さよならローズガーデン

SAYONARA ROSE GARDEN

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
3
RELEASE
January 12, 2020
CHAPTERS
17

DESCRIPTION

England, the early 1900s. Alice, a young noblewoman, has a Japanese maid named Hanako working in her household. The two have a fairly typical relationship…until the day Alice begs Hanako to kill her. As Hanako tries to figure out why her mistress would make such a terrible request, she and Alice grow closer until an entirely new feeling begins to blossom between them.

(Source: Seven Seas Entertainment)

Note: Chapter count includes 1 extra.

CAST

Hanako Kujo
Alice Douglas
Edward
Eliza McGovern

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Juliko25
89/100
A very sweet, riveting, and well-researched manga that's a treat for both historical fiction and yuri fans!
One genre of media that I've never really gravitated towards was romance, namely because many of the plots for romance were always very melodramatic or formulaic. It wasn't that I inherently hated romance as a genre, I just never found any romance media that really appealed to me. That would get rectified later in my life as I began to read and watch more things. I'm also not really into yaoi or yuri manga or novels, mainly for the same reasons, along with many of them having very questionable ethics in regards to things like consent. Many of them tend to idealize and glamorize toxic relationships, and I'm not down for that kind of stuff (Though this is coming from someone who unironically likes Sakura Gari). Honestly, I never even heard of Goodbye My Rose Garden before coming across this article here, but when I read it, my interest was immediately piqued. I requested it at my local library, and was quick to rent it and read the entire series in one sitting. I'm glad I did because I'm really, really surprised at just how great this manga turned out to be, especially since the last manga by Dr. Pepperco that I read, Bang Dream: Girls Band Party Roselia Stage, was decent at best but had a lot of problems in regards to its artwork. Seven Seas, thank you for bringing this manga to the US, because I love it!

In the year 1900, Japan is in the midst of mingling with the West and adopting a lot of its cultural practices. Hanako Kujo, a teacher still reeling over being unable to help one of her students, travels to England in order to find the author of one of her favorite novels, along with finding a job. Unfortunately, she hits a roadblock and is unsure of what to do. Thankfully, a young noblewoman, Alice Douglas, notices Hanako and offers her a job as her personal maid. The two of them bond over their shared love of novels and literature, but for some reason, Alice wants Hanako to kill her. Hanako is unable to comprehend why Alice would ask her to do such a thing, but she's determined to not only befriend her mistress, but to make the best of her new surroundings.

One thing I really respect about Goodbye My Rose Garden is that it really makes great use of its setting. Rather than simply using it as a backdrop, the manga takes great care to embed itself in the history of the period, through the social and hierarchal norms the characters are expected to uphold to using real events that are happening during the time, such as the very heavily publicized trial of Oscar Wilde. It's made very clear throughout the manga that Dr. Pepperco really did a lot of research on Victorian England, and when wanting to write a story taking place in the past, you really need to make sure you get all your facts straight, because if you don't take care to portray the time period as it was, or take too much artistic/creative license with it, you run the risk of either making it feel too modern/contemporary or falsifying facts. Like, you won't find the characters here saying things like "The elephant in the room," knowing about the internet, or owning cars. It'd be one thing if Goodbye My Rose Garden was trying to go for an alternate history route, or go for a more fantasy/sci-fi like depiction like what the video game Code;Realize did, but the manga makes it clear it's trying to be just slice-of-life historical fiction, with no fantasy or sci-fi elements in sight.

Another thing that impressed me was the artwork. I mentioned in my Bang Dream Roselia manga review that I felt that the artwork could be lackluster at times, especially for the backgrounds. There, it felt like Dr. Pepperco didn't put in an effort to make the world of that manga feel alive, or only did the bare minimum. That manga came out several months before Dr. Pepperco would go on to make this, and it's amazing to see how much she learned from her mistakes, because the backgrounds here are not only very lavish and detailed, especially when it matters, but feel much more alive. Everything, from the designs on book bindings, to the period-appropriate dresses and hair styles the characters wear, to the exterior and interiors of the mansions the characters inhabit, is given a lot of care and attention, and I didn't notice any significant issues or anachronisms. Even the usage of English text is very cohesive, and I didn't notice any jarring grammar errors or awkward sentence structure, something that even most World Masterpiece Theater anime struggle with from time to time.

