I was confirmed in my suspicion that I have a weak, weak, weak spot for Berubara. I love it to bits. With all its glitter and melodramatics. Every single marzipan dress and weird hair-style
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I think it's that I'm less invested in the 2006 production, but I liked the fact that Rosalie here wasn't musumeyaku.
I will have to address this comment, because Rosalie is my favourite character from the manga (and no, not only because Maachan played her ;) and the misunderstanding and dislike I often experience other Berubara fans show towards her, has made me very, very invested in exploring her portrayal and motivations.
I think the basic fault with Ayu's characterisation of her is, as you point out, that she isn't musumeyaku. There's nothing wrong with musumeyaku interpreting characters differently from the musumeyaku norm (I love Mireille in Silver Wolf 2005 for this very reason), but it has to be because it's true to character. Rosalie, if anything, is the very embodiment of musumeyaku if you ask me. She's gentle, soft-spoken, emotional, dedicated, empathetic and sweet. Everything that I associate with classic musumeyaku portrayal. Thus, the issue for me, with Ayu!Rosalie, is that - with a character that is so incarnated musumeyaku - she decided to play her un-musumeyaku-ish. To me, that just seems like misinterpreting the character on every basic level.
Also, on Ichiro. I think that if Ichiro had been given more scenes like the one with Alain, the fickleness that she poured into her would have been perfectly out-balanced by her straight-forward, masculine harshness. Oscar is the perfect mix of man and woman, after all, and it just seemed as if Ichiro wasn't given enough stage time and chances to showcase her more masculine aspects. And really, that's not Ichiro's fault, is it? :P We know she can be totally masculine when it's required - the director had just... not given her enough chances to be that sort of Oscar.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about Rosalie. For me all the tragedies in her past are enough to drive the sweetest girl to the edge of madness; in TV-tropes language, she embodies "Break the Cutie", and in the anime especially I liked the fact her journey is about going from that brink back to a whole and happy existence. For me, the harshness of Ayu's portrayal is a valid dramatic choice, just as - to switch shows - the dozen-plus valid interpretations of Death that I've seen personally, from Shirotan's lost young soul to Ichiro's icy warlord and Máté Kamarás's predatory trickster-demon.
Note: this is NOT a slight on Maachan's portrayal and interpretation. It's my opinion and appreciation of various dramatic intrepretations of the same text. (Which in turn is the reason I can see the same show 30+ times live, because even the same actors switch things around and are in different moods.)
EDIT: And upon thought - Maachan for me plays a Rosalie who's saner. Ayu's the one who I can imagine rushing with a knife at Madame de Jarjayes.
And yes on Ichiro. I think that's the advantage of Oscar-version over Andre-and-Oscar - here with the top star playing Andre, Ueda-sensei's traditionalism directed him to focus on the ways Andre's masculinity constrasts with Oscar's feminity, because of the need not to overshadow the top star. Personally I loved the whole thing in the garden that ends with Oscar sleeping it off with her head in Andre's lap; generally she was at her best in the fight sequences.
I will have to address this comment, because Rosalie is my favourite character from the manga (and no, not only because Maachan played her ;) and the misunderstanding and dislike I often experience other Berubara fans show towards her, has made me very, very invested in exploring her portrayal and motivations.
I think the basic fault with Ayu's characterisation of her is, as you point out, that she isn't musumeyaku. There's nothing wrong with musumeyaku interpreting characters differently from the musumeyaku norm (I love Mireille in Silver Wolf 2005 for this very reason), but it has to be because it's true to character. Rosalie, if anything, is the very embodiment of musumeyaku if you ask me. She's gentle, soft-spoken, emotional, dedicated, empathetic and sweet. Everything that I associate with classic musumeyaku portrayal. Thus, the issue for me, with Ayu!Rosalie, is that - with a character that is so incarnated musumeyaku - she decided to play her un-musumeyaku-ish. To me, that just seems like misinterpreting the character on every basic level.
Also, on Ichiro. I think that if Ichiro had been given more scenes like the one with Alain, the fickleness that she poured into her would have been perfectly out-balanced by her straight-forward, masculine harshness. Oscar is the perfect mix of man and woman, after all, and it just seemed as if Ichiro wasn't given enough stage time and chances to showcase her more masculine aspects. And really, that's not Ichiro's fault, is it? :P We know she can be totally masculine when it's required - the director had just... not given her enough chances to be that sort of Oscar.
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Note: this is NOT a slight on Maachan's portrayal and interpretation. It's my opinion and appreciation of various dramatic intrepretations of the same text. (Which in turn is the reason I can see the same show 30+ times live, because even the same actors switch things around and are in different moods.)
EDIT: And upon thought - Maachan for me plays a Rosalie who's saner. Ayu's the one who I can imagine rushing with a knife at Madame de Jarjayes.
And yes on Ichiro. I think that's the advantage of Oscar-version over Andre-and-Oscar - here with the top star playing Andre, Ueda-sensei's traditionalism directed him to focus on the ways Andre's masculinity constrasts with Oscar's feminity, because of the need not to overshadow the top star. Personally I loved the whole thing in the garden that ends with Oscar sleeping it off with her head in Andre's lap; generally she was at her best in the fight sequences.
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