Forum - View topicREVIEW: Requiem of the Rose King GN 1
|
Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
|
|||||||
|
Sounds interesting.... If it was a complete omnibus series I'd pick it up in a snap, but since it's ongoing and already has a bumpy start....I love Shakespeare and I love manga....
Shoujo fans please don't take offense to this question, but would it be interesting to people who prefer seinen and josei titles? Or is it more geared toward teenage girls? Thanks! |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10071 Location: Virginia |
|
|||||||
|
I'm not familiar with the content of the plays referenced. Possibly for this reason I found it incomprehensible and extremely hard to read. I gave up after 10 or 20 pages. Recommended only for reviewers and masochists.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
SHD
Posts: 1760 |
|
|||||||
.....and, more importantly, hermaphroditic, like Jeanne is very heavily implied to have been. Did the reviewer miss this, or did the translation gloss over it? If it's the latter case, I wonder how they did it (it's made really obvious even visually), not to mention that it's not a good idea, it becomes even more obvious and important later on... Anyway, I really like this manga. Sure, it's not the most perfect thing ever, but it's not trying to be. It's aware of what it is and it's not trying to be more. And I like the attention Kanno has paid to costumes.
Considering that "shoujo" "seinen" "josei" barely mean anything anymore, and that people read stuff even if they don't belong to any strictly defined target demographics, I'm not sure how to answer this... ^^;; Try it, and if you like it enough to continue then stick with it. I don't recommend it if: -you're a Shakespeare purist. I love Shakespeare, but this manga is only loosely based on the plays. Kanno is pretty much doing her own thing, and part of the fun is to match the story/dialogue up with the plays. -you don't like mopey main characters, because Richard mopes a lot. Not that he doesn't have good reasons to do so. -you don't like male characters expressing feelings for each other, that happens every now and then. -you can't put up with daddy issues. And mommy issues. -you don't like a cast full of really flawed and sometimes unlikeable characters who have a tendency to manipulate and backstab each other, and often act on impulse rather than thinking things over - but you said you like Shakespeare, so you should be OK with that. 
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
katscradle
Posts: 469 |
|
|||||||
|
I've been considering trying this. I think Moto Hagio endorsed it at some point. I like Shakespeare and (semi-)historical manga. The art & darkness of the story are appealing to me too. But, seeing as I was reading a series that was a bit of a literal headache in the language/writing department last month I think I may be burned out for the moment on more complex storytelling.
Don't know if this is any help but, France has licensed it as well. The publisher has it under their seinen category despite the series running in Princess, a shoujo magazine.  They also used a different cover that I like more. So I've gotten the impression it's a more atypical, grey sort of shoujo manga. It's psychological and pretty but, also quite action oriented (blood & decapitation at one point) from the preview I read.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
here-and-faraway
Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
|
|||||||
How you described the story really helped. Thanks! To me I think of seinen and josei titles as ones where the safety switch is off - anything truly can happen to the character. Also the characters tend to face more realistic, adult problems and there isn't always a happy ending. While there are some shoujo titles that I adore, the bulk of them don't appeal to me because 1) the safety switch is "on" (which, considering they're marketing to young people is not something I'm going to complain about) and 2) it tends to have a bunch of men flopping around the same generic protagonist. Of course every genre has its flaws, but for whatever reason the shoujo ones bother me more. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to devalue the genre or people who like it, I just know what I tend to like and what I don't. katscradle Thank you a lot too. That really helped! I think the title is for me. And of course thank you Rebecca for the great review. I discover a lot of great titles because of you. I'm much obliged. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
corinthian
Posts: 264 |
|
|||||||
I believe the preferred term these days is "intersex." However mythologically referential "hermaphrodite" may be, I don't think it's a term anybody born that way would choose for themselves. I don't believe translation uses any term (having only skimmed it in the bookstore), but it makes the idea clear. Plus the official press release for the license uses intersex.
They don't mean much as far as the traditional "what magazine it's published in" model, but you can still say whether a title is geared towards a certain audience and what its content is. Viz put it out under its Shojo Beat line, so that gives you some idea of who they think it's for. It's certainly not a typical high school romance with lots of screentones, but it probably doesn't have a lot of graphic content either. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2672 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
|
|||||||
I actually didn't mention it on purpose - I thought it was a spoiler. But since no one has complained here, we'll call me wrong and say I ought to have brought it up. 
Thanks for answering here-and-far-away's questions guys - I've been so busy between Passover and the preview guide that I'm just now looking at this thread! |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group