First of all, I want to clarify that this is not my fanfic; it belongs to @mk8-fic-writer .I just wanted to create this illustration because I'm loving the story so much! Personally, this is one of my favorite RoV fanfics, so I highly recommend it👌✨️
Now, let's talk: MONSIEUR GRANDIER IS HERE AAAAAA🔥👀
I'm so happy because I finished this illustration right after the new update of 'The Thorned Vow' AAAAA, so now we have a visual of how André looks in this fic! 💖✨
First of all: the uniform. OMG 🔥👀 This guy is so handsome, it's honestly unfair if you ask me, hahahah! When I first started reading this fic (around chapter 5, I think), I was so curious about how they would look. In this story, while Oscar is the Commander of the Royal Guard, André is the Commander of the French Guard. Even though he’s married to Oscar, his rank doesn’t change—he’s married to a noble, but he isn't one himself. Because of that, his uniform is less adorned compared to Oscar’s.
Beyond the uniform, drawing André himself was a challenge since I find it a bit hard to draw men. Taking inspiration from Alain’s design in 'The Glory of Napoleon'—this is my final design!
Since I have both of them in uniform now, I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison. So, here is this beautiful couple! Of course, André is taller than Oscar, even though she’s tall herself! But since her boots have heels, the height difference is less noticeable here than it would be in their casual clothes. ✨
Speaking of his casual clothes, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure if I can call this my own design since it’s basically André’s outfit from the canon manga and movie. Even though I’m not a big fan of the anime, I have to admit the look is iconic, especially from the chapter where they spend their first and only night together (manga and movie version). For this concept, I just added a belt and changed his shoes.
Before showing the comparison of them together, I want to show you how they probably looked in one of my favorite chapters—Chapter 13—when they finally declared their love for each other! Hehe. After reading it, I had this crazy idea to draw the entire scene, but when I started, I had so much trouble sticking to one style. That’s the main reason I decided to create these concept arts! So, here they are! 🥹💖
After André played the drama queen and left the Jarjayes Manor—thinking Oscar was still in love with Fersen—and Oscar found out he was gone, she almost lost her mind! She even tried to mount her horse despite being injured! Her family finally brought her to where he was working, leading to the most beautiful and hilarious declaration of love. That’s why André is in uniform while Oscar is in a dress. However, after the incident in Chapter 12, she needs to recover and has to wear dresses for a while, which is why she’s still wearing one in Chapter 17. But since André wears casual clothes in this chapter too... 👀 this is likely how they looked at that festival!
Reading the chapter and the description of the dress, I loved the change. Both dresses were originally white in my mind, but the second one—which was the inspiration for Oscar’s dress in Chapter 17 (I'm still so honored, girl! 🥹)—was blue. I think that change is perfect since the first one was already white! So, once I have time to finally paint this render, the color will definitely be blue. 🩵
And last but certainly not least, all these designs were made with love. I really wanted to draw André before his haircut, and I honestly couldn't believe I was drawing the same character!
I don’t even know where to start, but thank God Dianne took those scissors and cut his hair! 💅✂️ (Talking about the fanfic, of course). The change is INSANE! I can assure you that the body and face are exactly the same in all of these drawings—even in Oscar’s concept art. I only changed the clothes, since Oscar and André’s original designs obviously aren't mine; they belong entirely to Riyoko Ikeda. I just draw them in different outfits because it’s fun, hahahah! ✨ But it’s amazing how much a person can change because of something as simple as a haircut. I have to say, for me, André looks so much better with short hair, so: good job, Dianne! 💁♀️
With all the designs finished, I can finally start working on that scene again! I don't want to give away any more spoilers, but it takes place in Chapter 13 👀. These took me longer than I expected—sometimes imposter syndrome is hard to deal with, especially when no matter how much I try, the drawing just doesn't feel right. But I'm doing my best! 💁♀️💖
Thank you again for the recent update @mk8-fic-writer I hope you like these drawings as much as I'm loving your fics, and of course, I hope you're doing well! 🥰✨
What do you think? Let me know in the comments, I would be happy to read your thoughts! 👀✨
Has the "RoV is yuri" misunderstanding always existed or is it fairly new, like a few years old thing? I have been a fan of Rose of Versailles since a little girl (we had three VHS tapes of the anime with a horrendous Finnish dub. They had only one male voice actor and only one female voice actor and characters' voices would suddenly change back and forth in same scene and they clearly didn't know how to pronounce French names etc. :DD Plus they didn't dub the whole series, instead they just cut episodes and smashed some episodes together and only three VHS tapes were released so the the story ends after the duel between Duke Henri Salvator de Guéméné and Oscar. When Internet became the big thing it is nowadays I was able to seek out and watch the Japanese version of anime and that lead me to read the original manga) but I have never really interacted with the fandom or others fans. I am more of a "being fan of things by myself" type of person. But the "RoV is yuri" and "Is Rov yuri or not thing?" has come to my radar and I am wondering where does the claim that RoV is yuri comes from? I remember having a huge crush on Oscar and she made me realize that I am a lesbian but RoV is very heterosexual (not a bad thing, it just a fact) so what about it would make people think it's yuri? All I can think of is Rosalie's admiration of Oscar and her one-sided crush on Oscar but there is not much of that in the story and it's not part of the main plot and Rosalie's role got decreased and she ends up with a man.
