Excerpt from:

       "Issues Regarding The Rose of Versailles"
       Manga and History as Culture
       by Ikeda Riyoko
       Advantage Server, 1994.

This translation is based on a chapter in a collection of autobiographical essays.   In this excerpt, Ikeda describes how she conceived the ideas of The Rose of Versailles and the character Oscar.

* ~~~~~~~~~~~ *

It was during 1970, my fourth year in college, that I started a new life with Mr. Editor. [1]   The Rose of Versailles would begin its serialization when I turned 24 two years later.

At the time, historical topics were considered totally unsuitable for manga series.   I wanted to draw a series based on the life of Marie Antoinette during the time of the French Revolution.   Yet my proposal was soundly rejected by the editorial staff.

"Of course it will work.   I promise.   Please give me a chance!"   I bowed my head and begged.

And so the serialization began.   While I was under immense pressure to produce a hit series, in my mind I was not so sure whether my work would indeed become a huge hit.

The crux of the story was based on Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette, a biography that had moved me deeply when I first read it in high school. [2]   As I began looking through the mountains of materials, I wondered how fascinating a story set in those times would be.   Surely my young women readers would not reject the story as dull.   If the story turned out to be dull, it must be that I, as the artist, had failed to make it interesting.

Still, how do I turn such upheavals in history into an interesting story for both grade school and high school girls?   I tossed the question over and over in my head.   The idea filled me with such excitement that I couldn't sleep for days until the "name" for the first serial was completed. [3]

How do I portray the Commander of the French Guards as a character?   As a defector who joined the Citizens right before the storming of Bastille, and as a hero who opened the first victory for the French Revolution?   As a young 24-year-old, I was not confident that I could fully portray the psychology of a man, much less the life and thoughts of a male soldier.   In desperation, I made my Commander into a cross-dressing beauty.

That was how Oscar, the craze of young women, came to be.
 

Notes

[1] As the author later explains, public universities during her time allowed up to eight years to finish a Bachelor's degree.   The delay in her studies is understandable since she was both attending classes and drawing manga professionally.   In 1973, she dropped out of college to concentrate on her manga career.

[2] Marie Antoinette:   The Portrait of An Ordinary Woman, 1933.   The English translation of this book is currently out-of-print.

[3] In a parenthetical note, the author describes "name" as a draft with layout specifications for frames and words, similar to a script for a play (no drawings included).   This term is commonly used in manga production.