bubonicwoodchuck

Story - 8 What can I say? Shoujo Cosette is an adaptation of my favorite book of all time, Les Miserables, and it's overall surprisingly faithful to the original text. Especially when you consider that SC is geared toward children, and the original is...well, definitely not. That said, SC gets an 8 and not a perfect 10 from me because in their effort to keep the anime kid-friendly, Nippon Animation committed some pretty grievous crimes against the original canon. I'll keep it vague here, but I'll settle for saying that some characters who ought to have died survive for the dumbest reasons. Overall, though, their attention tocanon is commendable indeed. Art - 4 This, I think, is where SC suffers most. Nippon's animation budget clearly isn't high, and I suppose they do the best with what they're given, but aside from the occasional lovely background, the animation here is sorely lacking and, at times, looks like it might've been passable a decade ago at best. Character designs are decent - Valjean is especially well done - but also somewhat bland. Overall, this is the weakest point of the anime. Sound - 6 The sound in SC is decent enough, but nothing special. The fact that the same OP and ED are kept throughout the entire anime rather detracts from it as well, especially after Cosette herself has long grown up and tons of new characters have been introduced. Only one or two tracks stand out in my mind at all - good, but nothing memorable. Character - 8 SC does an overall good job of keeping true to the original characters. Javert could stand to be wittier, and Enjolras could stand to be less - well, nice, but all in all most characters keep true to their original. Characters in the anime who weren't in the book are surprisingly few and far between, and all serve their purpose fairly well - especially Alain. Again, Character is an 8 and not a 10 because of one unforgivable change to one character in particular. Enjoyment - 8 As a die-hard Mizzie who was initially very dubious indeed about anything remotely resembling an anime adaptation for children, I was surprised how I kept coming back to watch SC every week, despite my own limited Japanese and the decided lack of subs. Only once did I even consider dropping it, and that hesitation was fairly short-lived. Nippon Animation manages to transcend its clearly limited animation budget and make SC something actually worth watching. Overall - 7 Overall, SC is an admirable effort by Nippon to adapt a classic work of literature into a television show, several minor pitfalls notwithstanding. It's an enjoyable anime for even those unacquainted with Victor Hugo's masterpiece, and the vocabulary is simple enough that even someone who doesn't know the language can probably follow along (though I do wish someone would hurry up and sub it). The only real downsides are a few instances of bowdlerization and the aforementioned poor animation.

PaleMint

I recently read Les Misérables in class and completely fell in love with it. I googled "Les Misérables anime", not expecting to find much, and was very pleased to discover such a lengthy and faithful adaptation. There were a few changes here and there, but most I didn't mind, and some I liked. For example, a large portion of this series is from Cosette's point of view, which I actually found nice because in the novel, the reader hardly knows her and she is written very passively. In the anime she shows strength and personality that we never saw in the book. Most of myqualms with the series stem from the fact that it is aimed at children. There are many works of fiction that target a young audience but can be enjoyed by adults without seeming too childish. This anime succeeded partially in that, but at times I was taken out of the drama by little things that made me think "Oh yeah, this is for kids." The original story makes you think a lot, and allows you to make inferences on your own based on what you read. This show however leaves nothing to the imagination as it has a tendency to try to drill something into your head and make absolutely sure that you understand. Some of it was overkill, even for children. (WE GET IT. PEOPLE CAN CHANGE.) There were also some changes to the plot that I found a bit unnecessary, especially toward the end. I always had an open mind to changes from the novel, as the show in general was already way more faithful than I ever expected it to be, but some changes to make it "happier" seemed a bit cheesy. I won't spoil anything, but I was disappointed when silly reasons caused certain characters not to die. That being said, for the vast majority of the series I was able to ignore those things. In fact, there were parts where I felt like they probably got as dark as they possibly could with a G rating. Sometimes I would think, "This is rated G, so I wonder if /that/ is going to happen? Oh look, it did. Cool." But I digress. It may seem like I didn't like this series very much, but in actuality there were a lot more things that I liked than didn't like. I definitely enjoyed it, and sped through it in 4 days. (I'm on break with a lot of free time.) It kind of made me wish that there was a really dark anime adaptation with really good animation, but I'll take what I can get. This was a good series that I would suggest to any fan of Les Miz, and still a good watch even if you're completely new to it. I'm really glad I found this.