Rov has always had an association with yuri, due to its influence on the genre. Imo this influence is very overstated on the western fandom side of things. It also does not make Rov a yuri. Most Japanese language manga history articles and books do not directly associate the two. If anything it gets a minor nod for Rosalie being sort of Class S and there being a three finger handful of yuri works that drew inspiration. Oscar didn't invent the princely woman trope and Takarazuka has been around since the early 1900s. She may have repopularized it along with Takarazuka's big boom but even that revolves around OA. Ikeda's Dear Brother is usually what gets brought up as a major precursor to yuri. I think because Rov is so well known and one of the few older works people know of, it gets more credit then it deserves simply due to accessibility. In hime circles yes it gets lumped in with yuri, outside of them... no.
As for everyone insisting it is a yuri and the revisionist history/illiteracy thing where people pretend things happened that didn't, that is fairly new. This is most prevalent in English speaking circles. I do think a lot of it is queer and lesbian fans liking Oscar, so it gets that association and claim, but that doesn't make it a yuri or the character less heterosexual. The story has always been very straight with a couple gender play comic relief moments.
I joined the international internet fandom, which was predominantly Italian fans, back around 2003 to around 2008. I only came back in 2024. I don't remember anyone insisting it was yuri or even really caring about yuri ships. The "Rov fandom" as I have always know it, was very canon centric. But once again in English language hime circles it has always been associated with Utena, but that's aesthetics not plot. I think a lot of what has been happening recently has to do with the yuri fan group being popular and loud, no one being able to engage in works without projecting themselves onto it and there being a stigma towards anything that can be deemed "hetslop" aka uncool. "Yuri is better and the only ethical media". As a lesbian I've never focused on the gender of characters I like the dynamics of, I'm not afraid of straight ships, I don't feel the need to overcompensate and I don't expect every character I like to be just like me, in fact I prefer them not to be. This is not the case for a lot of the younger social media fandom, where its not about what you like but how you look.
There is also a lack of genuine engagement or shallow engagement with the work. Not reading, just watching tiktok and only engaging in fanon. A lot of fans see Oscar and assume "lesbians!" which has honestly eclipsed being cute or funny and just looks like stereotyping and lack of reading comprehension. Context nonexistent. Or people see Rosalie and automatically assume a real romance is going on between her and Oscar. Many fans don't get that her character was a sort of fan service/audience insert nor do they know she is only 12 when she meets Oscar who is 8 years older then her. Oscar sees her like a little sister and feels responsible for her in the way an older brother would. Also the messaging with Rosalie is pretty negative in that multiple characters tell her she needs to get over Oscar and meet a nice boy, which she does. I can't imagine thinking that is yuri, let alone good yuri. Rosalie and Bernard's story also continues into the Napoleon sequel and the episodes manga. There is also the myth that Rosalie was forcibly written out because fans didn't want Oscar to be a lesbian (lmao as if that was ever an option), but that isn't true either, her main arc ends and she is present the whole story up to the end. Its like people forgot MA is the main character and is also absent for chapters at a time. There were fans who didn't like Rosalie but that is because they were jealous she was close to Oscar and not them. What happened was Oscar was more popular then Rosalie and MA so she got to have more then both of them.
Then we have Oscar and MA, who aren't ever that close or good friends. They spend almost the whole manga in love with the same man and not understating each other. Oscar only begins to understand her as a woman at the end due to her love for Andre. idk I don't get the appeal as a "yuri" at all.
Thank you for your question, it is still odd to me but there is a sizable amount of English language "articles" and "academic papers" that claim Rov is a yuri, so I believe people mostly don't read or think for themselves and just parrot what they have heard others say. Because insisting RoV is a yuri with its 50+ year hetcouple centric legacy is hilarious...
I know this is sadly seen as a heated topic in the ROV fandom and community so I assure and promise that I ask this genuinely out of curiosity and because I want to understand things better but has Ikeda made any comments regarding the scene where Andre assaults Oscar? I have interpreted it as an old unfortunate trope of its time (plus we see similar stuff even in modern stories today, for example there is this whole genre known as Dark romance) where the man assaulting or almost forcing himself on the woman is seen as romantic or passionate, like "oh, he loves and wants her so much that he wasn't able to control himself anymore!". Plus I also thought that Ikeda was trying to showcase the desperation Andre feels and the tragicness of his situation. Like, he loves Oscar but cannot marry her due to him being lower social class than her and he is losing his eyesight which means soon he won't ever be able to see the woman he loves so all of that drives him to make a poor decision and lapse in reasoning and thus he ends up assaulting Oscar. So I wondered if Ikeda has every commented why she wrote that scene or why she wrote Andre the way she did in that scene?
