The Rose of Versailles Review

In the mid-18th century, Marie Antoinette of Austrian royalty, comes to France to marry Louis XVI and secure an alliance between the two countries. But as she grows older, she falls in love with Hans Axel von Ferson, a Swedish aristocrat, and they start a secret affair. Hans also catches the eye of Marie’s very own royal guard, Oscar François de Jarjayes, a noblewoman who was raised as a man. But Oscar is worried for Marie’s wellbeing, and how it’s affecting France’s economy, so with Oscar feeling restricted in her role and Marie trapped in her status as a Queen, will their friendship shape the very future of France?

The Rose of Versailles is a series that you may have heard of before if you follow either shojo, or historical reversion fandoms. Originally released as a manga in 1972 by Riyoko Ikeda, it’s become not just a staple of the shojo genre but also a beloved classic, with its iconic characters, themes of gender and feminism, and its retelling of the French Revolution. The 14-volume manga was followed with not just anime adaptations (the first being a TV series in 1979) but also stage musicals, and live action films, on top of the manga selling over 23 million copies worldwide. This new anime film, released in Japan January 2025, was marketed as a 50 year celebration of the manga release, and undertakes the huge task of adapting the 14 volumes into a single (just shy of) two-hour film. Currently, the anime TV is not licensed in the UK, only the manga series is available (via Udon Entertainment) and luckily Netflix picked up the new film for worldwide release. I have yet to read any of the manga or seen any of the original anime, so this review is not based on pre-knowledge of the story, and purely looking at the adaptation as it is.

The first thing that surprised me about this film, is that it’s a musical! I went into this blind, and was surprised by the number of songs in it. I didn’t blink at the first musical number, which namedrops the show title, as anime films tend to have an ‘anime opening’, of some sort (see the Sailor Moon Crystal films as an example). But there are over 14 songs in this movie, and most of them are used to either showcase the emotions of the characters in the moment, or used to fast forward time in the story. Admittedly I’m not a big fan of musicals; I’ve seen my fair share of Disney films and some stage musicals, such as Wicked years ago, but based on my limited knowledge of them, I don’t think that this particular movie is a good musical. Feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt but I have three reasons why. One is that 90% of the songs are not seen to be sung by the characters by themselves; they are sung by the cast (the subtitles confirm who is singing which part) but aside from one song where we actually see a random crowd chanting a part of a song towards the finale, the rest are never seen to actually sing their song, it’s more like a voiceover in the movie. This causes a disconnect between the emotion of the song and the characters themselves. Second: a lot of the songs are played underneath the dialogue of the characters; there are many awkward moments where we hear the start of a song, only for it to be drowned out by the characters talking over the top of it. It’s not helped that the song and the dialogue are basically reiterating the same thing, so the song isn’t giving new information that the spoken dialogue isn’t already providing. Thirdly: most of the musical numbers are framed like music videos, meaning that they look stunning but a lot happens on the screen at once as they’re used to condense information or speed time along, often at the cost of the plot. For example: Marie’s first song, which is meant to showcase her growing loneliness in the castle, also serves as her first (unspoken) meeting with Oscar, the wedding to Louis XVI, and the passing of three years where she grows isolated. Due to the aforementioned issue of not actually seeing Marie singing the song herself, there’s this disconnect and explosion of information that isn’t absorbed or felt in the moment, and the song goes by so quickly that none of it really sinks in. So if you’re a lover of musicals, I think you’ll be more frustrated by this attempt, plus I also don’t think the songs are that memorable. They all have the same modern pop music polish, and similar tempo as well, so a lot of them bleed into each other. The one song I did like was the masquerade song, as it was undercut with good visuals and sounded foreboding, foreshadowing the meet cute that will end up spelling doom for Marie. I do have to give credit to the dubbing team however, as they dubbed all the songs into English and you can hear the cast giving it their best. The translated lyrics are a little clunky in places but I appreciate the effort that went into it.

