Category: Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette

In this episode, Cosette and Jean move in to a neat apartment somewhere in Paris, but who cares! Eponine is back!! Seriously though, for Jean and Cosette, the entire episode was just an introduction with nothing special. What happened when the two of them were out of the picture was interesting. Marius is really having trouble surviving on his own, and his job as a translator isn’t earning enough to pay for his current room. His friend then shows him to the cheapest area of the city, and he finds a room for only two franc a month/week. Doesn’t that ring a bell somewhere? ^^; Of course, it makes perfect sense for the Thenardiers to also be in the same place, since their money is gone and they do have a knack for finding the cheapest way possible. We finally get to see Eponine and Azelma grown up, and I have to say that Eponine was awesome. I never really stood still by it, but the fact remains that Cosette has been gone for nine years now, and someone had to take over her role. I guess that that someone was Eponine. Especially now that she’s grown up, and the Thenardiers don’t have the money to treat her like a princess anymore, she suddenly gets treated extremely harsh. It also seems that the future episodes are going to work on a love-triangle between Cosette, Eponine and Marius. While most love-triangle are rather obnoxious, due to the fact that they just are horribly developed, I’m pretty much confident that this’ll actually be pulled off right in Les Miserables, due to the large amount of attention it spends on developing its characters. It also makes perfect sense for Eponine to fall in love with Marius. After all, she’s treated harshly, she lives in poverty while she was used to living without too much money-worries, and here a guy lives right next to her, in a tidy suit. Obviously, she’d cling to some signs of wealth, even though Marius is extremely poor as well. Oh, now that I think of it, there was one interesting event regarding Jean: he’s as scared of policemen as ever. Even though it’s been nine years, it would be a miracle for someone to recognize him. But indeed, for the same matter it could be Javert.]]>

Quite an important episode, as lots of things happen that will be important for the rest of the anime. To give a small summary, Gavroche moves to Paris, Marius couldn’t find the Thenardiers and moves in with a friend, Javert still is obsessed with catching Jean, Fauche-le-Vent dies and Jean and Cosette move out of the monastery, after having lived there for six years. It was great to see Gavroche and Shushu back, by the way. Now that thugs are looking for the Thenardiers he needs to be careful, as they’re probably going to see him as the payments for accumulated dept. If you live in a city, it’ll become really hard to track someone down, and I suspect that he secretly wants to see Cosette again. I wonder what his role will be in the next couple of episodes, and where did the Thenardiers flee to, by the way? It also seems that Marius won’t be forgiving his uncle anytime soon. He even wouldn’t accept any money that his aunt offered. It’ll be interesting once he meets Cosette: he’ll be looking for the people she fears most in this world. What’s also apparent in this episode is how he has to get used to having a limited amount of money. He probably lived his entire life in the luxury that his uncle provided to him, and he really looks awkward when all he has for dinner is a plate of cheap soup and a bit of bread.]]>