My grievance with that scene is that it is never brought up again after it happens and Oscar and Andre never discuss it afterwards. I also find it unfortunate that Oscar starts to see Andre as a man after he assaulted her. I want to clarify that I am not against characters doing problematic things because even in real life people sometimes make problematic choices in good and loving relationships. If you don't mind me asking, what are your thoughts about that scene? It's fine if you don't want to answer that but I would be interested to heard (well, read) your thoughts and opinions about it. Do you think it is fine as it is or do you wish it had been handled differently?
Sorry about this essay and thank you so much in advance and thank you so much for all your hard work for the ROV fandom!
No, she hasn’t. I have never seen her speak on it in anything I have read anyway.
What I think about it.
I have been a RoV fan for over 24 years and honestly only in recent years have I seen this be such a HUGE issue. This is pretty par for the course in historical fiction and with Ikeda. If people are this bothered they should go away. This is not for them.
I get the discomfort, but I also understand that it does have a narrative purpose and it pushes the characters forward and I am honestly not mad at it, I don't think it is nearly as bad as people make it out to be and I don’t think we need to “pretend” it didn’t happen. Yes, I would say it is an outdated trope but I think it still works today, for a piece of historical fiction, for what its being used for. But people lack the capacity to look at it properly and past their kneejerk reaction to it. I also don't see it as, "dark romance" or romance at all. Its dramatic, tragic and emotional.
People focus so much on the Andre half of this scene so let’s start with Oscar and what this does for her character.
To start. People give Oscar far too much credit. She isn’t the most considerate person or the most emotionally intelligent. Throughout the story she is shown to overlook peoples feelings and is very slow in learning about herself and others.
It takes being hit over the head or her experiencing the same things to fully understand people, especially when it comes to emotions. She was built for a specific role and doesn't really think about much outside of that.
She disregards Marie Antoinette’s loneliness and desire to be loved, then realizes she isn’t immune to that either (even falls for the same guy). She is extremely dismissive and kinda mean to Rosalie, then she herself experiences unrequited love and finally understands and empathizes with her (the very misinterpreted marriage line scene). We have Fersen ask her if she is lonely living her life they way she does, which she answers 'no'. Only for Girodelle to ask her again later and she hesitates, because yes, by age 33 she is and also has a better understanding of love. Oscar and Marie Antoinette never really understand each other and there is always a disconnect, until their final meeting where Oscar, through her love for Andre finally understands Antoinette as a woman.
Her treatment of Andre is also not great..
Top of Oscar's crimes list here is the whole Black Knight fiasco. While the scene is played out comedically, Andre is forced by her into this very stupid plan. Forced to cut his hair, risk his life and belittled the whole time by Oscar and nanny. This is quite an abuse of power by Oscar as his master and also of his feelings, as he thinks the only reason he is doing it is because it is for her. Then of course he looses his eye, we see Oscar's guilt and a bit of her sense of possession over him with the first "my Andre". This could be read as hidden feelings coming to light in the heat of the moment or as the more nefarious "you broke my property". I think its a bit of both.
A lot of people, use the “Oscar started to see him as a man” phrase for this scene. While true, maybe it gives the wrong impression. This isn't a dark romance, sexual sexy moment, for either of them. So I’ll try this one.
Oscar never saw Andre as being any different from her.
She didn’t see him as a man. She didn’t think he had any desires that she didn’t. Needs that she didn’t. Feelings that she didn’t. I sometimes don't think she even saw him as his own person. He was more an extension of herself, a third arm, always there to do what she need. So when this happens, its unexpected and she is forced to see him as his own person and THAT is what is scary.
So not only does Oscar now have to think about Andre's desires, needs and feelings...She has to think about hers, because that is how she works.
When it is said that this the start of her "sexual awakening" its not "oh that turned me on" *wink wink dark romance* its "oh that is a thing, I never thought about that, Andre feels that thing, do have those feelings too then?"
Answer is yes, we see from here on that she is extremely sexually attracted to Andre. (and is almost seduced by Girodelle) But it isn't because of that scene being physically sexual or arousing, its about the idea planted in her head that she now has to confront within herself.
The scene is after she has her talk with Fersen and he tells her
"Welp sorry I thought you were dude, maybe if you were more girl looking I'd have liked you back, duces" So she is feeling a certain sort of way and Andre senses this.
She is sitting it the dark (it is dark, no one can see, I think people forget this, for what its worth) feeling sad. As the conversation progresses Andre knows something happened with Fersen, and of course he knows Fersen doesn't return Oscar's feelings. He askes what happened and Oscar refuses to tell him and he gets mad that she is keeping things from him. So he one ups her with his insane confession. Worst possible moment to do so.
I agree with your assessment on Andre. I think he is desperate, his situation is bleak, and he has a moment of crazed weakness. This is also meant to shock us all, audience, Oscar and Andre himself as this scene is very uncharacteristic for him from what we have seen so far. There is also the fact that they are master and servant to add to the mix.
I think it is important to note that his main goal throughout this whole scene is to get her to listen to him (I imagine she doesn't do that often) and he is doing so by holding onto her. He also keeps saying he would rather die and be killed, he is baiting her to call her father and have him shot. (Her father, just come in and shoot him? Does this say something about anything? That he could just do that?) So he is a bit suicidal too. What is being said is much more disturbing then what is being done.
