Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher at a digital conference. ( )

Naturally, Rose of Versailles shows its age. It's not a gateway manga; the artstyle put off a lot of modern fans badly. So does the somewhat revisionist, rosy image of Marie Antoinette as a sweet, childish, well-intentioned but flighty heroine. She's not the star; gender-bending captain of the guard Lady Oscar is.

RoV is often billed as a queer female romance; that's something of a lie. the heroines are all female, there is one strong bisexual character and a few characters that may be queer but never seem to be aware of that. There's a scene or two that will really stab you in the heart if what you want is a queer-friendly shoujo romance.

And besides that, it's not just a romance. Ikeda-san write romantic historical fiction that is mostly drama; that is, she writes character dramas that take place is well-researched historical settings that are nonetheless secondary to the drama. Nothing will make you say 'that's not how it happened in revolutionary France,' but I also don't think you'll say 'wow, I have learned so much about revolutionary France.'

Why do I still recommend the series highly if it's not quite queer, not quite historical, hard to define, and hard to get a new reader into? Because I am still in love with Lady Oscar, that is why.

Now, what I REALLY want to recommend is Oniisama E (sometimes translated as Dear Brother and sometimes as Brother, my Brother) which is explicitly queer, takes place in Ikeda's Japan of the 1970s, and is all of the delicious schoolgirl homoerotic melodrama you could possibly want, none of the icky pro-monarchy sentiment. Alas, it's never been licensed or officially translated into English. I will say that I have read it in English, and I will say that I did that online, and I am sure you could too. But that's as much as I can say about that! ( )

A sprawling soap opera of a manga centering around Marie Antoinette. It moves *very* slowly--there are entire chapters dedicated to the question of if/when the Dauphine will first speak to the King's mistress--and the art is a bit flowery for my tastes, but it's engaging. ( )

A glacially-paced historical fiction tale of manners and court intrigue set in France during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. It might be more interesting to me if I were more familiar with French history as it utilizes many real people in its plot. I probably should seek out a true history of the era, as I had more fun researching the real characters in order to note them on LibraryThing after finishing the book than I did actually reading the book.

Mostly, I could not find a way to care about any of the three figures at the core of the book. First, we have the bratty and awful Marie Antoinette. Then we have her wooden and barely there love interest, Hans Axel von Fersen, who just stands about looking handsome. Finally, the heart of the story is the fictional character Oscar François de Jarjayes, and I just have trouble suspending belief to accept that she is a woman who openly dresses as a man and has been given command of the king's royal guard. She spends most of the first volume here being a cypher who sort of stands for justice but mostly doesn't do much of anything. Apparently she becomes involved in a love triangle with the other two at some point, but she seems asexual and spends most of her time worrying about her mother and a street urchin in this volume.

I don't imagine I'll read the rest of the series, but I could come back to it once I've had time to forget how dull it is. ( )