Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo Vol. #1
© Del Rey

Mania Grade: A
Art Rating: A
Packaging Rating: N/A
Text/Translation: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Del Rey
MSRP: 10.99
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9780345505200
Size: B6
Orientation: Right to Left

Related Links

0

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo Vol. #1

Be careful when setting up elaborate schemes to steal your best friend’s wife, he‘ll come back and make your life miserable.

Creative Talent:
Writer/Artist: Yura Ariwara
Translator: N/A
Adaptation: N/A

What They Say:
"To those who betrayed me, who stole everything from me, I will give death and despair unto death. Your wives and children, your loyal followers, one by one they will fall to my charms."

While vacationing on the moon, Albert, a young Parisian nobleman, meets the Count of Monte Cristo, a fabulously rich aristocrat from the far reaches of the galaxy. Fascinated by the count's sophistication and intelligence, Albert is unaware of the older man's dark purpose: to enact revenge for a terrible act of betrayal committed against him twenty-five years ago. Soon, all of Paris, including Albert's own mother and father, will feel the terror of the count's vengeance.

What We Say:
Packaging:
Since this is the advance copy the cover art isn’t final, but I do hope that they use the picture that’s on this copy.  It’s a framed picture of the Count with different designs all around it and I would love to see it as a colored front cover to the manga. 

Artwork:
If you’re a fan of the anime you know about the wildly colored patterns that were used in the art.  However, that style is absent in the manga.  I think this was a good decision to make because I don’t think the patterns would’ve worked too well in manga form, especially since the only colors used are black, white, and grey.  The art doesn’t feel as… modern as it did in the anime.  It might be because the crazy patterns aren’t there, or it might be because the women’s dresses are so huge and fancy like some sort of Victoria era fashion show.  While reading, I’d actually forget about the sort of sci-fi space theme until we’d get a shot of outer space or the Count’s spaceship.  It’s interesting; we only really see space or hear about it when the Count is around or is being talked about. 

I have to say that I’m quite impressed with how powerful the art can be at times.  The anime was a bit more subtle with certain moments while the manga sort of punches you in the face with images.  One scene in particular is the story of Edmond Dantes and his descent into madness.  I don’t remember the anime being as… explicit as the manga is.  There’s some pretty disturbing images where I actually had to look away and take a breath before I started reading again.  But it definitely got the point across, just… man, if I wasn’t convinced before that the Count’s revenge is well-deserved I’d certainly be convinced after that scene. 

The only complaint I have about the art, and I hope this is because I have an advanced copy, is that sometimes its so dark that its hard to see.  I know at times its used to intentionally block the view of certain things (such as the pictures the Count is looking at), but sometimes it was way too dark to see anything on the page, so I really do hope its because of my copy and it gets fixed for the actual release of the manga.

Text/SFX:
Anything that needs to be translated is saved for the end of the manga.  There’s three full pages of translation notes for the different languages that appear in the manga (Latin, French, Italian, and Japanese) and other notes such as the significance of the title and certain character’s names.  This volume of the manga is told in three different point of views: Albert, Franz, and the Count.  I hope that in later volumes we get to see the story told in other character’s points of view as well.  Something else that the manga does is have captions of character’s names as they are introduced so that it’s a bit easier to keep up with everyone. 

Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The story starts with a young boy named Albert going on a trip to the planet Luna with his best friend, Franz.  Albert is hoping for an escape from his dull life as a rich boy with a overbearing father who expects him to be the best of the best.  Albert is a bit… naïve about everything around him, but Franz is always there to try and pull him away from the evil clutches of the world outside of Albert’s sheltered life.  Though no matter how hard Franz tries he’s unable to pull Albert away from the mysterious man they meet on Luna: the Count of Monte Cristo.  A pocket watch and too much curiosity sends the two friends down a path that neither one is ready for.

After meeting the Count both boys are invited to watch a public execution, one of the highlights of the carnival on Luna.  This brings about some interesting conversation about human life and death as they all watch the execution together.  One of the men is given a pardon and the other criminals immediately turn on him, screaming for the man to be killed as well because they were all supposed to stick together.  The scene is so brutal that Franz passes out.  This part is the first hint of the direction Albert is going, because when he goes to help Franz he ends up taking the Count’s hand instead. 

Franz is later called home to assist his fiancee’s father.  At this point Albert is more than happy to leave after having everything stolen away from him in a set up where the young girl he was sleeping with turned out to be a young boy.  We get to meet quite a few characters at this point and get to see Albert and Franz’s lives at home.  Franz is engaged to Gerard de Villefort’s (the highest ranking judge in Paris) daughter, Valentine, while Albert is engaged to Baron Danglars’ (the president of Danglars’ bank) daughter, Eugenie.  And if you add Albert’s father to the trio you have the three men who completely ruined the Count’s life in the past.  We get that story a bit earlier than we did in the anime and it’s much more brutal, so get ready for lots of wires and ripped limbs. 

