Holiday Review: THE ROSE OF VERSAILLES

Yeah...anyone who has been reading this blog for a while or follows me on Twitter knows that this review has been a long time coming. 

After all, my fascination with old shojo is very well-documented.  Then there's the fact that we waited FIVE YEARS for this series to finally reach print, and if not for shipping delays it would have taken this same spot last year.  So all that's left to ask is this: was it worth the wait?  

THE ROSE OF VERSAILLES (Berusaiyu no Bara), by Riyoko Ikeda.  First published in 1972 and first published in North America in 2020.

PLOT:

Marie Antoinette is the precocious and pampered youngest child of Austrian empress Maria Therese.  When young Marie is sent of to France to wed the young Dauphin, her family wonders if she will be able to adapt to the responsibilities of royalty within the decadent, scheming court of Versailles.  Their fears are soon proven correct, as the young princess begins to lose herself in spending and her own emotions.

Oscar Francois de Jarjayes is the youngest child of a French general.  Raised as a boy and her father's heir, her first assignment as a soldier is to protect Marie Antoinette on her way to Versailles.  At first Oscar is skeptical of the coquettish princess and court life, but soon find herself caught up in its many scandals and won over by the princess's innocent and tender heart.

STORY:

 There are few shojo manga that are as daunting to review as The Rose of Versailles.  It's an immensely successful and influential work worldwide, and one that even anime fans are aware of thanks to its equally acclaimed anime adaptation.  It was held up for decades as one of the Great Unlicensed Works, thanks to American manga fandom's general indifference to old shojo and Ikeda's iron-fisted control of her work at every level.  The fact that I am able to hold a copy in my hands still feels like a miracle.

The beginning of this series is so humble, positively quaint.  It's easy to forget that at the time of The Rose of Versailles' debut, Riyoko Ikeda was just another up-and-coming shojo mangaka.  She had no grand ambitions for this series beyond making a manga biography of Marie Antoinette and this is clearly evident in the early chapters.  Yet as Antoinette's story progresses, so too does Ikeda's confidence and skill.  While it seems that seemingly everyone but the villains forgives Antoinette because she's just so darn cute, Ikeda is not blind to her faults.  Antoinette may be a charming, beautiful ingenue, but she's also prone to power and ego trips and not so prone to deep thought or frugality and Ikeda makes it clear that those qualities are setting into place some of the forces that will ultimately bring her and her whole world down.

Yet it's easy to see why Oscar became the true star of this series.  While she's something of a brash brat at times, she has a keen sense of justice and a skepticism about the trappings of aristocracy that lets her serve as both an antidote to the gaudy, glittering trappings of Versailles and one of the few people able and willing to enact some justice for the poor commoners who end up ensnared within the plot.  The biggest beneficiary of this so far is Rosalie, who basically takes over as the story's token ingenue once Antoinette starts getting a bit too full of herself.  Her story is such a litany of tragedy that it verges upon parody, but Oscar's willingness to help her serves as the greatest proof of her character (as well as providing the most queer subtext in the story thus far).

The true brilliance of The Rose of Versailles is in how well royal intrigue of the 1770s meshes with shojo melodrama of the 1970s.  It truly communicates how every word, every gesture, every casual snub or choice of friend had such huge consequences for Antoinette, the court, and even France as a whole.  It's a combination made in heaven, and it's that potent combination that makes this series so compulsively readable nearly 50 years later.

ART:

Previously I've talked about Claudine and how masterful Ikeda's art was in that slim little volume.  The artwork here isn't quite up to those lyrical heights, but it's clear that Ikeda was spreading her artistic wings with each new chapter.  The characters are typical of Ikeda's era, with their sparkling eyes, precious faces, and long and lovingly styled hair, and when combined with the ornate fashion of Antoinette's time the effect is striking. 

I do wish she had a little more variety in how she drew faces; there are simply too many well-coiffed young blondes to keep completely straight at times.  In the early chapters Ikeda tends to lean on a lot of goofy reactions, but as it goes on she plays more with the layout and more abstract elements.  Panels spread out and lose their boundaries.  Shock and trauma literally cracks the image like glass.  She's forging her own unique style with each new chapter, which makes me excited to see what it will look like by Book 4 or 5.

PRESENTATION:

While I do appreciate the pretty gilt hardcovers and many instances of color art, part of me would have liked to have seen perhaps an essay or two to give readers more context about this series, the time period, or about Riyoko Ikeda's career.

RATING:

Honestly, this rating was all but a given.  The Rose of Versailles earns its status as a shojo classic by combining high drama with history and Ikeda's lovely and increasingly elegant art.  Anyone who consider themselves a respectable manga fan needs to read this, or better still give it a place of honor on their own shelves.

This series is published by Udon.  This series is complete in Japan with 10 volumes available. 3 2-in-1 omnibuses have been published and are currently in print.

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