Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. I never thought that it would be good as a manga. But I greatly enjoyed this one. The illustrations were beautiful and effective in conveying the greed and ambition in the play.

As one of my very favorite Shakespeare plays, I loved this adaptation of Macbeth! Though the dark traditional classic might not be thought at first as a manga adaptation, the exaggerated conveyance of beloved characters added to the creepy and dark feel of the tragedy - in fact, such stylistic elements unique to manga definitely helped to break down the challenging Shakespearean language. After finishing this adaptation, I was definitely left wanting more!

Beautiful artwork, and a great way of bringing a Shakespeare classic to life, I really enjoyed this, and look forward to more beautiful mangas from this series!

This is an excellent version of Shakespeare's work!
Line by line, the full text is there and the addition of the (impressive) artwork provides visual renderings of the many uses of symbolism throughout the play. This version is sure to aid those who "just don't get it" when it comes to only reading Shakespeare's work

Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Manga Classics Adaptation by Crystal S. Chan, Julian Choy
Publication Date: October 11, 2018 - Available Now!
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Description from NetGalley...
“In this classic tale by William Shakespeare, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia.”

A Note From the Publisher
Every Manga Classics title now comes with lesson plans and teaching guides.
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Thank you to @NetGalley @udonent #mangaclassics for the digital ARC in return for my honest review.
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My thoughts...
Macbeth is my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays. It was greed and ambition defined. The words were powerful and emotional. This Manga adaptation was fantastic. The illustrations were incredible in portraying the emotions and the power of the words. I appreciated the graphic representation of the guilt driven madness. I wished I had this in high school. If you’re a Shakespeare purist you might not like it. I was not a Manga fan, but I have a new appreciation for them in these adaptations of the classics. I thing it was a faithful adaptation, keeping to the original text.

This has been my first manga version of a classic story and I´m quite happy that it stuck pretty closely to the original!
Reading "Manga Classics: Macbeth" offers a different experience to watching the play or reading the book. The drawing helped to understand and visualize the Shakespearean language that is sometimes hard to comprehend.
For this reason a Manga like this might even help students that are struggling with classics.


Interesting fact: Drawing changed with character evolvement.

Target audience: Young adults, students, Shakespeare-/ Manga lovers.

All right. So I liked this, but I was pretty lost through most of it (and I've read Macbeth before). Partly this is because the full text is used and I've always found it one of the less-easily understandable Shakespeare plays.

The good thing about this format is that the illustrations give emotional context to often inexplicable (to me) text. I really enjoyed Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the witches, and felt their expressions and actions really added to the text.

The not-so-good thing is that it's really hard to tell who's speaking (except Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) because while the full text is used, the stage directions - including names - are missing and you only have faces to go by. Many of the names are seldom mentioned in the text so I was like, "welp there's a person. And there's another person. No idea who they are or what relation they have to anyone though. Is that one of the princes?"

Also I just couldn't get past the disconnect between the old-fashioned text and the modern images and sound effects (Blam! Boom!) and really sink into the story.

I enjoyed the Count of Monte Cristo manga classic much more than this one.

I thought this manga version of the play would be easier to understand, but it was not. I couldn't make it through the first 10 pages.

I really like this Manga Classics.
The story we already know with this beautiful art, it's an excellent match.

Another brilliant rendering of a Shakespeare classic! This is one of my favourites and the visual story telling has done it more than justice - this graphic novel is a work of art.

Somewhat Confusing Version

When I was a child, I absolutely adored Classic Comics, of which my father had an entire box full from his childhood. I loved seeing the classic works of literature depicted as comics. I have heard of manga, of course, but had never read any; I knew it had stylized figures and artwork, but that was about it. But because this series of manga looks at classic books, I had to check it out. One thing that I certainly didn't know about manga is that it's read from back to front and right to left. For those who already know and love manga, I'm sure reading this book would be no issue whatsoever, but for the uninitiated like me, I found it distracting, and I didn't always know where to look on a page. Along with the very dramatic settings—which didn't always seem to be appropriate for the story—this made for hard reading, trying to figure out where and what I should read first or next. This story made the story seem choppy to me. Those already familiar with manga would probably be fine reading this book. By the way, the PDF ARC I received is all in black and white, with no color except for the cover and back and front matter. I don't know if it is that way in the published edition or not as there is no Look Inside feature for the book. And, if a book like this helps introduce the classics to a younger generation in a way that they like to consume, then I'm all for that. It just didn't work for me.

