Valentinusu no Okurimono (Valentine’s Gift Part 1)
Part 2

1) The second part of the novel, which takes place entirely on Valentine’s Day, begins with Yumi’s thoughts, “If anyone had red eyes that day, it wasn’t from crying. If so, a great calamity had had befallen up to a third of the entire class.”

Obviously, most of the girls had, like Yumi, stayed up late making chocolates and finishing hand-made gifts.

2) The day begins with Yumi overhearing all her classmates talking about their chocolates, about giving it to onee-sama in front of Maria-sama, or not being able to give it until after school, etc.

3) Yumi thinks, after being told by one of Sachiko’s classmates that they were all rooting for her in the treasure hunt, that for the 2nd-years the treasure hunt is much less urgent or desirable. After all, who wants to go out on a date with a friend whose desk you push against yours every day for lunch? Yumi thinks that she feels pretty much the same way about winning the ticket for a date with Shimako.

4) AGAIN we find Shimako’s behaving strangely, as Yumi find her coming out of the first-floor storeroom, with her face all red. Yumi assumes she was hiding her card.

This was in anime and manga, but I want to make the point that, Shimako isn’t so much acting unusually , but that Yumi *thinks* that she is. I point this out, because in every single novel so far, at least once, usually twice, we’ve seen Shimako doing something unusual, “mezurashii”. I’ve become convinced that this is the author’s way of pointing out that Yumi hasn’t a *clue* what kind of person Shimako is (much the same way she really didn’t know Yoshino at first), but more that no one – not even we the readers know the real Shimako yet. We know that we will, later, learn more about her and find that she really is hiding a secret, etc, etc, but right now, it’s just a thing here and there that makes her enigmatic.

Which makes me wonder how mortifying all this card hunt for a date must be to Shimako. All she ever wanted was to be a normal, unexceptional student, and here she is, an en bouton as a first-year, Rosa as a second year, super-famous star of the school, with people vying for a date with her. Poor Shimako!

5) Yumi asks Sachiko to meet her in the greenhouse after everything is over that day. Sachiko agrees, but has a “complicated” expression. (We will learn that the reason for it is, of course, that she buried the red card there, but neither we nor Yumi know that yet.)

6) When the time comes for the searching for the cards to begin, both Yumi and Yoshino are held back in the Rose Mansion to help clean up (and search the premises, subtlely).

When Yumi gets away, she finds herself being followed by a group of students and ends up climbing through a window to escape them. All of which was in the anime. What wasn’t in the anime was that she was caught by her classmate, of all people, Kagura the busybody, who immediately wanted to know what was up. Yumi lied and said that the door to the bathroom (the window led to a bathroom) was locked. To ensure verisimilitude, Yumi goes back into the bathroom, locks the door, then climbs back out the window. ^_^

7) In the case of a tie, i.e., several people finding a card at the same time, the rules provided for a Janken Taikai – that is, a rock-scissors-paper tournament – as tie breaker. This is needed for Rei’s card, as it happens. Three students found it at the same time.

They found it because the newspaper had reported Rei and Yoshino’s interests reversed. Rei had hid the card in books that Yoshino liked (while Yoshino looked in books that Rei liked.) But because the newspaper had switched their interests, the other students thought Rei liked samurai novels and found the card. ^_^

8) When Sachiko and Minako head to the greenhouse to show where the red card was buried, they are accompanied not only buy Yumi, but about 10 disappointed Sachiko fans.

9) It is Tsutako who proves that the card was reburied. Sachiko has no clue how deep she buried it, but Tsutako had (for photographic record) measured the hole with a school notebook. The notebook had not been completely buried when she took the photo. Now, as they find the card, the notebook is completely underground.

10) Sachiko smiles at Yumi when she tells her that she believes her story of the other girl in the greenhouse, and Yumi wishes that time would stop, so she can just look at that smile forever.

