Thank you, NetGalley and Udon Entertainment, for a complimentary copy of this manga adaption of yet another classic in exchange for my honest opinion!

First things first, the illustrations are phenomenal as usual!!!! I loved the facial expressions, the symbolisms used, and the character portrayal. The manga itself is fantastic and I loved everything about it. Now here comes the big "BUT" ... William Shakespearian language is so hard to understand and I had a hard time making it through this one. Unfortunately, this manga also had big boots to fit because I loved loved loved the "Les Miserables" adaption. I think that one and "The Count of Monte Cristo" have been my favorites so far. I guess I went in with great expectations for this one since Romeo and Juliet is such a great story. I have to admit though that while the story is great, I also struggled with the language in the original classic as well.

Nonetheless, I can absolutely recommend this manga adaption!

I just read the book a few weeks ago and it was okay.

However, this adaptation didn’t give justice to the play (just my opinion).

The art is beautiful, yes, but it didn’t appeal to me that much and I couldn’t to most of the characters because of it.

I think this book should not only made the story simple for students, also the vocabularies as well. Although I understand it's a work of Shakespeare, still it's a book for students.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this Manga Classic. NOW, I am NOT saying it was terrible but it just wasn’t for me. I am not usually into Plays, but I wanted to give this a go because I love reading Mangas and I hoped that a manga version of the play would allow me to get into the story of Romeo & Juliet more easily. However, that was not the case. I love the art work but the language used in the dialogue was just as confusing to me as trying to read the play.

With that said, I do not discourage others to read this or to give it a go. It may very well be your cup of tea. I say try it because the art work is entertaining but it just wasn’t for me.

I am willing to try other Manga classics...however, I won’t be trying any other plays in the meantime.

Brilliant!
I'm not a fan of classic literature transposed as manga (or even simplified for children, for all that matters) because I believe that the original writing of the author has to be read. However, here things are a bit different: there are no descriptions of places or feelings that might go lost, a play is just dialogue.
Ironically, a play is better as a manga. Whereas just seeing the lines on a paper might not appeal to the readers, this format will absolutely attract them. The original lines are all there, but there are also these beautiful drawings.
If I'm not wrong, this series is for students... well, well thought. I believe a lot of students not really interested in Shakespeare might be more willing to read his plays in this format.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an E-ARC for this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book disappointed me because the art and coloring of this book were stunning, but the organization didn't work for me. I think that part of what added to the issue was the ebook format because it made it a lot harder to read and navigate. I believe that this was an overall stunning book, so I'm very sorry to DNF it.

I read and received this book for free through the publisher and NetGalley. Thank you so much! The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I was pleasantly surprised and happy to read another manga adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and to see what Manga Classics Inc. has to offer. I encountered countless Romeo and Juliet adaptations, from featured films to a Japanese animation television series as I was a fan back in 2007. The Japanese animation was adapted into a manga series, first from a Japanese publisher named Kadokawa Shoten in their Monthly Asuka shoujo magazine. From there, the manga was licensed in North America by Yen Press and released in 2010.

But what makes Manga Classics Inc.’s adaptation special is how it stays faithful to William Shakespeare’s famous classic play. This play takes place in Verona, Italy where there is a feud between the Montague and Capulet families. Romeo Montague happens to fall in love with Juliet Capulet, despite Juliet intending to marry the County Paris upon her father’s wishes. The events lead to tragic results for not only the two star-crossed lovers, but for their families as well.

As I read this manga adaptation, I can tell how much heart and soul has been put into this; from the bonus pages with the staff talking about researching and traveling to Verona, Italy for inspiration, to character concepts and designs, to the types of weaponry and swordplay used in the time period. It is quite refreshing to read about the whole process of adapting a classic play into a graphic novel medium! All of the original text is in this adaptation, carefully placed for each character to be put under the spotlight. If there is a monologue, the character expresses them both out loud or while thinking to themselves with added gestures, giving the reader a visual of what their facial expressions and their personalities are like. Even as they’re speaking to other characters am I able to see how the relationships and interactions develop overtime, whether it be familial, friends, or lovers in a given situation.

Along with the text, there is a fine balance with the visuals. The visuals and backgrounds are absolutely stunning. The use of shading and the imagery with the text helped me immerse myself into a broader world or to visualize a character in another character’s perspective. I was able to follow along with what is happening in the play more than what I could imagine if I were just reading the text alone. I even love how innovative the illustrator is with shaping the panels to create fantastical scenes. Every panel and every page, whether it be double-paged or not, emphasized not only the dramatic scenes in the play, but the other scenes that help build up to those moments.

