The Rose of Versailles, Volume 1 is a definitive edition of Riyoko Ikeda’s magnum opus. I say this with absolute conviction in and knowledge of the amount of work – and love – that went into it’s making. 

Oscar François de Jarjeyes is a young noblewoman raised as a son by her father. As commander of Marie Antoinette’s palace guard, Oscar is brought face-to-face with the luxury of King Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. Joined by her servant André, Oscar is privy to the intrigue and deceit of France’s last great royal regime.

I am quoting the editorial slug for this book because I wrote it in the first place and I think it stands as a perfectly fine synopsis. ^_^

Volume 1 begins at the beginning, with the births of three of the main players in our drama, Hans Axel Von Fersen in Sweden,  Oscar François De Jarjayes in France and Royal Highness Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne de Lorraine D’Autriche, in Austria, known to her family as Maria Antonia and to history as Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

The story takes us through Oscar and Maria’s childhoods, through the moment their lives converge upon Maria’s arrival in France to marry Louis-Auguste Bourbon, the Dauphin of France all the way to Fersen’s confession to Oscar of his love for Marie and Oscar’s patronage of Rosalie Lamorliére, an orphaned Parisian girl. It’s 498 pages of high drama. And, for the first time ever, color pages have been restored to their original chapters, as they were seen in the original magazine run. (For those of you wondering why there was a such a long delay between the license and the printing, finding good quality versions of these images was among the many things the publisher needed to do. The original magazine files were no longer available through the Japanese publisher. And all of the placement had to be approved by the creator. )

The book itself is gorgeous. Hardcover, with raised red and gold lettering, and a truly brilliant cover design by Andy Tsang. The only touch it is missing is gilt-edging, but I guessed (and the publisher has confirmed) that that would have pushed the cost per book up significantly. Still… it would have looked sweet.

The biggest surprise to me, having never read the entirety of the story before editing it, was how much less decent a person General De Jarjayes is in the manga than the anime.

As I edited the book, I kept capturing Oscar’s face from various panels. The end result is a fantastic short version of her evolution as a character. ^_^ Here she is at the beginning and the end of Volume 1.

The art is very of its time, the story more compelling for the characters we meet and begin to care about. Translation was done with painstaking research, and I sure as heck did my best with the editing!

If ever you have thought that you want to buy the kind of book that will be with us 40 years later and still be as timely and meaningful…this is that book.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Uhhhh, Oscar in a uniform is service, so 6
Yuri – 1 for the court scenes, 2 for Rosalie

Overall – 9

The Rose of Versailles is a remarkably accurate telling of a true story from the perspective of a wholly fictitious character. It is also disturbingly timely as we move inexorably towards a similar climax here in the USA and, based on other protests we’re seeing globally, we can be pretty sure which way the cannons will point.

Today I am writing about something near and dear to my heart – the upcoming publication of shoujo manga classic The Rose of Versailles, by Riyoko Ikeda! There is a single, specific reason I want to write about this, but it’s going to take a while to get to, so buckle in for a story. ^_^

For one thing, I was absolutely thrilled to be able to assist with this production, and I want to be really honest about this, because I didn’t do fuck all to get this job. That this job landed in my lap is an example of the single most important piece of advice I have ever received from my mother – It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This is one of the ugliest truths in the world, but it is a Truth^TM. I happen to be friends with key people on this project; people who know me, know my skills and strengths and who trusted me to do something for them.

Which brings me to the next thing I want to point out – this series was translated by two different translators, both of whom I adore and consider good friends, Mari Morimoto and Jocylene Allen. Mari has been responsible for some of the best known and best-selling manga on the market, including Naruto. You’ve read Jocylene’s work in a ton of Yuri manga. Both of these women are incredibly talented and I have immense respect for their work – no ‘but’s. They are geniuses. Put a pin in this, because we will swing back here towards the end. In this case, one of the translators, Mari Morimoto asked me to edit/adapt their script as a hire by her, personally. She needed someone to bounce some concepts/choices off of. Again, let me be clear – I did not make any translation choices. I made suggestions of ways to make things sound better. In the end, the translation is the translator’s work, but where there are three ways to say the same thing, as an adapter, I’m looking at the voice of the character, the tone of the story, and suggesting a way to say it that reads more consistently.

