Love and intrigues at Versailles: Lady Oscar!
- Details
- Written by Artemis
“There is a celebration at the court of France, a new child is born”... does it ring a bell? Since the '80s, Lady Oscar has been a fixture in Italian households, and beyond. Surely blonde Oscar Francois de Jarjayes raised a few eyebrows with her masculine appearance and swordsmanship; still, the majority never missed an episode, fully enjoying every aspect of the show. Versaille's splendor, court intrigues, the protagonist's struggle to reconcile her masculine education and the reasons of the heart... and the fairly accurate depiction of the population's dejected poverty and struggle for freedom, leading to the French Revolution.
The Manga
Lady Oscar, better known as Versailles no Bara (The Rose of Versailles) is a manga by Ryoko Ikeda, first published in 1972 and consisting of 82 chapters in 9 tankobon.The mangaka took inspiration from the biography of Marie Antoinette, written by Stefan Zweig. The series' success was astounding and unexpected, and prompted Ikeda to write a four part series in 1984, titled Lady Oscar – Gothic Stories and taking place within the main story. In 1987 Riyoko Ikeda begins working on a biographical serialization on Napoleone Bonaparte, Eroica – Napoleon's Glory – where we meet again a few of The Rose of Versailles' characters, including Bernard and Rosalie.
The manga is published in Italy only after the anime's success. The first edition comes out with Fratelli Fabbri Editori, in 1983: in color, with an alternate ending. It's then reprinted by Granata Press in 1993 and by Planet Manga in 2001, who also publishes Lady Oscar – gothic Stories. Finally, in 2008, d/visual republishes the series as a series of six hardcovers, with a new translation and the original title, Le Rose di Versailles.
The Anime
The anime, produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha and directed by Tadao Nagahama, airs in 1979. Out of forty episodes (plus one recap) only 24 are aired before the series is axed due to low ratings. From episode 18 onward Osamu Dezaki (who had already directed episode 5 and 12 along with Nagahama) takes over as a director. Character design was done by Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno. In 1986, following Shingo Araki's success with Saint Seiya, the Rose of Versailles anime returns to the screen and meets with some success.
In Italy, however, the anime is immediately successful: it airs for the first time March 1 1982, showing 37 episodes out of 40. It's the rerun on Bim Bum Bam in the same year, along with the last three episodes dubbed as a 'second series'. The whole thing is then shown again, with a new title ( Una Spada Per Lady Oscar) and a new OP by Mediaset in the early '90s. The series also ends up being the target of more and more censorship. Italy is the country that aired The Rose of Versailles the most: the anime is re-proposed, with restored scenes and the original OP, by Italia7, Rete 4, Canale 5, Italia Ten Television, Hiro, La 5, Boing, and last year by Italia 2.
The Anime Ops and Eds
The Rose of Versailles 's OP and ED deserve their own discussion, as even the Japanes version has a well known song as an opening: Lareine's Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru.
Even the band' singer, Kamijo, seemed to owe much of his look to The Rose of Versailles!
Just as well know is, in Italy, the first opening theme, sung by I Cavalieri del Re. Although the music changed, the image sequences remained the same.
In 1990, when the series was aired again by Mediaset, a new opening is written by Alessandra Valeri Manera and sung by Cristina D'Avena, and is kept for the rest of the '90s. Nonetheless, nostalgia takes its toll and, in 2002 and 2005, the anime is aired with its original Italian OP, and in 2008 Cristina D'Avena's song reappears but just as the ED.
Adaptations and Censorhsip
A first topic that needs discussing is the Italian adaptation of the title: Lady Oscar. Oscar, actually, is referred to with feminine pronouns for the whole series by all characters. This element actually obscures an important aspect of the character's psychology: how can someone who is always referred to as female behave as a man, and believe herself one? How can the other characters doubt at all that she is a woman? Sometimes learning this later, as a rumour? All these nuances are lost in the Italian version. This is probably due to the difficulty in translating into Italian the gender neutral suffix -sama.
More difficult to understand is the adapting into Italian of some french nouns, brutally copy and pasted from their Japanese translation. Valois, erroneously pronounced “Valò” by Japanese voice actors, turns into Balò (B and v are homophones in Japanese). Yet one would only need to check an history book, as Jeanne Valois- De la Motte was an actual historical figure!
A positive note comes from the Italian dub: Cinzia De Carolis' voice well fits the blonde swordswoman.
Another weak point of the Italian version comes from pervasive censorship. “French revolution” should make clear to anyone that the series is not exactly children's fare. In order to adapt the work to a younger audience, Lady Oscar was revised and edited twice. The 1982 version had a few censures, softening dialogues and scenes such as young Rosalie Lamorliére's clumsy attempts at prostitution being changed into begging.
More substantial changes were made when Lady Oscar became A Sword for Lady Oscar: a love scene between André and Oscar is cut, in spite of its already fairly tame nature (no actual nudity was shown).
Many wondered why a scene already aired in 1982 would suddenly become controversial in 1990, in an anime that already features fairly dramatic themes and scenes. Just as difficult to understand is the reason why some courtroom scenes (in which Jeanne Valois falsely admits to same sex relationships with the Queen and Oscar) were edited, while the dramatic suicide of the Countess of Polignac was kept intact.
Historical Trivia
General Francois de Jarjayes was an actual historical figure, though he was a man. He was one of the few loyal to the Queen until the end.
Rosalie Lamorlièle was also a real person. She wasn't Jeanne Valois' sister nor the Countess of Polignac's secret daughter, but merely one of Antoinette's attendants while imprisoned in the Conciergerie.
The relationship between the Queen and Count Hans Axel of Fersen was also real. Furthermore, their relationship was as close as depicted in the anime, and he did try to help her escape from Paris in turmoil.
Many scenes are lifted straight from Zweig's biography. Among these: the scene where Marie Antoinette and Fersen listen to a harp player under a gazebo, the necklace intrigue, Cardinal Rohan's character. Save for the figure of Oscar, few elements were straight out fabricated by Ikeda. She, for example, put the blame for the lack of a heir on Antoinette, while historically Louis XIV's impotence was a well known fact back in that day. The events after the fall of the Basteille are only briefly summarized in the manga: therefore the population's reaction to the King and Queen's decapitation, as well as the latter's famously known cool demeanor, which led her to effectively overtake her husband and become the real opposer to the Revolution, were left out of the adaptation.
Ryoko Ikeda skillfully painted the naivete of Marie Antoinette as she finds herself Archduchess of Austria, then Queen, then a widow bound for decapitation. Yet she does not ignore the reasons for the starving population, the bloody character of the French Revolution, the Queen's superficiality. Lady Oscar becomes then the ideal character that mediates between the passions and candor of Marie Antoinette, and the personal freedom and knowledge of the people's plight women were excluded from in the Ancien Régime.
The anime concludes with an episode that touches on the end of the Revolution and the begin of the Terror. The King and Queen turned out to be little more than scapegoats, and their execution did little to improve the country's welfare. Everyone turns out to be, in the end, both wrong and right. Such is the message of The Rose of Versailles' last episode.