Manga Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

Manga Shakespeare

by Richard Appignanesi (Adapter), Faye Yong (Illustrator), William Shakespeare

"The Merchant of Venice, " one of the Bard's most enduring plays, explores themes of forgiveness, prejudice, and fairness, all of which remain vital topics today. In the Manga Shakespeare version, the setting and themes of the play take on new meaning as adapted by the artists guiding the series. Whether readers are fans of the Bard or of manga, this is a story that will captivate and engage, even after four hundred years.

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Shakespeare, Classics, Comics, Fiction, Fantasy

208 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2011

About the author

Richard Appignanesi is a published adapter and an author of young adult books. Published credits of Richard Appignanesi include Manga Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (Manga Shakespeare), Manga Shakespeare: Macbeth (Manga Shakespeare), Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet (Manga Shakespeare), and Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (Manga Shakespeare).

Reviews

[Fatma Nady · Rating 4 out of 5]

التجربة الأولى مع شكسبير.. عبقرية، شيقة، بليغة، وخالدة، تصلح للقراءة في كل الأزمان، دون الشعور بوجود فجوة زمنية ما، البشر نفسهم بصراعاتهم وغرورهم وكبرهم ذاته..

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aug 31, 745pm ~~ Review asap.

9pm ~~ Everyone has pointy ears!

Not just demure Mr. Spock pointy, but elfin pointy, ears that stick out and demand attention.

That took some getting used to, I must admit.

Those pointy ears must have prepared me for anything because when I saw the two flying dragons I was not the least bit surprised.

But this is not an easy play to read, either in its original format or here with the ears and the dragons. Evil is evil, but here evil is also Jewish, and that old cliche is disgusting to our modern ways of thought.

Or at least it should be.

And I think I was more concerned with poor Jessica, Shylock's daughter, than with anyone else. She is so ashamed of being her father's daughter that she plans to convert to Christianity. Your father is your father, his attitudes do not have to be yours, and there are other ways to show yourself his opposite than to denounce the rich traditions of an ancient religion. No one should judge the whole flock by the actions of one black sheep!

This is another Manga that would have been lovely to see in in color throughout the book and not just in the first Cast Of Characters pages. And there was a Prince of Aragon here just like there was in Much Ado About Nothing! This time the Prince was a water being with webbed fingers and gorgeous pale blue hair.

He was one of Portia's suitors, with the chance to win her hand in marriage if he chose the chest with her portrait in it. By the way, Portia is simply too cool for school!

[Dalal · Rating 4 out of 5]

عجيبه .....

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays to mount and perform and each director must feel his way carefully with interpretation. Is it comedy or drama? Is Shylock a villain or a persecuted victim demanding equal justice? What’s all this nonsense about rings anyway?

While the loveliness of Venice is gracefully drawn with fine architecture and lovely foliage, the people are conceived as being otherwordly creatures with pointy ears; one character is depicted with webbed fingers, black eyeballs and white pupils. Dragons are shown as winged steeds and chess pieces move like something out of Harry Potter.

By moving these beings out of the realm of humanity, the illustrator would lead us to believe that Shylock’s demand and Antonio’s plight are therefore universal, stuck in no one time or place. Or, this may be meant as an emphasis to the magic of Venice, La Serenissima, a city like no other, one that has existed throughout the centuries, navigated by boats and floating improbably upon the waves. Whatever the reason, Faye Young has crafted a work of beauty, drama, passion and revenge. Color panels in the front of the book show the characters, giving listings helpful to the reader in sorting out who’s who.

[ashes ➷ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite odd to take a story so controversial—meaning, openly antisemitic and racist, but nonetheless compelling for discussion—and take such a straight-on attitude to adapting it. Shylock is drawn as your typical sallow antisemitic caricature, and the Black suitor rejected by Portia is a literal green goblin (instead of making any attempt to address the racism inherent in that scene through the myriad avenues available to an artist).

I honestly love the complexity of The Merchant of Venice, because in writing so antisemitically, Shakespeare somehow managed to create a story that proves (to the right audience) that the good guys are only good from certain perspectives. White women given power won’t necessarily turn around and let it trickle down. Every “evil Jew” has a far more complicated and difficult internal life than the white gentiles around them could imagine. It’s an expose of Shakespeare’s almost uniformly white protagonists—their wealth, their happiness, their success must always come from stepping on the people around them.