11) It’s not stated in the anime (although there is a short manga by Hibiki Reine for Cobalt Shuiesha that tells of Yumi making “surprise chocolates” for Sei), but Yumi puts things like umeboshi (pickled plum, which are actually  salted apricots…) and tuna in the centers of Rosa Gigantea’s chocolates. ^_^

The remainder of the book is the resolution of the Yellow Rose family’s chocolate issues, as seen through the eyes of all three girls. This is totally, completely different than the anime. And a lot funnier.

6:50 PM – It begins with Eriko, staring at the box she had just received from Rei, who had bicycled through the snow to give it to her. Eriko has not opened the box, but is sure that she has received the wrong box based on the size. It was much too large. Last year Rei had made bittersweet chocolate truffles and Eriko had adored them and asked for the same this year. But this box was the size of a shoebox and couldn’t possibly have truffles.

After about 30 minutes of staring at the box, waiting for Rei to call and explain that she had given Eriko the wrong box, she hides the box (to keep it safe from her brothers and “tanuki father”) and goes to dinner.

7:18 PM – Yoshino stares at the box she had received from Rei, sure that she has received the wrong box. Surely this giant shoe-box sized thing was destined for Eriko? Yoshino’s thoughts are consistently the most convoluted and difficult for me to read, but in this case, her thoughts are meant to echo Eriko’s almost exactly.

Yoshino feels that her deductive abilities must be failing, because she can’t figure out what is in the box, and she wasn’t able to guess where the yellow card was hidden. She decides that her biorhythms are low. She also thinks that she wants to open the box, because her father is running late and they hadn’t eaten dinner yet. But what if the box isn’t hers?

7:30 – God, poor Rei! Not only does she have school and kendo club and her duties for the Yamayurikai, but when she gets home, her father expects her to train at his dojo, as well.

We learn that several years ago, unbeknownst to her father, Rei started giving his youngest students sweets on Valentine’s Day. Eventually, as the years passed, he learned about it and by this time it was just a tradition. He’d say to his students that his daughter made too much and so save face. (Dad’s a really traditional guy.)

Dad compliments Rei on her chocolate chip pound cake for this year’s handout, but when she offers to make it again, he says that if she has time to make more cake, she should spend it practicing. ^_^;

(We get this massive fanservice scene of Rei taking a bath while she does her thinking. I make this point, because when I got to that point in the book, I was not at *all* surprised to find a “naked Rei in the bath, looking impossibly bishounen” picture.  I’m telling ya – this scene was TOTALLY fanservice.)

Rei thinks that, as she’s used to midwinter practice, bicycling to Eriko’s in the snow was no biggie – but it was a tad lonely. She ponders how annoying it is that they don’t have a shower, and we learn that she sneaks over to Yoshino’s house to use the shower, especially in the summer, when she doesn’t want a hot bath.

We learn that Yoshino did give Rei chocolates. Not *quite* handmade. She bought commercial chocolate, melted it into molds and gave Rei those. Rei is totally happy at this because, despite the fact that it’s not really home-made chocolate, it’s a step towards them and it shows that Yoshino cared enough to try. So she’s terribly pleased with them. Yoshino, for her part, handed the chocolates over with the romantic line, “Baka.” 

At which point, Rei’s brain “melts into miso” from the heat of the bath and “an intoxicating sense of  accomplishment.”

11:00PM – Eriko

She stares at the box a little more and caves, since shortly it won’t be Valentine’s Day anymore, so she’d better eat it now. And she’s hungry from studying for exams anyway. Inside is a chocolate chip pound cake, which Eriko decides must be something Yoshino likes. She considers asking Yoshino what she got, in the morning, to see if there really was a mix-up, but then what? So she just eats a piece of cake. The flavor is sweet, (Yoshino’s favorite?) but really delicious. All she says about it is, “Hunh.”

11:PM – Yoshino

The first few sentences of this section are word for word the same as Eriko’s. ^_^

Once she starts to eat the cake, she’s annoyed as hell that she can’t stop. She finds the fact that it’s so delicious extremely vexing. She snaps the box with her fingers – exactly as Eriko does at the same time. She eats another piece and says, “Hunh.”

