So let's take a look at how one series did just that via manga.
The idea of "manga" adaptations of classic literature is by no means a rare thing, as there have been countless examples of that across the decades, & some English publishers have even taken advantage of manga's popularity to create new "manga" adaptations of their own, most notably Udon Entertainment's Manga Classics line. Before that, though, Japanese publisher East Press had a line of its own that did the same exact thing in Japan. Prior to 2007 East Press was a fairly small name publisher known most for Comic Cue, a yearly magazine (except for 1999 & 2000, where it was published biannually) that ran from 1994 to 2003 & focused primarily on one-shots, with each issue having a shared theme. However, in August 2007 East Press launched a new line of releases titled Manga de Dokuha/Reading Through with Manga, which looked to adapt various works of literature (both from Japan & abroad) into manga form, with the first two books that came out that month being No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai & The Broken Commandment by Toson Shimazaki. Manga de Dokuha was unique amongst manga in that it technically never credited any specific artist, as instead all books in this line were made by a group calling itself Variety Art Works, which would later rename itself to Team Banmikas.
Manga de Dokuha initially came out at a bit of a rapid pace, roughly 2-3 books every two months, & by July 2008 the first 17 books alone had collectively sold over 900,000 copies, with ~200,000 of those copies alone coming from the manga adaptation of The Crab Connery Ship by Takiji Kobayashi from October 2007, the original 1929 version of which had become a sudden half-million+ best-seller in 2008 & benefitted the manga version immensely. East Press would then start releasing two new books every month starting in February 2009, though starting in October 2012 the pace slowed to just one new book per month, before slowing down to one new book every two months a year later, & finally only two new books per year after February 2015; the 139th & final Manga de Dokuha book, Meisaku Koten Rakugo: Shibahama, Shinigami, Jugemu Hoka (a collection of three iconic rakugo stories), came out in August 2017. In December 2020 Team Banmikas terminated its eBook contract with East Press, instead working with Gakken to re-release 62 of the books digitally in April 2021, with some new edits made. The Manga de Dokuha line would wind up adapting titles like Crime & Punishment, War & Peace, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Origin of Species, both the Old & New Testaments of The Bible, the literal Book of the Dead, 1984, the Quran (no, I have no idea how they handled Muhammad), & (most infamously) Mein Kampf; yeah, this entire line seemingly had no limits on what it adapted into manga.
Shockingly enough, though, only a comparatively small amount of the Manga de Dokuha books have ever seen English release. The biggest attempt was between November 2011 and November 2012 when the now-defunct digital manga service JManga offered 14 titles for purchase, specifically No Longer Human (not to be confused with either Junji Ito or Usmaru Furuya's respective manga adaptations), Das Kapital, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Night on the Galactic Railroad, The Book of Five Rings (not to be confused with the manga adaptation that Tuttle released in English in 2024), I Am a Cat (not to be confused with the manga adaptation that Tuttle released in English in 2021... though the two manga adaptations actually came out in the same year in Japan), Seton's Wild Animals, Sutta Nipata, One Thousand and One Nights, The Metamorphosis, Journey to the West, In Search of Lost Time, The Art of War, & The Narrow Road to the Deep North; to no surprise, none of these releases are now legally available following JManga's closure in June 2013. However, alongside these digital offerings, there were five Manga de Dokuha books that actually saw physical release in English in 2012, four from One Peace Books under what it called "Manga Classic Readers" (not to be confused with Udon's Manga Classics line), & one from Red Quill Books. One Peace Books did also plan to release Manga de Dokuha's version of The Great Gatsby, even releasing a cover for it, but from what I can tell it never actually came out. As I said before, I'm a dirty heathen who's never read any of the original prose versions of these books, but let's see if the physical English releases of these Manga de Dokuha adaptations still work well on their own.
