Manga Classics: Pride & Prejudice by Stacy KingMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
4.5/5 stars
Wow this was a lot better than I thought it would be. You see, I’ve never actually read the novel Pride and Prejudice because the premise sounds incredibly boring. But it is such an important book in the fact that a lot of people always talk about it and make references to it, that I knew I needed to read it eventually. So when I saw this book on Netgalley I immediately jumped to request it. But I still had my worries. Especially because the manga art on the cover looks so cheesy, and because I didn’t know how well the story would be adapted into art.
Let me address the first of my concerns: the story. The beginning was okay. It was just setting up the main story, about how Mrs. Bennet was trying to get her girls into wealthy marriages, and establishing all the characters, which there are many. One problem I heard people say about the original work was that there were so many characters that one could hardly remember them all. I say this is where the manga excelled. Having a visual really helped me personally remember their names quite well. And even if I were to forget any names, there were a couple pages dedicated to just the characters with their names so I could have just flipped back there to recall who the heck the story was talking about. I didn’t find myself having to do that often though because I learned their names quickly.
The story did get boring at one point near the beginning/middle. At that point I just scoffed, put my e-reader down and went off to do something else. I feel the problem was that the story just kept bombing me with too much dialogue and not enough actually doing something. I picked it back up the next day and never felt bored again. I was worried throughout my reading of this manga that I never really felt anything about the characters. But by the end when things started getting real intense, oh boy I DID feel something! Many things! All the things! (view spoiler) Oh this is what made me really like (or dare I say LOVE!?) this book!
Onto the art, which is a very important topic when discussing graphic novels. The art inside was…… amazing!! I wasn’t expecting much, I was expecting the type of art seen in the old old mangas where proportions are all weird and the men are extremely feminine looking and the eyes… oh the horror.
I mean the name of the series is Manga Classics so I was expecting classic manga paired to a classic story. Praise the lord for my being wrong. I really do think that this manga has the best art out of all other manga adaptations. I did a google search of “pride and prejudice manga” and I by far think the character designs and art in this manga are superior to any of the others I saw. And as for how well the story was adapted, as someone who hasn’t read the original all I can say is that I did feel like I was following along the story. At no point was I confused as to what was going on, as can sometimes happen with book-to-graphic novel adaptations. So for anyone else who is scared of picking up the actual novel Pride and Prejudice, I do say that reading this is probably a good way to go! Though I have no idea if they left anything out in this version, it was still a great read.
Downloaded from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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