I highly recommend this to readers who are starting to read and learn about Shakespeare’s plays for the first time.

such a wonderful manga adaption! I'm surprised that the dialogues themselves also extracted from the real play of Romeo and Juliet. But still, they make the dialogues seem easy to understand. I think middle grades can enjoy reading this. Usually, I'd seen them in written stage play or movie adaption but I didn't know that the one in the manga version could be more exciting.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc! It was a bit hard to get into but a not bad Retelling of Romeo and Juliet. I've never finished reading the orignal play of Romeo and Juliet but it seems to have similar if not identical dialogue so I would say it's quite faithful.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a free copy of Manga Classics: Romeo and Juliet in exchange for an honest review!

The one main problem I had with this manga is not about the story but about the way I received the pdf. Since mangas read from right to left, the pdf file had the very last page be the first page. This made it confusing at the beginning because I assumed page 1 of the pdf would be the start of the story. Then I realized page 416 was the beginning, and I had to scroll up to see the next page. Then this was a whole other problem because I had to scroll up to see the top of the page, then scroll back down to read the bottom, then scroll up again to get to the next page. It just made reading the manga a chore and contributed to my disliking it. So, if you get a physical copy of the manga, you will not have this problem. I'm just putting this in here to give context for my lower rating. I mean, Romeo and Juliet is my second favorite Shakespeare play that I have read, so my 2-star rating is swayed by the format, not by the content. The manga, I believe, is word-for-word the original play, so you are getting an interpretation visually rather than textually if that makes sense.

As far as the artwork goes, it looks nice and suits the story well. The character designs are great, and so are the settings/scenery. I also enjoyed how at the end of the manga, the authors talk about the adaptation process. It was great to get insight into that aspect and see the level of detail that goes into making the manga faithful to the original. I feel this will be an excellent read for someone intimidated by Shakespeare's writing style (definitely me 😂) because the visuals help to understand what Shakespeare is meaning in the text.

Gosh, if my pdf was not so messed up, I would give this a solid 3-stars! I'm just bitter about it, haha, so it is 2-stars for me.

Another winning manga classic, Romeo and Juliet is one of my favourite stories, and this is a magnificent visual retelling, bringing Shakespeare to a new audience with a story that will never cease to be relevant.

Romeo and Juliet is the classic tragedy of western literature. Created by William Shakespeare, it is tale of two very young lovers from Verona, Italy who defy the wishes of their feuding families, get married then, and tragically, end their own lives in the name of love. It is their deaths that ultimately help the rival families of the Capulet's and Montague's find reconciliation.

Amazing adaptation with beautiful art. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you to Udon Entertainment and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this title of Manga Classics.
It's nice that the poetic part of "Romeo and Juliet" is there, as if you're reading the play and not just a novel, and taking advantage of the architecture of Verona, with a nice style. In the balcony scene, the house of Juliet is the one in actual Verona, as almost all the places used in the background of the story.
I also like the Japanese manga style, and remembering you that Juliet is not 15 yet.

The only thing didn't like, as an ebook, is that you need to go manual till the end to start reading it, because the structure is the same as in a manga. If you have it as a physical one, there's no problem.

Cute art style which I enjoyed. Though I struggled a little with the Shakespeare speech, the manga format still made it easy to read and understand.

I really liked the manga version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The illustrations are pretty good and the story is presented pretty well. This is a fun way to read the classic play.

This was an entertaining way of reading a classic. I would say it was hard to read at first but it was fun. Nothing really new done to the story.

This was a great visual telling for Romeo and Juilet on a Manga backdrop. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan so to see this as a manga was great. The artwork was very nice, and I really enjoyed it.

So Shakespeare is a author you either love his works, or you don’t. I’m in the category of I like his stuff. I think it’s super good to have manga adaptations of this in case if the text is hard to comprehend.

This adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was obviously well researched and thoughtfully composed. The illustrations were beautifully done and enhanced the story tremendously. I thoroughly enjoyed this manga classic!

I, unfortunately, wasn't a fan of this one. I just didn't enjoy the combination of the typical Manga art style (with overexaggerated expressions etc.) and the Shakespearean speech. I hadn't expected them to use the original dialogue from the actual story, because the previous classic Manga adaptation I read (Les Misérables) didn't have that, as far as I can remember. Still, I enjoyed the art style a lot so that is mostly where my rating went into.