I absolutely understand my issue with this book is my own personal difficulty with reading manga. My brain struggles going right to left BUT I adore all forms of Jane Austen's novels and this was no different. The Dashwood sisters and their road to romance takes full bloom in this book. I loved the illustrations though I do prefer color, it was still wonderful. I plan to read more from this series!

Manga version of the classic book, had fun reading it. I hadn't read the classic or did read it but it has been so long since I did I didn't remember. So getting the manga version to read was good way of getting into this world.

**ARC provided by Netgalley**

There's not a lot to say about this animated classic. The art style was not my personal preference, there was an appropriate amount of skimming over dull moments but the text also missed some important world/character building.

It was just okay. If you love Jane Austen or Sense & Sensibility though, it's a quick and inoffensive read.

Thanks go to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I found this book to be a nice pairing of manga and classic literature. While it's impossible to maintain the total integrity of the book in such condensed writing, the story is still well-told and accurate. I enjoyed the artwork as well, although Sir John looked pretty scary and Willoughby looked overly effeminate to me.

I have loved the works of Jane Austen ever since I read them for the first time as a young teen. Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite books! I'm always a bit hesitant to read adaptations for fear of being disappointed. But the artwork in this book caught my eye and I was curious about a manga adaptation of this classic novel. I'm so glad I took a chance and read this book! The art is wonderful! And it is faithful to Austen's book for the most part.

This manga classic reads like most manga...from right to left. It has a couple introductory pages to explain how to read the book properly, so this edition is a great gift for someone new to manga. There is nothing inappropriate for teens in this book, just as in Austen's novel. It is Sense and Sensibility, just presented in a new manner.

Udon Entertainment and Morpheus Studios have published several other manga classics including Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I'm definitely going to read more in this classics series!

Great book! Faithful to the original! And the art is wonderful!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Udon Entertainment. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.**

This is my third time reading and reviewing a Manga Classics work. The other two were The Count of Monte Cristo (which remains my favorite, highly recommended) and Macbeth (good for fans of Shakespeare and more action and intrigue-oriented manga)

Sense and Sensibility is a huge shift to something different in terms of art style, content, and overall mood. I’m impressed so far with how this company employs a unique art style and approach with each volume I’ve tried thus far.

First of all, the art. It’s pretty, girlish, and flowery. Very suited to the subject matter- a warm storyline about sisters and and first romances. The characters are all easily differentiated and have their own unique characteristics. I was most fond of the approach to Elinor and Marianne, as Elinor appears more upright and down-to-earth whereas Marianne is vivacious and dreamy. Their character designs and expressions reflect the stark contrast.

To be honest, it took me a while to become fully enchanted with the art. I grew to like it more going forward and believe that the quality of nitty gritty line work also improved as the book proceeded. Important, pivotal scenes are given an extra splash of detail, with carefully drawn faces, expressions, and backdrops.

I have not yet fully read the original novel, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Last year I made it to about the 30% mark and put it aside for other books, part of the reason being that I had difficulty gleaning finer details due to the classical prose.

One of the great advantages of Manga Classics is in taking the valuable elements of stories and making them easier to digest, and in an appealing way for people who also enjoy manga. I am now far more eager to eventually read Sense and Sensibility and more interested in the storyline and characters after gaining an increased familiarity with them.

From what I remember of the 30% of the original novel I did read, it seems this adaptation did indeed take the best parts of various conversations and prominently feature them. There are many beautiful lines in this story that are thoughtfully decorated and/or illustrated befittingly. I found it very easy to follow along and fully gain from the conversations between the characters. The level of clarity in this adaptation is very good.

I hadn’t known venturing into it that Sense and Sensibility was such a bittersweet story of romance under complicated social mores and class divisions. As a story about sisters, it is also touching and endearing. The length was perfect, 300 pages is a lot for a single volume of manga that remains within a reasonable price range. But the time spent reading it is also just a bit longer than a movie and offers that seem feeling of experiencing a brisk adaptation.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and Udon Entertainment for providing me an electronic advanced reading copy of this volume for review purposes.*

Overall Rating – 8/10

Why You Should Try It – If you enjoy or have an interest in reading Austen novels AND adore manga. If you want to read a warm-hearted, bittersweet (and positive!) classical romance that doubles as a heartfelt storyline about sisters. Manga Classics editions also have hardcovers which is awesome and a rarity in manga publications.