From what I can tell One Peace Books released all of its Manga Classic Readers books on the same day, September 1, 2012, so in this case I guess I'll go in the order of the original books' respective vintages. Therefore we begin with Don Quixote, an adaptation of the Spanish novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra that was originally published across two parts, in 1605 and 1615, & is often considered the first "modern" novel. Over the past 421 years Don Quixote has gone on to be one of the most-translated books of all time, at somewhere over 140 languages, & has been a direct influence on other similarly celebrated & influential works, if not even deemed by some as "the greatest work ever written". It's even been a part of the English vernacular since at least 1688 via the word "quixotic", which describes one who pursues an ideal in a foolishly/romantically/extravagantly impractical way. Japanese literary critic Boshi Chino even once stated that he'd like to give Don Quixote the subtitle of "Chuunibyou Starting at 50 Years Old", referencing the Japanese equivalent describing how some teenagers have similar delusions of grandeur. In that way it actually made perfect sense why One Peace Books chose to have Don Quixote be one of the Manga de Dokuha books that'd receive a physical release in English... but how well does Miguel de Cervantes' story work in manga form?
Alonso Quijano (or "Quixano", in some other translations) is an older man who's obsessed with reading stories starring knights who fight against evil, protect the weak, & find love along the way. He's so obsessed with these stories that he's essentially sold off almost all of the land he owns in order to pay for a seemingly never-ending supply of books, much to the chagrin of his niece Antonia, his maid, & even friends Nicolas & the local priest. However, Alonso is sad that such adventures can never happen to a person like him, a simple landowner in the countryside... so he decides that instead of being a simple landowner he'll become the "Greatest Wandering Knight in History": Don Quixote! Against the wishes of those who care for him, "Don Quixote" finds a steed in his trusty horse Rocinante & a squire in Sancho Panza (a neighbor who's helped Alonso with chores in the past), heading off for adventure against an "Evil Wizard" who stole his study which contained all of his books. In reality his family & friends simply blocked off access to the study & left a fake sign stating that it was stolen, but Alonso is well past the point of no return when it comes to his sanity. But can "Don Quixote" truly defeat the "Evil Wizard" to take back his study, while also saving "Princess Dulcinea del Toboso" (and can Sancho truly get the private island he was promised by his master)... or is Alonso just going to become a public menace to all who find themselves in his way?
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| The only digital versions that exist are in Japanese, so let's make do. |
It's important to clarify that, while these are technically adaptations of classic books, Manga de Dokuha adaptations weren't necessarily 1:1 straight adaptations of the original works; if they were they'd probably be multiple volumes long, each. Instead, it's best to look at these things, & especially the adaptations of actual prose fiction, more as truncated interpretations that at least aim to deliver the general themes & ideas found within the books, while also adapting the most important & iconic moments that have lived on over the years, decades, or even centuries. Don Quixote is a perfect example of this, because if you were to compared what happens in this manga to everything that happens in the books (by way of an online synopsis) then you'd see that only a very small portion of Miguel de Cervantes' story is actually seen in this manga adaptation. There's the initial set up establishing Alonso's obsession with fantastical stories involving chivalrous knights, but by & large this manga looks to adapt what's considered the "Second Sally" that Alonso goes on, which includes the legendary battle against the windmill in detail, followed by quick mentions of things like the barber's basin being repurposed by Alonso into the helmet of Mambrino, before moving over to the "Third Sally" seen in the second part to deal with the battle against the "Knight of Mirrors" & an ending that's (somewhat) manga-original. Again, if you're looking for a straight & direct adaptation of Don Quixote then the Manga de Dokuha adaptation will probably disappoint, but as a self-contained book it's still a fun read.
While Don Quixote is a story about an older man succumbing to his delusions & living life as his feels it should be, the manga version does a really nice job at showing little moments where it's clear that Alonso is fully cognizant of what he's doing & is simply allowing himself to give into his delusions. It's very much a story about coming to terms with one's mortality, that life is only so long, & that sometimes one should indulge in something that they otherwise normally wouldn't... as long as they don't go quite to the extent that Alonso Quijano went. Really, though, while I did enjoy reading this manga take on Miguel de Cervantes' classic it does still have some pacing problems. The introduction take up a surprisingly decent chunk of the manga, about the first third or so, and while the fight with the windmill is easily the most iconic scene from the entire novel it is disappointing that so little of "Don Quixote's" adventures are really covered in any detail here. Not just that, but this adaptation goes with a surprisingly happy ending, instead of the more realistic & bittersweet one of the novel, where Alonso eventually passes away as his true self after returning home following a loss in battle, even apologizing to Sancho for dragging him along on his delusions. Not just that... but Dulcinea in the manga is a literal figment of Alonso's imagination, though somehow Sancho manages to "see" her as well at one point, where in the original novel she was at least based on another person from Alonso's village!
