Non-Spoiler

Introduction and forewords to people interested in this anime:

People can change...

When you search up “Cosette” on anilist you’ll get two results; Les Miserables and Le Portrait de petit Cossette. A forewarning, these two anime are COMPLETELY different. One is a psychedelic horror mystery, and the other is let’s just call it a foreign historical fiction drama that is unlike any other anime that’s ever come before it. The ladder is Les Miserables, an anime so unique and so rich in themes I ponder as to why it isn’t popular in the slightest. First off there are many things I want to say to people considering watching this anime. The first and foremost, is this is most indefinitely NOT a cute girls doing cute things, slice of life. This is a slice of life that I would compare to works such as “A Silent Voice” “Haibane Renmei”, this is by no means a cast of characters doing random things. The plot in this anime is one that develops, there is SO much character development in this anime it completely boggles my mind. I have never seen such a cast of well developed characters, that are intricate and represent real people and real stories. Next thing I want to say is, yes this is a long anime, 53 episodes is quite a lot. Although, there’s a justification for the amount of episodes, the more episodes you get in an anime the more the original story can be adapted. Essentially this anime adapts the second, third, fourth and fifth books of the original Les Miserables series written in the 1800s. This amount of episodes gives the original creation much justice, and brings a beautiful story that was written on the other side of the world to japanese animation. My recommendation is watch the first 25 episodes and if that doesn’t hook you, or if you feel it’s boring then it’s not for you. I still can’t help but find myself so impressed with how well post revolutionary France is depicted in this anime, there is literally NOTHING Japanese about this anime aside from the voice acting. I am serious when I say this, this is a one of a kind anime. Also another tag says it’s “Shoujo”, well I don’t think that gives much justification either, this has a lot of appeal to male audiences as well. There’s a little bit of romance thrown into this anime as a bonus. Let’s say you don’t like historical stuff too, well I will be honest this will have appeal for you too, there’s so many things layered into this anime it requires a watch. Also the animation is extremely EXTREMELY, good they portray France really well and I like it.

__ Spoilers:__

A review of the anime in general

First let us begin with the very first part of this anime. There are many different main characters in this series that get introduced in different arc, and this first arc is about Cosette and “The Mayor”. This first arc is probably the most powerful of all them, it did not skip a single detail and built up to Cosette’s escape from the Waterloo Inn so well, that it blew my mind. If there is one thing this anime does amazingly at, it is at plot buildup and character development. The portrayal of industrial revolution era torture of working citizens, and child abuse in general was done extremely well. Also “the mayor” who was actually a criminal at large, Jean Valjean, was in all honesty one of the most interesting characters of all of them. His story is about recovery from being a previous convict. Jean Valjean is a man that is trying to seek forgiveness for his sins, by doing acts of good for as many people as he is able to. Because of this, Jean Valjean is able to do much good for the city he is living in and gets many people back on their feet. Now, onto Cosette’s mother, who could not find work because she had a child in her care. Cosette’s mother died to a disease, and it was such a tragic death it almost brought me to tears. A cool thing this anime tries to do in many parts is try to show criminals in a good way, by saying criminals do what they can in order to protect their families and be able to feed themselves and take care of themselves. On the other hand, it makes us also dislike criminals because of how the Thenardiers treat Cosette like trash, and they even do many things that are so incredibly terrible to her.

( Quick sidenote: While I was watching this anime, I had no clue it would have these timeskips so I thought it was going to be like 53 episodes of the same stuff, but boy was I wrong)

The next arc I guess I will call the “Escape” arc because this anime has a good bit of timeskips. Jean Valjean rescues Cosette at the will of her mother, and the two of them go on an adventure through the beautiful countryside of France running away from the police. This arc is also just as good as the first one, I found it beautiful how much Jean Valjean was able to sacrifice himself for Cosette in order to protect her. Meanwhile the Thenardiers are quickly sinking back into debt, and their daughter Eponine (who becomes a main character later on) begins to get heavy distaste for her parents. Jean Valjean and Cosette escape to a Convent in the middle of Paris eventually, which I found to be SO COOL. Literally the police could not do anything, and a little old man from the beginning was present once again and helped the two of them in getting shelter. Seriously, I have never seen an anime give SO much attention to the primary and secondary casts, it’s unbelievable.