Why You Might Not Like It – If you’re an avid consumer of very modern shoujo (girls) manga from 2015-2019, the art style employed here can seem old-school. It took me a little while to get comfortable with it. There are other Manga Classics entries that have art I enjoyed more (Les Miserables and The Count Of Monte Cristo come to mind.)

This setting of one of my favorite Jane Austen novels really breathed new life to the classic story. It is really amazing to see the characters brought to life on the page in a new way.

This editions makes the classic tale more accessible to the general reader and is highly recommended to anyone that struggles when it comes to reading the classics.

There is little cause for me to summarize the original story of Sense and Sensibility here, since that is the sort of thing at which Google excels, and so I will not. However, I must mention that in this manga adaptation of the story, whether through thoughtless editing or simple ineptitude, Stacy King has managed to create a version of the story without a single sympathetic character. In the supplementary materials the adapter addresses their concerns that they may have robbed Colonel Brandon of ethos by making him too silent and sad, and that they made Elinor more weepy so that she would not seem too slick and sophisticated, but neither of those choices had the slightest bearing on my impression of the characters in this version.

Marianne was her usual flighty, selfish self: a girl who absolutely would be addicted to the ability to share her sensibilities with the world via Instagram and Twitter if she lived today. Elinor mostly came across as somehow overwrought and smug at the same time, likely due to the decision to add more tears to her page time and the self-talk she uses when considering the relationship between Lucy Steele and Edward Ferrars. Colonel Brandon broods, as usual, Edward Ferrars seems almost as rakish as Willoughby in the way he wusses around with his two ladyloves. Willoughby is, bafflingly, supposed to seem not so bad, which is an interesting narrative choice. The Misses Steele seem unusually unkind and Mrs. Dashwood seems basically irrelevant. Most of the action is driven by Mrs. Jennings' decisions.

Other than the unexpected characterization choices, there is not really much to say about the piece. The artwork is middle-of-the-road manga style. There was clearly research done on costuming, and that shows positively in the art, but it relies more heavily on hairstyles for identification than facial features, and anyone who is not a potential love interest is slightly grotesque. Colonel Brandon has the most interesting facial features, since he has to balance being a potential love interest with also being old enough to be too old upon first glance.

Reading manga digitally is an odd experience. It is not hard to flip to the end of the text and tab backward to simulate the traditional right-to-left style of reading, but then the supplemental materials are written left to right, so readers must switch back to the early locations in the text and read forward, or else take each page individually, divorced from those preceding it, which doesn't allow for continuous narrative or flow of information. Unfortunately, the section on historical custom and the author's notes are not framed so that each page is a discrete unit, and so the tiresome jumping around in the text is necessary. It would not have been any different in print, except that it is easier to do.

Despite all of the above, this piece is an adequate adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and for readers who prefer their books to have a higher ratio of image to text it's a more accessible version that Austen's original piece. The adaptation is a solid 2 stars, really, but I awarded it an extra star for being my favorite of Austen's pieces.

I read this book a couple years ago but it was cool to see it done with drawings! I think this is a fun easy way to read a classic.

Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book, but I love all of Jane Austen's books. (I also really love graphic novels). This adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is a good one. I didn't feel like anything important was left out, and the illustrations captured the feeling of the story. I'll be honest and say that the illustrations in these (Jane Austen) manga classics aren't my favorite, but they are still really good. The reason I say this is because Austen's stories are steeped in romance, but the pictures have a harsh line look to them. I think they could use more curves, and softness. Overall I enjoyed this book, and will probably add it to my Austen collection.

I'm not at all a very experienced manga reader, so I figured starting with a classic story I already know and love is a good way to give it a try. I previously read the manga adaptation of Jane Eyre as well, and I quite enjoyed that, but I have to say, I liked this one even better. Both Jane Eyre and Sense and Sensibility are some of my favourite classics, but I think this manga was maybe a little more accessible, because it drew me in right away, and it read quite easily.