Overall, the Manga de Dokuha adaptation of Don Quixote is best taken as its own thing, and in that regard is a good time to be had, but I wouldn't be surprised if this winds up being one of the weaker entries in the series of manga retellings that came out physically in English.
Up next we have a true classic from the United States with Moby-Dick by Herman Mellville. Originally published in 1851, this epic novel would eventually be cited as a candidate for "The Great American Novel", alongside titles like The Scarlet Letter, Little Women, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, & Lolita, among many others. Meanwhile, the story itself, & in particular its iconic trio of POV character Ishmael, the dogged Captain Ahab, & the titular giant white sperm whale, have been adapted, paid homage to, & reinterpreted by countless others around the world in the 175 years since it was first published. In fact, some anime fans will be familiar with the story, due to the late, great Osamu Dezaki directing a sci-fi take on Moby-Dick (though mixed with elements of The Adventures of Gamba) to create Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick, a late 90s series which had a notorious history of production problems, resulting in it taking two years to finish airing, despite only being 26 episodes. Still, the influence Moby-Dick has had no storytelling is undeniable, so like Don Quixote it made perfect sense for One Peace Books to also pick this manga adaptation for English release. So let's see how Variety Art Works/Team Banmikas handled this manga take on an American classic.
Call him Ishmael, for he is a "Man of the Sea", due to him having crossed the Atlantic numerous times on merchant ships. However, upon reaching the port town of New Bedford he's challenged by the locals about his (self-proclaimed) title, as he has no experience being on a whaling ship. Ishmael decides to take on the challenge by finding a whaling ship to join as a crewmember, alongside his roomie (& south island prince) Queequeg, who has prior experience in whaling. The two manage to become mates on the Pequod, a whaling ship run by Captain Ahab, a peg-legged man who has but one thing that keeps him going in life... an obsession with hunting down a legendary giant white sperm whale he's named Moby Dick, one that no one's managed to take down & he had tried hunting a few years ago himself, only for the whale to bite off Ahab's leg. While Ahab's crew, led primarily by first mate Mr. Starbuck, is perfectly fine with their duty of catching whales so that they can provide oil to keep New Bedford's citizens out of the dark during nightfall, Captain Ahab will only feel true pleasure once he can finally get his revenge on Moby Dick... and his crew, including Ishmael & Queequeg, are more or less just along for the wild ride, one that could very well result in everyone's death.
Moby-Dick's reputation is well deserved, as while the story it tells is one that certainly existed prior to 1851 there's no doubt that Melville's version of it, by way of Captain Ahab's obsession with getting his vengeance on the whale that took his leg, has gone on to influence so many in its wake; hell, the term "white whale" has since become synonymous with seemingly unattainable goals. This story is also one that, in all honesty, kind of works better in manga form than Don Quixote does, though when compared to what the original novel contains it's still a very truncated interpretation here. However, unlike with Don Quixote, the stuff that this manga adaptation skips looks to mostly be general whaling & other gams done by the crew of the Pequod, as the only gams seen in the manga are one with a whaling ship that had a good haul due to the predictions of a man named Elijah (who is in the novel, but appears early on in New Bedford), as well as the one with the captain of the Rachel near the end, which leads into the climactic battle with Moby Dick itself. While the more general whaling & gams in the novel were likely Melville's way of showcasing just how dangerous whaling itself can be, as well as showcase how tough it is to actually locate Moby Dick, their removal in the manga does allow the focus to be entirely on Ahab, who's even given a later introduction than in the novel (though the manga starts with a short scene of Ahab's initial failed attempt at hunting Moby Dick), & how his obsession eventually becomes the entire focus of their journey, much to the chagrin of Mr. Starbuck.