For the record, the play is poorly written—it's boring, strangely paced, and confusingly tacked-together even when you ignore the racism. But if you hone in on the racism, it forms a vital lens for exploring how race functioned through multiple eras and in multiple countries. It's genuinely fascinating if you're studying it!

Not only does this adaptation ignore all of that, it also cuts certain lines which are vital to understanding the play. For example: “Yes—to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.” is cut down to merely a sharp refusal so that the reader doesn’t understand why Evil Shylock would refuse to eat with the Christians. There are a few other moments, but that one stood out—an easy opportunity to do anything but lazily replicate the antisemitism in the original play.

If the artist chosen for this book couldn’t handle that, it should have gone to another artist. I’m happy to read “Shakespeare but it’s all elves” a good 90% of the time—just do one of the most controversial plays Shakespeare ever wrote the justice of attempting to add something new to the conversation. The whole point of Manga Shakespeare is supposed to be accessibility, but this isn’t a version that would give someone a good idea of the play. I’ll keep it around, because I’m a Manga Shakespeare completionist (and I honestly like the series!) but I don’t know if I’d recommend it outside of a case study in people doing this already dirty play even dirtier. A big part of my keeping it is that I can't imagine passing it on to anyone else—this is one of the few books I want to lock away underground. A dangerously bad book.

EDIT: i couldn't tell you myself why i gave this 2 stars the first time. 1 star it is

[Nyx Solman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having never read this play before i thoroughly enjoyed it's manga version and would definitely look into more publications from self made hero.

[Liawèn · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's not much to say. I love the art style. It all feels like a fairytale Venice.
And I love the story. The revenge plot is great and I like the fact that one one else but Portia is that smart and finds a way out of it^^ quite frankly, I wouldn't have thought of it either :-D

[Jack Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, like I predicted last month at the time of the review, The Merchant of Venice is better in manga form than it is in play form. I don't have a lot to say about this than what I've already mentioned, but I will say that the biggest positive was that there was more clarity to both the characters and the story, so much so that I could actually understand more of the play in question. It wasn't just all one big muddle. Overall, I still think Merchant has a handful of uninteresting events and characters, though.

I really enjoyed the re-imagining for this. The elf characteristics were a nice touch, and I liked the thought and care Faye Yong brought to this. Stephano and Balthazar are my favorites hands down (fraternal twin elves unite)! They had some clever designs indeed.

Overall, this was another fun journey, and I'll be interested to read more of these adaptations to see what else I'll get.

[cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review may also be found on A Thousand Little Pages.

With gorgeous manga-style illustrations, Manga Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice is a compelling representation of the Bard's famous play about the Jewish moneylender. The three intertwined plots -- Antonio's bond with Shylock, Bassanio's suit, and Jessica's escape from her cruel father -- are all brought together in an undoubtedly less intimidating way than Shakespeare's original play.

Having read and thoroughly dissected almost every single word of The Merchant of Venice as a student recently, this manga still managed to provide me with new insights and details that might not have been noticed from reading the actual play.

An interesting aspect of the volume: word choice. It reads like Shakespeare's original, although it isn't quite the same -- yes, I dug out my copy of The Merchant of Venice and compared the two. The manga uses the same writing style, vocabulary, and similar sentence structure, but is slightly more condensed. I vastly prefer this method to a simple rewrite of the great Bard's words, as most of Shakespeare's lyricism was not lost.

Manga Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice is a great introduction into Shakespeare for those who feel the urge to curl up in a fetal position each time the Bard's name is mentioned. And for Shakespeare fanatics, the volume is a fresh new look at greedy Shylock, self-sacrificing Antonio, and beautiful and cunning Portia.

Book Source: Review Copy via TeensReadToo

[Sanjana Hagerer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book! It's an easy read - I finished it in a couple of hours.
Personally, I felt that it was a very good effort by the adapter to capture the essence of the original play, retain the language form and to present it all manga-style. I liked especially, the concept of the elves.
The downside was that due to the fact that mangas - unlike comics - are usually not coloured, I found it difficult at times to identify certain characters (for example, to differentiate Lorenzo from Bassanio), especially in the beginning of the book. I had to keep going back to the first few pages of the book which introduce the characters through coloured illustrations to help me identify them.

[N.A. Fedorak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The artwork makes all the characters look the same, the main plotline has been cut down, and it's not well-done over all. It's not bad as a starter, but it completely takes a lot of the culture and society out, which makes it just seem like a crappy romance book with an attempt at a plot in Shakespearian language.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

Brilliant on both counts - Shakespeare's and the manga medium.