"The more I see of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never fall in love." You can pry aroace Jane Austen from my cold, dead hands. While very romantic, I think her stories are so obviously a fantasy that she herself felt quite distant from, and this is an experience I can really relate to: I love to read about romance, but it's not something I experience myself.

I think these manga adaptations are quite a fun way to get a first impression of some classics, as they give a shortened, fast-paced account of the story.

I read Sense and Sensibility in high school, and this manga edition, while missing on the beauty of language, was wonderful in highlighting the main events of the story. I would totally recommend this to students for the purpose of review only. Thank you NetGalley and Udon Entertainment for this eARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I love the story, love the heroines, I just love everything about this. There was so much happening that it never felt slow or boring and the suspense and revelations at the end of the book were so fantastically done.

I really enjoy all the manga classics books. I am a huge fan of manga, so I love seeing some of my favorite characters depicted with this unique art style. The illustrations in the book are gorgeous (I saw that there is a coloring book available!). The difficult thing about these (or any adaptation) is deciding what plot points, dialogue, etc from the original to use to tell the story. I know that these manga classics are mostly about reaching a new audience- people who may or may not be familiar with Jane Austen, so they tend to modernize some of the speech patterns, etc. I understand this in my head, but it still kind of makes me a little disappointed overall. Part of the beauty of Jane Austen is the language of her writing, so while the overall story of Sense and Sensibility is here, it is boiled down to salient points and repackaged with plain language that loses what I feel is the magic of Austen. I would still recommend it to anyone who enjoys manga and doesn't want to tackle reading the actual classic with the caveat that you're still going to be missing out on a lot from the original.

After the sudden death of Mr. Dashwood, his wife and their three daughters need to move out from their property and rent new home Barton Cottage, on the property of a distant relative, Sir John Middleton. They are invited into the circle of family Middleton. They meet the family and their friend Colonel Brandon who keeps secretly admiration of younger sister Marianne Dashwood. Unfortunately, her vision of love looks completely different than for him. She's young, spontaneous and dreams about big romance with a young wealthy man who will make her the happiest woman alive. However, her older sister Elinor is the complete opposite of her. She thinks rational and doesn't dream about things impossible. She doesn't wait for a fairytale. She gave her heart to a man back home in Norland Park. He is a brother of Fanny Dashwood, wife of her step-brother, who isn't delighted about their affection.

Short after family settles in their new house. Marianne meets a young and very handsome man John Willoughby who steals her heart. Their love grows very fast until he needs to leave her and go back to London and she never heard from him again.

I read this book a few years ago and this Manga collection of classics books is perfect to visualize the story, characters, and places but also to quickly remind yourself of the content of the book. I love it about graphic books that you can read it very quickly and it's also hard to miss an important event of the book. The drawings and graphics are very good and they represent well all characters and places in the book.

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

I have never been a big fan of Jane Austen or Manga books. However, combining the two made for an interesting and fun read. Manga Classics: Sense and Sensibility (Stacy King (Story Adaptation), Po Tse (Art by), Jane Austen (Original Story)) is part of the Manga Classics series. According to Goodreads, as of 6/13/2019, most of the 15 novels in the series have been adapted by Stacy King with artwork from Po Tse.

I attempted to read Sense and Sensibility several times but, I stop, put it down, and give up. I understand the time period in which it was written so it is not because of the way women behave or how they are treated that I have not finished.

Reading the Manga Classics version I found Austen's well-known classic easier to read and, for the first time, was able to finish reading the story.

I gave 5 stars to Manga Classics: Sense and Sensibility not for Austen's work. It is because of the superb way Stacy King was able to adapt the story into a Manga novel without losing the original story.

I feel this series would be a fun way to introduce Classics to "non-readers".

This review was published on hilomathinphila.com on 6/15/19.

Sense & Sensibility – Manga Classics- by Jane Austen and Stacy King- is a 2016 UDON entertainment publication.

Sense & Sensibility is Jane Austen’s first novel, written anonymously. The tale primarily evolves around two sisters, Marianne and Elinor Dagwood, one of which is dreamy eyed, insisting on holding out for a man with charisma, while Elinor takes a more sensible approach.

Although the sisters meet and fall in love with men matching their personas, both will experience disappointment and heartbreak. Will they ever find true love?



