In part 3 of the continuing Japanese manga lecture series, Dr. Jon Holt will take up the blockbuster manga Rose of Versailles (Berusaiyu no bara), written and drawn by Ikeda Riyoko from 1972 to 1974, a work that changed the trajectory of all “girls’ manga” (shojo manga) after it.

Rose is the historic but fictional account of young Marie Antoinette, her lover Axel von Fersen, and Ikeda’s invented character, Oscar Francois de Jarjayes. Oscar is a woman who expresses as a male, a very male and gallant member of the royal guard, who is sworn to protect Marie. Despite the novel’s setting in pre-Revolutionary France and its wealth of historical details, the manga places shojo or girls’ culture from 20^th-century Japan in 18th-century France. There is an absolute riot of Japanese girl-girl or “sister relationships” that run throughout the manga in various permutations that make this historical novel about one of the most famous women of France into very much a story about Japanese girl culture.

More details at the Event Page.