This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
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.
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Versailles no Bara is one of my favorite classics. You can definitely see where they pulled the Utena character from, and if you look closely at the characterization of Marie Antoinette, I think you'll find more than a few shades of our favorite blonde bombshell....
Unlike Utena there's really none of the blatant sexual innuendos, though. With Oscar and Rosalie (the two female characters who I assume you're referring to), it's more a case of hero worship. In any case, both of them end up in very heterosexual relationships.
What Berubara has that Utena lacks is a strong male protagonist...I don't know if that's good or bad. Probably the addition of a male "good guy" character to Utena would have taken the focus away from Utena herself. As it is, Andre in Berubara is definitely the male foil character to Oscar.
In any case, you should watch it RIGHT NOW!!!1 (cuz I wanna see your take on a compare/contrast with the two series XDD)
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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:
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SleepDebtFairy wrote:
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:
Here is the 1st episode of Rose of Versailles, it comes in 3 parts. Being from Youtube, it helps to have broadband or faster, otherwise it will take hours for it to upload.
Rose of Versailles Episode 01 part 1-3
Rose of Versailles Episode 01 part 2-3
Rose of Versailles Episode 01 part 3-3
Enjoy!
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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])
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This is the only anime I like more than Utena.
I've only been able to see short clips of the Takarazuka versions. T_T
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I read about it on Wikipedia... That's all I know about it. I might watch that Episode 1 link Tamago posted here, though.
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I read a sample of it in a big book about Manga... and it looks wonderful! I'd love to read it... anyone know where I can download it perhaps?
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Live-Evil has fansubbed the entire anime:
http://www.live-evil.org
Lillicious is scanlating the manga:
http://www.lililicious.cjb.net/
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Thanks!
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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)
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Okay, I looked Rose of Versailles up on wikipedia and watched the first episode on youtube..
Wow. I like the story behind this series so far. Sadly, I don't like the animation that much.. it's really old. But I might have to keep watching and ignore it because the plot and the history references seem awesome. And Oascar and Andre.
Question: Is the manga art style/plot any better, or would you recommend the anime more? Or are they relatively the same? Thanks.
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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.
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SleepDebtFairy wrote:
Okay, I looked Rose of Versailles up on wikipedia and watched the first episode on youtube..
Wow. I like the story behind this series so far. Sadly, I don't like the animation that much.. it's really old. But I might have to keep watching and ignore it because the plot and the history references seem awesome. And Oascar and Andre.
Question: Is the manga art style/plot any better, or would you recommend the anime more? Or are they relatively the same? Thanks.
Versailles no Bara is one of the granddaddys (grandmothers?) of anime. It was made in the 70s, as you can see from the art style, and you can definitely see the huge influence that art style had on the character designs and overall "feel" of Utena. At first the animation style can be jarring, if you're not used to older shows, but after a few episodes you don't really notice that much. Live Evil has done a really good job of subbing, as well. The dialogue is spot-on.
Besides the fact that Berubara is basically historical fiction and Utena is....psychedelic weirdorama, you can definitely see how the two shows are related. The inspirations for characterization in Utena are drawn mostly directly out of Berubara, especially Nanami (Marie Antoinette), Anthy (Rosalie), and Utena herself (Oscar). I have yet to place Andre. As I told Gio, what Utena lacks is a strong male protagonist character - but of course I think the story would have probably suffered from a male protagonist, since the whole point of Utena is that Tenjou Utena IS the prince and male protagonist.
What I really like about Berubara is the abundance of strong women, which is another direct reflection into Utena.
I also neglected to mention that Versailles no Bara is STILL one of the most popular anime in Japan today, especially among older men and women who first watched it when it came out 30 years ago. There is actually a movie in the works. I'm not sure what the release date is.
There is also a European live action version of the movie (it's REALLY bad, but so bad it's good), and the entire anime has been dubbed and released in French, so if you can speak French, I suggest you get your hands on some French dubs and watch the show in its intended language XD
Last edited by Ger (10-22-2006 02:19:54 PM)
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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.
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I PerfectVerse! Lililicious is awesome! Sweet, sweet yuri, my preeeecious... *coughs* Sorry. It is awesome though Live-Evil really does have great fansubs. They played his first few episodes of Rose of Versailles at a Fanime convention I went to back in... 2003, I think.
Is anybody else in love with the theme song, by the way? "Barawa barawa!"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Cerise wrote:
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.
Oh, I would stand in line for a release from AnimEigo, if that ever has a chance in hell of happening. I have the box set they did of the original Superdimension Fortress Macross about 7 years ago (my favorite anime ), and it was just so flawless and well done. They spent about a year or two touching up the entire series just so they could put it to digital format. The set came with complete liner notes, mecha specs, lyrics, character profiles, and trivia. There are even little Easter Eggs on the discs. You can tell that the team who worked on this were true Macross fans. (unfortunately about 3 years after that, the rights for Macross reverted back to Harmony Gold and they made AnimEigo cancel any further release of their Macross sets...a real shame because they worked so hard on it.)
Anyway, as an end to the rambling, I can't think of a better team to work on Berubara if they actually decide to do so.
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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)
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If you guys like Marie Antoinette, the biography by Antonia Frasier is very good.
Also, the movie Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppolla opened this weekend, but I didn't think it was that great. You should probably wait to rent it. The costuming is the best part. Kirsten Dunst was OK in some parts, but bad in others.
I think the anime looks a lot like the manga, but with less outfits. Since it's 39 episodes, back in the 70s, they didn't have a ton of budgeting for fancy animation. However, the voice acting is good, and although the art is a bit dated, the story isn't. I like that there's a lot of characters, but not so many you can't keep track of them.
There's a rock cover of the opening song somewhere.
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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;
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Perfect Verse wrote:
Also, the movie Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppolla opened this weekend, but I didn't think it was that great. You should probably wait to rent it. The costuming is the best part. Kirsten Dunst was OK in some parts, but bad in others.
My sister really wants to see that movie (though I think mostly for the costuming) and I'm mildly interested as well for the setting and well costuming. Okay I admit it, you give me something pretty to look at and I'll sit through just about anything.
Ger wrote:
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.
As much as I agree with her personality being closer to Juri, especially since she takes herself seriously like Juri even when she was young, unlike Utena who goes through life with a sense of humor, movie!Utena was alot like Oscar. I mean both were so cool and collected most of the time but when their tempers snap they tend to take it out on the one they love. (Anshi in Utena's case, Andre in Oscar's.) Juri at least has never struck Shiori or been aggressive towards her in any circumstance. Also the "princely" qualities of course in all three.
Fersen? Hard to say though I lean towards Tswubaki too in unrequited love, or maybe Miki? Though in Fersen's case as far as we know, he didn't have a thing for his sister.
Last edited by skewed_tartan (10-22-2006 10:22:52 PM)
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