Versailles no Bara

In a time of class stratification and rising tensions amongst the impoverished population, the Austrian Empire sends Princess Marie Antoinette to to be wed to Crown Prince Louis XVI. The political marriage is arranged to strengthen the alliance between both countries, but the future queen is deeply unsatisfied with her fate being decided for her. Upon arrival in the country, Marie Antoinette is acquainted with Oscar Fançois de Jarjayes—Commander of the Royal Guard.

Due to her father's desire for a son, Oscar is raised as a boy with an expectation to inherit his title as The Commander. Though she is revered by both men and women alike, Oscar cannot help but desire to live life as a woman instead of masquerading as a man. As Oscar reluctantly serves the young, spoiled queen, the growing resentment and suffering of the poor become harder for her to ignore—especially when Marie Antoinette frivolously spends her wealth.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

de Jarjayes, Oscar François Main

Tajima, Reiko Japanese

Grandier, André Main

Shigaki, Taro Japanese

Antoinette, Marie Main

Ueda, Miyuki Japanese

Lamorlière, Rosalie Main

Yoshida, Rihoko Japanese

von Fersen, Hans Axel Main

Hori, Katsunosuke Japanese

Valois de la Motte, Jeanne ing

Matsukane, Yoneko Japanese

de Soisson, Alain ing

Yamada, Keaton Japanese

du Barry, Jeanne Becu ing

Kinomiya, Ryouko Japanese

de Robespierre, Maximilien ing

Mori, Katsuji Japanese

de Polignac, Charlotte ing

Komiya, Kazue Japanese

Dezaki, Osamu Director, Storyboard

Nagahama, Tadao Director, Sound Director, Chief Animation Director

Nishikubo, Mizuho Episode Director

Nagaoka, Akinori Episode Director

Reviews

May 1, 2025

Curlybrace101

Recommended

Most anime from the 1970s is not worth your time. Being 50 years ago, the animation is usually stiff, the voice acting poor quality, and the writing trite and pointless. The Rose of Versailles, however, is not that.

(Edit 5/1/25: since someone left me a mean comment, I figured I'd address this: I am being intentionally hyperbolic for the sake of writing. The 1970s did bring us a lot of great, classic anime. This opinion of mine may not be reflected in my list because I don't have everything logged on here that I watched before 2020. Thank you)

I will start by saying that The Rose ... of Versailles is not historically accurate. I don't know a whole lot about the French revolution, but even I can tell it's dramatized and fictionalized. That being said, I do not think any of its representations of historical figures are particularly offensive, so I'll let it slide. I would appreciate historical accuracy more, but I don't think anyone should ever go into a biopic or work of historical fiction expecting accuracy.

That being said, I did appreciate its take on the French revolution for being more nuanced than some others. Marie Antoinette is a polarizing historical figure who is seen either as a symbol of the corrupt, cruel bourgeoise or an innocent victim who was only guillotined because of sexism. Neither of these are exactly true, as Marie Antoinette was a human being. The Rose of Versailles is rather sympathetic to her (a little much for my tastes, in all honesty, but not enough for me to knock it), so I was afraid it was going to go the second route, however I was pleasantly surprised to see that it did not shy away from the truth that the people starved because of Antoinette's flagrant spending habits. It does present Antoinette as good natured and well meaning, which some probably will not agree with, but just because it sees her intentions as pure, that does not mean it agrees with her actions. It may present her failings as a result of naivety, but that does not mean it shies away from those failings. It's rather realistic in that sense; many people on this Earth do not mean to do harm and want to do good things for the people they love but are unable to see how their actions affect other people. Letting your people starve is still an immoral action regardless of whether you ignored them on purpose or because you were so privileged you didn't realize you were. Was Antoinette actually like this in real life? Who knows. But it works here.

Their ultimate condemnation of Antoinette's actions comes down to Lady Oscar: the real protagonist. Going into this, I was wary of Oscar, because I already knew she was hyped up as incredibly strong, capable, righteous, and talented at many things. I worried she would be an incredibly shallow character who exists just for the author to brag about. Thankfully, I was proven very wrong.

I would say 'righteous' is probably Oscar's main character trait. She is defined by her want to do good. However, she is also a French noblewoman. She was born loyal to the crown, and in fact serves directly under Antoinette herself and becomes a personal friend to her. She loves the crown and she loves Antoinette. But she also lives in revolutionary and wants to do the right thing. Those two facts cannot coexist. Her nobility (having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals) is at odds with her nobility (belonging to a hereditary class with high social or political status; aristocratic).

Much like Antoinette, Oscar is only well meaning and good natured, however the privilege she was born into is blinding her to the truth of the people. However, unlike Antoinette, she is proactive in going out and trying to solve problems, which opens her eyes to the truth. Oscar's main character arc is about learning how the people of are suffering, and sometimes the issue is much more complicated than "take your kid to the doctor when he is sick" even though that SHOULD be the right thing to do. In the end, she has to choose between the people of and her beloved queen, and although it goes against everything she has followed her whole life, she cares more about doing what is right than her personal attachments.

