Shoujo Cosette

I suppose I'll put it out there that I really enjoy the story of Les Miserables. After performing several numbers from the musical during the Troupe this past weekend, I haven't quite been able to put it out of my mind. Well, there's that, and the fact that I now know that the 25th Anniversary US tour of Les Mis will be coming to Indianapolis in April. Seriously, I can't wait for April now. I'm pumped! If any of you have any interest whatsoever in musical theatre, but haven't ever been to a professional production, you cannot go wrong by seeing this. But anyway...

As wonderful as I believe the musical to be, I wanted to understand the original material more thoroughly, which, in this case is the novel by Victor Hugo. I haven't read this book yet, but I have found a very satisfying substitute. One of my friends introduced me to a 52 episode anime series called Shoujo Cosette. It was made in 2007 and is based on the novel. Not surprisingly, the series is entirely in Japanese, but luckily for us, it is subtitled. The story is told with emphasis on the life of the little girl, Cosette, instead of the central character, Jean Valjean. I guess the one thing that I've been noticing with this series, and maybe it's this way with all anime, is that it frequently gives inner monologues of what the characters are thinking. In most other media, it's a bad idea to give exposition this way; blatantly telling the audience what you're thinking if often the sign of poor writing, but in this case, it actually works for me. There is a great deal of backstory provided that gives more clarity to what happens later on. I'm about halfway through the series now, and I can't wait to finish it.