Sayonara Rose GardenGoodbye, My Rose Garden Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   6z2f

I really enjoyed this. The story of a noblewoman and her maid from Japan, both of whom share a love of literature, was an interesting setup.

While there were some slightly unbelievable elements such as a woman of Alice's social class being so openly friendly with a maid, it really didn't detract from the story. The obstacles that do stand in their way are very real and provide a compelling narrative.

I loved the references to Charlotte Bronte and Oscar Wilde. The literary references the themes of the story quite well.

This is a love story that is incredibly
sweet yet tinged with a bit ... of sadness due to the difficulties of being both women not straight . Things felt a little rushed at the end but I didn't mind too much because the romance was so good. I love Alice and Hanako together and wish we could get either a sequel or an epilogue.

Sayonara Rose Garden is a premise as old as time, that was extremely rushed and uneven. This manga has many issues, but all in all there are some touching and lovely moments between the two main characters and some side characters. This isn't really a deep or memorable read, maybe if you're stuck in a train for some time or on the toilet.
I want to start with some good points of this manga. This is a romance that manages to deliver a nice coherent-ish plot, even with some reveals and mysteries. Surprisingly satisfying reveals and nice allegories.
This manga suffers greatly from it's artstyle. All the ... characters look the same, the only recognizable one is Hanako, who is a Japanese woman and has dark hair. The rest of the characters are English, and look pretty much the same, with light hair and huge eyes. The men also look the same, and this similarity makes it very difficult to understand the plot. It makes you think the same characters are appearing in each and doing many things that contradict each other, but in actuality these are different people.
Another problem are the rapid personality changes of the characters. In the beginning, they characters have set motivations, goals, and some even mention some lines they'll never cross, like a moral com of sorts. In the span of half a chapter suddenly these are thrown in the trash, they go against everything they promised they'd never do, for the convenience of the plot. It's very annoying, and makes the story illogical.
This manga is VERY wordy, which isn't necessarily bad, but the amount of useless dialogue or exposition in this manga is insane. Whole pages can be skipped because they either beat the dead horse of "our love is forbidden" to the point there's a hole is the horse or add useless details that are quickly forgotten. The amount of pondering and inner monologue that is copy - pasted from chapter to chapter is immeasurably large.
The final issue I'd like to address is the pacing. The manga starts reeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyyyy slow, but in the final two chapters rushes so much stuff - character development, major plot points and events, the ending is super mega rushed.... even a short manga can be adequately paced, this one is definitely not.
To sum up, it's a decent read but definitely not the best. If you like historical fiction and wlw romance you'll probably get a smile or nice addition to your collection. If you're looking for story focused manga look elsewhere.

[Warning]
Suicidal thoughts and (surprisingly mild) homophobia

TL:DR
Don't recommend - There are some good moments but the relationship is so rushed that I don't really care all that much. There isn't really that much chemistry between them - or much characterisation at all.

Story: 6/10
A noble lady falls in love with a Japanese maid against the expectations of her family and society. Also she has a fiancé. Well it's a bloody good concept I'll say. However, the manga just feels too rushed to get the reader properly invested in the drama. The death wish thing is dropped pretty quickly by the way.

One mark to the manga's credit is ... that it makes good use of it's setting, making a point of setting out societal expectations of the time and grounding the manga in the major events of the time such as the trial of Oscar Wilde and Pankhurst's suffragette movement. Beyond thematic importance, they're not a major part of the manga but it does make it feel more authentic. The art is also reflective of this, using hairstyles and fashion popular at the time. All of this helps the reader immerse themselves into the era, the standards of which play such a major part of the manga.

The characters just sort of fall in love because that's what you bought this manga for isn't it? However, there were some genuinely touching moments and the dramatic turns were exciting at times.

Hanako and Alice don't have the character chemistry you need for a proper heart-thumping romance. The issue is that the characters spend most of there time monologuing about how their love is forbidden and little about why they actually love each other beyond “they're nice to me” or “they stay with me”. There's never really any downtime for them to do much romantic or that serves to flesh out their characters so we're left to rush through one plot point after another.

The ending is much too abrupt and isn't very satisfying. Rarely can you say this about romance manga, but this one really needs to be more drawn out!

Character: 5/10
Both Hanako and Alice talk exclusively about how great books are, how much they love each other or how much they're not supposed to love each other. Suffice to say, there's not a lot of room for fleshing out their characters and, as a consequence, they're not very interesting. Alice secretly being an author, and Hanako's favourite author to boot, does spice it up a little but there's

There is a small ing cast, few of much importance except Alice's finance. This fiancé is sort of the villain of this manga, trying to separate Hanako and Alice. He's not bad, combining a subtle malice for Hanako with what seems to be genuine affection for Alice.

Art
Good art, able to accentuate cute moments and serious dramatic moments as necessary. Appealing character designs, good backgrounds. Not exceptional, but good art.

Overall: 6/10
It's not bad per se but it really needed some time to be fleshed out. It was enjoyable enough as I read it, in that mindless manner of a crappy airplane movie but It's like romance junk food, I just left feeling unsatisfied at the end.

I don't recommend this manga. It's a quick read that might make you smile if you have an hour to kill, but frankly it wouldn't be worth it.