Yet my favorite yuri series of the year wasn't a modern series, but instead a beautiful historical melodrama that evokes the history of the very genre.
GOODBYE, MY ROSE GARDEN (Sayonara Rozu Gaden), by Dr Pepperco. First published in 2018 and first published in North America in 2020.
PLOT:
Hanako can't believe her luck. She travelled all the way from Japan to England to meet her favorite author, only to be denied. At that moment, she was taken in by the beautiful and elegant noblewoman Alice Douglas. Now she's working as Alice's personal maid, but her mistress has a tragic secret. Alice is a lesbian who has once already dealt with scandal, and wants Hanako to help her kill herself.
STORY:
In many ways, Goodbye, My Rose Garden is a good old-fashioned tragic melodrama. This is far from new ground for yuri as a genre, but I think what makes this particular take on it so successful lies in its what the main duo represent and what binds them together.
Alice's world is one defined by tradition, rules, and the past. Her role in the world was defined for her from the day she was born: maintain the perfect image, obey all the social rules, make a financially and socially advantageous marriage so that her family can maintain their wealth, seek similar opportunities, and keep this cycle of power going. Alice's own thoughts and wishes for her life do not matter within this structure; they are needless at best and an inconvenience to others at worst.
Then on top of all of that, she's a lesbian at a time where that was not just socially unacceptable but literally illegal. The outing and trial of Oscar Wilde is still in recent memory. Alice has already dealt with one scandal, and homophobia is already sowing seeds of distrust in her fiance's mind. She is truly a bird in a gilded cage, unable to sing and fearful of an innate part of herself that could destroy her life and those of everyone around her.
It's little wonder then that Alice would feel that the only choice she can actively make is to take her own life. Yet this is why it's so important that someone like Hanako is there to extend her some degree of solace and grace.
Hanako couldn't be any more different from Alice in social standing, but her world is defined by flexibility and the promise of a better future. While Hanako may be a poor orphan, her education has given her both opportunity and motive to better her situation and meet her idol, something that could not have happened if not for the loosening of Japan's strict social structures after the Meiji revolution as well as new laws granting girls greater access to education. For Hanako, the future can only look up which is why she's so shocked that someone as privileged and poised as Alice could be so miserable. While Hanako agrees to keep her mistress's secret and aid her eventual suicide, she unwittingly helps to save Alice just by providing a safe outlet and a sunny attitude, which in turn leads Hanako to question if her feelings for Alice are motivated by more than gratitude and awe.
It's fitting that what brings these two together is literature. For centuries, novels were not just a popular mode of entertainment for young women, but fiction was one of the few outlets where women could express and explore themselves to their heart's content, including their sexual orientation. This was not just true in European fiction of time, but in Japanese literature as well. Yuri itself grew from stories that were meant to improve young ladies' minds, but instead provided an outlet for young queer women to express their true desires within a safe space and in return provided comfort and understanding for later lesbians and creators to come. I don't know how much of this is intentional on the part of the mangaka, but Goodbye, My Rose Garden is not only just a well-crafted story, but a fitting tribute to the history of its own genre.
ART:
Dr. Pepperco certainly put in the work to make the world of this series as lavish and historical correct as possible. Great care has been put into the backgrounds, the fashion, and the many beautiful roses that burst forth from the panels. The characters are wide-eyed and cute, but not in a way that distracts from all the historical detail. It never becomes overbearing because the panels keep the focus on Alice and Hanako, letting the backgrounds fade out as needed as they zoom in on their faces.
RATING:
I
f it wasn't obvious from the 700+ words I've dedicated to it, I really liked Goodbye, My Rose Garden. It's a sad story, but it is also a tender and hopeful romance that builds upon real world history and literary history to create a manga as beautiful as any rose.
This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is complete with 3 volumes available. 2 volumes have been released and are currently in print.
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