This episode introduced the third major arc in Les Miserables, and it already shows that the overall mood is going to be very different from the previous one. While the previous arc had a lot of tension, most of it was sortof silent. There weren’t many direct conflicts, and it was basically a big cat and mouse game, while Jean and Cosette got to know each other a bit better. The current arc, however, places Javert out of the picture again, brings back the Thenardiers (yay!), and shows that Marius has quite an interesting background. Most of the episode was focused on the latter, by the way. Cosette meanwhile says goodbye to one of her major friends she met in the monastery, and starts thinking about her future because of this, while Jean watches. Marius, however, gets really fleshed out in this episode, after being introduced in the previous one. The dialogue on that part was a bit difficult, but this is what I got out of it: His father was a major officer in Napoleon’s army. His uncle is a high-ranked official in Paris, with whom he currently lives with, along with his aunt. I didn’t see any signs pointing to some kind of mother of his, so I assume she died early. The reason why he lived with his uncle, instead of his father probably is because of his father’s position. It’s perfectly possible for him to have no time at all to take care of his child, so he sent him to his brother to take care of. Well then, Marius hated his father, simply because he never heard anything about him. No letters, nothing. It turns out that his uncle kept burning the letters that Marius’s father sent (similar to Cosette, now that I think about it). As for the reason why, if I’m not mistaking it’s because his father worked for Napoleon. I can imagine that people would feel bad to be associated with such a person, which is why Marius’s uncle decided to keep him away from his father. Then, at this episode, Marius’s father dies. Only then does his uncle inform him about his state, and then Marius finds out what his father really thought of him (he’s actually been dying, wanting to see him, pun not intended). An argument follows, and Marius decided to run away from home to… the Thenardiers!? What? Only now I realize that Thenardier was in the army, and fought in the battle of Waterloo as well. It makes perfect sense now, and the picture they’ve always had hanging above their door shows him, together with Marius’s father in a rather dramatic way. It seems that Marius is planning to meet him, in order to find out the truth about his father, and what he was really like. The Thenardiers, meanwhile, finally seem to have been defeated by their money-problems, and are forced to move out of their house. It’s great to see them actually back again. The question remains, though: how will the Thenardiers bring Cosette and Marius together? With Jean, this anime has already proved that it’s different from most other anime by not making haste when bringing characters together (unlike other anime, who most of the times wrap up the introduction of a new side-character in the same episode he or she was introduced in). This episode truly was excellent, and to think that the current arc has only just begun.]]>

Through the course of the episode, I noted that this probably was the happiest episode for Cosette yet, and then at the end, I understood. This episode answered a lot of questions and cleared up a lot of things: Fauche-le-Vent’s plan of the previous episode, what the past few episodes have been building up to, how Jean would be able to outrun Javert for such a long time and the identity of the mysterious “Marius”, who keeps getting mentioned by the people who read the book. I finally understand that the past episodes have basically been one huge epilogue to the Thenardier-arc, where Jean has to try and find a quiet life for Cosette to live. Fauche-le-Vent didn’t pull the stunt of the previous episode to give Jean and Cosette the chance to escape, it was to gain the trust of the head nun of the monastery. The walls of the monastery are a perfect barrier against Javert, after all, and if Jean were to escape to some quiet town, he’d have to live in fear of being discovered every day. The problem was, though, that the head nun currently knew about trespassers who entered the grounds, so she’d never allow him to stay. The head nun then apparently gave permission for Fauche-le-Vent to fake a burial, to help the trespasser escape safely. After this, Jean and Cosette would just get smuggled back in again (something simple, as it’s something Javert certainly wouldn’t suspect), he could make a formal entrance to the monastery, and make sure that Cosette joins the other nuns peacefully, while he himself gets appointed as gardener, along with Fauche-le-Vent. Also, I think we’ve got ourselves one of the first time-leaps in the middle of a series to actually make sense and be believable. It’s perfectly plausible for Cosette and Jean to have lived five quiet years in the monastery, after Javert gave up on guarding the Monastery. Unlike other *coughJyuohSeicoughBlackCatcough* anime, who seem to feature some outrageous changes in characters. In fact, the only thing that went wrong in this episode is Cosette’s character design. I don’t know what it is, but something went terribly wrong somewhere, considering her character-design as a girl was beautiful. Also, finally that mysterious Marius appears. In the first four episodes, I got some commenters who wondered if Marius was Eponine’s boyfriend back then, but he actually seems to be some guy of an important family. I’m eager to see that the current arc has finished, and a new one can begin. The Javert-arc definitely had its moments of glory, like when Cosette found out about her mother, or when Javert was about to catch Jean, but it by no means was as fun as the awesomeness of the Thenardier-arc. Still, we’ve got ourselves more than 30 episodes left, so an intermezzo here and there only contributes to the best parts by fleshing out Cosette’s and Jean’s characters.]]>

