The Devil is French
Anime has taught me many interesting things: I now have a vague understanding of certain Japanese words thanks to watching so much of the stuff. However, by far the most interesting lesson has been the one given by Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, the lesson being that the devil prefers to speak fluent French when he stars on a Japanese TV show.

Aside from Gankutsuou teaching me more about the devil, Gankutsuou has also become my favourite anime series. The classic tale of revenge against those who wronged Edmund Dantes is one that has been told in many different forms over the years, but none of the other adaptations are on the same level as the masterpiece that is Gankutsuou. It's shocking that MVM have gone on record to say that they turned down the chance to license Gankutsuou...I really don't get why the people who makes these decisions view Gankutsuou as bad.

I found the anime series to be so good that, after finishing watching the series, I ordered the Penguin Classics version of the MASSIVE novel Gankutsuou is based on. I read it within a week, going on a 7 hour marathon on one evening where time seemed to be flying by due to the enjoyment the novel was giving me. I'm far from a bookworm, rarely reading anything at all for pleasure, yet the book enchanted me and took me further into the wonderful world of Monte Cristo.

'Revenge is a dish best served cold.' - This saying must surely have been invented by someone who read The Count of Monte Cristo. There's simple revenge and there's plotting for years to destroy everything your enemies have built, and the the revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo is most certainly the latter.

The novel and anime series do have many differences, but there was also a lot of parts in the book that I recognised. I understood why the changes to the story in Gankutsuou were made, not minding most since they worked out excellently. For example, since Gankutsuou is told from Albert's perspective, the writers decided to make Albert have a much closer relationship with Eugene and Franz, all of them being childhood friends in the anime, unlike in the novel where Albert and Franz only really interacted during the Rome section and Eugene hated men due to her being a lesbian. In the anime, the writers removed the lesbian side to Eugene, put her homosexuality into Franz and made a very interesting friendship/love triangle.

The most significant changes were made to Edmund/The Count of Monte Cristo. The anime cut out Abbe Faria, an important character in the novel who educated Edmund, gave him his fortune and turned him into the character he transformed into many years later. They shared a close relationship in prison, Edmund ending up thinking of him as his second father. This character never even appeared in Gankutsuou, the reason being that the writers wanted to take Edmund into a different direction. Instead of Abbe Faria educating Edmund and saving him, he instead makes a pact with the devil, the devil giving him his knowledge and power in exchange for his body and soul. While Edmund in the novel views himself as an agent of God delivering justice to those who have sinned, Edmund in the anime is a vengeful demon in comparison.

After watching the series and reading the novel, I started collecting the now out of print R1 releases. It hasn't been straightforward: I managed to win Vol. 1 + the art box on eBay, only to find that AFTER leaving "11/10" feedback that episodes 3 and 4 didn't work, the seller refusing to let me return it. Thankfully, I wasn't totally out of luck since another seller listed Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4 and I won all but one for £4.99 + P&P, Vol. 1 working perfectly this time around. I'm now waiting to see if Vol. 5 is going to turn up (ordered from DVD Pacific) sometime this year before attempting to get the rarest volume of the lot; volume 4. Speaking of which, I'm already kicking myself for now getting the used copies that appeared on Amazon.co.uk while I had the chance.

Anyway, enough rambling. Both Gankutsuou and the novel are truly fascinating pieces of work that EVERYONE should experience. It doesn't matter if you don't watch anime, nor does it matter if you don't read much; anyone with good taste would be able to appreciate the quality of a classic tale such as The Count of Monte Cristo