[Samra · Rating 4 out of 5]

i like the art more than the story. has moments where it's hard to follow but reread it and observe the drawings for clarification. i feel bad for Shylock becayse he was constantly shit upon

[Samuel Nasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

وتبدأ المسرحية الرائعة الجميلة، ذات أسلوب شكسبير المبهر والرائع والجميل
فهي مسرحية، رغم تشابك الشخصيات وتسارع الأحداث، إلا أنها رواية رشيقة خفيفة على الذهن، رواية ليست بالمرهقة، لا تحتاج الكثير من التركيز لتفهم ما يرمي إليه الكاتب
فرغم حبكة الأحداث وتماسكها، إلا أنها متتابعة تتابع منطقي رائع وجميل، وكأنها معزوفة موسيقية عزفها شكسبير لتخرج بتلك الصورة الرائعة الجميلة

وتناقش تلك المسرحية العديد من الأفكار، فكما اعتاد شكسبير رغم مسحة الكوميديا التي تطفو على الاحداث، زلا أن مسرحياته دائماً ما تكون مليئة بالقيم والمواعظ والقضايا الاجتماعية التي تضيف للمسرحية قيمتها الأدبية الجليلة

ففي تلك المسرحية تجد حديثه عن الصداقة، وكيف أن الصديق الحقيقي عون لصديقه، حتى لو كلفه ذلك أن يزهق روحه فداءاً له، وهذا ما ظهر في علاقة أنطونيو بباسيانو، حينما طلب باسيانو المال من أنطونيو فلم يبخل عليه، رغم أنه اضطرأن يكتب صكاً مريباً بحق نفسه، ولكنه اهتم بأم يلبي احتياج صديقه باسيانو
وحينما تمت محاكمة أنطونيو، كان باسيانو على أتم الاستعداد أن يضحي بروحه حتى ينال أنطونيو براءته

ثم يأتي الحديث على رغبة الانتقام التي تجدها جلية في شخصية شايلوك اليهودي الذي يعطي امواله بنظام الربا، إذ يكره كل ما هو مسيحي، فلا يضيع افرصة حتى ينال من أحد المسيحيين، حتى ولو كان ذلك عن طريق قتله، انتقاماً منه وانتهازاً لاي فرصة

ثوايضاً البخل والقسوة، وتلك الصفات التي تظهر أيضاً جلية في شخصية شايلوك، والتي تضطر ابنته وخادمه للفرار من منزله
وعند فرار ابنته كان كل همه الآموال التي اخذتها والأحجار الكريمة التي هربت بها، فلم تهمه ابنته بقدر ما همه الأموال

وبالتأكيد لا يمكن إلا أن ناتي علي سيرة الحب، والذي ظهر ما بين باسيانو وبورشيا، والذي جعل باسيانو يتحطي الصعاب، ويخاطر لأجل الظفر بها، وفي الاخير كان الحظ حليفاً له ولها

فكانت تلك المسرحية ثرية مليئة بالاحداث والشخصيات، مترابطة وشيقة، حافلة بالقيم والتشويق والاثارة، ولم تخلو من الكوميديا أيضاً

أما عن احداث المسرحية

تبدأ المسرحية مع طلب باسيانو لمبلغ من المال كسلف من صديقه أنطونيو، وكان محتاجاً لذلك المال ليسافر ليتقدم لخطبة بورشيا الحسناء الثرية،
وأنطونيو بصفته صديق مقرب من باسيانو لم يتوان عن تقديم يد العون لصديقه، فرغم عدم امتلاكه المال في تلك اللحظة بسبب أن سفنه التجارية كانت تجوب العالم، فاقترح على باسيانو الحصول على المال من ذلك الرجل اليهودي الذي يُدعى شايلوك، والذي كان يشتهر باعطاء ماله للمحتاج عن طريق الربا، ولكن أنطونيو دوماً ما كان ينتقده ويرفض نظام الربا نظراً لكونه مرفوضاً لدى المسيحيين
وعند تقديم شايلوك للمال، وبعد الكثير من الاحاديث والاستهزاء، وعند توقيع الصك، طالب شايلوك أن يوضع في الصك أنه اذا لم يوفِ انطونيو المال المستدان به في الموعد المحدد في الصك، فان شايلوك له الحق في انه يأخذ رطل لحم من جسد انطونيو علي سبيل الدعابة
ولكن لم يكن في نفسه انه علي سبيل الدعابة، لقد كان يدعو الا يوفي انطونيو المال في الموعد، رغبة في الانتقام منه
ومما زاد من رغبته في الانتقام، هرب بنته جيسيكا من منزله من لورنزو ذلك الفتى المسيحي