11:10 – Rei

And here we get the punch line to all this. As she’s lying down to go to sleep, she vaguely remembers that Eriko wanted truffles again. The truth was – she had *completely* forgotten to make anything for anyone, until that morning when she arrived at school and saw girls exchanging presents in front of Maria-sama. She called home and asked her mother to pick up chocolate chips and flour, ostensibly for Dad’s students, and after the treasure hunt RAN home, made six pound cakes, bicycled over to Eriko’s, gave Yoshino her cake and finally got home to go practice at the dojo and give the kids there their cakes.

As she falls asleep, she thinks that Eriko probably forgot anyway, and collapses into unconsciousness.

The last few lines of the novel extol the soeur relationship and how well soeur understand each other. LOL

The End.

Conclusion? I worship Konno Oyuki, she’s a hoot. 

Valentinusu no Okurimono (Valentine’s Gift Part 1)
Part 1

Ta-da! The “Cliff Notes” for the fifth Maria-sama ga Miteru novel have arrived. :-) You can find all the notes I took on the first four books on past Okazu:

Notes on the First Novel: Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Notes on the Second Novel: Kibara Kakumei

Notes on the Third Novel(Part 1): Ibara no Mori.

Notes on the Third Novel(Part 2): Shiroki Hanabira.

Notes on the Fourth Novel (Part 1): Rosa Canina

Notes on the Fourth Novel (Part 2): Nakaniyo

These notes assume you are familiar with the story and has spoilers galore. If you haven’t watched it, then do – it will help to understand what I’m talking about. :-)

I want to start with the very, very end of the book � the author’s notes, in fact – because I really wanted to share this. Sean Gaffney once commented that “Saying Sei is your favorite character is like saying the sky is blue.” I was talking to my friend Masako-san, (who arrived at my hotel in Tokyo toting Soeur Audition, the latest Marimite novel, lol) and she said that she likes Sei best, too. Just for the record.

Well, in the author’s notes, Konno Oyuki mentions that she got a lot of letters asking if she had any intention of sending Sei off to school in Italy, assumably to follow Shizuka, with whom she “might have become good friends.” (So, that pretty much confirms my belief that Shizuka was coming on pretty darn strong!) In any case, Konno-sensei says, no way! She plans on Sei going to school at Lillian University because she loves her best and can’t let her go. LOL So there you go. Sei is *everyone’s* favorite character. (I can even tell you why…. She is not just a happy-go-lucky lesbian; she’s also the most complex character of the bunch, shifting from goofy dirty-old-man mode to insightful and deep thoughts in mere seconds. The most subtle thinker of all the characters. The second deepest thinker, btw, is Yoshino. I’ll talk about that later in part 2.)

Okay, and with that somewhat bloated intro � here we go with the Notes:

Because the fifth novel has not yet been made into a manga (except in small part) and I have not had time to rewatch the anime, there may be bits that I comment on that *are* in the anime. I’ve ceased to think of these write-ups as just “here’s the differences” but more of a “here’s the salient points” � just like cliff notes, in fact. You’ll have to excuse me, I was a Comparative Literature major in college and
I cannot help myself. ;-) That having been said, there *are* some differences � notably the entire end of the Yellow Rose family situation. I will elaborate on this as we get to it.

For the record � 10 pages of notes…again.

1) As she ponders the expense of Valentine’s Day chocolates, Yumi thinks how, even though she goes to a rich girl’s school, there’s a HUGE difference between herself and Sachiko’s world.

2) I don’t think anyone else has ever commented on this…in a school with uniforms right out of the turn of the 20th century, the students wear gym uniforms and play sports that are exceptionally unladylike. Just struck me as odd. :-)

3) In this novel, we see the third-year Rosas all manage their soeur all at once, for the first time. We’ve seen little of Eriko or Sei managing their soeur, but when they do, it’s a doozy! Each one of the Rosas has a completely different technique, which is entirely based on the personality of their little sisters. Youko, having been accused of meddling by Sachiko, invokes the one thing Sachiko is helpless in front of � Yumi’s happy, smiling face. Eriko simply overbears poor, henpecked Rei and *totally* disses Yoshino. Sei just tells Shimako to “gambatte” and Shimako caves. LOL Yumi thinks that Sei should have said that when Shimako was running for the Yamayurikai. Shimako caves in so quickly, obviously, because as an one-sama Sei doesn’t ever ask her to do anything, or ever get in her way of doing something. With such an onee-sama, how could Shimako resist a direct request?