In true Moby-Dick fashion, Ishmael & Queequeg are the primary characters that the manga focus on in terms of perspective, but the real "lead" of the story is Ahab, a man who's long been lost in his own mind & obsession, not caring if he brings his own crew to their deaths as long as he achieves his own goal. Once Ahab appears in the manga he really does get the primary focus, as Ishmael's personal growth is mostly achieved by that point, i.e. accepting that fear of the sea & death is normal for a "Man of the Sea", but that he shouldn't be afraid of the fear itself. I'm sure that to those who read the novel this manga adaptation probably feels a tad too "Cliff's Notes" of a take, but I personally found it very enjoyable, and the strict focus on Ahab & Ishmael's stories, alongside a little bit for Starbuck & Queequeg, kept this book focused & not feeling immensely like it was glancing over segments, like Don Quixote's manga did. I also liked the art for this manga, because whoever was put in charge of this adaptation over at Variety Art Works must have been a bit fan of Fullmetal Alchemist, as this definitely looked like it was trying to imitate Hiromu Arakawa's art style to a notable enough extent. In all honesty, I think it actually worked really well here & now I'd love to see Arakawa herself make her own take on Moby-Dick.
Overall, the Manga de Dokuha adaptation of Moby-Dick is a marked improvement over Don Quixote & a real standout of the books covered here. I'm sure it pales in comparison to Herman Melville's original book, but this one really does give the feeling that the people making it tried their best to truly convey the overall story as much as they could, given the circumstances, whereas Don Quixote came off much more segmented. Also, this adaptation has the same ending as the book (though the actual fight with Moby Dick itself is truncated into a single day/encounter, instead of three), which is definitely a good thing.
One Peace Books seemingly decided that each Manga de Dokuha release that they'd be putting out via their short-lived Manga Classic Readers line would come from a different country of origin (ignoring that The Great Gatsby was also intended for release, but never happened), so after Spanish & American classics up next we have a British classic with an adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells. Unlike the prior two stories, War of the Worlds was initially written as a serialization in the long-defunct Pearson's Magazine from April to December 1897, before getting published in its first "complete" form by Heinemann in 1898. Ever since that first complete edition, though, the book has effectively never been out of print, and there have been too many adaptations, re-interpretations, re-imaginings, sequels, etc. to count. Easily the most well known adaptations would be the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles that was done in the form of a live news report (which did confuse some listeners, who tuned in after Welles had given a proper introduction, into thinking that a real alien invasion was happening, but the scale it was reported at was exaggerated, even back then), the 1953 film adaptation directed by Byron Haskin, Jeff Wayne's concept album from 1974 (which received two different video game adaptations in the late 90s), & the 2005 film adaptation directed by Stephen Spielberg. War of the Worlds is one Wells' most iconic sci-fi novels, alongside The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, & The Invisible Man, though it's the only Wells story to be given the Manga de Dokuha treatment. Manga is no stranger to stories about alien invasions, so let's see if War of the Worlds still manages to maintain any sense of novelty when adapted into manga form.
It's Great Britain in the late 19th century, & George Roswell is a writer for the Daily Telegraph with a love of writing fictional stories about aliens, much to his editor's chagrin. However, one night a mysterious object crash lands in Woking, and from its tall, metal shape it's clearly not a metrorite. No, it's instead a giant cylindrical vessel from Mars... and the Martians haven't come to Earth in peace. Seeing the initial attack from the tall, heat ray-wielding Tripod walkers first hand, George manages to escape to his home & gets his wife Amy on a carriage to Leatherhead, where his brother lives, so that she's away from harm. However, in just three days the mighty British Empire has been left decimated by the sheer power of the Martian Tripods. George now has to somehow make his way to Leatherhead to reunite with Amy, all while trying his best to survive as the Martians continue their attack on the land.