Quite an interesting episode this time, it centres on Jean and Cosette, trying to leave the safe but heavily guarded monastery-ground. It was really meant to bring Cosette and Jean even closer together. The plan indeed was to smuggle Jean out of the grounds by transporting him in a coffin, about to be buried, but the problem was Cosette: she didn’t fit in along with him, so she went ahead of him in a bag of apples, carried by the salesman. It’s quite interesting, the Fantine-arc had Cosette as main character, but the cat-and-mouse arc currently has Jean as the main one. Still, Cosette does remain my favourite character, and this episode definitely proved this yet again, when she found out that she was getting left behind again. The symbolic value of Jean’s return at the end of the episode was huge, since he actually did something her mother didn’t: come back to her. I’m eagerly awaiting Cosette to take up the role of main character again, though I think that Jean also is going to turn out very interesting in the next couple of episodes. 🙂 Seeing Jean’s plan nearly getting screwed up also was quite amusing to see, though. It seems that the merchant also works as a gravedigger (which does explain why he could come up with such a plan, and why he’s allowed on the monastery’s grounds, even though it’s inhabited by nuns), so he planned to actually break up Jean’s coffin when everybody was away, and he was supposed to bury the body alone, or with an ally, or someone he could trust. So, what happens? The merchant screws up with the schedules, and another guy shows up, who actually doesn’t know anything. Letting him know the plans at such a point also wouldn’t be the brightest idea, as the guy will probably freak out when he hears and tell anyone in his innocent fears. Because of this, Jean nearly suffocates before the merchant finds an excuse to send the guy away. ^^; This episode definitely had an unusual focus, especially for an anime, especially the merchant and the things he’s put through you’ll never see in another anime again, and even though it doesn’t beat some of the episodes when Cosette was still with the Thenardiers, I couldn’t help but love it.]]>

I just realized, the second part of Les Miserables is basically one big cat-and-mouse game between Javert and Jean. I also kept misspelling Javert’s name, sorry about that. In katakana, Javert just sounds too much like Javell. In any case, this time Jean and Cosette find shelter inside a wooden shed, on the ground of the local monastery, after using one of the ropes to climb over the walls from the previous episode. In there, Jean runs into the guy he helped a number of episodes ago, when his carriage collapsed on top of him. I never expected that that scene actually got featured into the OP for a reason. Also, you have to love Cosette. For such a small girl, it had to be a hugely tiring journey, fleeing from the police, in the middle of the night, running quite a distance and getting carried over a wall, and she still doesn’t complain. In fact, she even helps Jean when he loses control of his hat, right above the head of Javert when she grabs hold of it. And yet, when he’s about to leave her alone, she shows signs of anxiety. Because of her time with the Thenardiers, she learned to withstand the hardest of beatings, but when it comes to loneliness, she’s as helpless as any other child of her age. ^^; Also, even though the two of them have been able to find shelter for the night, they are going to have to leave soon. Javert has already attempted to inspect the monastery, though the head sister refused them, even though she knew that the person called “Jean Valjean” had trespassed on her terrain. Because of this, she asks the salesman to make them leave as soon as possible. I assume that she’ll alert Javert if they don’t. The salesman then comes with the idea of transporting Cosette and Jean in a coffin. Even the police don’t dare to look inside of these. That’s only going to make the next episode even more interesting, as it does mean that Jean and Cosette will be completely dependant of the guy who transports them, since they can’t do anything inside one of these coffins. I can see Javert becoming crazy enough to think that they might have actually used the coffins to get away.]]>

Short Synopsis: Javell finally finds Jean’s location, resulting in Jean and Cosette, fleeing from Paris. Good: Javell Bad: Strange that Javell didn’t take the window at the side of the house into account. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 This episode is more among the exciting ones in this series, compared to the heart-warming ones of the previous episodes. It was only a matter of time for Jean’s location to be found, and that time was about half into the episode. I loved duo of Jean vs Javell, during this episode. Javell, instead of using his subordinates to spy on Jean, is so determined to catch the guy that he does this himself. I liked this. A lot. The escape-scene also was a great one, since Jean doesn’t only have to think about himself, but he’s also carrying a little girl with him. His past turned out actually good for once, as because of the trials he had to endure, he’s able to easily outrun Javert and a couple of trained policemen. Even when he’s carrying Cosette, they still have trouble catching up to him. Cosette was really more of a side-character this time. We see her having a bit of fun, and finally meeting other children, but this definitely was a Jean and Javert-episode. One thing I liked about the first season, by the way, was that the Thenardiers made sure of a constant source of conflict. This is quite a bit different from the current season, which really has more recognizable conflicts. Still, something tells me it’s building up, just like the first one did. It’ll be very interesting to see where this one goes.]]>