A large part of this scene is also to highlight his "great passion and restraint" and at the time it was considered very admirable and people liked this scene for that reason. Here is "the times" and outdated trope. It is an assault though, I don't think anyone would deny that but the point of this scene isn't that it is an assault. The point isn't the physical act but the emotional repercussions, which get so largely ignored it becomes not worth even talking about this scene.
I know Oscar and Andre never talk about what happened and I understand the disappointment with that. But it doesn't go unresolved or without follow up. We see Oscar realize she is very selfish when it comes to Andre, that she makes his life difficult, that she wouldn't be able to live her life the way she does if not for him and her whole female sexuality thing which is also an out of story achievement as it showed women as subjects of desire as opposed to just being objects.
Everything ties into her realization of equality and living her life on her own terms, which enables her to open herself up to returning Andre's feelings and breaking from the nobility. I think a lot of this gets ignored because people don't look at how this scene contributes to Oscar's growth via her relationship to Andre. For god sake its a story about class and he is our one commoner, the main characters' servant. Everything between has weight and importance to that main theme as well. People are too busy seeing Oscar as a victim to notice the growth she gets out of this. Granted I know most of the people who feel that way don't like the Oscar/Andre relationship or really Oscar either, if we are being honest, so it would be easy to miss.
Controversial opinion. I think for the short form serialized medium that The Rose of Versailles is, the scene is fine. I'm not really sure what else could have been done at this point in the story to get the characters moving to where they needed to be while also beating Aim for the Ace in the polls, so..? I think If it was adapted into some other longer "for TV" format it could be handled differently, It would look differently, staged differently. I mean look at the anime, it completely changed the context and made it 10 times worse! But I don't think the bones are bad, its supposed to be uncomfortable shocking drama:
Two friends of 20 years sitting in the dark talking about their past, the woman is hiding something form the other and won't tell, the man knows its about his rival for her love, they start to argue, he tells her to call out for help but she doesn't, the man confesses his impossible love to the woman not caring if it means his death and kisses her, poetic word vomit, she is in shock, he is ready to die by the hand of her father, finally she calls for help in the name of the other man she is in love with, in the struggle the man rips her shirt, everyone in shock, he immediately stops and apologizes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That all being said I do think the poison scene does a lot of the same work and maybe even a little better, I think it is an easy replacement for this scene or the two could almost be mixed together. It almost feels like it was a late to arrive better idea that got missed the first time around. We will never know.
I’m going to be blunt. I think most takes on this scene are really lazy, shallow cop outs "assault bad" like omg the sky is blue and the grass is green. Please don't waste our time. I think a lot of it is posturing or people being too scared to be judged by people on the internet and over correcting by talking to much about it as if they need to make sure EVERYONE knows they know its #BAD.
This is #1 bad faith topic and close to 99.9% of people who bring it up don't care about anything other then saying "I know assault bad, omg HIT TWEET" It is an argument that they see as being a 100% win because no one can argue against that.
Regarding the poison scene doing a lot of the same things: I completely agree with that, but I have to say that I think the poison scene would not work well if this scene had not come first.
This scene was very necessary for Oscar's development for the reasons you already pointed out, and she needed that development (seeing André as his own separate person) for her to understand what happened with regards to the poisoned wine.
Like, he is so powerless. We see that he is in the incident scene, too, but that is about his feelings; this scene is about his fate—and hers.
Keep in mind that the marriage arc is the first time Oscar feels as helpless and powerless as André has always been and it turns her into a shell of her former self. She's completely mired in her depression and drinking to excess to cope. She can't even talk about it. Seeing that André considered something as drastic as murder/suicide doesn't tell her that he wants her dead, but that he was willing to try the only thing that was in his power to help her even though it would have damned his eternal soul.
Her that her happiness and comfort mean the most to him. More than his own self. His own afterlife. His eternity.
And even though she's too far mired to convince herself to fight for her own happiness, she can sure as hell fight for his. He needs her to. He cannot do it for himself; he does not have that power.
Something something his unhappiness means her unhappiness and she knows what that means even though she struggles to articulate it in that straightforward "I love you" way. Remember, she tells Girodelle that if you love someone you don't want them to be unhappy and then goes on to say that if André was unhappy then she, too, would be the unhappiest person the world.
To which Girodelle says, "I understand."
I think a lot of people see the poisoning scene as like this very selfish moment for André but they don't realize that it's also showing us how selfish Oscar is; she's so lost in her own pain she doesn't see André's at all, even though his life is also affected by her marriage; she also KNOWS he is having problems with his eyes but is too busy thinking of herself to feel like she can help him.
But he NEEDED HER to stand up for herself. He needed it because he could not do it himself; he did not have the right or the power to save or protect her.
It's an unpleasant scene but Oscar needed something to slap her out of that helplessness she was imagining for herself that wasn't even real.
Please don't think I'm diminishing her mental illness (which she clearly has) by saying this, either. I just think it's important to point out that for all of Oscar's good points, she has many bad points, too. She is OFTEN very selfish, and takes advantage of André's good nature. The incident scene forces her to contend with the fact that the reason André has always been so compliant is because he loves her, and so his love is the reason she's been allowed to live freely. A love she never noticed because she did not see him as his own person, but rather, an extension of herself and of her will.