Compared to the prior two adaptations, the Manga de Dokuha adaptation of The War of the Worlds is so far the closest to being a full-on direct adaptation of the novel it's adapting, though there is still some notable removal here. However, in this case the only truly major removal is the section focusing on the narrator's brother, who tries to escape to Europe & sees a battle between three Tripods & the ironclad HMS Thunder Child. Beyond that this manga version of the story hits all of the major beats of Wells' story, from the initial attempt at peaceful interaction to the opening attacks on humanity to the stuff with the curate & artilleryman to the final parts with how the war ends & the narrator heading back home. Really, the only truly noteworthy departure from Wells' book (aside from giving the narrator & his wife names, where everyone in the original story is never named) is with the Martians themselves, as this manga version replaces the noted beaks for mouths with a simple circular mouth laden with razor-sharp teeth... which is mostly pointless, since they suck blood from humans, but artistic license & all.
However, because this manga version manages to stay so relatively true to the original story it also manages to convey all of the themes, emotions, & feelings of The War of the Worlds, more or less. Wells wrote this story as a way to tear down the self-satisfaction & bravado that the British Empire had at the time ("The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire", & all), the idea that humanity was an unbeatable force of nature that could never be demolished, and that when things are truly at their worst even the most prim, proper, & sophisticated human can become just like any other animal when faced with something higher up on the food chain. The curate dives deeper & deeper into despair, hoping that God may one day bring to him salvation & rescue while forgiving him of his sins, like indulging in the bread, ham, & wine that the narrator started rationing between them for long-term survival. Meanwhile, the artilleryman manages to find himself a location that allows himself to be self-sufficient, which in turn allows him to make big dreams & goals about theoretically leading a rebellion against the Martians, though in reality he never actually puts a single step forward towards achieving it. Meanwhile, the narrator (i.e. George) is simply trying to survive so that he can possibly see his wife (i.e. Amy) again, and when he starts to feel that there's no way that she could have possibly survived is left no other option than to fight back... just as the war itself ends, not by way of anything human, but by nature itself.
If there's anything to really fault with this adaptation it's maybe the artwork, which is overall good but arguably a bit standard, all things considered. Still, the simple fact that the Manga de Dokuha adaptation of The War of the Worlds manages to adapt all of the major parts of the story (or, at least, everything that the narrator himself experiences) results in this being one of the best that managed to see physical release in English.
The last of One Peace Books' Manga Classic Readers releases is also the longest, at 384 pages (the other three were all no more than 200 pages), with a manga adaptation of Ulysses by James Joyce. While initially serialized in American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920 (which wound up getting cancelled due to the publishers literally being found guilty of publishing obscene material... by which I mean Ulysses itself!), Joyce himself was an Irish writer, while the complete version of the novel was first published in France on February 2, 1922 by American expatriate Sylvia Beach. In other words this story was a bit of a world traveler, which is oddly fitting since Ulysses was actually a take on Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, only here it all took place over the course of a single day in Dublin (now celebrated by fans annually as Bloomsday). Ironically enough, there was also a Manga de Dokuha version of both the Iliad & Odyssey, collected as a single book, in November 2011 in Japan. Ulysses is also generally seen as the epitomistic exemplification of the modernist movement that especially took hold following World War I, which effectively marked the end of the way the world "used to work" when put up against the various technological & societal advancements that had been made up to that point. To Joyce himself, though, he seemingly never saw Ulysses in such a light, even calling it a "pity" that readers will try to find some form of "moral" in the story, or try to take the events seriously in some manner... despite Joyce literally being quoted as saying "on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it". I have to imagine that One Peace Books chose to include Ulysses in its Manga Classic Readers line simply because, in some way, it feels like such an unexpected title to adapt into manga, so let's find out if the extra length given to this adaptation works to its benefit.
June 6, 1904. Dublin, Ireland.
