3.5 stars rounded up.
This second installment of the manga adaptation of Disney's live action film version of their animated "Beauty and the Beast" film is so much better from Beast's POV than it was from Belle's, for the most part because Disney seems to have listened to years of critiques to their interpretation of Beast's origin story, and has done their best to fix it. At least, that's how I see it, and think they've done a good job fixing the issue, because as I've always mentioned in my reviews whenever Disney's version is used as the basis for retellings, my one major problem with it is that I've never agreed that their origin story for Beast meshed with the spirit of the French fairy tale.
And, whilst it's not a perfect fix, I think it's great! It goes so well with Disney's own spin on Madame de Beaumont's version of the fairy tale, which is the one they retold, and it keeps its core theme of redemption for past mistakes, a key element of the original fairy tale. I liked their expansion of the story of the curse, what led to it, why Beast acted like he did towards the enchantress that cursed him. The expanded origin story not only humanises Beast but, pretty important to me personally, it shows that Beast was a victim himself and allowed that victimisation to warp his soul. I like how the young prince evolves internally, how you can glimpse his wounded humanity fighting to come through the beastliness, and how he wants to better himself in spite of continuously falling prey to his bad temper. He truly reforms himself! And it's heartwarming to see.
As a critique, I'd say that the manga adaptation would've probably worked better if Belle's POV and Beast's POV were inserted one after the other in a continuum instead of split into two separate volumes. Why? Because the Beast's Tale volume overlaps with scenes from the Belle's Tale volume, resulting in repetitive scenes that bloat the story. Some of the scenes we already saw from Belle's POV in the first book are repeated rather than elaborated on differently. And also, the abruptness in transitioning from one chapter to the next is still there, although it flows better by virtue of Beast's POV being both more inward-looking and more artistically panoramic/big picture in its depiction of scenes. And finally, I think Beast is a bit too obviously handsome through that animal face the curse bestowed on him, as if he's wearing make up and a lion mane wig instead of having a truly animalistic head like in the animated film, where he was both truly beastly and ugly and with an imposing ferocity, as he should be.
Anyway, I enjoyed this very much! They toned down the preachiness that was seeping in from Belle's POV, too. And I think that the live action film's additions to Beast's story combined with the animated film's visuals together would make for the perfect retelling rather than just either alone.
Thanks to TokyoPop for the ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a review.