pg. 1 Angelique Retour Secret Side Episode 1: Oscar's First Love (Part 1) by Miko Mitsuki [Note: This manga is not particularly respectful to its female characters in general, but it contains one scene that I find particularly problematic. It's discussed at the bottom of the document, after the translation.] pg. 2 Oscar [narrating]: This universe is ruled by a lone queen. SFX of shower: ::shaaaa:: Oscar [narrating]: She must be a noble & beautiful woman. SFX of shower: ::shaaaa:: Oscar [narrating]: But even Her Majesty...is a mere woman at heart. SFX of handle turning: ::squeak:: pg. 3 Chick: Oscar! You're up early. Oscar: (Yeah.) Good morning. Last night...was sweet. pg. 4 Oscar [narrating]: And if she fell into _my_ arms, even Her Majesty would melt. SFX of flag: ::FLAP:: Oscar [narrating]: ...I honestly thought that...when I was 17. Soldier: Did you hear?! About that Oscar guy! Last night, he finally got Elizabeth...! Soldier: No way! And she was the last holdout...! SFX of crowd: ::WAAAA:: Instructor or Whatever: Ready! SFX: ::SHING!!:: pg. 5 SFX: ::CLANG:: Instructor or Whatever: That's it! The winner is Oscar! SFX of airheads: ::swoon:: ::swoon:: Airheads: (One, two, THREE!) OSCAR, YOU'RE SO COOOOL!! [heart] pg. 6 SFX of Oscar: ::hmph:: Airheads: eeeeeEEEEEeeeeeEEEEeeee! Oscar [thinking]: This is the Royal Officer's Academy. The training institution for the army's soldiers. Oscar: For example, if you fail to water a flower, it'll shrivel to nothing. A woman is the same way. pg. 7 Oscar: And I consider it _my_ job to shower our women with love until they blossom into beautiful flowers. Crowd of about 50 Airheads: eeeeeEEEEeeee! Guy Oscar's Roped into Listening to Him: Wowwww. Must be tough for you. (Keep at it, champ.) Oscar [thinking]: It's a closed campus. All students live on premises in dorms. And there's no other way to have fun than to amuse oneself with the women. Elizabeth: Oscar! [heart] (Mind if I sit by you?) Oscar: Sure, Elizabeth. Oscar [thinking]: But... recently, I've become a bit bored of them all. Even the academy's foremost beauty fails to excite me. SFX of ice in cup: ::clatter:: Other Girl: Get _away!_ You had him last _night_; isn't that _enough?!_ Elizabeth: Whaa?! Hey - leggo! (Hey hey!) Oscar [thinking]: Something more... pg. 8 Oscar [thinking]: Something that's a _challenge._ A flower both beautiful and noble...is there nothing of the sort to be found here? SFX: ::GRAB:: Oscar: ...!? Hey! What're you-- SFX: ::JERK:: Victim: AAAAAAAH!! pg. 9 Officer: Fools... Losing your heads over a _man!_ Have you forgotten your _true_ mission here?! This is a place of studying and training - for you to learn how to protect Her Majesty's universe! Those who have lost _sight_ of their purpose should leave!! pg. 10 Oscar [thinking]: I'm... ...dazzled. Soldier: This is Prof. Anastasia! From the Royal Expeditionary Force! Soldier: Hey, hey! That's the uniform of the Knights of the Divine Bird! (Whoa...) Soldier: She's beautiful! (And young!) Soldier: Wonder if she slept her way to the top! SFX: ::GLARE:: Soldiers: eep Anastasia: Starting today, I'll be taking over your classes. SFX: ::clack:: ::clack:: Anastasia: But don't worry. pg. 11 SFX: ::WHAP:: ::halt:: ::clatter:: ::murmur:: Anastasia: I'm a _nice_ woman. I'm not gonna get _mad_ or anything. And I'll take it _real_ easy on you in training. Oscar [thinking]: Ahhh... SFX: ::shudder:: pg. 12 Oscar [thinking]: I _want_ her. To see a bud so tightly closed... ..._finally_ blossom... ...I have to know how beautiful that flower would be. pg. 13 SFX: ::clack:: Oscar: Hey, Anastasia. Anastasia: *Professor* Anastasia. Oscar: Sorry. SFX: ::clack:: ::clack:: ::clack:: Oscar: So, what's your nickname, Anastasia? Anya? Asia? Anastasia: ......... Oscar: All right! I'll call you "Anya." That sounds cuter. Anastasia: Hey. pg. 14 Anastasia: _Give it up._ I hear you have a different girl every night, right? That you enjoy using pretty girls and throwing them aside. Oscar: ......... Anastasia: I've heard a fair bit about you from the other instructors. --..._But_...I've also heard that your abilities are first-rate. Oscar: Yeah... Anastasia: _So..._ pg. 15 Anastasia: I watched you during practice. And from what I saw of your _sword_...I wasn't really _impressed._ ...*Boy.* SFX: ::fwip:: ::DASH:: Oscar: Wait. pg. 16 Oscar: My abilities _and_ my talent _are_ first-rate. You've just _arrived_; how can _you_ say _anything_ about my-- Anastasia: *Talent*... is something that can easily go *limp* with conceit. [Note: That's not quite a direct translation. The word Anastasia uses for what might happen to Oscar's talent is "kusaru," which mainly means "to degrade/weaken" but can also mean "to become depraved/degenerate." There's not really an English translation (of which I can think, anyhow) that preserves the original double entendre.] pg. 17 Anastasia: _You've made it as a soldier._ _But I'll doubt you'll make it into my Knights._ pg. 18 Oscar [thinking]: _In_-ter-est-ing. SFX: ::chatter:: pg. 19 SFX: ::dash:: ::dash:: Soldier: Is Oscar training on his own...?! Soldier: No way! He always used to skip out on practice! Soldier: I've been doing practice duels with him! Soldier: And I've even seen him at it way into the night! Airhead: _OHHHH_-WAHHH!! _OSCARRRR_...WHAT'RE YOU _DOOOOING?!