Short Synopsis: Cosette and Jean arrive in Paris. There, Cosette recalls memories of her mother. Good: SUCH a sweet song. Bad: The episode was a tad slow at times, when compared to the previous ones. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 This episode spends again most of its time building up. Paris is reached, and Jean moves into a house, somewhere in the suburbs. Cosette now has her own room, and she’s surprised to see the city in which she spent the first three years of her life again. Obviously, she’d only remember the happy times, and she didn’t care much about the poverty in the city. This episode was one of the quieter episodes of the series, but that song still made it well worth watching. I suddenly realize why Cosette started singing when she found out that her mother died, as it’s the same song she used to sing when Cosette was still small. I was surprised that she just yelled at Jean when she tried to find the same tree where her mother used to measure her size with. Javell, meanwhile, went to the commander of the police in Paris, who offered his help in catching Jean, so that Javell could return to Montreul-sur-Mer. I suspect that the landowner who went to spy on Jean’s stuff also is going to have a role in this. If I had to guess, then she’ll report this to the police and Jean’s and Cosette’s hiding place will be discovered. It’ll also be interesting to see when Jean’s money will run out. No doubt it is a lot, but it’s not an endless amount. I wonder what kind of job he’ll find.]]>

Short Synopsis: A Jean-episode. Will he really be able to give Cosette happiness with Javert after his head? Good: The second half was as touching as usual. Bad: The first half was rather quiet. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 This episode was really meant to develop Jean some more. While Javert is searching all the roads leading to Paris, he and Cosette have taken a detour to a small city with a huge church, from which he plan to go to Paris. And this is the point where he starts to have his doubts. He’s got the police after him, so he’ll have to continue to hide for a long while. That’s not exactly the safest assurance of Cosette’s happiness, now is it? The first part of the episode mainly builds up for this. Then the second, and far more enjoyable half comes, and shows that Jean may be worrying a bit too much, as he loses sight of Cosette when he desperately tries to find a guy from Montreil-sur-Mer, who can take care of her. That results in some very touching scenes, by the way. Cosette was so sad (I loved how she took off her shoes after so much walking). The policeman was also quite interesting, right before he reveal why he’s been following Cosette, I realized it as well. He never realized Jean was a fugitive, so Jean’s worries weren’t necessary. But then again, the possibility of the policeman recognizing him also exists. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how he’s going to solve this.]]>

Short Synopsis: Jean finally tells Cosette about Fantine’s death. Good: Can this anime truly get any better? Bad: How are Jean and Cosette going to outrun the police for such a long time? Oh, wait… that’s not really a bad point, is it? Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10 The Fall-season of last year broke a trend I was beginning to notice: the fact that each season had at least one truly memorable series, starting from Fall 2005, which had Noein and Mushishi. Winter 2006 had Bake Neko, Spring 2006 had Simoun and The Third, and Summer 2006 had Otogi Juushi Akazukin. While the fall-season did feature some really good shows as Asatte no Houkou, Bakumatsu, Jigoku Shoujo and Red Garden, they just weren’t good enough to compare with their predecessors. I feared that this would be the same for the Winter-2007-season, but Les Miserables has proved to be an absolute delight. And that already at this point. This episode definitely convinced me of this, as it displays the huge strength of Cosette’s character. She’s only a little girl, she gets the news that her mother, her raison d’être, died, and she doesn’t even cry! All she does is sing a small song, and even though we didn’t see any tears, that was such an incredibly sad moment. Javert also got some more screen-time this episode, as he can’t seem to find any trace of Jean anywhere. Then he learns of the Thenardiers, and they tell him about what Jean did when he visited them. Gavroche also learns of this, returns to his old home and throws a tantrum. I’m not sure if that was the smartest thing to do, but you can’t blame the boy who wants to protect the girl who took care of him ever since he was born. To make things worse, Javert figures that Jean would flee to Paris, so he heads there as well. I couldn’t understand exactly why, though.]]>