I really had high high expectations for this but unfortunately I was a little disappointed… I thought a manga adaptation would may make Shakespeare’s work more accessible and easier to read but if anything this made everything a little bit confusing.
Title: Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet
Authors :Richard Appignanesi
, Emma Vieceli William ShakespeareLength: 204
Source: Purchased
First of all the major adaptation to the story was that Hamlet was set wayyy in the future, which I felt like unnecessarily complicated things. I’ve never read Hamlet before so I already don’t know what’s going on… But now having to figure it out this new futuristic world and having illustrations along the way, it was a bit much.
The illustrations were very interesting… at the beginning. I loved the concept of having an illustrated version of Shakespeare’s work, but I found that instead of them making the story easy to follow they complicated it. The art made all the characters look very similar so for half the time I literally had no idea who was who and WHAT the hell was going on.
The nail on the metaphoric coffin was the actual writing… it was still written in the original except now only certain excerpts were included. I personally felt like the text that was included didn’t really help the reader understand what was going on and it was incredibly difficult for me to follow the story.
I finished this in about an hour, not because I particularly enjoyed it but because I kept reading through to waiting for the story to make sense. Anyone out there that isn’t really familiar with Hamlet and the storyline will be very VERy confused (as was I until I read the summary at the end :))
It’s definitely a fun idea but I’m not really inclined to pick up the adaptation of The Tempest I have on my shelf any time soon…
That is a bizarre way to adapt that story. If you are going to check out a futuristic adaptation of a classic story in manga or anime format, then check out Gankutsuou: The Count Of Monte Cristo.
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Interesting adaptation!
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If you want a manga adaptation of a classic may I recommend “Les Meserable” which was illustrated by SunNeko Lee?
As someone who knows the original story I felt like that this manga adaptation of the classic was done fairly well and made things easier to understand in case you’ve never read the book or seen any of the other adaptations.
(I’m glad I came by your blog. Honestly I think I’ll make a post on mine specifically on this les mes. manga adaptation. Thanks for the Idea!)
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Ooo thank you for the recommendation! I’ve actually never read the book and know pretty much nothing about the story 😅 but the manga sounds like a great place to start!
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I love reading the manga classic adaptations! The Hamlet one is on my TBR. Thanks for posting this review. 🙂
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I believe I read this as well, and the Julius Caeser version. I pretty much agree with you – the concept really didn’t work all that well.
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