_ pg. 20 Soldier: Didn't you always say "_I_ don't _need_ training"?! Let's go--!! Instructor or Someone: Disengage. Oscar: Watch out. I don't want you cute little girls to get _hurt._ Anastasia [in flashback]: And from what I saw of your _sword_...I wasn't really _impressed._ ...*Boy.* SFX: ::clack:: Oscar [thinking]: Anya... ...who do you think I _am?_ pg. 21 Oscar [thinking]: "Go limp"? You won't get anywhere being _jealous_ of my talent. Whether you're a soldier... _or_ a Knight of the Divine Bird... pg. 22 Oscar [thinking]: ...I'll shut you up with my sword. SFX: ::SLASH:: Anastasia: (*yawn*) pg. 23 Instructor: Bow! Dismissed! Soldiers: (*yawn...*) (Waaateeerrr~~) SFX: ::SPLASH:: Anastasia: Oscar. Stay here. SFX: ::PSSSSHHHH:: Anastasia: For some _additional_ training. Oscar: ...Anya. pg. 24 Oscar: If you wanted to have me alone with you, you could've just said so. Anastasia: Hmph. I'll shut you up soon enough. Oscar: (Hmph.) That's not very nice. But you still look adorable as ever. SFX: ::CLASH:: pg. 25 SFX: ::CLANG:: ::SKREE:: ::BANG:: ::GLARE:: ::grind:: ::grind:: ::grind:: Oscar: ...Such boring little earrings you have. They don't suit you. Anastasia: ...Don't think so? SFX: ::WHOOSH:: pg. 26 SFX: ::CLANG:: Oscar: ! Oscar [thinking]: Dammit. Anastasia: You're too soft!! pg. 27 [no text] pg. 28 SFX: ::STOMP:: ::tumble:: Oscar: ..._NOW_ who's soft? pg. 29 [no text] pg. 30 Anastasia: ............... SFX: ::HMPH:: Anastasia: Very well. SFX: ::CLANG:: Oscar: ANYA!? pg. 31 SFX: ::ZZZZZ:: Oscar: ............ SFX: ::ZZZZZ:: pg. 32 SFX: ::pat:: ::ZZZZZ:: Oscar [thinking]: She's defenseless... It looks like I've crushed that masculine confidence of hers. SFX: ::poke poke:: ::TUUUUUUG:: Oscar: (Hmph.) ...That tired, huh? Welllll...you'll just have to take that attitude that made light of me and... SFX: ::RUSTLE:: pg. 33 Oscar: ? SFX: ::RUSTLE:: pg. 34 Oscar [thinking]: Data on me...? What an analysis...who made this? And it's not just on me. She has detailed analyses on every student. And training regimens corresponding to their abilities... Anya did all this? How long... ...did she spend doing this? Post-It on Oscar's sheet: Recommended candidate for the Knights! pg. 35 SFX: ::TURN:: Anastasia: Mmm~~~...... Anastasia in Flashback: _You've made it as a soldier._ _But I'll doubt you'll make it into my Knights._ Oscar [thinking]: ...Damn. pg. 36 SFX: ::rustle:: Oscar [thinking]: I'm no match for you. [Note: The word Oscar uses here, "kanawanai," indeed means "I'm no match [for a person]" with the kanji used. There is, however, another sense of the word that means "can't stand to do something" - "I can't do it" - and a homophone of the word, using a different kanji and frequently paired with "koi," meaning "it can't be granted" or "it can't come true" - i.e. "our love can't come to fruition." I've gone with the most straightforward meaning, but a case could be made that the author means for the reader's mind to touch on these other meanings. This would be extremely disturbing if so, because it suggests that Oscar was contemplating rape here. However, as noted below, the flow of the story, the staging, and other details do heavily support this theory.] pg. 37 Oscar [thinking]: You're too far away... pg. 38 Oscar [thinking]: Right now...I can't even approach you. Anastasia: (? How did I wind up in my room?) Oscar [thinking]: Being struck down by your hand... Note on Post-It: I'll get there myself!! Oscar [thinking]: ...only made me even more determined to win. But right now... pg. 39 Oscar [thinking]: ...I'm not worthy to touch you. Anya-- Anastasia... pg. 40 Oscar [thinking]: I love you. And I'll become a man worthy of you. ******************* TRANSLATOR NOTE/ESSAY: It's obvious that this manga doesn't think very much of its female characters, from literally every single female soldier on campus sleeping with Oscar and being reduced to his airhead fawning cheering section to Anastasia being put in her place, so to speak, by Oscar "crushing" her "masculine confidence" and changing her appearance to something more suitably feminine. Not to mention her collapsing from sheer exhaustion being a weak li'l woman dueling a great big man, despite being an instructor who must duel students day in, day out. Or the fact that the one person who takes issue with how Oscar treats women ultimately comes around to be another moll, and that Oscar's own disrespect to her - talking down to