She starts to grow after that, and tries to pay more attention to André as his own person, but the marriage arc has her backsliding hard. Without the understanding she gained in the incident scene, I don't think she could have made sense of his actions in the marriage arc. But with them, it's a reminder that he loves her and that she matters to him, even when it feels like she doesn't to anyone else. It gives her something to fight for.
For what it's worth I don't think "the poisoning scene" itself was necessary, but something* that gave her an excuse to break the engagement off that wasn't purely selfish was—and it always had to come from André.
*And before anyone can suggest that André could have simply spoken to her and told her he loved her and begged her tearfully to do something, it doesn't work because he promised he'd never do that again after the incident scene and it's very important to the story that he held to it.
--
Also, VERY UNDERRATED section of your post is that some of this was for the serialization factor. Cliffhangers and drama that won't be fully resolved each chapter is super exciting for readers and rating polls and the like, which was important for this series. I am sure if Ikeda had the chance to write the whole thing over again, knowing the ending of her story and how much space she had, we'd have a rather different story.
But I don't really want that, so I won't think too much about it. Despite its flaws, I love this series.
Love this. While there are probably different ways things could have been done or shifted around I really don't think they need to be. These two scenes are fine imo and do work well together. Both are needed to push Oscar at these different moments in the story (and are I believe a couple years apart?). I think she gets forgotten a lot in discussions about these two, as well as the more unpleasant aspects of her character. For something that was serialized things really do connect and pull together really well. Rov really is one of those stories that I am very satisfied with and don't feel the need for anything to change. Even everyone dying! 😂
hi, everyone! i am alive, and somewhat out of nowhere, i decided to finally finish the RS epilogue once and for all and post it. who knows if anyone is still around reading it (or remembers anything that happened), but i wanted sakura and syaoran to have their final happy ending. sorry it took me four years to get there!
anyway, if you do happen to read it, please feel free to let me know what you think! truth be told, i hadn't logged on to tumblr in over a year, but given the way things are going with the world and our various social media platforms, i suspect i'll be spending a lot more time around here again.
Chapter 6 of Perun will hopefully be dropping this week (beginning of next week at the latest) 🥳
Lots of life changes folks. This past year has been challenging to say the least, but your girl is officially a licensed dentist! 🦷 Brush your teeth if you want new chapters 👀
Hilariously, I have more free time now that I am working. So I am hoping to utilise it and write both LCS, and the novel I have been working on. I hope to post some more content regarding that; If you are up for a dark fantasy with elements of romance and tragic family dynamics, that is.
Chapter 6 ended up being more massive than planned (at this point is anyone surprised?) so it has been cut into two parts for a smoother read (around 20k each). As such, chapter 7 will be posted sometime next month so there is time for edits. In between the two I will be posting a lore document - I need some time to segregate it and make chapter summaries (bc I know most of you don't remember much when I am this slow to update:()
Like Changing Seasons Part 2: Perun - A Syaosaku Royal AU - Chapter 6 is up!
Perun (Перýн) the highest god of the slavic pantheon, the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, fertility and war. He was (by some accounts) the son of Svarog, the husband of Mokosh, and the mirror image of the god Veles. He resides high in the branches of the World tree, watching over his domain.
Forced, King Robert and his army make a move. Once again, perhaps for the last time the armies of the West and the North are about to clash. This time Emperor Xiao Lang has an Empress by his side, and the Mistress of the Clow can make a big difference on the battlefield.
Meanwhile on another front Princess Feimei Li conquers the Northern Wave and begins to make deals with the current leaders of the region, mainly Galene Strom, eldest daughter of King Robert.
In Aegean, the Capital of Wave, Princess Sava Strom has to choose between the future of her bloodline and her sisters’ lives.
I am calling this one: Sakura and a head in the gutter.
Did you miss me?
Big thanks to @andrec02 and @kuroi-kotoba for being the most amazing betas in existence! And to my favourite sister @whatpunx for the moodboard! <3
Clear Card Trivia 5 ~ Real life models of buildings featured in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card
Hello and welcome back to my column dedicated to Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc!
After a rather "heavy" 4th one, for this 5th episode of the series I've chosen a topic that doesn't require to dig down into complex matters, but actually just admire the real life models of some of the buildings featured in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card!
All of the buildings mentioned here have already been featured in a thread or tweet in my Twitter account, but I thought it was time to collect all the info relative to them in a single post, easy to browse through when needed! Maybe for some of you it'll be an interesting discovery!
Two of these models are old acquaintances, since they already existed in the old manga/anime but they came back, particularly one of them became pretty much a big deal in this arc, so they will be dutifully featured here.
Without further ado, let's explore these buildings under the cut! (I will also add useful info in case you want to visit them one day - many CCS fans already do this regularly!)