I liked the adaption of this book as a manga. The story is still good and I like the style of the manga really very much. It's a great idea to read classic books that way and I enjoyed reading it.

While I haven’t read Macbeth in its original form, nor have I seen it performed, I am somewhat familiar with the story thanks to today’s pop culture and Google. This manga version of Shakespeare’s work seems to be a very close adaptation - it claims that every line has been adapted from the original, but I personally can’t attest to that - but I fully went into this expecting it to be ‘translated’, too. Sadly, that wasn’t the case and Shakespeare’s writing style is preserved in this. It would have been a much easier and fun read, for me personally, if the dialogue had been modernised.

As it stands, though, this is a solid manga. The art seemed fitting for the story - nothing felt out of place, I got a real sense of the doom and gloom surrounding Macbeth - and you could tell the characters apart well. The latter was aided by a cast list at the start of the book, which was a very helpful addition. I feel like this could be a very helpful tool for those studying Macbeth and struggling with some of the themes and imagery in it, as they are displayed through the artwork in this.

Having finished it, though, I’m very torn on how to rate it: it wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t a book for me. The craftsmanship that went into creating this manga is very apparent, and it’s a beautiful little book. I just don’t care too much for the Bard.

I think classics in manga form is a great idea! This way more children could be inspired to try some books they might avoid otherwise. However, I think Shakespeare is hard to transpose in another medium (other than theatre, which is what it was intended for). The first half of the book was really great, especially the witches, but after a while I have to admit it gets quite boring - not the story per se, but the way it is presented.

I wasn't a big fan of the character design either - I actually think that Macbeth looked better in the sketches at the end of the book.

But all in all, it's not a bad idea!

Lovely illustrations, stays true to the original Shakespearean tale while encapsulating the reader in the world of Macbeth

I’ve always wanted to try Manga so I thought these Manga versions of Shakespeare would be the perfect place to start. I really enjoyed reading this. I love a good graphic novel and I adore Shakespeare so this is was great. It took some getting used to reading “backwards” but after a few pages you get a good flow. I need to check out more of these classics

I really enjoyed it! This was a classic brought back to life with illustration. When starting I was sure this wouldn't be as great as it was. Part of me feels as though this was a perfect book to introduce me to Manga.

I DID IT. I FINALLY DID IT. I started reading the manga version of Macbeth around a year ago but I couldn't get past half of it hence I DNF'd the book. It had to do less with the plot and more with the illustrations. I feel in the manga version the illustrator took too much liberty and ended up making a dark theme into vodoo stuff. And that was very uncomfortable to read tbh. I read the play this time (without illustrations) in order to complete it at least and I won't lie I kinda ended up liking it. To compliment it I also watched the 2015 adaptation of Macbeth and woah I ended up liking it A LOT. I really wish I felt the same way about the manga as well. While the rest of the art was amazing it was just the illustrations of dark magic that put me off the edge.
Trigger Warning: Death, War, Murder

Manga Classic: Macbeth by William Shakespeare adapted by Crystal S. Chan and illustrated by Julien Choy, is a graphic novel experience I didn’t expect. Foolishly, I was unaware of what “Manga” was, if I had of known I probably wouldn’t have requested it – but it’s good to try new things.

Okay, for the uninitiated – Manga is a type of comic originating from Japan and it encompasses a certain style which most of us have probably seen. I was just unaware it had a name. This style isn’t a modern phenomenon, in fact, it’s been around since the 1600’s.

This series of graphic novels covers a good number of the classics, and Macbeth is one of them. I thought I would try this out as it’s always good to see interesting variations of well-known literature. But I must say, I just found it all too much. The graphics for me were highly distracting and in my view not appropriate for the story – it was too light, too Rockstar and way too busy. These guys have hair like Duran Duran!!

It also wasn’t ‘moody enough’.

These books seem to be popular with the younger generation, and to my mind would be an excellent and very digestible introduction to fine literature.

Just not for this old fuddy-duddy.

2 Stars

The versions of the classic manga have become my favorites, in my case I have not read the work of Macbeth, with this manga I have entered the story and the complement of the illustrations has helped me understand the work, it is a Brilliant edition of a classic, which undoubtedly addresses raw human emotions including ambition, greed, repentance and loyalty.
One of the classics that is a little difficult to understand but with this manga you will certainly understand it, and the appreciation of the strokes and the text takes you into its history.