Now we timeskip about 5 or 6 years later, the Romance and worldbuilding arc. I believe at this point Cosette is about 15 years old or so and is finally hitting THAT age. We are now introduced to a new cast of characters and the conditions in France begin to worsen. Many people are moving to Paris to seek refuge, and with this comes many chance encounters that just blow one’s mind. Cosette leaves the Convent with Jean Valjean and they are able to live a normal life finally. Cosette begins falling in love with Marius ,one of the new characters, but Eponine has returned and she is in love with Marius too. Although, Marius is insanely in love with Cosette and basically simps the shit out of her (except Cosette returns feelings so it’s mutual). At this point, this is where the anime and novel start diverging a good bit, but I will explain differences at the end. There was a really really good scene where Marius saves Jean Valjean from the Patron Minette which is a big highlight of this anime. Later on the Patron Minette are imprisoned, then they escape and try to rob Jean Valjean’s manor. It’s funny because Eponine actually saved Cosette by making the Patron Minette not enter since she started making a ruckus. Although, Eponine’s true colours decided to show when she stole the letter that Cosette left for Marius in their garden, since they were moving and she wanted to let Marius know where they were headed to.

Some other things happen and now we move on to the Revolution arc. During the revolution arc is where we get a completely new story. Marius is a part of the friends of the ABC and they pretty much start a civil war in the middle of Paris. During this Jean Valjean also participates in order to protect Marius, so that Marius may protect Cosette when it is time for Jean to leave. Jean has an encounter with the inspector Javert the man who has been on his tail for the past 15-25 years. The inspector believes that people will never change no matter what, but Jean, a former criminal, shows mercy to Javert and tells him to leave. This made Javert question his principles in life. Afterwards the revolution is pretty much destroyed and then Jean rescues Marius by dragging the boy through the sewers to the other side where they meet Thenardier, who allows them passage after fineing Jean 30 francs. On the other side Jean meets Javert once again, who allows Jean to go after finding out that people can change.

After this we go into a nice arc that wraps up the story and gives us a happy perfect ending that literally brought me to tears. Like when the camera panned in on the big flowery fields and Cosette’s child was running around it made me cry like a bitch.

People can change after all...but not all of them. I believe the original writer, Hugo, believed in this concept. We are presented with Thenardier who never changed his criminal ways, and Jean who was able to change his ways. A beautiful contrast to show that the “can in People can change means people have the ability to.

Analysis-

Story: 9.9/10 - Definitely a very deep story that has all kinds of twists, turns and connections. Good historical accuracy, and the most well developed characters I have ever seen portrayed in anime. I deducted points off of this because, WHERE ARE AZELMA AND THENARDIER’S WIFE? ARE THEY STILL IN PRISON? This never got wrapped up sadly, though I don’t mind much it’s pretty minor.

Animation: 10/10 - beautiful animation, the details on all the flower scenes blew me away. Also can you think how difficult it must be for japanese animators and artists to have draw a completely different country in a completely time period. Extremely commendable, and well done.

Music: 10/10 - Pretty good OP and ED

Characters: 10/10 - Easily the best part about this anime, diverse characters that are all very different and really make the plot and story very fun.

Some discussion on the Philosophy of this anime:

I talked about criminals being able to change a few paragraphs ago, so I’ll talk about the other stuff. Jean talks about something very important at the end, he talks about how we are all born equal but due to social stratifications we become different at some point. Why must we be different in accordance to our social rankings? The rich and more fortunate people should help the less fortunate. This was one of the key ideas that Hugo brought about with Les Miserables, literally meaning the wretched, obviously being a reflection off of society at that time. There are more things I could talk about but it’s too long and boring so I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Key Differences between anime and novel:

First big difference I noticed was that Eponine went to prison in the novels, and she also had a tryst with one of the Patton Minette. In the anime she did not go to prison, and actually heavily dislike the Patton Minette members. Next big difference is that in the novel Javert actually committed suicide after learning that criminals can change, but in the anime he instead lived on and did something else. Which leads to the final big difference that blows my mind. In the novel when Thenardier attempts to trick Marius, Marius actually gives Thenardier a large sum of cash and tells him to leave and never return. Thenardier took Azelma with him and went to the states to become a slave trader, but in the anime Thenardier was arrested by Javert.

Anyways thanks for getting this far lol