You may recall the 2015 young adult Journey to the Force Awakens novel Lost Stars by Claudia Grey. You may recall Nanci recommending that you pick it up in her review of that novel. Well, guess what: it’s now a manga.

More specifically, it’s been adapted into a webcomic, published by LINE, by manga creator Yusaku Komiyama, and the world outside of Japan has finally gotten a taste of this adaptation in standard-manga-sized volume 1, published by Yen Press, and it’s…okay.

THE STORY

This is not a straight adaptation (for which I am very grateful. I strongly believe that material should be adjusted to fit the adaptation format. Would you like to see my hour-long powerpoint presentation on the Slayers NEXT anime versus the novels?). It does stick to the story but volume 1, at least, is presented as a framed story, with Thane recounting the past to his friend and snowspeeder gunner, Yendor (who I love in this). As such, it heavily focuses on Thane’s perspective of the story rather than splitting evenly between Thane and Ciena. You do occasionally get other points of view, but Thane’s thoughts are the only ones laid out explicitly on the page. Continue reading →