ثم ذهب باسيانو للقاء بورشيا وطلب خطبتها
وإذ يجد أن والدها قبل مماته وضع شرطاً علي المتقدمين للظفر بها، إذ احضر ثلاثة صناديق، من الذهب ومن الفضة ومن الرصاص، ثلاثتهم مغلق، وعلى من يريد الزواج منها أن يختار أحد الصناديق الثلاثة، فاذا وجد صورتها ظفر بها، واذا فشل فانه يأخذ عهدا علي نفسه بعدم الزواج طيلة حياته
وكان كل من تقدم لتلك المسابقة فشل بها، إذ كان اختيارهم اما الذهب واما الغضة، ولكن باسيانو اختار الرصاص فوجد داخله صورة بورشيا فتزوج منها

ثم حدث ما كان يخافون منه، إذ تحطمت سفن انطونيو ولم يستطع وفاء المبلغ المطلوب لشايلوك، فأصر شايلوك على اخذ حقه بموجب الصك، ورحل باسيانو لحضور المحاكمة، وحاول رد المال بل ومضاعفته اضعافا كثيرة، ولكن شايلوك ابى الا ان يأخذ حقه المنصوص عليه في الصك

ولكن بورشيا تظهر اخيرا لتنقذ حياة انطونيو، إذ ابتكرت حيلة انقذت بها الموقف واظهرت بها ذكاء ايما ذكاء

وانتهت القصة بمشهد كوميدي رائع ورقيق للغاية

[Gözde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga olmasına rağmen karakterlerin tanıtımının renkli olmasını sevdim. Bir anda karakter patlaması yaşamak ise korkutucuydu. Manganın en sonunda yer alan Shakespeare biyografisi ve Venedik Taciri’nin özeti kısmı keşke ön tarafta olsaydı böylece mangayı okumak çok daha kolay olabilirdi. Manga gibi değildi okunma tarafı sebebiyle özellikle. Yahudi vs Hristiyan görüyoruz, bazı kısımlarda Shylock düşman mı masum mu emin olunamıyor. Hristiyanların sempatik gösterilmesi çok rahatsız edici, Yahudilerde aç gözlü olarak gösteriliyor falan. Bir aşk hikayesi bir komedi gibi geliyor sonra işler ciddileşiyor. Çizimler çok iyi değildi beğenemedim. Özellikle Shylock’u kötüleştirmek için onu daha karanlık yapmak için göz kalemi taktiğini beğenemedim. En sevdiğim karakter ve en saf bulduğum kesinlikle Antonio. Bence çok fazla karakter vardı özellikle çiftler çok fazlaydı. Benim için çok ortalama bir okuma olduğunu söyleyebilirim.

[Kyler Weisgarber · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Shakespeare but this time, it's a Manga. Jump into a book where the story of The Merchant of Venice is told but with a twist. In this rendition the characters are replaced with fantastical elves, trolls, and merfolk. It tells the traditional story with much of the same lines from the original work.

Personal Reaction: I love Shakespeare and I like Manga. Mix the two together and you've got a pretty good recipe for success. Shakespeare is really meant to be seen and if you can't afford to go to a play or the play script is hard to read then this might be right up your alley.

Content Warnings: None

[sabisteb aka callisto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Auch bei diesem Manga Shakespeare habe ich Probleme mit dem Setting. Man hat es sich hier einfach gemacht. Venedig ist geblieben, aber wie in Othello mal wieder Elfen. Diemal Lichtelfen als die Guten und die Bösen sind natürlich die Dunkelelfen. Auch sehr plakativ die Zeichnung der Figuren. Hübsche attraktive gute Figuren und nicht so attraktive Bösewichte. Mir zu 0815.
Zudem sind vor allem die diversen männlichen Protagonisten in den Zeichnungen so dermaßen ähnlich, dass man sie kaum unterscheiden kann, sie haben einfach keinen eigenen Charakter. Das ist beim Lesen, wenn man nicht weiß, wer gerade drann ist, nicht hilfreich, um den Überblick über die Handlung der verschiedenen Akteure zu bekommen.