It's particularly interesting because her close friend and love interest, Andre, is not of noble blood like she is. He is a servant to her family. He began to side with the people much sooner than her because he is one of them, and it was partially his influence that opened her eyes to the people's plight and influenced her to choose them over her queen. He raises the idea that perhaps theft isn't a bad thing when you're starving, which Oscar as the lawful good naturally disagrees with, because when you've never wanted for anything it is easy to believe all theft is inherently wrong. However, Andre's views on the subject stick with her, causing her to spare the thief and getting the ball rolling on Oscar's character arc culminating in her siding with the proletariat. Who would have thought that knowing a member of an oppressed minority will open your eyes to the plight of their people and change how you think?

There's also the matter of gender, which is probably the most talked-about aspect of the series. I was actually expecting much more gender discussion within the show based on how much people talk about it, but that doesn't mean there is nothing to chew on. Oscar was born female and raised as a man, but she seems to identify and live as a woman. This is particularly interesting to me because everyone simultaneously sees her as a woman and respects her authority (until she s the French Guard, anyways, but even then she wins them over). That hardly seems historically accurate to me, but again, I wasn't expecting historical accuracy. Anyway, the presentation of Oscar's gender is interesting because she seems to be seen as either a woman or a man by most, but what she wants is for people to simultaneously respect her masculinity and femininity. She didn't want to the royal guard because she wanted to live as a woman, but then she desires to return to living as a man when she has her heart broken by the only man she felt (at the time) she could love the way a woman does, bringing into question what gender means for romance. This upsets Andre, who loves her the way a man does a woman. This causes a lot of distress for both of them, and causes Andre to...well, do something bad. I don't have time to get into it here, but I will say that I think it's a little more complicated than it may seem at first and perhaps possible to come back from when you factor in nuance and personal forgiveness, though I don't excuse it. Anyways, the point is that gender stuff is all rather progressive in how complex it presents its issues of gender, especially for the 1970s, and definitely adds an extra layer of complexity to the story.

Although, in spite of being rather nuanced and complex in some areas, it's also rather shallow in others. Most of the characters tend to be very black-and-white with their morality, being innocent victims or devilishly evil. While I appreciate Oscar's arc of choosing the people over the queen, she generally spends most of the series exclusively doing nothing wrong. The story is VERY sympathetic to Antoinette, whereas the people in Antoinette's life who are out to get her haven't a shred of sympathy. There's this one character named Rosalie who could have been rather complex as she was very driven by revenge almost to the point of violence, but it doesn't amount to much in the end and she spends most of her screentime being a poor little victim (apparently she was written out of the manga for being unpopular. I see why). Andre is probably the most complex given the aforementioned bad thing he did, but all that did was make him a character you either love or hate. Anyhow, I wasn't expecting extraordinarily deep characters from a 70s anime and do generally like the characters, but it definitely does not work in the series's favor.

All in all though, I enjoyed all 40 episodes of this show that I watched. It's great at appealing to your pathos with its characters and drama as well as presenting effective commentary on class struggle. It is absolutely worth the watch, both for the historical significance (it changed the entire anime and manga industries, after all) and because it's just damn good.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 17, 2022

WitchFromMercury

Mixed Feelings

It's kind of cheesy and very old fashioned show but the art is still nice (maybe not so much the animation though) and it can be boring at times too.

I very much enjoyed the girl on girl drama parts but I found the war and soldier scenes to be boring and those characters were hard to sympathize with. I felt the series was at its best when it was about how Marie would endure the schemes of villains like Madame du Barry and Jeanne.

I will also mention that it's obvious that Oscar inspired Reinahrd from LotGH so that was interesting to see as a fan ... of LotGH.

My favorite part was the Madame du Barry arc from the beginning, and I learned a lot about the French Revolution. I would say that the climax of the story was the trial of Jeanne and the conclusion of the affair of the diamond necklace. After that, the characters become too hard for me to sympathize with, save for Andre, who very well could be considered the protagonist by then.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 13, 2017

ktulu007

Not Recommended

The Rose of Versailles is an old school anime. It aired from 1979-1980 and was based off of a manga from the early 70s. It was brought to us by TMS, the same studio behind the mediocre Magic Knight Rayearth, the excellent Glass no Kamen & the decent enough Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari. Is this one a classic worth revisiting? Let's find out.

Story:

In the years leading up to the French revolution, a young woman works as the Captain of the Royal guards, as she was raised like a boy. This is our heroine, Oscar François de Jarjeyes. Can she navigate through the turbulent times?

Okay, I'm ... going to ignore that this series has about as much relation to actual history as the Abrams films have to do with Star Trek. It's historical fiction, we can forgive it for only vaguely resembling the reality and even then you have to squint a lot and use magnifying lenses to find the similarities. The issue is with the kinds of liberties it takes. Speaking in the very broadest of strokes, there are two basic types of alterations. The first are changes made to simplify things. This series doesn't seem to be cognisant of grey morality. Instead, it boils things down to the “right” and the “wrong.” The nobles, save a select few, are portrayed as outright evil people who shoot children and run people over without caring in the slightest.