Stephen Dedalus is a history teacher who currently lives with his two friends in a seaside tower. One is Malachi Mulligan, a free spirit who feels that Stephen should lighten up more, instead of continuing to wallow in melancholy after his mother passed away a year ago, while the other is Haines, who's currently having terrible nightmares that result in him awakening & having wild hallucinations. Stephen is considering leaving the tower & living on his own, and while Mulligan is fine with that, since he's also about people following their gut, Stephen does promise to at least take Mulligan out on the town for the night. Meanwhile, over on Eccles St. lives Leopold Bloom, an advertisement agent for the local papers who'll be attending the funeral of his friend Dignam today, & his wife Marion ("Molly", for short), a singer who's managed by a man named "Blazes" Boylan. Leopold doesn't trust Boylan at all due to him being a known womanizer... but Leopold isn't any better, as he's secretly having an affair with a woman named "Martha" via mail correspondence & an alias. On this day both Stephen & Leopold will have to deal with themselves, Stephen wanting to break out on his own (& maybe even get the chance to be a writer), while Leopold comes to terms with how he truly feels about his wife & his hypocritical worries about Boylan meeting with her... and maybe both of them have the chance to return back to their homes safe & sound, if everything works out right.
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| Unfortunately, Ulysses has no digital re-release in Japan, so I have to really make do with what little exists online. |
Ulysses is an interesting story to read, and that's simply because (by & large) it's purposefully meant to be a rather straightforward & dry plot. There is no real driving force when it comes to Stephen & Leopold's day in Dublin, and instead the story is really more about the various people & events they come across over the course of said day. Sure, that's technically also the general plot to the Odyssey, but at least there Odysseus has a driving force, which is him returning back to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. That's not to say that Ulysses is bad or boring, though, as even in this manga adaptation there's an appeal in seeing what happens next, whether it's Leopold getting annoyed by people constantly getting in the way of him reading his letter from Martha, Stephen finding himself with a group of scholars philosophizing over the educational value in Shakespeare (Stephen says that while there's little to "learn" from his works, there is tons to "know"), or how the seemingly disparate events of both men eventually result in them coming together for the final part of the story. As Joyce himself indicated, the story of Ulysses is essentially made up of events that feel like they have some larger message to say, like the discussion over Shakespeare or Leopold & his friends discussing death & suicide at Dignam's funeral, but in actuality Joyce pretty much just wrote them in as red herrings, i.e. concepts & thought experiments to fool the reader into thinking about them when they have no real importance to the story itself.
In essence, life itself can often feel like a giant non sequitur, where events happen one after another but otherwise don't really follow any real throughline or logical connection, and I think that's the point & appeal in Ulysses. A number of events happen throughout the story to Stephen and/or Leopold, and as the reader you go into these events with some sort of expectation that they will play some role in the overall plot, because that's just how stories are generally written. However, most of the notable events seen in Ulysses only play, at best, a minor role to the overall plot, while seemingly small events actually play larger roles, like the editor encouraging Stephen to write a story himself or Leopold's hypocritical feelings when it comes to the idea of Boylan sleeping with Molly, when Leopold himself is already engaging in an affair with Martha. While Leopold is the proper Odysseus proxy in this story, since he's the one with the wife who's wanted by a "suitor" while away from home, Stephen is actually a proxy for Joyce himself, and in the end the story Stephen decides to write is, in essence, Ulysses itself. As for why Ulysses was considered "obscene" back in the day, it's likely because in the latter half of the story we have a conversation about sex by Mulligan, Stephen, & their friends, a visit to a literal brothel (where Leopold imagines himself wearing a woman's dress while semi-drunk in shame), a full on sex scene between Molly & Boylan, & even an outright double-masturbation scene between Leopold & a young lady on the beach, who gives Leopold a clearly visible "sight" to knock one out with; for the time this was originally written those were all immensely scandalous & uncouth scenarios.
Combined with a very solid visual style for the artwork, one that's maybe a little shojo or josei manga inspired, the Manga de Dokuha adaptation of Ulysses is easily the best one that One Peace Books released physically in English. The story itself is one that would sound kind of bland & boring if you were to read a synopsis, but the manga (likely much like the book itself) keeps the story engaging all the way through, with a mix of (intentionally faux) philosophical discussions & blatantly unserious situations. The extra length given to this book also really helps make it feel like the focus was to deliver as close to the original story as possible, though I'm sure there were still some cuts made. If I was to recommend only one of One Peace Books' Manga Classic Readers releases, it would probably be Ulysses... now if only it wasn't going for literal hundreds today on the secondhand market, like all of the Manga Classic Readers books do.
