Not quite a fan yet, but I recently download the digisubs of it (and Brother Dear Brother) with the intent of doing an SKU-inspiration study. Between the two I was thinking it'd be a cool essay for the analysis section, since those two series definitely had an impact on Ikuhara (don't care what he says about it ).

By all reports it's very very awesome though; the main two characters aren't actually lesbians, which I thought was interesting, the focus was on their friendship. Kinda a view I've always taken about SKU, though the nature of the relationship between Anthy and Utena is of course quite a debate.

Okay.. I've heard the name of this series a lot lately, especially when Utena comes up. So.. could someone fill me in? What's it about? If it's a lot  like Utena.. O:

I finished watching RoV a few weeks ago. I like the setting and accuracy of the facts and how well they put a totally fictional character among the historical context. You get a very good overview of the period before the revolution. If my history teacher had knew about this, she would ahve probably made us watch it when we were studying this period last year.

(That's almost impossible since the majority of Estonias don't know what 'anime' really is, and if they'd see that it's an animation then they'd think you're very childish for watching something like this. [/end rant])

I read about it on Wikipedia... That's all I know about it. I might watch that Episode 1 link Tamago posted here, though.

Live-Evil has fansubbed the entire anime:
http://www.live-evil.org

Lillicious is scanlating the manga:
http://www.lililicious.cjb.net/

Considering that Ikuhara has actually admitted to Utena being (at the very least) a visual parody of Berubara, I'd more than recommend watching it all. At first I started watching only for the connection to Utena, however about halfway in my own personal love of European History kicked in and made me a fan. I highly recommend it.

However the French Live action movie kind of scared me, if only because Andre had chest hair. Not something I'm at all used to seeing bishonen charecters have.



Edit: it appears someone beat me to pointing out where to find it. ;

Last edited by Squirrama (10-22-2006 12:40:27 PM)

SleepDebtFairy wrote:

Question: Is the manga art style/plot any better, or would you recommend the anime more? Or are they relatively the same? Thanks.

The art style, I suspect, is about the same, since the manga art pictures I have look like the series. Don't quote me on it, but I've been told it's a much better manga than series, and that the one they got right was Brother, Dear Brother.

As for the anime, I have the Live-eviL fansubs, I got them off a pretty active torrent, that would be very easy to find at any of the major search sites. (Mininova is the one I used.)

As for the manga being translated, that's a great goodness.

Ger wrote:

There is also a European live action version of the movie (it's REALLY bad, but so bad it's good),

I spent most of that movie impressed that there is an anime about the French Revolution that the French loved so much they made a movie out of. Lady Oscar was such camp though. Amazing camp. I also enjoyed it having been made in English. I mean the craziness of a French movie, set in France, story by the Japanese, told in English? Pure win.

In all seriousness though, as someone majoring in Women in European History, Berubara managed to combine two of my greatest loves. History and anime. The fact we end up with French Revolutionaries wearing bellbottoms gets entirely forgiven due to that.

(And Andre's eye, if ever there was a case where translucent hair was needed, it's that boy's eye. Does it even exist?)

I’ve heard rumors that ADV, in one of their moments of talking about classic anime, mentioned Berubara’s licencing rites, and how they wouldn’t mind distributing it, since it is one of the great anime classics. Hard not to be when its the origin of Shoujo anime.

I watched Rose of Versailles a few months ago, and really enjoyed it.  It's always fun when you can sit in a history class, listen to the professor drone about the French Revolution (ended up dropping that class when I realized she was treating it as if we were in elementary school, and it was a mixed class of graduate and undergraduate students--although that has absolutely nothing to do with this post...), and you can actually visualize certain parts because of the series.  I really got a kick out of doing that.

Gio, thanks for mentiong that torrent site.  I've been wanting to watch Brother, Dear Brother for quite sometime now, but hadn't seen more than the first episode listed at the two places I look.  And while I'm not a big fan of scanlation, I'll definitely keep the RoV site bookmarked until I get around to getting the manga series myself and doing my personal translation.