4) When asked by Yumi for advice, Tsutako suggests that Yumi make chocolates but, if Sachiko is in a bad mood on Valentine’s Day, not giving them to her. Instead she can share with Tsutako, later. LOL

Yumi briefly considers asking Tsu to be there for mental support when she braves Sachiko’s wrath to give her the chocolates (remember, Yumi thinks Sachiko hates V-Day chocolates,) but decides she doesn’t want her rejection by Sachiko documented.

5) Rei gives Yumi the recipe for the chocolate by pretending that it is something she wants Yumi to deliver to Yoshino.

6) When Shimako sees the recipe, Yumi has a sudden realization that, although Shimako is an en bouton, she’s really only a first-year and still responsible for such things as serving the upperclassmen tea and cleaning. All of a sudden Yumi realizes how terribly busy Shimako must be, with the environmental committee and the Yamayurikai.

7) Yumi meets Shizuka in the music room. Shizuka comments that all of her, Shizuka’s, classmates are jealous of Yumi because she is close to Sachiko and should be able to find the red card easiest. But…the real prize, the half-day date, hadn’t been announced at that time, so everyone is just assuming that the prize is a card or chocolate from Sachiko.

Initially, Shizuka isn’t terribly interested in the treasure hunt. She jokes about setting up a crystal ball booth and selling potential hiding places. But she does suggest to Yumi that she, Yumi, should think about where *she* might hid the card, if it were her, which might lead to realizing where Sachiko would hide it.

While talking to Shizuka, Yumi comes up with the idea to give chocolates to the older girl and also has a brief thought of making chocolates for Sei.

8) Shizuka explains to Yumi that, even as a first-year, Sachiko received many presents of chocolate from her own age group and even some of the older students, which might explain why she doesn’t like them, Shizuka suggests that it was a very lonely experience for Sachiko.

Shizuka also tells Yumi that Sachiko is kind *because* she rejected all of the chocolates last year.

9) Sei finds Yumi in the Rose Mansion, and leads her out with a really odd discussion of how Yumi looked very self-satisfied and how she was like a kid who visits a lot of temples and shrines to pray for something. Yumi listens, but is pretty much confused by it all. Sei seems to ramble on about depending on one’s preferences, bathing in cold water and then eating a hot meal is nice. Sei is not rambling, of course � she’s trying to tell Yumi a few important things, in her own
way. One, that she had been seen going to everyone for advice (visiting shrines and temples) and two, that depending of the circumstances something that sounds bad, might be good (Sachiko’s dislike of Valentine’s Day chocolates.)

Shimako shows up and Yumi is much relieved to end the conversation which confused her.

10) We get to see that Shimako really *does* understand Sei. Sei turns to her soeur and says only, “Success” and Shimako understands immediately and congratulates her. Yumi follows up with an extended train of thought that gets her to the right conclusion � that RG has passed her university exam.

11) After the fight with Sachiko, Yumi goes to the greenhouse and tells the Rosa Chinensis plant how much she loves Sachiko and yearns to be with her, but she’s sure that Sachiko hates her now.

12)Sei finds Yumi in the greenhouse. (Interestingly, throughout the novel Sei keeps being described as a “shadow.”) She apologizes to Yumi for walking out, leaving Yumi and Sachiko in the middle of a fight. She says it seemed like the thing to do at the time, but afterwards, it left her with a nasty taste in her mouth.

