![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Rose of Versailles: a classic for a reason
Last night I finished watching the classic anime Rose of Versailles. This anime should sound familiar to anyone who has poked about in the the history of our beloved art form. RoV and its source manga was one of the most powerful influences upon both genres. Exactly how Rose of Versailles has helped shape the face of modern-day anime and manga is something others have written before and much more eloquently than me, so I'll sum up my version with this:
Rose of Versailles is important. It's big. It's something every anime fan who considers themselves more than the generic Cartoon Network Adult Swim crowd needs to watch. Trust me, it's worth it.
So. Rose of Versailles. Originally aired in Japan from 1979 to 1980. A nostalgic favorite for a large portion of the Japanese population. 40 eps long, and worth every single minute. Think outside the box and go try it. :D
Rose of Versailles is important. It's big. It's something every anime fan who considers themselves more than the generic Cartoon Network Adult Swim crowd needs to watch. Trust me, it's worth it.
It took me 10 years to watch the series. Why so long?? Because it isn't easily available, and once I learned of it I had to be convinced to watch it. It happened thanks to me belonging to an old-time mailing list flocked by shoujo manga and anime veterans. Over the months after I joined, I kept hearing statements like "Rose of Versailles is great! RoV is wonderful! RoV is so important to modern anime and manga!! New show blahblahblah is good, but it's no RoV!" So I decided to obtain the first fansubbed tape back in the late 90s just to see what the fuss was about.
Yes, this means I started watching RoV the same way most people read Dickens or watch Citizen Kane. You don't expect to enjoy it or even really like it. It's just something that Everyone True Fan Needs to Experience. But lucky me, I DID like it. Now let me tell you why.
RoV is based on history. Specifically, the French Revolution. Quite rare for anime, hmm? This means no magic, no aliens, no robots, no named attacks, no gods or demons or vampires, no transformation sequences, no constant powering up so the hero can defeat the next big enemy, etc etc. Just people, living their lives. But hey, you can find that in a large portion of the shoujo anime that's been done, though you might have to really hunt to avoid the magic angle. So what makes RoV so different?
The story. Yes, the main character, Oscar Jarjeys is an awesome noblewoman in drag, raised as a man. Yes, she falls in love. Yes, she has enemies and even fangirls. But the kicker about RoV is that this is NOT a story about Oscar's love life. It's a story about the French Revolution that is relayed from Oscar's point of view.
Everything that happens around and to Oscar is important to the developing revolution. The people she meets, the enemies she defeats, her devotion to Marie Antoinette, her generosity towards the odd commoner...everything ties back in and influences the show's powerful ending. Even the love stories and affairs, both Oscar's, Marie's, and that of other characters, come back to the main story. That is really amazing, especially for what is considered a "cartoon".
Speaking of which, RoV is also incredible because it's so very different from "cartoons". In the first four eps alone, we hear about extramarital affairs, kept mistresses, assassination, the balancing act that is the politics of holding court, and arranged marriages for the good of nations. Moving on, we learn of suicide, prostitutes, forgery, corrupt politicians, useless greedy clergymen, pedophiles, and starving people. People make mistakes and must suffer the consequences. A kid is shot in the street in front of our very eyes. Someone's else's mother is trampled underneath a carriage. The commoners are filthy and starving while the rich throw lavish parties and pretend the less fortunate don't exist. At the very end, no one lives happily every after. Marie Antionette still falls to the guillotine, France is still a mess in the aftermath of the Revolution, and people are still starving in the streets.
All this from a little girl's cartoon. Heh. XD
Unfortunately for anime fans, RoV is very unlikely to ever be licensed. And you can forget about it ever appearing on Cartoon Network. (Hahah! The thought of how the Adult Swim crowd would react makes me crack up. XD) It simply doesn't have the marketing appeal. The only way the series could make money would be if someone sold it in the style of AnimEigo's limited releases. Make just as many DVD copies as people preorder, possibly a few extras, and hopefully you'll earn a couple bucks profit from each set. Because let's face it guys, most NA fans want their anime drawn in the modern style of animation they're used to. The vast majority of NA fans will take one look at the artwork and dismiss it as old and therefore boring and unworthy. To quote Shoujo Editor #1: "Fans want everything to look like Fruits Basket." A license is not impossible, but it is very very unlikely.
So until that fortuitous even happens, fans who want to experience this anime for themselves must find fansubs or borrow from someone who already has found them. Thankfully at least two different versions are available as digisubs, so you won't have to drag out your old VCR to watch. (Of course, the anime might be licensed in Europe, but as usual when I babble I'm thinking in NA terms.) I think the manga has a slightly better chance for licensing, but I fear it's still rather unlikely due to the dated artwork problem. Old artwork = crap in the minds of your averageteenager manga shopper, after all.
