Return to Labyrinth, Volume 1

I love the movie. I've been watchin it since I was a kid. My kids now watch it and love it too. This book is totally the same style and feel of the movie. I enjoyed reading it and will enjoy reading it in the future.

I devoured this as soon as I got. Sarah looks really weird though...It feels like it ended all too soon and hopefully I can get the second one. Great Read!!

There have been a lot of negative comments about this "manga" (and I use that word loosely). My husband and I just got it and read it together, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was a fine continuation of the film's storyline. Let me explain why I gave it 5 stars. One, I loved the artwork for both the cover and the story. It was a somewhat "girlie" style as mangas go, but there were a lot of nice, subtle details in the drawings which gave the look of the book some nice texture. It looked and felt like a comic book version of the movie with the human characters drawn in an anime style, which is what it was supposed to be. Best of all Jareth always looks very slick, and has quite a presence on every page he's on just as he did in the movie. Two, I enjoyed the story. I was actually glad to see Sarah as a supporting character with the focus on a teenage Toby instead. For me, a focus on the continued adventures of Sarah and Jareth's flirtations with her would have been the sappy fan fiction way to go. In this story Jareth's love for Sarah is still felt, but is much more subdued and subtle. Blink and you might miss it, but it's there and, in my opinion, so much more powerful because of that. Finally the dialogue was top notch. I laughed quite a few times, particularly at the Hana character, and enjoyed the banter between Jareth and Toby. In my mind I could hear the characters saying the lines as they would if this were a sequel to the movie. I also have to point out that some of the things others have said about this book are outright false. It's never stated that Sarah doesn't believe in magic or fantasy anymore; only that she gave up theater because she "couldn't live in a fairy tale forever". The gang from the movie later laments that Sarah apparently forgot about them, but that just means she's lost track of old friends as time has gone on. Hey, happens to all of us. Anyways, I sense there's going to be more of Sarah in the next volumes... I mean, where do you think Jareth is heading off to in the end, hmm? On the downside, I didn't care for Moppet (obligatory Toby love interest alert!), and the evil math teacher in the beginning was awfully cliche, but the strengths of this story far outweighed those weaknesses. Very much looking forward to the next one.

The first of the trilogy exceeded my expectations. I've never been a fan of anime and was preparing myself for disappointment when I read that Return to Labyrinth would be manga-style. I've never read any manga, so I can't comment on the criticism left by other reviewers. I would describe issue one as graphic novel - I was expecting a regular monthly comic book size 20 page volume and was delighted to receive a book nearly 200 pages long! I was thrilled to find a more fully fleshed-out story line and found myself not hating the artwork. No, it's not great art but it's good enough that you can spot "cameos" by other Henson characters. The story is so good that I wasn't distracted by the art style. The story begins with a 4 page recap of "Labyrinth" before segueing into Toby's story. Toby seems about 15 or 16, with Sarah now 31 and working as a teacher. We see her only briefly, before Toby stumbles into his own adventure. Sarah has never told him of the events when he was a baby, leaving him completely unprepared for Jareth's arrival and for the offer the Goblin King presents to him. Jareth appears caught up in other-worldly politics and, based on a hint from the feature film ("I think I'll call him 'Jareth'. He's got my eyes."), turns to Toby for the solution. Issue one had me laughing out loud in several spots and left me eagerly awaiting the next issue. I think most Labyrinth fans would enjoy Return to Labyrinth.