Tomoeda Middle School - The Gate Hotel by HULIC (ex Rissei Elementary School)
We start this review with one of the most iconic buildings in Clear Card Arc: ever since chapter 2 of the manga (because it didn't appear in chapter 1 yet) and episode 1 of the anime, this new building helped us getting accustomed with Sakura's new life as a middle schooler!
Obviously I'm talking about the Tomoeda Middle School!
It is a very nice building surrounded by cherry blossom trees, but the best part of it is that it's an existing building in real life!!
Let me introduce you to the ex Rissei Elementary School of Kyoto, which has been renovated in 2020 and turned into the current The Gate Hotel by HULIC.
At the time of planning of Clear Card, the building was still known as the ex-Rissei Elementary School, although the building hadn't been used as a school since March 1993 (it had been turned into a multi-purpose space for the local community's gatherings and cultural activities).
But don't be fooled: CLAMP didn't choose this building only because it's a pretty school - it is a very, very important historical building for the city of Kyoto (where CLAMP currently live!).
This building is considered "the birthplace of cinema in Japan", since in 1897 an early film projector brought from Paris was installed in this school and an experimental showing of Lumière cinema was performed. Furthermore, this school also had the first swimming pool ever installed in an elementary school in Japan.
There's a very nice video explaining in details the history of this important building, subbed in English:
After a 10-years period where the building was used for cultural activities and festivals (particularly cinema oriented), in 2020 the renovation works ended and the place turned into a commercial building hosting a hotel (the current The Gate Hotel by Hulic), but also a library, events hall, restaurants, etc. enclosed in a complex called "Rissei Garden Hulic Kyoto".
CLAMP also took interest in the renovation works, mentioning them in their social media at the time.
The thing that immediately stands out is that, in their renovation works, they kept the original architecture intact and so the building still looks exactly like Sakura-chan's school! You can see them here beside eachother and it's really the same.
If you are in Kyoto and want to do some "fan pilgrimage", as Japanese fans call it, you can reach this building at this address:
Rissei Garden Hulic Kyoto
310-2, Bizenjimacho, Kawaramachi Higashiiru, Takoyakushi-dori, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8023
JAPAN
Official website with detailed info on how to reach there.
Clow/Eriol/Akiho's mansion - The Former Moji Mitsui Club
In Cardcaptor Sakura there's another iconic and mysterious building that had been pretty important in Sakura Card Arc already, but in Clear Card Arc becomes basically a matter of "life and death" for the new tenants who live in it: of course I'm talking about the mansion that first belonged to Clow Reed, then to Eriol Hiiragizawa, then to Akiho Shinomoto (along with Yuna D. Kaito) and ultimately is bought and managed again by Eriol! 😆
Kaito, the stoic and unfazed magician Kaito we all know, had been uncharacteristically nervous about obtaining Eriol's ex-house, since he was afraid that the previous owner had left some trick that would prevent them from obtaining it.
This info was not revealed in the manga, but actually in a "behind the curtains" scene of the 1st Drama CD that came with volume 7 of the manga.
Why was it so important for Kaito to get Eriol's ex-house?
It's easy to deduce, once you remember that Eriol himself told Syaoran that his ex-house is a very good place to store and protect magical artifacts.
And who carried a ridiculously powerful magical artifact inside herself, unaware of it? Akiho, of course.
Eriol's house was probably the best chance Kaito had to protect Akiho from all the attempts of the Association+the Squids to take her away, back into their control (as we have seen in chapter 33).
This house was so important that the anime staff (along with scriptwriter Ohkawa-sensei) had to come up with a convoluted explanation as to why the house was back on its feet again when Akiho invited Sakura and Tomoyo in episode 8, since it had been completely destroyed to build an amusement park at the beginning of The Sealed Card movie!! (which, mind you, it's still canon!! They just suggested that Kaito brought that house back with his magic and the majority of the characters didn't realize the discrepancy).
Well, did you know that such an important mansion is an actually existing building?
Let me introduce you to the former Moji Mitsui Club in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka prefecture!
As you can see by comparing it with the pictures above, the anime version had to change some elements of the front here and there, but the manga counterpart is basically a tracing of the real existing building!!
Just like the ex-Rissei Elementary School, this building isn't just aesthetically interesting, with its exposed timbers evocative of German design of its time.
It was built in 1921 as an accommodation facility of Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Japan's first general trading company, but it's famous for having hosted none other than Albert Einstein and his wife, during their tour of Japan, in 1922!! In 1990 it was designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan.
It is very interesting to note how the anime staff was pretty careful in keeping the same European vibe of the interiors of the existing building, with its big curtains, mantelpiece in each room, exposed wooden beams on the ceiling, dark brown half-wall wooden panelings.
In the manga we can mainly see, of this house, the living room where Kaito and Akiho always chat and have tea (which is the same of the anime), and only limitedly we can see another room (some kind of studio) and Akiho's bedroom. We even get a tiny glance at Kaito's bedroom in chapter 80, but it's basically just the bed.
This one above is the "Einstein Memorial Room" and it replicates faithfully the suite where Einstein and his wife stayed at while visiting Fukuoka.