I haven't pursued buying the original myself, but I'm quite sure it has been reprinted many times in Japan, and licensed in France and other European nations. Odds are pretty good at least someone has scanlated it into
English. ^^V
As a final note--and you guys know I can speak with complete authority on this part--the horses in RoV have
some of the best in animation you'll ever see, especilaly for a tv series. The animators clearly studied Muybridge and live-action footage. The horses walk, trot, canter, have leads, and even usually rear and jump properly. Granted, the tack is over-stylized and the humans can't sit the horses properly because the typical anime-style long legs messes with the ratios, but the horses' movement??? Very impressive. All of it drawn completely by hand. Awesome. You can't get that anymore. XD
Yes, this means I started watching RoV the same way most people read Dickens or watch Citizen Kane. You don't expect to enjoy it or even really like it. It's just something that Everyone True Fan Needs to Experience. But lucky me, I DID like it. Now let me tell you why.
RoV is based on history. Specifically, the French Revolution. Quite rare for anime, hmm? This means no magic, no aliens, no robots, no named attacks, no gods or demons or vampires, no transformation sequences, no constant powering up so the hero can defeat the next big enemy, etc etc. Just people, living their lives. But hey, you can find that in a large portion of the shoujo anime that's been done, though you might have to really hunt to avoid the magic angle. So what makes RoV so different?
The story. Yes, the main character, Oscar Jarjeys is an awesome noblewoman in drag, raised as a man. Yes, she falls in love. Yes, she has enemies and even fangirls. But the kicker about RoV is that this is NOT a story about Oscar's love life. It's a story about the French Revolution that is relayed from Oscar's point of view.
Everything that happens around and to Oscar is important to the developing revolution. The people she meets, the enemies she defeats, her devotion to Marie Antoinette, her generosity towards the odd commoner...everything ties back in and influences the show's powerful ending. Even the love stories and affairs, both Oscar's, Marie's, and that of other characters, come back to the main story. That is really amazing, especially for what is considered a "cartoon".
Speaking of which, RoV is also incredible because it's so very different from "cartoons". In the first four eps alone, we hear about extramarital affairs, kept mistresses, assassination, the balancing act that is the politics of holding court, and arranged marriages for the good of nations. Moving on, we learn of suicide, prostitutes, forgery, corrupt politicians, useless greedy clergymen, pedophiles, and starving people. People make mistakes and must suffer the consequences. A kid is shot in the street in front of our very eyes. Someone's else's mother is trampled underneath a carriage. The commoners are filthy and starving while the rich throw lavish parties and pretend the less fortunate don't exist. At the very end, no one lives happily every after. Marie Antionette still falls to the guillotine, France is still a mess in the aftermath of the Revolution, and people are still starving in the streets.
All this from a little girl's cartoon. Heh. XD
Unfortunately for anime fans, RoV is very unlikely to ever be licensed. And you can forget about it ever appearing on Cartoon Network. (Hahah! The thought of how the Adult Swim crowd would react makes me crack up. XD) It simply doesn't have the marketing appeal. The only way the series could make money would be if someone sold it in the style of AnimEigo's limited releases. Make just as many DVD copies as people preorder, possibly a few extras, and hopefully you'll earn a couple bucks profit from each set. Because let's face it guys, most NA fans want their anime drawn in the modern style of animation they're used to. The vast majority of NA fans will take one look at the artwork and dismiss it as old and therefore boring and unworthy. To quote Shoujo Editor #1: "Fans want everything to look like Fruits Basket." A license is not impossible, but it is very very unlikely.
So until that fortuitous even happens, fans who want to experience this anime for themselves must find fansubs or borrow from someone who already has found them. Thankfully at least two different versions are available as digisubs, so you won't have to drag out your old VCR to watch. (Of course, the anime might be licensed in Europe, but as usual when I babble I'm thinking in NA terms.) I think the manga has a slightly better chance for licensing, but I fear it's still rather unlikely due to the dated artwork problem. Old artwork = crap in the minds of your average
I haven't pursued buying the original myself, but I'm quite sure it has been reprinted many times in Japan, and licensed in France and other European nations. Odds are pretty good at least someone has scanlated it into
English. ^^V
As a final note--and you guys know I can speak with complete authority on this part--the horses in RoV have
some of the best in animation you'll ever see, especilaly for a tv series. The animators clearly studied Muybridge and live-action footage. The horses walk, trot, canter, have leads, and even usually rear and jump properly. Granted, the tack is over-stylized and the humans can't sit the horses properly because the typical anime-style long legs messes with the ratios, but the horses' movement??? Very impressive. All of it drawn completely by hand. Awesome. You can't get that anymore. XD
So. Rose of Versailles. Originally aired in Japan from 1979 to 1980. A nostalgic favorite for a large portion of the Japanese population. 40 eps long, and worth every single minute. Think outside the box and go try it. :D