Well, I have not read the book, so I will review the anime on its own, although I know how the narrative is.
The storyline is very consistent and catchy, but the pace is somewhat tedious. I have a complaint in the final chapters, because they are too happy, when the nature of the show had a good mix of happiness and sadness. That exaggerated happiness weakened the atmosphere, except remembering Fantine's suffering and Jean Valjean's death, but both moments were so brief to outweight the loss of atmosphere. Otherwise, the atmosphere was good in the another episodes. The drama is well done. The moral of the story (people can change) felt a bit anvilicious, because in the final chapters, that's said uncountable times.
The art is OK. The design of characters is pretty, but not specially good, except with Jean Valjean and Javert. The animation was sound. The scenery is very well done. The forests, the houses and the geography are heavily and carefully detailed.
The music is pretty good, especially the opening song (the opening animation is also good, but that's another story).
The characters were likeable and memorable, but are not really special. The canon foreigners, Alain and Chou Chou are nice adds to the storyline. however, Cosette is not very special because she is a flat character.
Although a "disneyfied" adaptation of a serious media, it managed to bring good drama to the story, because the sufferings were clearly watched. Sure, prostitution and suicide were omitted in this version, but there is still too many sadness and seriousness. It adapted the story into a child show without removing the essence.
