everything in her power to care for her daughter Cossette, who is in the care of a crooked innkeeper and his wife, who swindle Fantine out of her money until she has nothing left.
The stories of both Jean Valjean and Fantine are tragic, but besides the horrors of poverty, Les Mis also illustrates the courage and selflessness of a man striving to live for God.
As I read each part of the story, songs from the musical kept swirling through my head. It was also fun to see some of the illustrations were similar to scenes from the movie adaptation, starring Hugh Jackman. Like the giant random elephant and the way the café was built. To be honest, I was kinda hoping that they would start singing Do You Hear the People Sing but of course, this is the adaptation of the book, and not the play.
Manga Classics: Les Misérables is a wonderful adaptation of the original classic, and it perfect for anyone who loves classics, tragic tales, or wants to read Les Mis without having to leaf through over five hundred pages.

NOTE: I received an ARC copy from the publisher through NetGalley for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve been a fan of Les Miserables pretty much my whole life. I’ve seen the stage musical many times and I love the original book. We won’t talk about the movie; it irks me.

I thought this was a wonderful adaptation that stayed close to the source material, and the illustrations were beautiful. My only slight qualm was that Eponine was depicted slightly nastier and more bitter than what she was.

A lovely read, and I’d definitely recommend it.

**Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this Manga on netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

I have tried to read manga all my life but have issues getting interested/involved with the story typically, which is why when I saw a manga based on a source material I loved I was immediately interested. This particular manga is a retelling of Les Miserables written by Victor Hugo in 1862.I love Les Miserables and have read it and seen the musical and movie adaptation several times.

Throughout this book I was blown away by the beautiful and detailed artwork and how, for the most part, the plot was told wonderfully. The only criticism I have is it feels that we may have too much world building/backstory for one part of the story and not enough for others. I also wasn't a huge fan of the blurbs told during time changes that quickly summarized what I felt to be very essential pieces of the story - but I do understand and appreciate that this was done in a way as to keep the manga at a good and reasonable length. That being said, if those parts of the story had been given a true chance I would have given this a 5 star.

While I love the original story and keep it near and dear to my heart - I have a newfound love for this version and its beautiful artwork. Had my minor grievances been handled differently in the plot point (though like I said, I get why it's like this) I would have loved it even more.

Les Miserables is one of Victor Hugo's classics that has been the inspiration for many musicals and movies. A story about a criminal who is free, but never really free because of his past. The struggles of a mom who gives her little girl in the care of the Thenardier. It comes together in a beautiful love story.

Bij making a graphic novel of this classic this book is reaching out to a whole new public. And that really is a good thing. At the same time - for me - as a person who loves the musical and the movies, but most of all who loves the book, this graphic novel is not really what I had hoped for.

A shortened version of the book, where several keymoments are made to a minimalistic part of the story is something I miss. At the same time the readers who will read this book shall not miss it because they never knew the complete story as it's been told bij Hugo.