Translated by Dallbun, hosted at Empty Movement!

The two novels released shortly after the television series and manga were categorized as "light novels," easy reading aimed primarily at young women. Little was known about them in the English-speaking fandom until in 2006, when In the Rose Garden forum member Ger began translating the second novel. This translation was never completed, but later in 2011, Dallbun began translating both novels, and with his blessing, this site exists to host and draw attention to his awesome effort.

The novelist calls these books 'younger brothers' to the original manga and series, with recognizable events that are nevertheless reinterpreted to exist within an independent continuity. Twin Saplings draws from the first five episodes with Miki's first duel, and Verdant Hopes broadly revisits Wakaba's Black Rose character arc. There are recognizable events, to be sure, but the novels do blaze their own trail through the material, especially with regards to the relationships.

Twin Saplings

Verdant Hopes

Both novels are written by Ichirō Ōkouchi, a screenwriter and novelist with several anime screenplay credits as well as a spattering of anime novelizations such as these. More information about him and his works can be found on his Wikipedia, MyAnimeList, and IMDb pages.

Chiho Saito illustrates the covers and a few images peppered throughout the novels. For more information about her, visit Empty Movement's site on the creators of the series and their input, From the Mouths of Babes, where her specific information can be found here. Also visit her Wikipedia and MyAnimeList pages for complete works and more information.

We've tried to make the content as easily accessible as possible, with several formats available for you to use, including ePub and Mobi for your book readers!

A heroic attempt's been made to preserve the spirit of the original material, however there's been some reinterpretation of the formatting for ease of reading, and images and covers are recreated and translated as needed. As always, if you run into any problems or glaring code errors with the content in any of the formats available, please do contact me, at giovanna@ohtori.nu.

Translation credit comes to us from Dallbun, obviously. Giovanna coded the content into html and the other formats offered for perusal. Giovanna made the covers, based on the covers of the novels from Japan. Saito's illustrations within the novels edited by Giovanna based on scans previously donated to The Utena Gallery, with queen-of-hearts92 permitting us to steal a lone missing scan of Juri and Miki from the second novel. Thanks everybody! :)

The original content belongs to Ichirō Ōkouchi, Chiho Saito, and Shougakukan/Palette Books, based on characters and content belonging to bePapas and everyone else.