RG goes on to say that the fight reminded her of “back then” and tells Yumi that, although she doesn’t realize it, she is very much like Sachiko. They both keep close counsel, unlike say, Yoshino, who doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. Youko had had to actually train Sachiko to speak up…. Sei mentions, causally, how Sachiko has still left the Kashiwagi affair unsettled, because of her dislike of speaking up. Sei goes on to tell Yumi that Youko and Sachiko had almost the exact same fight last year, in October. Because she, Sei, was preoccupied with someone else, she wasn’t paying attention to them much and didn’t know what set it off, but she was an eyewitness to the fight.

Yumi realizes that what Sachiko had probably been most angry with, was the reflection of her past self in Yumi, unable to speak up.

Sei excuses herself with, “Well, I’m going back. I dislike this greenhouse.” Shadows of Shiori, assumably.

13) At this point, even Yumi realizes how much Sei is acting like her onee-sama and throws herself at Sei to get a hug. She mentally apologizes to Shimako for “borrowing an arm” and wraps Sei’s arm around herself.

Yumi asks Sei if she, Sei, and Shimako are anything alike. Sei responds with “a little”. She goes on to say that she was a real pain as a first-year, while Shimako is much her superior. But she understands Shimako, which is why she doesn’t want to be interfering.

14) As they leave the greenhouse, Sei sets herself up for the nasty chocolate joke, by going on and on about how handmade chocolates by Yumi would be really good. They get on the bus together and Sei goes off on a monologue about chocolates and coffee, how she likes chocolates where the sweetness has been curbed, especially with liquor centers. Then she asks Yumi to make her chocolates and starts to chant, “Chocolate, chocolate” in her “oyaji mode” voice until other people on the bus start to stare. LOL

End Part 1.

The “extra chapter” of the Ibara no Mori novel, is really a whole second section. As Tsutako mentions in the first part of the novel, this section has no illustrations – apparently Girls’ Love is the same as Boys’ Love in the publisher’s eyes. From my own perspective I have learned that it is *a lot* easier to publish gay love/sex in print than in graphics. Words have to be focused on and understood and are, therefore, safer. Pictures are a whole ‘nother issue.

On the Yuricon Mailing List I received a lot of questions about this section, so let me answer them right off – no, Sei does not think about that fact that this was her first kiss, or that it was with a girl. Nor does she reflect on what it might mean to “be gay.” You’ll see, she does acknowledge that that she might have homosexual feelings for Shiori, but the thought that she might “be gay” isn’t really relevant.

Let me interject my own experience and understanding here: I think that, if Sei and Shiori had run away together and found themselves alone and with the opportunity to have a physical relationship, they would have done so. I’ve seen this before – up until a young person kisses another person, they are, like Sei, unsure of just what it is they’re wanting to do. After that kiss – it’s less confusing. ^_^ So I don’t think Sei is being ingenuous. Nor do I think she “is gay.” She may well decide she’s a lesbian at some point in her future (which based on reading future books, she does), but I’m pretty sure she’ll have to fall in love with another woman for it to be something she considers. After all – she’s been going to an all-girl school since she was a child. It stands to reason her initial affinity is for another woman.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think she’s gay. ^_^ For one thing – she has gaydar!

And on that note…onto the notes!

Shiroki Hanabira

1) It was an accident that Sei was there to meet Shiori – she had woken up too early that morning and was at the school too early. Sei tells us that she was not a very social person – she was aloof and anti-social, spending most of her time reading novels by herself.

The first half of this chapter is almost identical to the anime and manga. They cut out only minor descriptions. In fact – very little was changed or cut out of this chapter. I was pretty impressed.

2) In the greenhouse, as Shiori sits by Sei in the warm air, Sei is overcome with the desire to do *something* but she doesn’t know what. Her heart is beating, her body is shaking and all she can think of is that she wants to be in one body with Shiori.

This scene was brilliant, btw – the descriptions of Sei’s reactions and need were, to be blunt, exactly the mirror of my own at that age, in that situation. It was, not surprisingly, a very powerful and sexy scene.

3) The one chapter that was cut out in its entirety was basically a monologue in which Sei recounts her growing infatuation with Shiori:

After the greenhouse, she is obsessed with the need to understand what these feelings are. She couldn’t be sure whether or not it was romantic love – she knew she loved Shiori’s soul, her spirit, but she felt that Shiori’s body was just decoration for the inner self.

