Title: Anne of Green Gables
Author: L.M. Montgomery and Stacy King
Contributor: Crystal S. Chan
Artists: Kuma Chan and Daria Rhodes
Publisher: Manga Classics Inc.
Source: Netgalley
Publication Date: November 10th, 2020
Format: eARC
Page Count: 319 (paperback edition)
Rating: ★★★★
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Plot Summary: Siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert were planning to adopt an orphaned boy to help out around their farm, Green Gables – instead, they got Anne Shirley. A plucky redheaded girl with a vibrant imagination, Anne turns first Green Gables and then the rest of Prince Edward Island on its ear.
Manga Classics® is proud to be the only authorized manga adaption of Anne of Green Gables by the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery. This volume presents a faithful recreation of this classic kids novel, from the Lake of Shining Waters to the Dryad’s Bubble!
Foreword by Kate McDonald Butler – granddaughter of the original author!
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I received an eARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Anne of Green Gables has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid and saw the movies and read the first book. I just fell completely in love with it. I’ve re-watched the movies countless times, and read more of the series as well as diving into L.M. Montgomery’s other books. Anne is a kindred spirit with her red hair and big imagination. When I saw that there was a manga adaptation – with gorgeous cover art -, I immediately wanted to read it.
The art is so beautiful. The attention to detail not only with the settings, but also with the characters makes the reading experience so special. Anne, Marilla, and Diana in particular have some of the best art. Mathew was a little surprising – I have the picture of the actors from the movies and the show in my head -, but at the same time his face looked so kind. Gilbert was also a bit of a shock in that he was drawn rather like a typical manga/anime bad-boy. As in, messy, spiky hair. It took some getting used to for sure.
Another thing I liked about the art is the facial expressions. There are close-ups in key moments, but there are also those typical manga/anime facial expressions that I love so much. They added humour to the story because Anne is SO EXPRESSIVE. There are also close ups of different characters or settings to highlight them, which I think was lovely.
The story itself starts off strong. If you’re familiar with the movies or the book you’ll recognize a lot of the imagery and dialogue in the beginning of the manga. I really loved being able to recognize key lines from the original text, and I think they were included beautifully. The manga focuses heavily on Anne when she’s first with the Cuthberts, and then some time jumps begin. The time jumps are not always clear in that Anne and the other characters don’t change physically until Anne has suddenly gone through puberty and her dresses become more grown up. I don’t love that the timeline has such big leaps, because I know parts of the story are being left out. Namely, the romance.
The other thing that detracted from my enjoyment is that sometimes the dialogue was too modern. This didn’t happen all the time, but it happened enough that those phrases stood out and took me out of the story. I wish that the language had been kept uniform throughout so as to be more true to the book and the time period in which it’s set.
But really, this Anne of Green Gables manga is truly lovely. I had such a fun time reading it. It’s been awhile since I watched or read Anne, and it felt like coming home to dive back into this world and revisit some lovely characters. Just be aware that some plotlines are cut out or simplified, and the language isn’t consistent.
Turning Pages 