Technically, I probably should have started with this book first, since Red Quill Books actually released its one & only Manga de Dokuha physical book before One Peace Books released its four, as this came out on June 9, 2012. However, let's face facts here... I think it's way more interesting to end things off with a manga adaptation of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, the literal foundation of Marxism that initially came out across three volumes in 1867, 1885, & 1894, the latter two coming out after Marx's death in 1883. For whatever reason Red Quill Books decided to rename it Capital - In Manga!, while also flipping the book to read left to right, which in 2012 was an immensely bizarre choice to make. In all honesty, the very idea of adapting Das Kapital into manga form is pretty damn absurd for a single reason: Das Kapital isn't a story. It's a literal text, a critique of capitalism done by analyzing political economy & showing the economic patterns that define what Marx deemed the capitalist mode of production. To be fair, though, the Manga de Dokuha line also did manga adaptations of other more didactic works of non-fiction, like The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes, the theory of relativity by Albert Einsten, the literal Constitution of Japan, the Kama Sutra... and the literal Communist Manifesto. Yeah, apparently the Manga de Dokuha version of The Crab Cannery Ship being such a big seller is why a manga adaptation of Das Kapital was even made in the first place, and those two manga adaptations supposedly played some role in the rise of more left-wing literature in Japan during the late 00s. Das Kapital's manga version sold so well, in fact, that an adaptation of Das Kapital, Volume II came out only half a year later in May 2009... but all Red Quill Books released in English was the first volume. Red Quill Books even later released an illustrated version of The Communist Manifesto, but instead of simply translating the Manga de Dokuha adaptation they instead just made their own four-part version. Anyway, let's see how exactly Variety Art Works/Team Banmikas managed to turn Das Kapital into an actual story.
Robin works with his father Heinrich to sell cheese at the local city, and the quality of their cheese is in high regard. One day Enny, a young woman Robin's infatuated with, introduces Robin to Daniel, an investor who finds that Robin's offerings are so popular very intriguing, as there are other vendors in the city & Robin only comes by once a week to sell. Meanwhile, Robin is slowly wanting to get more actual money for what he & his father offer, which goes against how Henrich prefers to run their business, as Heinrich is fine trading things like tomatoes for their cheese; like Henrich's deceased wife (& Robin's mother) said before she died: Moderation is Best. However, Robin feels that if he & his father had more money then they could have saved his mother from dying, so Robin decides to enter into a business agreement with Daniel, one where Daniel will provide Robin with a small space for a factory, along with workers & equipment, and in return Robin will simply have to make sure that he'll pay back what Daniel lent him... even if everything fails, as insurance. Over time, though, Robin starts to realize that if he has any hope of making a profit then he'll have to start cutting corners & exploit his employees in order to save on costs, even if only a little at a time. However, in doing so Robin starts to treat his workers as slaves... and, when he starts to think about it, isn't he just a slave to Daniel, just as capitalism intends?
As mentioned, Capital - In Manga! is an original story that simply uses Marx's text as the thematic focus of its story. In that case it's easy to see that this is a story that shows the darker side of how capitalism works, a mode of production that emphasizes the accumulation of money, which Marx defined as a commodity, no different from the product being sold or even the labor being put into the production of said commodity. However, in capitalism the money is the end goal, rather than the production of the commodity itself, so in the end it creates an automatic tier system based solely on how much money certain people have. The workers are at the very bottom, who are exploited (mentally, physically, & even violently) in ways so that their bosses can profit off of their hard work, but even their bosses may not necessarily be at the top, as they themselves can wind up being exploited by the investors who provided them with cash to get things started. In the end it creates a vicious cycle, and a single mantra becomes seen commonly by the end of the book: "We Are Not Slaves!".