her, addressing her familiarly, & hitting on her, despite the fact that she is his superior officer - is, in a situation extremely unlikely for any military, not redressed. The climactic sequence, though, is disturbing on a different level to me, because, as mentioned in the discussion of the possible double meanings of Oscar's climactic line, it broaches the possibility that Oscar was considering raping Anastasia while she was unconscious. The central conflict of the manga is that Oscar, after sleeping with all the women in the academy, comes across a new, tough woman who's a challenge and initially rebuffs his advances. Will he be able to sleep with her? Then, the manga (in an insulting way) puts Oscar with her in her bedroom when, as Oscar specifically, creepily notes, she's completely "defenseless." He has his crisis of faith while he's hovering over her prone form in bed (which is immediately preceded by a significant shot of his hand moving over the bedspread, then pausing); this ends with Oscar concluding that he "can't touch" her. (Note: Initiating intercourse would definitely wake Anastasia up, but we're going by romance logic here, not real-world logic. She might as well be under a Sleeping Beauty spell. Then again: Oscar pokes and prods her to ensure that she will not respond to physical stimulus. Obviously, sex is on a whole other level of stimulus...but Oscar's actions are suggestive of other intentions in context.) This sequence also comes after Anastasia has been properly "feminized" (i.e. given a softer appearance, been proven physically frail & not the match of her male counterpart/rival, and crushed in her "male" aspirations) and after an angry Oscar has promised indirectly to "shut [Anya] up with my sword" - his sword, in Dr. Horrible style, being previously established as a metaphor for his penis. Also, after Oscar's crisis, he moves in to kiss the sleeping Anastasia; then, after leaving the room, he muses that he "can't touch" her (while staring at his hand, so we know he means physically). But it's implied that he's kissed her, so what kind of touch could he mean? There's nothing really worthy of a big crisis of conscience than...well, sexual contact. That Oscar would consider raping a woman is...well, highly disturbing, as I've said. It could be done storywise with this setup - a younger, unprincipled Oscar confronted with the one woman who doesn't think he's hot stuff - if it were given proper weight: if it were used consciously to illustrate just how entitled and wrapped up in the myth of his irresistable self-image, so to speak, the character was that he'd consider doing something so horrible rather than see that image shattered, and if he had the proper "wait, what the hell am I _doing?_" moment of awakening (going through with it would, needless to say, be crossing the Rubicon characterwise for a dating prospect). The problem is that the manga never really understands that the consideration of rape itself is wrong. Oscar refuses to go any further with the "defenseless" Anastasia because he's "not worthy" of her - through looking at her work, Oscar realizes that she's dedicated to her job for the right reasons, whereas he became dedicated to his training out of a desire to win over Anastasia. That realization is a fine impetus for character change, but as it stands in relation to Oscar's decision in Anastasia's bedroom, the suggestion remains that if Oscar _did_ consider himself "worthy" of Anastasia, he would have had no problem with continuing his advances. The story (and Oscar himself) considers Oscar's "worthiness" independent of his willingness to initiate stuff with an unconscious woman, if you see what I'm saying. I'm sorry to go on and on here, but this is really not a conclusion to which I want to come - yet the more I look at the evidence, the more the story points to it. It also dovetails uncomfortably with a scene from the Retour preview manga, where Limoges, freaked out by a thunderstorm, pushes Oscar down in her frenzy and accidentally winds up on top of him. "Bold," says Oscar, "but I hate being pushed down," and flips their positions so that he's hovering over her, fully body-length over full body-length. Limoges is frozen with panic ("I thought he was a nice guy!") and obviously thinks for a moment that he's going to rape her; she manages to squeak "Pervert!", whereupon Oscar eventually gets off her. It's a short scene, one that's misplaced playfulness rather than actual attempt, but it's further evidence of Retour's weird willingness to play with rape ideas with Oscar; it seems to be interpreting "playboy" as "dangerous guy who might rape you," and that's really not a place I want to see Oscar's character taken. *** Translation by R. Capowski, 3/15/15; Angelique is the property of Koei/ Koei Tecmo/Tecmo Koei, by whom this document is not authorized.