Of course, no matter how much research you put into the setting, you can't have a good story without a cast of characters to make you care about them, and thankfully, Goodbye My Rose Garden has a great ensemble to hold it together. The main duo are a joy to watch, as they both have equal amounts of depth, strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to the story and its progression, and Dr. Pepperco really worked hard to make sure they have good chemistry, and I found their budding friendship and later romance to be very believable. Other characters, such as Susanne, Marie, and Alice's older sister Jane are also pretty likeable and serve their purposes well. Even the antagonistic characters are surprisingly down-to-earth and aren't evil for the sake of it, as the manga is careful to show that they are products of their environment and are expected to uphold the Victorian-era values and social norms that have been drilled into them all their lives, and a lot of the conflict comes from their wanting Alice to be happy but wrongly assuming being the submissive wife of a nobleman and upholding the family's reputation is the best thing for her, since that's what women of the time were expected to be. Edward, Alice's fiance, isn't a cackling supervillain and does love her to an extent, but is a product of Victorian era sensibilities, thinking Alice will be happy if she becomes a mother, being openly suspicious of Hanako's relationship with her, and even displaying period-appropriate (But still unacceptable by modern standards) racism towards Hanako. My only real complaint is that other characters, such as the other maids working in the Douglas estate and Edward's unnamed friend who tells him about Alice's scandal and warns him about Hanako, don't get developed or utilized enough, to the point where Edward's friend doesn't even have a name. Plus, Susanne, a maid that Hanako encounters, is said to have left a bad situation in France, but we never see it. Dr. Pepperco has mentioned at the end of volume 3 that she'd like to make a sequel manga that goes deeper into exploring other characters and the consequences of their actions, but so far, nothing's set in stone.

For what it's worth, though, I'm happy with Goodbye My Rose Garden as is. It knows what it wants to be, doesn't drag itself out longer than necessary, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Now I wish I hadn't written off Dr. Pepperco back when I reviewed the Bang Dream manga she made. Goodbye My Rose Garden was clearly made with a lot of love and passion, and I can only hope she's able to make more stories like this. It helps that it's fairly short, too, only clocking it at three volumes, and Seven Seas released the whole series in the US, so you can read through it pretty quickly if you have a few hours to kill. So for anyone wanting to read a historical shoujo-ai/LGBT manga that doesn't have a tragic ending, definitely give Goodbye My Rose Garden a try. It's sweet, short, riveting, and I would honestly love for someone to make an anime out of this. I know that probably won't happen, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?
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ZenTea
100/100
A masterpiece that will hit you right in the feels
Every kind of media has what we refer to as "masterpieces". They are usually few and far between, not to mention that they're mostly hard to find. Well, scrolling through anilist's recommendations, I recently found a manga that I feel is more than worthy of the title of masterpiece. Let me tell you about it.

Description

"Sayonara Rose Garden".

Just the title alone is enough to make your heart skip a beat. It's concise, on point, and extremely poetic, so much that it's not hard for me to imagine it being a short poem. That same title, paired with its gorgeous cover art, is what first got me to read this manga. At first I just liked how it looked, but it was not long until I got completely invested in the story.

Speaking of story, here's a short summary of it. Sayonara Rose Garden is a yuri manga with an historical setting of 1900's England which follows the thorny love story between Alice, an english noblewoman, and her maid Hanako, a japanese girl who came to England to look for an author she looks up to.

This story was clearly written after a whole lot of research. This is proven by the fact that both the historical setting and the yuri features of it are really well done. The happenings in the story happen together with real historical events, helping the viewer get invested in the story, and, at the same time, the yuri sections of the story are great at setting the dramatic mood that this manga goes for.