Unfortunately, though, while this "adaptation" of Das Kapital does convey Marx's message the actual story itself that's told is honestly pretty lackluster. Robin's story makes sense for the general themes & ideas that the story aims to tell, based on Marx's book, but it results in a pretty bland story, when taken as its own tale. Robin wants to get rich, thinking that it'll prevent tragedy from happening to him like his family's lack of money led to in the past, only for him to get caught up in the perils of capitalism, where he has to take advantage of his workers (or else they'll take advantage of his kind heart), but in doing so he loses track of more important things, like his relationship with his father or the promise he made to a childhood friend to marry her if he ever became rich (during which she becomes a prostitute to help provide for her family). Over time Robin comes to realize that he's been exploited by Daniel (& Enny) in a way not too dissimilar from how he exploits his workers, one of which gets fired for speaking out about how they aren't slaves, etc., etc. It's not a poorly told story, by any means, but at the same time there really isn't much of a creative spark to be found within it; it truly is just a means to explain the concepts in Marx's book. Not just that, but it's all done with the subtlety of a rock, like having literal children working jobs that they don't even know how it relates to the overall commodity that they're helping produce. While the idea is to showcase the flaws in capitalism I have to imagine even Karl Marx explained his concepts in Das Kapital with something resembling an ever-so-subtle touch. Also, while one could say that the story likely takes place in the time when Marx wrote Das Kapital, i.e. a time when child labor was more common, this manga story actually does a terrible job at giving a good point in time it takes place in, as a variety of technological advances that didn't exist in Marx's time (like a bank vault with a modern-style electronic lock) are easily seen at points.
All of this isn't helped by Red Quill Books' production, in general, as while the translation itself is fine enough there is the occasional odd word choice ("had had", while grammatically correct, appears more often than you'd expect to see here), & most bizarrely was the decision to flip the artwork. By 2012 this was almost no longer done for manga, and Red Quill took the laziest way possible by simply flipping everything & calling it a day, which results in even the katakana sound effects (which were, unsurprisingly, left untranslated) being printed as mirror images of what they were meant to be. It's just an immensely shoddy production choice to make, and Red Quill seriously feels that this release is still worth $27.50 MSRP! Without a doubt, the Manga de Dokuha "adaptation" of Das Kapital Volume I is, I feel, the weakest of the lot that saw physical release in English, and Red Quill Books' Capital - In Manga! release does it no favors. The simple fact that the story doesn't even feel finished also doesn't help at all, as while there was later an "adaptation" of Volume II made (which I can only imagine continues the story?) that was only made because the first book sold well; Variety Art Works/Team Banmikas wrote the first book to not have a "proper" ending.
And with that we've now gone over all five of the Manga de Dokuha releases that saw physical release in English. I think I first heard of this series of manga back when JManga announced the 14 books that it was going to offer digitally back in late 2011, and in all honesty I really liked the concept. Again, I'm not a big prose reader, so while I know that none of these adaptations would be a proper "replacement" for the original text I'm still always up for interpretations like these that would allow me to experience iconic books & stories, in some fashion. I never wound up reading any of JManga's offerings, the only one that I ever really read was Devil King (which, thankfully, is at least still offered digitally in English; definitely read Devil King, because it's a trip), but when I found out about One Peace Books' Manga Classic Readers releases I bought them all up, and eventually I decided to pay the (ridiculously upcharged) price for Red Quill Books' Capital - In Manga!.
I had first read the Manga Classic Readers books over a decade ago, but I still had a good time revisiting them today, with The War of the Worlds & Ulysses easily being the best of the lot, though Moby-Dick was also really good. And while Don Quixote was easily the weakest of those four releases it's still leagues better than Capital - In Manga!, with this being my first time reading it & finding a lackluster original story housed within a rather shoddy English release. I highly doubt it'll ever happen again, but I wouldn't mind seeing more Manga de Dokuha titles be given physical releases in English, as there are plenty of other adaptations that I'd love to check out. Titles like War & Peace, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Divine Comedy, Les Misérables, The Great Gatsby, Water Margin, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Iliad and Odyssey, Paradise Lost, 1984, The Count of Monte Cristo, A Study in Scarlet, & The Murders in the Rue Morgue, among others.
Yeah, all of those have manga adaptations via this series of releases, and I just think that's neat.
Manga de Dokuha Series © Variety Art Works (now Team Banmikas)
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