Sei reads a lot of love novels, to try and see if this is what she’s feeling – the only thing she learns is that she really comes to hate love novels. ^_^

So, Sei starts looking at books about homosexual love, but she finds nothing that really reflects what she’s feeling. (Again, this jibed with my personal experience – interestingly, *this* novel is quite realistic, which bucks the trend and once again points out that Konno Oyuki is a really good writer.)

Finally, she turns to textbooks on reproduction to figure out why she felt this way, and determines only that something in her is broken – but she’s no closer to understanding what it is, or why.

4) During the planning for the school festival, Sei asks her onee-sama to dissolve their bond, because she has no intention of taking Shiori as a soeur. This scene is in the manga too, not the anime. Her onee-sama says that she did not take Sei as soeur to have Sei take a soeur, she took Sei as her little sister to be by her side until she graduates. I think that this scene very neatly characterizes the White Rose family as we see it, since Sei has a similar situation with Shimako, and Shimako with Noriko.

5) When Shiori rejects Sei’s kiss in the church, her reasoning is that “Maria-sama is watching.” Sei goes cold and walks away, but not before thinking that she had lost to a 2000 year old ghost. This was in the anime and manga…but the next line, that Maria-sama was nothing more than a stone statue, while she herself was living flesh, was left out of the anime. I thought that line was pretty great.

6) As her grades slip, she is called into the teacher’s staff room and asked why, Sei fantasizes about saying, “Because Kubo Shiori broke my heart, what are you going to do about it?”

7) Sei is called to the Guidance Office during the break after exams (her exam results were the worst score she’d ever gotten.) Sei figures that its about the grades and absences, but when she sees that both her homeroom teacher and Shiori’s homeroom teacher are there, she feels sick, because she knows that her relationship with Shiori will come up.

When she’s confronted with the relationship, she turns, not to her homeroom teacher (who brought it up) or her mother (who is quite hysterical by this point) but to the Principal, because she knows that Shiori has stayed with her, and because Sei assumes that she knows that Shiori is a good person.

At the end of the scene, as she’s leaving, the Principal’s final shot about not being part of the people and activities around her is lonely, Sei realizes that, of all the people in the room, only the Principal knew – really understood – what the real relationship between Sei and Shiori was. Obviously, from our perspective, we know why…but Sei doesn’t – all she knows is that her feelings were completely transparent to this woman, and it terrifies her.

8) On the last day of school for the term, a Xmas Eve service is held at the church. Although Sei hasn’t seen Shiori for weeks (and she tells us that although she had put distance between the, her yearning to be with Shiori grew with everyday they were apart), Sei assumes that Shiori will have to attend the service. She’s right – and she sees Shiori there, looking well, and is at peace for a moment.

Later, of course, she wanders back to the church, in hopes of running into Shiori, only to find Shiori waiting there for her. (The scene of Sei and Shiori kissing and planning to run away together is exactly the same in book, manga and anime, with the exception of it taking place behind the church, instead of in front as in the anime.)

9) While waiting for Shiori to show at the train station, (she waits more than 6 hours….) Sei is approached by a drunken guy and an OL who ask if she’s all right. Sei feels tears well up, but she ruthlessly holds them in. The OL and guy hang around and she thinks to herself that this is a special punishment…. (Which, btw, brings me to a difference in manga and novel. In the novel she doesn’t ever equate her feelings for Shiori with punishment for her scoffing at god.)

10) When the third term begins, her onee-sama keeps Sei very busy, so she can’t brood. Sei sucks it up, because she knows that she had slacked for the last two terms.

Sei cuts her hair, because looking at her own long hair makes her think of Shiori’s long hair, so she gets rid of it.

11) Sei finally reads the letter Shiori left her in mid-February, a month and a half after Shiori left her. Afterwards, she thinks about Shiori’s words, and comes to the conclusion that, if they *had* run away, they probably would have had no other choice but to kill themselves, that they really didn’t have a bright future. Sei feels that Shiori has some kind of premonition of that when she came to the station and saw Sei, so she felt she couldn’t go. In retrospect Sei believes that it was better that they both lived.