The cover art was indeed really good, as I stated in the first paragraphs, but it also keeps that level of quality in the actual chapters. The drawings are very emotional, poetic and full of details, which I find incredible considering how the chapters are structured.

The chapters are in fact quite long, around 30 to 40 pages each. This is balanced by there being only 17 chapters, keeping the story to a fairly normal lenght.

Thoughts

Once I first finished this manga, I was left without breath. It was a while since I had experienced such an emotional story, about 5 years actually, so I got hit really hard. I have no doubt that this is the best manga I've ever read, and I greatly suggest that you also give it a shot.

The story was good, both captivating from an historical point of view and a fictional point of view, having the best out of the two worlds. The happenings of the story and the way they smoothly connected was incredible, not to mention that the closer I got to the end, the stronger the storm of emotions each chapter hit me with was.

To close this off, I'm really glad that I got to read this manga, and I believe this deserves nothing less than a full 100 out of 100, as well as the biggest recommendation I could possibly ever give to a manga.
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Rhum
80/100
"Goodbye, My Rose Garden" is a classic "forbidden" romance story.
This book read like poetry. I've learned a lot of new words, although I have already forgotten most of them. English is difficult

As Hanako found herself losing confidence and helpless as she wasn't able to help her student, she found peace in reading, namely by Victor Franks. A bookworm she is, she decided to venture to London to meet her favourite author Franks — as well as she is trying to become a novelist herself, arriving at a publishing place, there, she finds herself encountering Alice, a noblewoman, that is also quite a bookworm like she is. As this fate meeting unfolded, Alice was fond of her and sought salvation for herself within Hanako. Hanako then later finds employment as a personal maid to noblewoman Alice.

As this story takes place in the 1900s London, things weren't exactly progressive. Hanako learned about the novelist Oscar Wilde — who had an affair — sodomy has been deemed a sin in this country. Remembering what Alice said, Hanako also believed that love is free.

I enjoyed how their relationship started to unfold. As a maid and her mistress — befriended each other, both of them feel unsure of their feelings and how their relationship is supposed to be.
I was quite fond of the way Alice's struggle was portrayed in this story, as she has a troubled past and her position as a noblewoman, as she can only find salvation by spending time with Hanako. I thought it was beautiful.

Roses bathed in the strongest light cast the deepest shadows.

As they spent their time together, they became closer and closer. Secrets started to unravel — as they wanted to learn to understand each other true intentions. Afraid of being hurt or hurting others, they grew suspicious and kept their relationship distance as only a maid and her mistress while unsure of their feelings. It was probably my favourite part of the story, perhaps you can say this sequence of events only called for misunderstanding, and if so, it was certainly one of the better ones that I have read recently. Excitingly waiting for them to learn about the truth to unfold made my heart flutter for I only wish for them to be together by the end.

The scenes in this book were particularly well-drawn and properly conveyed — as well as the dialogue in this story was elegant and sophisticated, suiting perfectly with the setting of the story. It was easy for me to immerse myself in them. The side characters were lacking in-depth as they only served as a commentary for the struggle of the two main characters, be that as it may, most of them are lovely and wholesome people, so I had no particular problem with them for this kind of story. Though, they are still a few side characters that stand out, one of which I love. I particularly enjoyed the scenes between the two of the main characters. Granted, the two of them are the main focus of the story, so it should be obvious. But their interaction was delightful, and it was easier for me to attach to them and react emotionally if the scenes "demanded" so.

"Goodbye, My Rose Garden" was a fun read — it wasn't a particularly original story — but Dr Pepperco cleverly added a slight twist that made it slightly different from its genre, with well-thought-out execution. It is a romance story of two girls involving themselves in "forbidden" love and trying to overcome the burden that they carried alongside them. This story is definitely worth reading if you are a fan of the genre.

With all that said, I wasn't expecting myself to write a review for this book, but something just clicked within me to do it.

My mind overflows with ideas, but when I set myself to the task, they are no more than a single drop of morning dew.

As I write this review. Well, I hope you at least find something in this. Thank you for reading.
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