The teal colored wallpaper with all those flowers makes me think that the design of Akiho's room in the anime might have been inspired precisely by this room! ✨
If you find yourself in the vicinity of Fukuoka, you can't miss the opportunity to visit this building at this address:
Former Moji Mitsui Club
7-1 Minatomachi, Moji-ku, Kitakyushu City
JAPAN
*Admission fee required for the 2nd floor - Einstein's Memorial Room
More info on this page.
Masaki's Summer House - Rokkaen
And now we get to what I consider one of the most beautiful buildings featured in Clear Card Arc: one of Masaki's houses shown in episode 20 of the anime and chapter 20 of the manga!
This was seemingly Nadeshiko's favorite summer house and precisely for this reason, Masaki has planned to leave it as an inheritance to our Sakura-chan in the future!
Truth to be told, he wanted to give it to her immediately, but Fujitaka understandably refused (for the time being) the inheritance of the house on his daughter's behalf. I don't even think Sakura knows of this, it's a matter the two men must have discussed in private.
Regardless, dear CCS fans, this is a sneak peek into the future of our Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun, as this might be the future nest of our two lovebirds. 🥰
And could a building of such importance and beauty be just a fictional house?? Of course not!!
Meet the Rokkaen, a gorgeous light blue European-style building in Kuwana, Mie prefecture!
The official Visit Mie website reports: "Completed in 1913, Rokkaen is an old European building with a four-story tower combined with a Japanese-style structure. It boasts a garden in the front complete with a pond. It was built by Josiah Conder, a British architect who also designed the Rokumeikan".
Even this building, just like the former Moji Mitsui Club, was designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1997.
As you can see, this is what the manga shows of this building, and at first glance it might seem like a different mansion because the tower doesn't appear, but worry not: it is still the very same building, only showing the left side of it! The tower on the right side is hidden by the trees (and the Japanese side of the building is missing).
I've checked a bit the interiors from the anime and manga, and while in the anime I didn't recognize particularly any room (the style is still similar though, particularly the half-wall panelings), in the manga there's one scene where it is incontrovertibly featured the sun room on the second floor: it's when Sakura wanders inside and eventually finds Nadeshiko's room!
From the accuracy of the drawing, we can assume Mokona sensei worked closely with different pictures of the real life building! 😉
At this link you can even take a virtual tour of Rokkaen!
But if you really want to visit it in person, then take note of the address below:
Rokkaen
663-5 Kuwana City, Kuwana 511-0005 Mie Prefecture
JAPAN
*Admission fees required to visit the building
More info on how to reach the place on this page, using an online translator.
Tomoeda Aquarium - Kaiyukan Aquarium
As for Clear Card, this building only appears in the anime, but it is another one that got a second chance after having appeared in the old anime first: the Tomoeda Aquarium!
I still remember how the choice to feature this building again for a very important episode was met with lots of criticism from the SyaoSaku fandom at the time of announcement of episode 9, only to end up making everyone fall in love with the portrayal of Sakura and Syaoran's first date ever. ✨
The magical and intimate atmosphere of an aquarium, with its soft lights and pretty colored fishes, got an unrivaled charm!
Well, it seems the design of this magical place (where Kaito and Akiho will have a date of their own later on - only mentioned and manga-only, for now) was inspired by a real existing aquarium, the Kaiyukan Aquarium in Osaka!!
And of course, for CCS, they couldn't choose an average aquarium: Kaiyukan was, when it first opened in 1990, the largest public aquarium in the entire world. Nowadays that record has been surpassed by other aquariums, but it's still one of the largest.
Goes without saying, but the design was the same even in the old anime.
Not everything we saw of this aquarium in CCS comes from Kaiyukan, though.
It seems like the iconic cylindrical tank (yes, the one that broke twice in the anime) might have been inspired by AquaDom, which was a very popular aquarium situated in the lobby of the Radisson Collection Hotel in Berlin, Germany. This aquarium held the World Record title for the biggest cylindrical aquarium in the world.
Why do I talk in past tense?
...Well, this might seem like a joke, you might have heard about it or not, but sometimes fiction turns into reality and on December 16th, 2022 the big tank suddenly ruptured, destroying itself and propelling 1 million litres of water and 1.500 tropical fishes into nearby facilities and streets, with devastating damage. Only two people got hurt from the glass debris since this happened early in the morning (before 6 am), but if this happened even just an hour later, the human damage would've been so much worse, on top of everything else. Unfortunately, all the fishes died. ☹️
When the news came out, I saw a lot of Japanese fans relating the incident to what happened in CCS. 😅
Well, I can't leave information to visit AquaDom anymore, since it seems they don't have any intention to re-build the cylindrical aquarium, but I can certainly do so for the pretty Kaiyukan aquarium in Osaka, so if you visit nearby, definitely check it out! 😉
Kaiyukan Aquarium
1-1-10 Kaigandori, Minato-ku, Osaka City 552-0022
JAPAN
*Tickets required
Additional access info here.
Old Library of Trinity College & The Eiffel Tower
Alright, alright, I'll admit it: these two come straight from my obsession for YunaAki, hence why I've lumped them together. 😆
When I started getting more and more involved in the story of these two, I (over)analyzed all their panels together, in hope to understand them better and grasp some foreshadowings on the story.