I was in discussion with the publisher one day who was bemoaning some extraordinarily tedious work he had to do as part of getting things organized and simply offered to do some of the grunty bullshit that was needed. ^_^ Editorial assist crap. Like, here’s a 5 page Excel spreadsheet, fill-it-in-for-me stuff. When people say they want to work in publishing I’m not sure what they think they’ll be doing, but let me assure you – this is what you are doing. ^_^ My editorial assistant is taking pieces I write, and incredibly tediously adding in footnotes. I do not envy her this work – which is why I hired her! I hate footnoting things. It’s boring shit that has to be done.

Sometime later, when the series was close to completed, I was once again talking to the publisher and he commented that he needed someone to go back and just read the whole thing and make sure all the names were consistent. This seems obvious, but there were two translator shifts, from one person to another, then back. Sure it seems like it might be easy, Marquis de Lafayette isn’t going to be spelled differently because he’s a real person, barring an honest typo. How about Girodelle who was wholly made up and whose name is not Girodelle nor Girodel, but ジェローデル? So I had the honor and pleasure of reading the whole thing in the most tedious and painstaking manner I could, not paying attention to the story, per se, but all the individual words. I ended up fixing some stuff and caught a few typos, which brings me to an important point:

There will always be typos.

Are you, like me, one of those people who cannot not edit as they read? I get it, I really do. As a reviewer if I catch a minor typo and I can tell the publisher, I do. But generally I, like you, am reading the retail copy (on purpose. I don’t often remember to ask for review copies, because I also want to support the work with my money. I do note when I get a review copy, but it’s not all that common.)

Yes, some typos are worse than others. Inconsistency in names can be annoying, misspellings of important words likewise. But I know from translators that sometimes something is explained in Volume 21 that they had to do their best for Volume 1-20 on. And the explanation might make their choice seem stupid but how were they to know the future? Or what if the publisher or creator wants that spelling? Yes, Zolo is meant to be Zorro. BUT, copyright is a thing, so Zolo it is. Jeanne d’Arc’s name misspelled in a popular series franchise pissed me off no end, BUT what if were intentional and not just the translator making a mistake as we, in our ignorance might assume? You get my point? And still, typos just happen. My famous story is that in the first printing of Rica ‘tte Kanji!? I had 2 editors, 2 proofreaders and I personally read it over like 5 times…and there was still a typo.

I have friends in book publishing who do editing and proofreading. They have been responsible recently for several reprinted classic works that have been re-read for hardcover, paperback, trade and deluxe editions…and they still find typos. AND, more importantly, they know they’ve missed some typos, AS WELL. If you are reading RoV and you come across a typo, you can certainly let the publisher know. But don’t get snotty about how dare there be a typo. We worked really hard and long and really hope there are no typos.

There will always be typos.

At last, I get to my specific point. I will be speaking about translation in October at Michigan State University and one of the things I’ll be talking about is The Rose of Versailles. Because the translators made really terrific choices. At least one of which will annoy the proverbial “some people.” It will annoy them because they are used to one version of the story (the anime) which makes a different choice, and they will ignore that the why for the choice is literally stated in the manga. It won’t matter, because as I have commented recently the old adage, “every asshole has an opinion” has become commutative and nowadays every opinion has an asshole. ^_^ Some of you will tell me that you don’t like the choice, and that is fine, you are allowed to not like it. But I am going to tell you right now that this is the right choice – the manga itself tells you that. Trust the artist to know her own intent. Every word, every image and every page of this book was approved by Riyoko Ikeda. Other choices may also be something you personally might not have made. That is also fine. I stand by the translator choices.

And, with that, I present the covers to Udon Entertainment’s upcoming release of The Rose of Versailles.