Thank you to NetGalley and Manga Classics for providing me with a free eARC of this book
Anne of Green Gables has had a place in my heart since I first watched Anne With an E on Netflix, and I absolutely fell in love with the story and characters.
The first book in the eight book series by L. M. Montgomery follows Anne Shirley, a young orphan girl taken in by siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. The book follows Anne as she grows from a wild, imaginative girl with a ferocious temper to an intelligent and kind young woman, all under the care of Matthew and Marilla. It’s a beautiful and heartwarming coming of age story. It sometimes reads as a parental guide, like most childrens books at the time did, but if you overlook the obvious etiquette lessons you see a soft, slow, and gorgeous story of Anne finding her place in the world.
Now, this is a revamp of the original story, as it takes the 1908 novel and turns it into a modern-styled manga. Now of course this manga is a bit shorter than the original, and because of that it does cut away some of the original story, but the main story is still there, and I feel the things the storyboarder decided to exclude did not have a major effect on the story overall, and that they actually chose the things to cut quite well. The only problem with the cutting of certain storylines is that some chapters become exceptionally short, only lasting one or two pages, which did give me a sense of whiplash at some points, but overall it did not have a negative effect on the story.
Some of the characters did not really fit well into the manga style, mostly Matthew Cuthbert. In the novel he is portrayed as fairly stoic and quiet, but with the exaggerated expressions of the manga art style, this feels a bit off. However, the manga style suited Anne’s character so well. I was blown away with how perfectly she fit as she is such an animated character. It was also very nice to be able to see the thoughts of some of the main characters, as it made them feel more real and likeable than if we had just gotten their straight dialogue; this especially applies to Marilla, as she comes off as very cold and unfeeling for the first half of the novel, but seeing her thought process really helped bring her to life and show the reader how much she loves Anne.
Lastly, I absolutely love the accessibility that the manga classics series brings to dyslexic readers and readers who struggle to read classics normally. The meat of the story is still there, and even though you lose the descriptive writing, the gorgeous art and animated characters make up for it splendidly. I could see myself recommending this series to people who want to see what all the fuss is about with some popular classics but don’t want to deal with the sometimes difficult language.
Overall I highly recommend this book, and pretty much any adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, and I really hope they decide to adapt the rest of the series into manga as well.