[SpaceDrake]

Originally Posted by Veritas

I think I'd laugh and cry at the same time. They didn't make Valjean a biseinen, though, so I'm not worried. Well, I am, but not more than I was before.

Actually, looking at the website, they seem to be attempting to be very, very faithful to the descriptions in the book. Valjean is very much a square-jawed, kind-eyed gentleman; they've gone with blond hair for Cosette, but that's probably to link her more closely to her mother visually; Thenardier is spindly and loves his army coat, and his wife is a bear of a woman; Eponine (at the start at least) looks almost patrician, as does her sister (!); Gavroche is the essense of "cute street urchin kid"; and do you remember the description of Javert from the book?

Granted the supposition that in every man there is contained a species of the animal kingdom, we may at once place Inspector Javert. The Asturian peasents believe that in every wolf-litter there is a dog-whelp which the mother kills, because otherwise when it grows larger it will devour the rest of her young. Endow this dog with a human face, and you have Javert.

Yeah, I'd say that comes pretty close to matching the book's facial description. Even if the initial promo images don't include his infamous grey overcoat.

That said,

Spoiler for second half of the Les Mis story:

Spoiler for these are kinda big spoilers if you haven't read the book...:

I'm really looking forward to the later parts of the story, where they'll introduce Marius and Enjorlas. Enjorlas was the original invincible bishounen rebel leader a century and a half before Japan even discovered animation, and darn you people, Marius is one of the best characters in the book. He goes through, and learns, a lot before the end. If the finale includes Enjorlas kicking epic amounts of Royalist ass before dying heroically, I'll be able to call this series at least a partial success.

Also, I hope folks noticed what I did there. I know the book is approaching two centuries old and the musical's been in production longer than some posters on this forum have been alive; regardless, there's a pretty decent chance that a fair few posters who are not familiar with the story, espeically the novel, will be joining this thread when the subs hit the torrents, and especially since the series seems to be following the novels fairly closely and thus will have quite a few details that were not even in the musical, I'd request that folks spoiler parts of the story that haven't aired yet. I know I'd be disappointed if folks spoiled the reason Thenardier wears his army coat, or spoiled precisely what Valjean did to make him a wanted man and how he was put on his current path. Also remember, it looks like the story starts around the time Valjean comes to "rescue" Cosette from the Thenardiers; meaning, quite a bit of what happened previously with Valjean may be an unknown to new viewers, depending on how much the first episode flashes back. So please, please be careful with what you spoil and post in this thread once the series goes to subs.

And seeing as how episode one will be hitting the airwaves in about... thirty hours, by my watch, this is going to become an issue very soon. I'm looking forward to this, but let's be considerate for new viewers, hmm?