Roses are not lilacs, after all

La Rose of Versailles - 2025 Movie.

(Spoilers?)

(Which is ridiculous to say, since it is from a 1972 manga XD)

(Anyway)

YES.

Character design. Not Shingo Araki, sure. But I did not dislike it. I loved the redesign of many Oscar jackets, and I appreciated that they kept the very iconic 1970 bell-bottom pants.

Music. I loved all the songs. I have listened to this soundtrack since it was released on Amazon Music at the beginning of the year, and I absolutely adore most of its songs.

Fersen. OK, biased here because I was always #TeamFersen (even if my headcanon endgame is spinsterism, actually), but this version of Fersen won all the cards. He says even better things to Oscars than in both anime and manga (which depicted him already as the only one that truly respects Oscars' sense of self), and he is even spared from the *I cannot recognize my best friend just because today she has a ponytail* ordeal.

André. I hate him with a passion, and the fact that this version of the story is *almost* bearable for me was surprising. I still throwed up at the sex scene (I keep firmly my idea that was a "I will probably die tomorrow so let's have fun tonight"-kinda situation), but they removed the attempted rape scene and the lilac super bullshit, so the abovementioned pity-fuck is almost acceptable.

BIG NO.

Oscar. Seriously. Her character is all over the place. And I am SO SAD because I REALLY wanted to love this movie. But she cries when absolutely Oscar wouldn't have, and this is unacceptable. For how the story is constructed, she has basically no relationship with the queen (!!!!!), and this destroys the tragic arc of her choosing the French people over the person she dedicated the large majority of her life. The fact that I disliked Oscar so much made me conclude that, despite my best intentions, I did not like this adaptation.

MA. Same problem as Oscar. She is not well delineated at all. Both manga and old anime spent a large amount of time framing her reasons and her growth. I also disliked that the story ends with Oscar's death, when one of the decisions I always adored in the original material is the dignity of the MA prison scene before the guillotine.

Oscar death. The anime version is perfection, and IMHO was a mistake not to replicate it here.

Storyline. It is all over the place. If you did not watch the old anime or read the manga 2000 times, it is basically impossible to follow the story. I did not mind cuts and changes, but some sequences were nonsense. I would have not added the "I dress like a woman" scene at all, since it felt totally random in this particular adaptation (while in the anime for stopping the distracting pining as soon it started to manifest she needs Fersen's strong friendzoning), and the entire scene with André and the wine (former lilac/rose/rape) is pure nonsense.

OVERALL

The NOs are, unfortunately, so much stronger than the YES.

SAD.