Interestingly, the book, manga and anime all end this story arc completely differently.

In the anime, Sei joins Yumi as they head to the Xmas party at the Rose Mansion, telling us that it’s her “Happy Birthday.”

In the manga, we see her thinking about all this, and about her parting with her onee-sama who tells her that she will have a soeur of her own…then we see Shimako greet her with “onee-sama” and Sei looks a little surprised, then smiles and greets Shimako.

In the novel, Sei thinks about her onee-sama’s words, about how the “future heals the past” and we are told that, as Sei stares up at a blue sky between the sakura tree’s branches, she has come to believe that those words are true.

(This ending struck me as really poignant, but odd too, because I ended a Marimite fanfic with almost the exact same sentiment before I read this book. How weird is that? )

And there you have it. ^_^

This is an exceptionally long entry and contains many spoilers for the first novel/anime arc/manga volume, so if you have not yet read/watched/seen the first part of the anime Maria-sama ga Miteru, you may not want to read this entry.

This entry *assumes* that you are familar with what occcured in the first Marimite story and that you want to know “what you missed.” Consider yourself warned.  ^_^

Recently, I have been spending my free time reading the first Marimite novel in Japanese, because I’m not fond of getting information second-hand, so I decided to go to the source and see what I missed. ^_^  It took me approximately a month to get through the thing. My main goal was to see how *much,* if anything, was removed or changed for the anime or manga.

My short opinion is – we didn’t miss *that* much.

I can *totally* understand how fans of the novels would find the anime rushed and lacking…that’s the nature of the beast. In the visual media the assumption is that you can show the audience something and not have to describe it. As I write this, I have finally figured out the fallacy to this argument:

The problem is, in a visual media, you can show us the school buildings, the statue, etc, etc, but you can’t call our attention to anything without making it an issue. So, if you want us to *notice* something, you have to use a camera angle, or focus, or something to MAKE us see it and even then, we might not notice it, really, because we’re busy looking at something else.

In a book, to draw our attention to something, you simply have to mention it. If a thing is never mentioned, we don’t know about it. Anytime you point out the gingko nuts, they are recalled to our mind. By the 15th time we’ve mentioned the gingko nuts, I can guess that they have a part to play here… ^_^

But more than anything, when you have established a particular pattern of description, thought, behaviors, etc, for characters, it does get annoying to have them portrayed out of context to a certain extent, by removing some of those factors.

As I enjoy books first, and all other types of media a distant second, I can really sympathize with fans of the novels, who would naturally feel that the anime was tepid in comparison. However, I am fortunate enough to enjoy the added layers each time I encounter the story, because I saw the anime first, then read the manga, then listened to the CD Drama and only read the novel last.

So, what was lost in the transition to anime and manga? Primarily description. Of the school, its buildings, the actions and reactions of the people. And thoughts. Less so in the manga than the anime, of course. Almost all of the thoughts that are cut out of the anime are left in the manga. Almost all. (Some scenes were moved around for the anime too, which peeved fans enormously.)

Last, but in this case, not at all least, what you lose from the anime is the *degree* to which everything happens. The emotions run much higher – the tension in each seen is greater and the reactions by the other, non-Yamayurikai, students is MUCH greater than we saw in the anime.

For instance, using the anime as the rule, we can see that Yumi is “normal girl” and we learn she admires Sachiko from afar. In the novel we learn that Yumi is really NOT normal – that she sees herself as unreasonably unexceptional, that she has significantly lower self-esteem than the anime makes clear…and that her admiration for Sachiko is really, REALLY, **REALLY** a lot. Not just a little – she’s a HHUUUUUUGGGE fan of Sachiko’s. Think stuttering, incoherent, fangirl.

More importantly, the thing we never see in the anime (or really in the manga) is just how alienated Sachiko’s attentions make Yumi feel.

Because Yumi isn’t Sachiko’s only fan in the student body.

