Customer Reviews

Return to Labyrinth Volume 1 (v. 1)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

When I heard rumors of a Labyrinth sequel, my ears perked up. What? Now? WHERE WHERE WHERE? I have been a huge Labyrinth fan since I first saw it years ago--and I still consider it my favorite movie of all time. The Jim Henson Company's puppetry, Brian and Wendy Froud's amazing goblins, David Bowie's ridiculous tightpants... I loved it all. Well, maybe the pants not so much.

I love manga as well, so I was really excited. I was a little peeved when I heard the cover artist was not the same as the inside one--the only reason to do that, I still hold, is because the inside art is lacking something. Oh, and lacking it is. To call the art 'amateur' is a compliment. This is Amerimanga at its worst, generic lines, generic character designs, backgrounds that are as bold as characters--and mutilated goblins that look nothing like Froud's work.

The story was what really made me angry. Instead of following in the typical vein of the Labyrinth, a story about coming of age that may or may not have literally happened, this story centers on Toby, EmoKid Extraordinaire. He's spoiled, he's selfish, he has absolutely no redeeming qualities. While Sarah was selfish, she was at least imaginative. Speaking of Sarah, the lovely girl with dreams is gone. In her place is a depressed SCHOOLTEACHER, who tells Toby to give up on dreams. THIS is supposed to be the future that Sarah won to create for herself? This is what was most insulting about this manga--it assumes that her better choice WOULD have been to take Jareth's offer!

Jareth completely ignores Sarah. That's not so impossible to believe, but he's a little too interested in Toby, in the vein that teenage girls squeal and drool over. To me, this isn't Labyrinth. It's fanservice to the wrong genre.

The original characters made me groan as much as the lack of coherent storytelling. We have the typical 'woe is me' girl who of course Toby's going to rescue, and we need no magic ball to show us that, 'goth' girls with bad personalities to match their bad fashion sense (and designs), and a goblin with a mean temper--not like the original vision, where goblins were not specifically cruel, just stupid and gross. Of course we can't forget the generic Ebil Fairie Queen who is placed as Jareth's nemesis, or her dastardly plot to get him to MARRY. No, not generic at all.

This plot reads like a badly written fanfiction. It doesn't follow things clearly, and there are times when it seems like twelve new characters are being introduced and 'developed' with two or three panels. There's no hint of what's actually going on, there's no solving of the Labyrinth. It supposedly takes place in it, but there's no tribute to it--it's merely a stage for a teenage fanfic to take place on, given shape by the occasional background drawing.

To be honest, I felt very insulted when I finished reading this book. They slapped on the Labyrinth name to something that just isn't the quality of the original--making money off of fans by using the title. The thing is, I am honestly not judgemental about sequels. I do give everything a fair chance. I gave this a fair chance, and I am disgusted. I refer to it as a bad fanfic--I've read ones written by 15 year olds that read better than this. And I'm sure you will, too.

I read this after having been warned of its awfulness--just to satisfy my own curiousity. It took all of an hour to complete the torture. The cover is about the only redeeming thing to this work. There is a weird attraction between Jareth and Toby (I'm not against gay themes, but I feel it has no place when Jareth clearly had more fatherly tendencies towards Toby when he was an infant)

They've turned Sarah into a dowdy woman who wears glasses and doesn't beleive in magic or anything like it anymore (possibly the greatest crime). The illustrations are terrible, nothing like the artwork that is associated with the original movie from Brian Froud.

It does read like a really AWFUL fanfic, and this is only part 1 of 3, I can only hope this somehow gets fixed in the next two installments but my hope is slim.

Let's just say that I had higher hopes for this american-made-manga-wannabe, and it just did not deliver.

