I continued feeling under the weather but!!! At least!!! First 3 volumes of the 8 volumes series of Les mis by Arai, in Italian. The one with gorgeous blonde emo bangs Javert!

Now I only need to find the strength to read them (or read at all orz)! Little by little, I'll get there uwu.

I got the first volume of Takahiro Arai’s Les Misérables adaptation and it does live up to the hype! Dreamwidth post

I colored the prettiest man ever created in the history of forever (translation made by me because the Italian panel I had didn't sit right with me lol).

I have a soft spot for this gay bitch (he was down bad)

The Arai manga >>>>> any on-screen adaptation ever

You can argue with the wall

can't stop thinking abt takahiro arai's evaluation of jean and javert's dynamic, coupled with the massive bold "LOVE IT!!!" at the bottom

exactly, mr arai.

exactly.

Okay don't come at me for this but I 100% judge any and all Les Mis adaptations almost completely by their design and characterization of Javert.

Like if he's not on point then I'm sorry, I'm done, I can't.

Reworking of Arai Les Mis panels for funsies!!

One of my favorite panels in act 1 of a Les Miserables manga. Couldn't tell you why 👀😏

Les Misérables | Fantine & Cosette (Manga by Arai Takahiro, 2016)

Did you know that in the Arai manga, when Joly gets shot, Bossuet screams his name and runs to him, but Joly weakly says, "Do not come Bossuet" because he didn't want Bossuet to leave his cover. But it doesn't stop him and Bossuet gets shot and dies anyways. Then Joly, bleeding out but still alive, seems to cry while looking at his friend's dead body? Did you know that? Well you do now.

I was so exited about the preorders of Arai's Les Mis manga I animated a page from it?

Also also also and this is not coherent at ALL but I will never be over the contrasts in the manga character design for JVJ and Javert and for Enjolras and Grantaire and how they even parallel BOTH DUOS!

Javert and Enjolras have blue eyes and blond golden hair, reminiscent of the artistic depiction of angels, a shining gaze that can pierce the soul, the light of their ideal moving them.

And JVJ and Grantaire have a lot of black in their design. Black clothes, black hair (tho JVJ's become grey as he gets more trauma :c) and brow eyes that look basically RED in the color illustrations, and they have a sad cynical demeanor even tho they're inspired by someone else and they ultimately defy their own desperation and cynism to die for someone else and for a higher ideal!

And the chapter where Enjolras tells Javert, now a prisoner, that he's willing to die for his belief and Javert looks impassively and the reader GETS that Javert is also willing to die for his, except he doesn't get his wish in that very same chapter.

If Enjolras is the Achilles of the republic and freedom, Javert is an Achilles that chooses to serve the regime that oppresses him. They have the same fervor and the same almost religious faith in ideals that aren't compatible.

And when the imperfect, tormented Patroclus introduces greyness to their worldview, makes them open their eyes to how they were mistaken, they break but differently. Enjolras breaks gently in the moment of his death, shared by Grantaire, in an embrace that unifies love for humans in general and love for a person in particular.

Javert breaks many minor times thanks to Jean Valjean and the result is never pretty. It all accumulates into him understanding that whatever he does, he's making the wrong choice so he condemns himself. Jean Valjean also condemns himself to death, for the happiness of Cosette.

And though they came SO CLOSE, they never fully managed to comprehend each other. They felt compassion at the end, maybe even love, but couldn't understand. There wasn't time.

Highlights from the second English omnibus of the Arai manga!

We've reached Chapter 1.5.5, "Vague Flashes on the Horizon," of Les Mis, and you know what that means?

It's Hot Manga Javert time!

Pages 363–373 of the first English omnibus of Arai's manga introduce Javert and his suspicions of Madeleine (aided, in this case, by a seed planted by Fauchelevant), but it isn't until much, much later, in Volume 7 of the Japanese manga (presumably part of the 4th English omnibus eventually), on pages 6–11, that we see where he came from: "As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,—those who attack it and those who guard it." This page below is where he made the choice whether to attack or to guard the society he was excluded from. (also featured: Javert's dogsona, as associated with him in the manga much in the same way that Valjean is shadowed by a lion)

I am agog, I am aghast. Is Les Mis a manga at last?

Goodevening! Here's fanart of 1987 Manga Marius from Les Mis :-)