As the original manga takes place over many years (Marie starts as a 14-year-old about to be married but by the end is an adult with several children), there’s a lot here that’s condensed or cut down to save on time. Even though I haven’t read the manga, I can tell there was a lot cut out to save time, but what we do see I think holds together really well. Unlike other anime films, that adapt manga/anime TV series to feel like many episodes simply cut together into one long piece of media, this movie feels closest to a three-act structure. The first act has Oscar and Marie meeting and coming into conflict over Marie’s lover Hans. The second act has them apart, with Oscar moving over to the French Guard and Marie sinking further forsaking her duties as queen, and the final act has the big battle, the tipping point where the commoners revolt and the two women are separated forever. It’s also held together very well by the narrator, who keeps the audience up-to-date on what the year is and the political climate in France; it helps provide the backdrop for our heroines and also builds up tension as the movie goes on, even if you know your history and where it’s all heading to.

There are a few odd choices the movie makes however; first there’s a random scene where Oscar, in grief over her unrequited love for Hans, dresses as a proper noblewoman and dances with him…only for it to never come up again. I assume in the manga it was a plot point where Oscar flirts with the idea of seducing him, dropping her masculine gender expression to be more feminine, but here it feels like a random scene that could have easily been skipped. Oscar’s anguish over Hans was already made pretty clear, and we get stronger examples of her questioning her gender identity over the movie, so I would have cut this scene for pacing and timing.

Then there’s the aforementioned first meeting between Oscar and Marie taking place in song, with no dialogue to complement it. The song provides a brief scene in the montage and in the next scene they casually let drop that they’ve now known each other for three years. Considering how much the movie relies on the friendship these two have, it feels very bizarre to have made that choice. This results in their final encounter at the end of the second act not hitting the emotional beat it was clearly going for. However, it’s where the themes of the original manga shine through that end up saving this movie adaptation. Both Marie and Oscar are trapped in what society expects of them, both in status and gender. Marie has been groomed from an early age to be married off and have babies for a nobleman or King, but she feels trapped due to lack of love and freedom. Oscar has been raised as a boy to serve as Marie’s guard, and there’s the push and pull between the ‘freedom’ she’s given as a boy to learn things that a woman at that time would not, but she’s also expected to put aside her feelings, never act on impulse and one day give up her freedom to be a housewife. Where the two characters stop mirroring each other is in how they deal with these restrictive roles and their respective pain, and their actions ultimately sever their friendship forever. Marie falls in love with Hans, a man she cannot have, and decides to bury in her anguish in jewels, gambling and having affairs – at the cost of her reputation and France’s future. Oscar, on the other hand, looks outward and chooses to use her position and knowledge to help others; she changes her role from royal to French guard to protect the people. By following her heart, and healing from the pain, rather than wallowing in it, she not only lives a more fulfilling and authentic life, but she also ends up falling in love with someone who loves her for who she is, never asking her to change her gender expression to fit social norms or give up her role in the army. Even when tragedy strikes at the end, it’s Oscar who has had the more fulfilling, happy life, unlike Marie whom history did not look kindly upon.

MAPPA produced this movie and I think they did a great job here; I liked how they kept the 70s shojo ‘starry-eyed’ look from the original manga, with modernised character models, colour palette and so on. The movie is gorgeous throughout with lots of bright colours and France is brought to life beautifully on screen.

The Netflix release comes with many dubs, including the original Japanese, but I was very pleased with the English dub overall; Caitlin Glass as Oscar (best known as Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club) was perfect casting, and with a lovely singing voice too. Karen Strassman as the narrator was great too.

As a musical, The Rose of the Versailles doesn’t quite hit the emotions it’s going for, but despite the amount of story cuts need to make the manga series fit into a two-hour movie, I think they did a great job. The characters are memorable, the story is engaging and the themes shine through, even 50 years on. The movie is a fun watch, even if you’ve never seen or read the original, and hopefully fans of the original manga can appreciate this anime bringing these beloved characters to life in a new way. It’s streaming on Netflix now, and comes recommended; at the very least it’s inspired me to finally check out the manga one day!

The Rose of the Versallies is now streaming on Netflix. Available in Japanese, English, French, Italian, Spanish and more dubs, with subtitles in English, Polish, French, Korean and more, depending on your region.