Allow me to begin my complaints with the cover. For much of the reasons stated previosuly by others, I was put off horribly when I found that the cover artist was not in fact the actual manga artist. Why does this matter? Because the cover is beautiful while the inside looks as if it were drawn by amateur rather than a professional. Labyrinth deserves far more respect, the art of Brian Froud deserves to be honored rather than cheapened. And trust me, the artist in this did Froud no justice. The illustrations reminded me more of a Sunday paper funny rather than a novel. Which would have been fine, but Sunday funnies don't cost $10 a pop. Far more is expected when it comes to manga, even if it really isn't made in Japan. The art should at least properly reflect the medium, the cover did, which just made it worse almost tricking a purchaser into buying it.

The storyline shows small promise I was fine with Toby being the main character. I'm even somewhat interested in learning more about how he handles the situation. But what happened to Sarah? I'll leave it at that.

My review may seem harsh but I've loved the film from my very early years, til even now, far too much to really count this story as part of them. I'll be sure to read the next one (if there is a next one) in the book store before I blow my money again.

The reason why Labyrinth has become a cult film classic has everything to do with the Sarah/Jareth romantic tension that existed in the film and pretty much nothing to do with Toby. Anybody who loved the film, loved it for that tension, so you'd think that it would make sense to create a product that plays on that--after all, the only people buying this are going to be the ones who loved the film, and like I said, we only liked the film because of, that's right, Sarah and Jareth. Like any television show with some kind of romantic tension or love triangle, you come back each week because you're waiting for the moment when the unrequited love becomes, well, requited.

So, when you create a story that not only animates Sarah to look nothing like the beauty we saw in the film but something that resembles a geeky teenage boy, but also seems to leave little hope that our lead characters will ever get together, you have not appealed to your audience.

Don't get me wrong here--I don't have a problem with Toby being a character in this story. He can even be a lead character. But he should not have been the main character. The story has always been about Sarah and Jareth and to switch it around on us is a mockery to the film and those who appreciated it. When the very substance of the lead characters have been so dramatically changed, you can no longer judge this story as a sequel to the original story but need to look at it as something completely different all together in order to give it a positive review.

Bottom line: if you're looking for that moment when Sarah decides to be queen of the goblin city after all, don't get your hopes up too high. It's looking like Jareth's love is not even unrequited anymore--it's nonexistent.

'Labyrinth' is one of my favorite movies of all time. I absolutely loved it as a kid and I love it even more as an adult. When I heard there was going to be a Labyrinth manga/sequal, I was extremely pleased.

Even when I found out Toby was the main character, I was upset but still sucked it up and gave it a shot. Let me just say I'm glad I read this at the store and didn't buy it right away. This was such a disappointment to me. Not only is Sarah not even a main character, she's barely a background character. She might as well not be there at all. And she's drawn extremely unflattering, given how beautiful Jennifer Connelly is and was. To me, seeing her drawn in in such a manner reflects the artist's personal feelings towards Sarah's character, which is obviously with some disdain.

And I don't understand what exactly Jareth's fixation on Toby is. In the original Labyrinth he only paid him attention because 1. he got bored a lot, and 2. Sarah wished him away. Without Sarah there he probably wouldn't have even recognized Toby's existence; hell, in this volume he barely recognizes SARAH'S existence!

I dunno, this just rubbed me the wrong way. Sure it's practical that Sarah grew up, but the ending of Labyrinth showed she would NEVER be without her friends from the Underground. And yet here she acts like none of that even happened and she doesn't care.

This really did feel like a fanfic for me. I didn't feel any of the magic of the movie; I felt nothing but dicontent when I was finished. If you're a diehard fan of Labyrinth, I guess you could give this a shot. But believe me, I've read better fanfiction than this.

Geared toward teens and thus a new generation of Labyrinth fans younger than those who saw the movie's theatrical release, Return... pays homage to the original with a similar punny, potty-mouthed sense of humor. Those familiar with the movie will also enjoy picking out continuity nods, old favorites [hey, Hoggle really is "prince of the Land of Stench!"] and plot parallels.