And the other girls cannot, for the life of them, figure out how Yumi got so lucky. So, not surprisingly, they become jealous and resentful. They talk behind her back, they whisper about her as she walks the halls, they come to her classroom looking for her and point at her.

When Yumi sits in the music room and Sachiko finds her and plays a duet on the piano with her…Yumi has been there for *hours,* waiting for every last person at the school, including all the club members, to leave, so she doesn’t have to be the subject of more stares and whispers and maybe not-so-friendly questions. (Which explains why Yumi breaks down in tears when her friends are so persistent with their questions; and why Yumi wishes Sachiko had left her alone to admire her from afar, rather than drawing her into the limelight.)

One last note on this…when Yumi comes to dance practice for the first time and Sei pushes her forward and no one moves to dance with her- what is cut out there is that all the girls hear her name and freak out at her, because *she’s* the girl that the rumors were talking about. All the girls in the dance club have been practicing for months for this performance – they’ve never gotten to dance with Rosa Gigantea, but this newcomer does. ….And then, to make it worse, she’s paired up with Rose Foetida en bouton. Not surprisingly, the dance club members stare at her the entire time – and not in a nice way.

On the yuri side of things, we really don’t lose much, IMHO. When Sachiko slams into Yumi as she leaves the meeting room in the Rose Mansion, Yumi notices Sachiko’s body under the uniform…and immediately comments to herself that Sachiko’s chest is larger than her own.

Later, when Eriko asks Yumi is she likes the low neckline on Sachiko’s Cinderella costume, Sachiko comments that if Yumi likes it, then it’s fine, which makes Yumi really happy, until *she* has to try on the dress. (Yumi actually thinks, sure, we’re both girls, but I can appreciate a nice decolletage too, can’t I? OK, she doesn’t *quite* say it that way, but that’s the idea.) When Yumi realizes that Foetida is about to strip her down, she puts on the dress under her own power and is immediately dismayed by the gap between her body and the neckline. Sachiko snidely (and with great, if understated, relish) comments that Yumi thinks a little differently now that she has to wear it herself, huh? (All of this is actually captured in a small, one-shot manga story that comes with the Marimite “premium” fanbook, called “Before the Play.”)

Lastly, because the roles for the parts were not fixed until the day of the play, the costumers had to leave Yumi’s costume roomy enough for Sachiko to wear it if she had to. So Yumi has basically the same problem – too much space in the chest. Sachiko lends her a “gorgeous silk” bra and the costumers stuff it, so Yumi can wear the dress. (We get Sachiko’s exact bra size, btw…I have NO idea why.) There is a very funny moment while Yumi experiences mortification of several kinds as she contemplates wearing Sachiko’s bra.

Oh, and one last bra comment – at the veeerrrry end of the story, as Yumi watches the dancing from the grassy knoll, she thinks to herself that once she visit the Rose Mansion and returns the bra, all of this will be over. That was definitely *not* in the anime. ^_^

The final scene of the book is pretty much as you saw in the anime/manga…with one exception. I have to share this with you, because it was so wonderful.

Yumi has accepted Sachiko’s rosary at last and they stand in front of Maria-sama, listening to the music coming from the area of the bonfire. (We’ve had a variety of songs and instruments already for the entire scene, including a brass band and a medley of songs from “Oklahoma.”) The music switches into “Maria-sama no Kokoro,” the ubiquitous theme of the entire story. Sachiko listens to it and notes that it is in 8/6 time…a waltz! She takes Yumi’s hands and they dance together, watched only by Maria-sama and the moon…all very romantic. But…!

The song is being played on an accordion, harmonica and pianica (a reed instrument you blow into that has piano keys – Shimako plays one in the second season.) I had to laugh, because there probably aren’t three less sexy, less romantic instruments on the planet. ^_^

But seriously–waltzing to accordion, harmonica and pianica. How womantic.

And there you have it. My thoughts on the differences in the novel and the anime. I hope to read the second novel soon, so I can compare that, and the second anime arc, Kibara Kakumei: Yellow Rose Revolution.