This is for all of those (and you are many) who didn't see this epic anime, too old for your minds even to look for.
This anime is about 37 years old to the date, and still it hungers us the drama genre fans into oblivion by each episode the more.
This anime is about an extremely appealing fictional character named Oscar Francois de Jarjayes and her equal fictional friend named Andre that together are drawn into the big picture of reality, of the human history called: La Revolution Francaise de 1789-1799 from which the sparkles of democracy have transgressed throughout all of Europe, so in other words its a story within our European history, within our European heritage.
And what of a story this is!!!!!!!! My God...
Oscar is a name you would give to a boy and no coincidence her father thought of the same thing since he has the "misfortune" of having his wife given birth to a girl instead of a boy to carry his legacy and his honor as a nobleman further. The female protagonist of this story, caring not just the name of a man but also the responsibilities and the pressures only the best of men can deal with, is soon caught in one of the most turbulent and pivotal time of Frances and Europes history. It's a time just after some bloody and costly wars between France and Austria not just in lives but in this two country's peoples welfare, just ended. Austrias queen, to reassure the newly and unsteady peace between the two giant countries, gives her most beautiful daughter Marie Antoinette in marriage to the France prince Louis the XVIth (fact of history). In debut of the story, Oscar must safeguard the royal family, especially the new princess of France Marie Antoinette as she is targeted for being a foreign element that can not be trusted by the parisian nobles of Versailles. As the story unfolds Oscar is soon forced to partake not just her job of the royal guards high commander, but also to mend and caretake the ever more abrupt discrepancy between the luxuriant world of exaggerated pleasures and the major surplus of monetary spending from taxpayers money that the nobles enjoy, with the world of commoners taxpayed into the ground by the nobility, forced to work from down to dusk just to barely be able to feed their family some potatos with salt in the evening, if even that. With a relentless principledness, courage and some fencing abilities that would make even the toughest and bravest of men applaud in delight, she manages to soften terrible wounds both of this corrupt nobles vs. the growingly angered-persecuted commoners conflict, as well as in her ever troubled heart witness to some unbearable, unreal nobility cruelty.
This anime throughout its 40(or 41) episodes describes not just the massive adversity our hero(ine) Oscar has to amount, caught between a world of perversity and ignorance that the nobles obnoxiously embrace and a world of sweat, tears and anger that the commoners are trapped in; but also the tormenting questions of her forever growing personal dilemma: to lead a life of staggering manlike integrity that forces that renown icy look in her eyes (meaning she is compelled not to show any emotions in public) opposed to her own woman heart scolding her for being exactly the reverse of how a woman should feel and be!
I've finished watching this show no more than a day ago that compelled me to write this, and I still can't manage to shake this kind of choking searingly feeling in my chest from this story of dedication, perseverance and sacrifice, in this awesome, old and painfully delightful anime Versailles no Bara aka La Rose de Versailles aka Lady Oscar.
Throughout all of it, you have the feeling more and more rupturing in the end, that this world does not deserve some of the people that make almost all the sacrifices imaginable for it, and Lady Oscar is without a doubt one of the best of those!
Grade 10/10. I'm a drama junkie, but this has left even me wanting no more.