Animeigo has also at least hinted at mild interest in Rose of Versailles (as can be seen by their recent contest at Anime on DVD).  It's for this reason that I'm hesitant to purchase the R2s for the time being.  They're so pricey, and I'd hate to buy them only to have English-subtitled ones come out a year or two later.  Then again, this is a show from the 70s, chances just aren't all that good for it coming over.  But a girl can dream.

Giovanna wrote:

Cerise wrote:

Gio, thanks for mentiong that torrent site.  I've been wanting to watch Brother, Dear Brother for quite sometime now, but hadn't seen more than the first episode listed at the two places I look.

I'll warn you now, there's a reason the 39 episodes only consume 2.9GB of space; the first 28 episodes are low quality transfers of the VHS fansubs, and the rest up until the last four are higher quality, but still transfers of the VHS sub. I'm spoiled by high quality digisubs, and that, BDB is not. If you're going to get irritated by the low quality and small resolution, don't bother. Personally it's going to irk me because I'm a snob, but it's worth it as a labor of love to see this series at all. I remember looking at the Technogirls website every single week waiting for them to finish the series so I could get the subs all at once. Actually I did get RoV, but Yasha's got it and I never finished watching before I passed it on to her, and the digisubs of RoV are very good.

I assumed as much, given the specific mention of "various quality" (I always assume the worst when I see something like that).  It really shouldn't be a problem, given the horrible quality of the Candy Candy digisubs I'm currently watching.  I can deal with worse, if it's the only way to see it.  I'm more than willing to strain my eyes for classic anime.  New stuff I wouldn't put up with bad quality, but the old stuff is typically worth it to me.

Oh I Rose of Versailles so much.

Seriously Oscar is the kind of woman anime is seriously lacking in; strong, intelligent, honorable, aloof yet charming, not conventially beautiful yet very desirable. Her personality type harkens more to Juri than Utena though because she does carry a hidden love for Fersen for years though she eventually does move on to her one true love.

I also loved the portrayal of Marie Antoinette, while she is obviously an airhead, she is also kind and nuturing. RoV makes a good example of the argument Antoinette was overly kind to her favorites and too ignorant of life outside of Versailles to understand and help her people rather than a raging bitch who didn't give a damn.

Also the abundance of Rose motifs is definitely something Ikuhara borrowed, maybe the swords too.

Last edited by skewed_tartan (10-22-2006 08:01:24 PM)

skewed_tartan wrote:

Oh I Rose of Versailles so much.

Seriously Oscar is the kind of woman anime is seriously lacking in; strong, intelligent, honorable, aloof yet charming, not conventially beautiful yet very desirable. Her personality type harkens more to Juri than Utena though because she does carry a hidden love for Fersen for years though she eventually does move on to her one true love.

I also loved the portrayal of Marie Antoinette, while she is obviously an airhead, she is also kind and nuturing. RoV makes a good example of the argument Antoinette was overly kind to her favorites and too ignorant of life outside of Versailles to understand and help her people rather than a raging bitch who didn't give a damn.

Also the abundance of Rose motifs is definitely something Ikuhara borrowed, maybe the swords too.

Yes! Everyone told me that Utena was ripped right off of Oscar, but the more I watched her (especially in the later episodes after she grows up and doesn't see things in such white and black anymore) she seemed more and more Juri-ish. I think I can safely say that the young Oscar is Utena - rather idealistic, fighting for what she sees is good (protecting the monarchy, serving her country, continuing her father's legacy) and that the older Oscar, as the Revolution draws near, is Juri.

I thought Berubara did a good job on M-A. She's obviously a kid - a spoiled, selfish kid, but in the end she does try as hard as she knows how, to no avail. She would have given more of a damn if only she knew the truth of what she was defending, but even the queen of France had limits to what she could do. I remember the later half of the series, as Oscar is trying to insinuate to her that things are not what they seem. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I was trying to place Fersen as an Utena character, but I'm a bit stumped. Tsuwabuki? X_x;