As You Like It... what? Manga Shakespeare???

Yes, this is a Shakespeare play. Adapted by Richard Appignanesai, and illustrated by Chie Kutsuwada, As You Like It is part of an ongoing series of adaptations being made in the UK as part of an educational project.

Personally, and this will probably surprise you, but I absolutely LOVE Shakespeare! the stories are so funny and as long as you let the words make sense rather than thinking "wtf?" you get it. My mum hates Shakespeare, my dad's indifferent, but me and my sister find them brilliant!

So it's no surprise that when I heard about this project I immediately went and bought my three favourite Shakespeare stories in manga form.

The interesting thing is... to make the stories more approachable in manga they've been stylized and the characters have all been modernised to fit with the illustrator's style. This will help for a lot of people as a way of introducing the Big S, and I was surprised how well it worked. The adaption means that while Shakespeare's words and exact phrasing is used, they are heavily cut down to the bare minimum, and instead of telling the story on their own, there is a lot of interaction between the pictures and the words to male for a surprisingly easy read.

I suppose the transition into manga is made easier because so much of the weird stuff you find in manga (cross-dressing, random falling-in-love between side characters and bizarre drama) was introduced by William Shakespeare.

This particular story follows the story of two female cousins, closer than sisters, who are caught in the drama of warring fathers, Dukes, one of which has been exiled. After a chance encounter with another Duke's younger brother (Orlando), who has given up on life, the exiled Duke's daughter, Rosalind, is exiled by her uncle. In her anguish, Celia her cousin, chooses to leave with her cousin, claiming that to exile Rosalind is to exile herself.

Rosalind, being naturally tall, dresses as a peasant boy, and Celia dresses as her sister. They leave for the woods where Rosalind's father is rumoured to reside, and at the same time, Orlando, who has given up on life, is suspected of tempting the girls away from Celia's father. His elder brother tries to kill him, and he too retreats to the woods.

There are a lot of side characters in this particular story, and they all help the storyline progress, but the main love story follows Orlando and Rosalind as they grow closer in the woods, though Rosalind is dressed as a boy. Rosalind teases Orlando over his love for Rosalind (he hasn't realised Rosalind and this odd boy have the same face... typical man lol) and claims he doesn't really love her, since he doesn't know her.

The characters are pretty funny, and although the story is rushed (well it has to be doesn't it?) it's well done. There are of course the problems that some of the female characters are entirely un-feminist, which does bother me a little, but considering how long ago it was written, it's really not bad at all.

The art can be a little iffy in this one, especially at the start- it makes me wonder how heavily Kutsuwada relies on her computer for this. I have to admit that ruined it a bit for me, but my praise can't be expressed enough for the actual adaptation, and the fact that this entire project is astounding. So it evens out to a decent read, and highly recommended to someone who can't get their head round Shakespeare. This project does what it sets out to do, which is make Shakespeare more entertaining and approachable for people who prefer reading to theatre, or have had English classes totally destroy classic literature for them.