[Eliza K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is a favorite guilty pleasure!! I love that the text is the same as the original work, moderately shortened for the format. Many people struggle with keeping track of “who’s who” when reading or seeing Shakespeare, but the dramatized art in manga go a long way to help keep characters straight.

Classic gender swap and clever women. :)

Note: this play is pretty antisemitic with its characters. Go beyond the page, learn about historical context, and consider how the story could be better retold today.

[nimrodiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has never been up at the top in the list of Shakespeare plays I like. So, I found this adaptation kind of meh. The artwork was good, the environmental changes to the setting were amazing, and the changes needed to shorten the playy into the Manga format were done well. I just don't care for this play.

So it will head off into the world hopefully to inspire a new reader.

[Jordana Diengdoh · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Hillary's What happened, I needed a break and this manga helped me to unwind. The first time I knew about Merchant of Venice was in school in a play by artists probably from the UK. It left an indelible imprint on my mind.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't *love* the art style but the adaptation is definitely well done. As far as I could tell, all of the lines are from the play, which is one of my favorites as well as one I wrote a lengthy paper on. I will definitely read more graphic adaptions of Shakespeare.

[Rachel Fortin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really could not be any nerdier 😂
But hey, I love Shakespeare and manga so why not experience them together!?

[Ben Scobie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better adaptation than Hamlet. Would recommend for students struggling to engage with the text.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am cackling, this was so funny! The drama was perfect, and the art style was amazing. The elements fit really well.

[Mahmoud Hafez]

كنت قد سمعت عنها فقط أما بعد ما قرأتها استفدت كتير ..عرفت فكر شيكسبير وطريقة كتابته الرائعه

[Read With Yora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved the drawing 😍 it felt like it was beating with life 💜💜 and the story was deep and beautiful 😻

[Rami · Rating 5 out of 5]

مسرحية شكسبير عن تاجر يهودي في مدينة البندقية في إيطاليا ... ما اقرا مسرحيات لكن مسرحيات شكسبير استثناء 😎

[Nora Røssland · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing story!! It’s so gay, so silly and super entertaining!! This has officially made it into my top three Shakespeare plays!!

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed by Cinnamon for TeensReadToo.com

With gorgeous manga-style illustrations, this version of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is a compelling representation of the Bard's famous play about the Jewish moneylender. The three intertwined plots - Antonio's bond with Shylock, Bassanio's suit, and Jessica's escape from her cruel father - are all brought together in an undoubtedly less intimidating way than Shakespeare's original play.

Having read and thoroughly dissected almost every single word of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE as a student recently, this manga still managed to provide me with new insights and details that might not have been noticed from reading the actual play.

An interesting aspect of the volume: word choice. It reads like Shakespeare's original, although it isn't quite the same - yes, I dug out my copy of the play and compared the two. The manga uses the same writing style, vocabulary, and similar sentence structure, but is slightly more condensed. I vastly prefer this method to a simple rewrite of the great Bard's words, as most of Shakespeare's lyricism was not lost.

This is a great introduction into Shakespeare for those who feel the urge to curl up in a fetal position each time the Bard's name is mentioned. And for Shakespeare fanatics, the volume is a fresh new look at greedy Shylock, self-sacrificing Antonio, and beautiful and cunning Portia.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retelling of Shakespeare’s play Manga style. The characters are rendered as elves, yet are still Christian and Other (the word Jew is not used as an insult against Shylock, though he refers to himself as Jewish), with the effect that the Christian characters seem more sympathetic than they should and their problem with Shylock may be something like his greed instead of his Jewishness. This rings the fairy tale notes in the play that are otherwise hard for us to hear today. Yong often renders the greater world of Venice, as she does in the usually intimate first scene. Here the dialog us given in the visually busy world of the canals and the rialto. The scene looses all its intimacy, and that is a loss. By doing what Shakespeare’s stage did not, what Shakespeare did on stage is lost.

Some things are neutral. Antionio is not gay, and so does not seem lost at the end. Portia’s servants seem uncomfortable about her racist statement regarding the Duke of Morocco. These things are neither good nor bad, but seem worth noting.

A number of typically manga touches, especially as they reveal the inner lives of the characters, are appropriate and very well rendered. Yong does visually the subtext an actor would perform on stage. I’m not sure if the world really needs this retelling of the play, but it is not without interest.