We learn that Albert has invited the Count to his home but no one believes that he’ll actually show up.  Albert and his friends start to place bets which leads to an interesting deal between him and Eugenie: if the Count shows up, Eugenie has to wear a dress but if the Count doesn’t show up Albert has to wear a dress.  The Count arrives in a rather dramatic entrance and Eugenie is forced to wear a dress (though getting a compliment from Albert’s mother makes her feel better about it).  The Count decides to befriend the three men with the most influence in Paris and at this point you‘re just waiting to see what the Count is going to do to these men to extract his revenge.  At the end of the manga Albert’s mother, Mercedes, sees the Count and she wonders if it’s Edmond.  It’s obvious that she still loves him--she visits his grave every year (much to the disdain of her husband)--and she decides that the Count can’t possibly be Edmond (but you can tell that she believes that it is Edmond).    

Comments:
Everyone has heard of The Count of Monte Cristo, whether it be the book or the cheesy live action movie, but we all know that it’s the ultimate story of revenge.  Though the story has never been told like this.  Gankutsuou is ranked as one of my top three anime series, you know, that one series you find that you feel is just perfect.  There’s no flaws, there’s nothing you’d change even if certain parts make you swear or cry, you love the characters and you especially love to hate certain characters.  The thing I love most about Gankutsuou is that as I watched the Count get his revenge I was cringing from how cruel he was while rooting for him to destroy the people who messed up his life so horribly.  When I found out that there would be a manga for the series I pretty much had a complete meltdown of happiness.  I’m already wanting volume two. 

Albert… is essentially like that Lifetime movie kid who goes up to the strange man who’s offering a fistful of candy.  Franz is the friend who’s trying desperately to pull Albert away from the candy man, but Albert doesn’t listen and gets into the old, beat up van and lets himself be taken away.  The ironic thing is that the Count himself use to be just as naïve.  In the flashback where he’s wrongfully arrested he truly believes that his friends will save him, smiling and waiting patiently to be released from prison.  It never happens, of course, but instead of sitting there crying he eventually decides to pretty much kick all of their… you know.  Only Gankutsuou does it in style, and you know for a fact that by the time the Count is done those men will be wishing for a quick and easy death. 

Since I loved the anime so much I was immediately able to spot the differences between that and the manga.  There are a lot of things that I feel the manga does better.  I love the characters, first of all, I always have, but I love them even more in the manga.  Albert is even more naïve but I can’t help but love him.  He has such a boy crush on the Count and sees something in him that sort of gives hope to the Count being more than just a heartless so and so, but at the same time it’s completely understandable that the Count is just in it to destroy the men who destroyed him.  Franz is still the voice of reason that Albert needs to be listening to, but he never does.  It’s a bit heartbreaking to see Albert taking the Count’s hand and not helping Franz when he passes out.  Franz is that friend that would do anything for Albert, but Albert doesn’t realize what he has.  And Eugenie, I just love how tomboy she is, wearing suits and hating dresses.  She also has a great line about being very fond of Mercedes, but not Albert.  I can’t help but wonder if they’ll stick to the story where she runs off with her female piano teacher (please give me yuri, please?)

There are certain scenes that are done very quickly in the manga.  I remember Albert’s encounter with Peppo and the gang taking an entire episode, but in the manga it’s only a couple of pages (and we don‘t even get Peppo‘s name).  That sort of made me sad because I loved Peppo in the anime, at the same time, that wasn’t necessarily a vital part to the story.  There are also scenes that are redone in the manga, for example, the execution scene.  In the anime the Count made Albert choose who received the pardon, which made him a bit more diabolical.  In the manga that doesn’t happen.  Though the manga does have Albert sort of choosing the Count over Franz by taking his hand instead of assisting Franz after he passed out, which is probably a bigger slap in the face to Franz.  I have a feeling that the manga is going to be a bit more cruel than the anime.  

This volume of the manga pretty much gets to “the good stuff.”  It sets the stage for the Count’s revenge, it explains why he wants revenge, and it ends with the Count befriending (or I guess… re-befriending?) the three men who he’s pretty much going to rip to pieces.  While I didn’t mind getting to this part of the story by the end of volume one, I hope the next couple of volumes gives time to the other characters too.  The great thing about the anime was that it wasn’t just about Albert and the Count, it was about Franz, Eugenie, Valentine, and every single character that we were introduced to.  I fear that others might be pushed aside like Peppo was just to focus on the main characters, though this is only volume one and there’s still a lot of story to tell.