COMIC 1984 20世紀暗黒近未来小説の傑作

A well-done Manga adaptation of Orwell's classic 1984, this has a lot to like but it's definitely tricky for a language learner. I found it helps that I have read the original novel and I even listened to Audible's dramatization after being about 60 pages into this just to refresh myself.

The manga is very faithful to the original and has some nice visual design. I liked that they didn't turn Winston into a hunk, he's appropriately reedy and neurotic looking (O'Brian 100% got the anime pretty boy treatment but it works given his relationship with Winston). The dialogue and scenes all generally line up with what I remember (except, y'know, they're in Japanese). I don't recall Winston being quite as affected by his discontent early on so maybe that's something they sped up for the adaptation but it's well done. I love how they portray the city, the all-seeing eyes on the telescreens, the way they use angles and shadow to convey that sense of paranoia. This was clearly done with huge respect to the source material and it shows.

As far as a reading experience goes, it's definitely tough for a learner. This isn't one of those "simply it down for young readers" adaptations that you sometimes see of classic literature. The vocab encompasses terms around politics, government, war, art, philosophy, literature, etc, so there were some scenes where I had to admit that I didn't quite understand the grammar or vocab of the line 100% and just fall back on knowing the original story, but the faithfulness certainly helped in that regard. It gets pretty brutal too, but I liked that they didn't really feel the temptation to make it more lurid or punchy than the original text so if you've got a weak stomach the final act might be a bit trying.

In addition to the comic itself, there are a few nice bonuses. Unlike a lot of adaptations, they actually do give you the text of Emmanuel Goldstein's book which was always my favorite part of the original but since it drags the actual plot to a screeching halt, it's contents are usually left out. Here a truncated version is spread across a two-page splash, though the font is very small so admittedly I didn't try to tackle it since three chapter across two pages in very fine print was a bit of a headache, but I appreciate that it's there and they do make the important bits stand out if you just want to get on with the story. They also have a really nice little essay at the end giving some context to Orwell's upbringing and the "Children of 1984", basically other important artworks influenced by the book. I actually hadn't considered the Clockwork Orange connection but it does seem quite obvious in hindsight to compare the Ludovico technique to Room 101 and they also have an extended comparison to Murakami's IQ84, which I've heard of but I might have to add to my Japanese reading list for the language aspect. Lastly, they have a version of the Newspeak dictionary from the book and again it was a bit too much spread over very fine print so I kinda just skimmed it but it was also appreciated.

This was tough and probably above my level, but it's a good adaptation and it was fun to see how Japan put its spin on an English classic. I'm used to hearing about how things from Japanese Media are changed for western audiences so it was interesting to see how they gave it a Japanese flavor without really changing much. Parson's character design is very much a manga comic relief look and yet it fits his personality well. I also found it interesting that they just straight up tell you the end of the "oranges and lemons" poem instead of keeping it an ironic punchline, they do say a different line everyone forgot but I tend to wonder if that came from the difficulties of adapting poetry so they just tell you upfront. Interesting either way.