Devout Sarah fans will be disappointed, since blockily drawn, bespectacled [?!] Sarah has only a small role in this volume. Devout Jareth fans will probably object to the portrayal of the Goblin King as a long-fingered, smarmy figure whose interest in Toby seems predatory [when giving some royal garb to Toby, he assures the boy that he "won't peek"]. Taken for what it is, though - a lightweight supplement to a cult favorite - Return... is an amusing curiosity.

[...]

There have been a lot of negative comments about this "manga" (and I use that word loosely). My husband and I just got it and read it together, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was a fine continuation of the film's storyline. Let me explain why I gave it 5 stars.

One, I loved the artwork for both the cover and the story. It was a somewhat "girlie" style as mangas go, but there were a lot of nice, subtle details in the drawings which gave the look of the book some nice texture. It looked and felt like a comic book version of the movie with the human characters drawn in an anime style, which is what it was supposed to be. Best of all Jareth always looks very slick, and has quite a presence on every page he's on just as he did in the movie.

Two, I enjoyed the story. I was actually glad to see Sarah as a supporting character with the focus on a teenage Toby instead. For me, a focus on the continued adventures of Sarah and Jareth's flirtations with her would have been the sappy fan fiction way to go. In this story Jareth's love for Sarah is still felt, but is much more subdued and subtle. Blink and you might miss it, but it's there and, in my opinion, so much more powerful because of that.

Finally the dialogue was top notch. I laughed quite a few times, particularly at the Hana character, and enjoyed the banter between Jareth and Toby. In my mind I could hear the characters saying the lines as they would if this were a sequel to the movie.

I also have to point out that some of the things others have said about this book are outright false. It's never stated that Sarah doesn't believe in magic or fantasy anymore; only that she gave up theater because she "couldn't live in a fairy tale forever". The gang from the movie later laments that Sarah apparently forgot about them, but that just means she's lost track of old friends as time has gone on. Hey, happens to all of us. Anyways, I sense there's going to be more of Sarah in the next volumes... I mean, where do you think Jareth is heading off to in the end, hmm?

On the downside, I didn't care for Moppet (obligatory Toby love interest alert!), and the evil math teacher in the beginning was awfully cliche, but the strengths of this story far outweighed those weaknesses. Very much looking forward to the next one.

This is really no work of art. The artwork is nothing special (at all), and the story seems to have been written by a 15-year old. It does not really develop the relationship between Jareth and the girl, the protagonists here are mostly new, and very bidimensional. I bought all three volumes because I really liked the movie. Big mistake.

Having seen the line art for the cover of this manga I was very hopeful that it might end up truly great, but I was sorely disappointed. What more could one expect from TokyoPop, really?

If the cover art is collector-worthy, the inside art is completely disposable. It lacks any of the elegance or grace that was to be found in certain parts of the movie, and which the story calls for by its nature. Other manga I've read have beautiful art that flows smoothly from image to image and makes one's eye want to linger for a while before turning the page. This does not. It is painfully amaturish to look at at times (the 'unicorn' on the second page, anyone?).

On the bright side, the story is done well enough to keep an adult amused, if not especially stimulated. Kids will probably appreciate this for a while until they get older, and people who are already older might get it just for the cover art. That's basically what I did!

Sorry guys, but you should have left this to some artistically-inclined, grown-up female fans. Either that or consulted the fangirls. They have written some highly creative continuations to Labyrinth without being paid!

The cover looks haunting, it emules the perfect designs Master Brian Froud whispered into the creation of the world of "Labyrinth"
The cover art, done by "Alichino" artist, Kouyu Shurei sensei, fits perfectly with Mr. Froud's style.
Yet, once you open the book, it has nothing of that lovely cover style.
You enter a complete different style, opposite to manga. You find American comic style, in the pages, and although its good, it's not what the cover offered.

I mean, I don't mind a american style artist drawing this, but, if the cover is by a Japanese mangaka and the art is american artist, is like buying a pocky box and find it filled with m&ms.
The same? not quite.