When I first began familiarizing myself with Manga, I discovered many classic novels have been converted into the Manga format. At first, I was a bit skeptical, however, once I tried a couple of these Manga Classics, I realized what a great idea this was. The authors and artists are highly respectful to the original, while breathing new life into these timeless classics.



For those who are fans of the classics, this is a great way to revisit them. The artwork is always fantastic, and it is fun to see these characters visualized in such a way. If you have never read these classic stories, the Manga version is a gentle, and entertaining way to introduce oneself with the beloved stories that have endured for so long.

The story itself is a classic romance, full of high drama, twists and angst. Good sense wins out in the end, as does true love.

This delightful story is condensed down a bit in this format, but the author did a terrific job with what couldn’t have been an easy task. Overall, this is a great way to touch base with your favorite classics in less time, while enjoying the amazing visuals that accompany the story.

4 stars

This was my first manga and I really enjoyed it! I must say that I have not read Sense and Sensibility, the classic by Jane Austen but I have read her work and I could really feel her heart and soul in this manga version!
The illustrations were beautiful!
I found it interesting how they commented on people's senses.. stating that a man was sensible seemed to be a rather large compliment. I loved that Marianne came to her senses and was able to see her husband in a different light and that he could be just as intelligent and interesting at his "old" age.
I was so happy for Elinor and Edward in the end.. Yet, Elinor was definitely more forgiving than I'd have been.
It always shocks me on how much stock they put in money back then.
Very good! Thank you!! Can't wait to read more!

I highly recommend this book. The art is gorgeous and it shows integrity to the original story. Enjoyable and worth the read on it's own, it could also serve as a jumping of point to better understand the actual writing of Jane Austen.

So.

I loved this.

I didn't expect to but I actually loved this.

The reason I didn't expect to is because this is one of the few Austen novels I haven't read. I only know the movie version (with Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet) and while I loved Colonel Brandon in that version, I really, REALLY, did not care for Marianne. I found her spoiled and immature and just a general bore to suffer through as a character (even if I love Winslet) - this is all from memory of course, from a while ago.

But, I went into this expecting to like Elinor, bland as she was, and sigh over Marianne.

Was that the case?

Not at all.

As I said, I have not read S&S before, but the portrayal of all the characters - especially the two lead sisters - felt much more in-keeping, and loyal, to the way Austen would have written them.

They were complex, they made sense, they were enjoyable and you really felt for them! I knew what was going to happen but I was devastated for Marianne! And Elinor wasn't boring in the slightest, she was mature and rational and not too forthcoming with her emotions but you could really feel for her.

I suppose, in part, it was because you could read their internal monologues. But overall, I felt this rendition really captured the story, the unfairness of society, the different, interesting characters and the plot on a whole.

The art style was in that very unique 80s/90s manga style, with a slightly modern twist, which was fine (though some people may struggle with it). I'm not sure anything truly modern would suit an Austen novel. There's something so traditional and classic about that style, I wouldn't change anything.

There was just one, small, minute detail that I found... well, ridiculous.

Colonel Brandon cries in almost every single scene he appears in - and he doesn't appear in many. I realise it's supposed to show that he's a sensitive, whole-hearted character, but good lord man! Control yourself, you're in public! In the Regency Era. Have some self-control, you don't see the ladies with tears streaming down their faces in the presence of every heartbreak and bit of bad news.

That kind of put me off Colonel Brandon - which is a shame because I do love his character and he's so central to everyone getting their happy ending. But that was really the only thing that felt janky about the whole thing. And with 300+ pages for something to go wrong, that's a mere drip.

Also - I mean spoilers I guess if you don't know S&S but:



I really like how they showed Colonel Brandon and Marianne's final relationship and how it came about. It was done in a few short pages but it felt so natural and real, once she gave him a chance. Again, referring to the movie, I always felt like she just shoehorned herself into a decent relationship after the downfall of her last one, which didn't fit a character who so whole-heartedly believed in love. In this rendition, really nicely handled.

So, overall, a very, very good manga version of Sense and Sensibility. I think it really captured the complexity of the plot, the ruthlessness of the era and the depth of the different characters.

Extremely well done and a very enjoyable read.