The second types of changes are those designed to make things painfully melodramatic. This series loves to take relatively minor things, like Marie Antoinette snubbing Madame Du Barry, and act like they're massive events that could totally lead to the end of everything that is. Because Ikeda Riyoko doesn't quite understand how treaties actually work and thinks they can fall apart like wet tissue paper when an important person from one nation doesn't get on with a kind of important person from another.

Speaking of an unfettered love of melodramatic nonsense, this series loves to take little twists and turns that don't make a lot of sense but they're “dramatic.” A big example is that there is a character who suffers an injury and loses the use of one of their eyes. We then discover that they're losing the use of their other one because “it's a strain to just have one functional eye.” Which basically translates to “anatomy, how does it work?” Here's a hint, not like that. There's a bit with a terminal illness, but it's pretty pointless since the character in question is barely affected by it before they die from something unrelated. It's good that they wasted our time with that sub-plot that goes nowhere. There's also the attempted sexual assault scene which leads to an apology and is never mentioned again. Speaking of romance bits, there's a part where Oscar's father tries to marry her off and there's an attempt to have drama with it for a very short period before it's over. Because that's how to have effective romantic drama. The romance in this is just rubbish in general. On the plus side, the slow, tedious execution of the “big, dramatic” scenes does lead to some unintentionally funny bits.

The pacing in this is pretty bad too. There are long, tedious segments where nothing of value is accomplished and when it finally gets to the revolution, which should be the interesting bit, we get a very small bit about the start and then it skips right to the end. Because why would you want real drama when you can have melodrama?

Characters:

Earlier, I mentioned that the morality in this is very one-dimensional. And the characterisation is where that creates the biggest problem. Those historical figures who are selected as antagonists are so unambiguously “evil for the evils” that if this weren't historical-based they'd have snake pun names and be taking orders from a bloke with a metal mask and raspy voice.

With the royal couple, the effort put into trying to make them sympathetic just gets absurd. Everything they do has to be justified, including engaging in the upper class twit past time known as fox hunting. Because foxes are vicious and will lunge for your throat. They certainly don't hide in burrows. And Marie Antoinette’s mild pettiness is presented as demonstrative of strength of character. The sad part is that it's not hard to portray them sympathetically. He s[pent his entire reign trying to make things better for the common folk but he ruled at a time when the king couldn't make unilateral decisions and he didn't have the political savvy to get the nobles on board. While she didn't have any real power because the woman in power at the French Court at that time was the king's mistress, which Louis XVI didn't have. And then they were both executed, as were their children. They may not have been saints, but they did nothing worth killing them.

Our protagonist is a very one-note “noble” protagonist. She always does the right thing and stays on the right side of history. It gets to the point where she comes across as an incompetent moron because there are scenes where her work requires her to deal with someone causing trouble but she'll let them go because “well, they're doing good” or she'll try to talk them down without anyone to watch her back and she'll get taken by surprise. It really comes across as Ikeda being afraid to have her do anything that someone might find objectionable. After all, if she went in and used her authority as the captain to do her job, she might seem like a bit of an authoritarian.

The ultimate consequence is that the characters come across more like they belong in a simple work for children than in a drama we're supposed to be taking seriously. Which is even worse when you factor in that these are based on real people, not a Hasbro toy line.

Art:

I don't want to be too harsh on the animation for this, since it was made a very long time ago. I won't say it looks bad. It really doesn't. I will, however, say that it's very lazy. All the standard cost cutting measures are used. Minimal movement with some motion blur to try and craft the illusion that more's happening on screen than actually is, recycled frames, very slow and awkward action sequences, tedious bits with a lot of sparkle vision to try and spice them up.

Sound:

The performances in this are decent enough. They aren't good performances but they're a bit above average. The biggest thing holding them back is just that the characters are very bland and don't demand much range. The music is able.

Ho-yay:

There are quite a few female characters who express interest in Oscar, thinking that she's so cool and it's a pity she's not a man. They also include some of the spurious rumours about Marie Antoinette sleeping with everyone, including women.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, the big problem with this series is that it wants to be a serious drama but it doesn't want to include any real complexity. So, we get very stock characters who could be at home in a work for small children and we get a total lack of nuance or subtlety, which would also be suitable for a work made for small children. But we also get very poor attempts at tackling more serious subjects. Which makes it decidedly not for small children. And, ultimately, there are a lot of better portrayals of the French Revolution in media. Like a Tale of Two Cities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Reign of Terror Serial from Doctor Who, The Glass Blowers and quite a few more. Rose of Versailles simply doesn't use its subject matter in a compelling way. Unless you really like boring melodrama. For myself, I have to give it a 3/10. Next week I'll look at Youjo Senki.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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