And chapter 39 of the manga is particularly dear to me because it showed some fragments of their travels together around the world.
I got so interested in that scene in particular, that I started to look if I could recognize the places depicted.
And while I had a hard time recognizing some of them, there are two places that are actually existing buildings in real life!
One is the old library of the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland!
When I saw that huge library in the corner of the manga page, I had to look for it. It looked so majestic and beautiful that it had to have a real life inspiration. And it took me to just type "biggest libraries in the world" on Google, to find it!
As you can see from the panel circled in purple above, Mokona sensei reproduced (simplifying the design) the one that's called "The Long Room", the biggest and most important room of this impressive library, hosting around 200.000 old books in its 65 mt of length.
There are also marble busts lining the room, which have been just vaguely sketched by Mokona sensei, but they do appear along with the seats in the middle of the aisle, indicated by my magenta arrow.
The old library is just one building of the Library of the Trinity College, but it is also famous for housing The Book of Kells, which is "an illuminated manuscript and Celtic Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables", as reported by Wikipedia.
When Akiho was introduced, they didn't mention she had lived in Ireland, and even though this technically could be just a randomly referenced library and nothing else, it's nice to imagine Akiho and Kaito lived there too.
But they DID mention that those two lived in France for a period, hence why the next feature was easier to spot:
Despite the design is sliiiightly different (it's not a perfect tracing of the original, particularly where it seems to be corresponding to the second level deck), I think it's apparent this was meant to suggest the Eiffel Tower and the period they lived in France. The "atmosphere" of the scene also kinda fits it (Kaito always manages to get the best houses - like what do you mean they got an apartment with a view on La Tour Eiffel while they were living in France?? 😆).
I don't think the Eiffel Tower needs any introduction, as it's one of the most famous and iconic towers in the world (even the Tokyo Tower is inspired to it!).
So let's just leave some basic info here in case you're traveling the world and want to visit the two locations above:
The old library of Trinity College
Old Library, College Green, South-East Inner City,
Dublin 2, D02 VR66
IRELAND
*Admission fee and pre-booking info here.
(Note that currently most of the books have been removed from the Long Room as part of a redevelopment project and will be moved back when works are done)
The Eiffel Tower
Av. Gustave Eiffel, 75007 Paris,
FRANCE
*Admission fee required
Additional access info here.
Special Feature / The Pictures in Sakura's Bedroom - Hong Kong
And I've chosen to end this post with an extra: not all of them are buildings but it's something I've already featured in another post loooooooong time ago on this same blog, and I believe it deserves to be featured and collected here again, along with all the other buildings of this arc, for easier reference!!
Have you ever wondered what are the pictures pinned to the wall of Sakura's bedroom in the Clear Card anime?
When episode 1 aired on January 7th 2018, some chinese fans were lightning-fast to spot the landscapes depicted in those mysterious photos - they might have looked like some random photos at first glance, but in this anime nothing is left to chance!!
They actually were a very conscious, deliberate choice of the anime staff: they're all referencing landscapes from Hong Kong!!!
The chinese fans recognized all the places immediately (and from blurry shots of episode 1, at that!) but later on director Morio Asaka confirmed in the interview of the Starter Book that they were in fact postcards that Syaoran sent to Sakura from Hong Kong during the time they've spent apart between 6th grade and 1st year of middle school.
When I first saw the post from the chinese fans, I remember my heart exploded with tenderness for SyaoSaku, but even more so when director Asaka confirmed it: it was a testament to the efforts made by our two lovebirds to keep their bond alive, waiting for the moment when they would finally be together again.
And seeing that Sakura filled her personal space with Syaoran's home gave me a good idea of how much she had been missing him, and used those postcards to "wrap herself in his presence" whenever she needed to.
I always appreciated so much this little "present" from the anime staff, always so careful in depicting feelings even through these little details.
So let's review what each of those postcards depict (sorry for having to do it like this, but I ran out of pics allowed)
First column
The Peak Tower
Temple Street
Ngong Ping 360 cable car
Second column
Victoria Harbour ferry
Victoria Peak night view
For these ones, as they're just hidden cameos, I prefer leaving a convenient link for each of those places/attractions so you can delve far and wide into the interesting info provided by the official websites (all in English), and maybe even plan your next visit to Hong Kong!
And I believe that's everything, for what I could spot, but if you find other buildings in the Clear Card anime or manga that are clearly referencing real life buildings, let me know and I'll add them here to this post with credits!! ✨✨✨
Remember you can always check the other posts of this series through the hashtag #clear card trivia !
Are you already planning your next trip for a Clear Card pilgrimage?? 😆
Ahem, sooo, it has been a long while since I did one of these. So yeah it was about time I brought it back. Anywho, here are the blogs I chose to include. Most of them will be mutual, some are not but still many blogs I do love to see on my page and constantly repost from. Thank you all for your time; hopefully, I will come up with more sometime soon! As always, let me know if you ever want to be included or want me to check out your blog! I always love meeting and seeing new people on my page! Enjoy ❀
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
janainaart
stormborns
germansingergirl
