"The end of a dream is the continuation of another dream.''
Alpen Rose (炎のアルペンローゼ・ジュディ＆ランディ, Honoo no Arupen Rōze a.k.a. Blazing Alpen Rose) is a shōjo manga series created by Michiyo Akaishi. It ran in Shogakukan's Ciao magazine from 1983 to 1986, later was gathered in nine short volumes, and then it was re-released during The '90s in four volumes.
Lundi Courtot is a boy who lives in Switzerland with his aunt and uncle in 1932, few years before World War II. One day, in the aftermath of a plane crash, him and his family find a little girl in a dandelion plain. Not remembering her own name, and her only clue to the past being her parrot Printemps, she is taken in by Lundi and his family. She is named "Jeudi" because it is the French word for Thursday, and Lundi found her on a Thursday.
Fast forward to 1939, few after the Austrian Anschluss and a little before Switzerland declares its neutrality. Lundi and Jeudi are already teenagers, but Jeudi is still amnesiac; her only clue about her identity is a song that repeats itself in her memories, whose name is apparently Alpen Rose. And then, a strange man named Count Gourrmant appears and attempts to kidnap Jeudi. When she refuses to become his mistress and is pretty much locked in the castle as a maid, Lundi rescues her and they run away from home, setting out in a journey to find the answers to all of their questions, as well as falling in love in the process...
The manga was adapted to a 20-episode anime adaptation in 1985, which has music by Joe Hisaishi and character designs by Akemi Takada of Urusei Yatsura and Kimagure Orange Road fame.
Flame of the Alpen Rose provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptation Deviation: In the original manga, Lundi's family raised Jeudi until she was taken in by a store. In the anime this was changed to a hospital, with Jeudi becoming a nurse in training. In the first three episodes, the hospital plays a significant part in the setting and characterization of the cast. In both iterations. Lundi continues to visit her and pursue a romance with her.
- All Germans Are Nazis: Inverted. Leonhardt Aschenbach is Austrian, but hates Nazis with every fiber of his being, and his friend Heinrich is a Nazi but only joined as a ploy to leak information to La Résistance. Count Georges de Gourmant, on the other hand, is French and a Nazi collaborator.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The anime has a French one, sung by Estelle Baron.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The original manga was called Alpen Rose. However, the anime adaptation is called Flame of the Alpen Rose.
- Artistic License – History: The anime mentions that Lundi's father, Dr. Courtot, went "to Africa" during the 1920s to work as a doctor and treat impoverished patients. It's also mentioned that before he arrived, Africa had no doctors, which is blatantly untrue - yes, Africa as a whole wasn't that economically developed during the 20s, but it certainly had basic necessities like hospitals (most 3rd world countries do).
- Birthday Episode: One episode focuses on Jeudi celebrating her 14th birthday at the Dunant mansion with Lundi, Leonhardt, Martha and all her friends. She also receives a special heart-shaped pendant from Hélène, while Leon plays a special melody for her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Film-only, due to Compressed Adaptation. They finish right after Lundi and Jeudi finally get free from the Count... and right as World War II finally takes off. It's a full blown Happy Ending in the other Alpine Rose media.
- Bowdlerize:
- Not only Jeudi's original part-time work was changed from store attendant to prospect nurse to avert including the Attempted Rape incident, but her Disguised in Drag stint is totally cut out — likely to avoid showing how Liesl gets quite the Stupid Sexy Flanders over "Julian" as well as the two Unsettling Gender Reveals (and Liesl kinda being If It's You, It's Okay).
- In the first Italian dub multiple scenes were cut, such as some on-screen violence (like Hans being shot) or the scene where Jeudi applies Intimate Healing to Lundi, but most importantly any reference to Nazism and World War II was completely removed, and as a result most episodes had around 10 minutes of footage cut. A second dub was later done to rectify this.
- In Italy, Alpen Rose is notable for being the first instance of anime being heavily censored on National Television. You can read about it here
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- Chekhov's Gun: The song Alpine Rose was written to honour La Résistance, since both Leonhardt's and Jeudi's parents were supporters of it against Those Wacky Nazis. Leon plays it at the Nazi-sponsored concert, who don't know it's a Take That! against them. The same song allows Jeudi to tell her mother Hélène that she's her actual child, via singing it when she's about to be taken away from the Dunant mansion.
- Children Are Innocent: Jeudi and Lundi are both children and subjected to extremely brutal experiences surrounding the war, and Jeudi breaks a couple of times. Alfred/Jean-Jacques was also a child who was abused badly hence him being the way he is today. And don't even get started on Clara...
- Compilation Movie: The 20 episodes of the TV series would later be recopilated and mixed into two movies.
- Compressed Adaptation: The anime was originally supposed to have 52 episodes, but low ratings forced the network to cut it to 20, hence omitting many important parts of the manga (like the full extent of Jean-Jacques' Dark and Troubled Past, the other Toulonchamp daughter and how main characters and Switzerland stood against the Nazis in the end) while keeping the key elements.
- Creator Provincialism: Averted. Michiyo Akaishi is Japanese, but the anime takes place in Switzerland, then Austria, then Lichtenstein, and there are no Japanese characters. The only person of colour in the series is Louise, the Jewish girl who escaped the Nazis in Switzerland, but she doesn't make an appearance in the anime.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: There's the Count's pedophilic crush on Jeudi for one. None of his men are surprised at it, and the characters object to it because Jeudi loves Lundi, and not because the Count is an adult while Jeudi is a child. To ham it in, he dances a waltz with her at the ball and no one finds it creepy, not even his own wife, who speaks of Jeudi like a romantic prospect to him.
- Distant Finale: Henri Guisan protects Switzerland from the Nazis, Leon helps the Austrian Nazi resistance, and the Nazis lose the war. Some time later, Jeudi and Lundi tie the knot while the friends they've made along the way watch and cheer. It wasn't shown in the anime, but in the sequel novel, it's revealed that Jeudi and Lundi have had children and grown old together.
- Downer Beginning: The anime starts with an injured Jeudi surviving the plane, with a bit of a Hope Spot thanks to Lundi rescuing her. Years later it's shown the two have become close friends and something more, but then the Count shows up and takes an interest in Jeudi, and everything gets worse from there.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Through watching her mother be blinded and poisoned, her father succumb to her injuries, her own friends betraying her, the Nazis ruin a good chunk of Europe and her childhood best friend be threatened and abused into being complicit with them, Jeudi perseveres again and again until the war is over and she marries Lundi, holding a wedding with him that all their friends attend.
- Flowers of Nature: To show how lush Leon's garden is, we see fully blooming roses everywhere. Red roses in particular are his Flower Motif.
- Food Porn: At the Dunant's mansion, Jeudi is treated to an exquisite banquet for her birthday party, and we see a lot of sweet treats and cake on their long dinner table.
- Forced Dance Partner: In the opening, we see Jeudi dancing with Count Georges de Gourmant, and she visibly doesn't want it. It then changes to Jeudi dancing with Lundi, and she's happy. In the series itself, Gourmant forces this on Jeudi at the grand ball at his palace, and no one objects to the fact that a fully grown adult is dancing with a thirteen year old child in this manner.note
- Gorgeous Period Dress: When Count Garmont holds a ball, he invites his fellow beautiful elite, and a lot of them wear fancy outfits that are either Fairytale Wedding Dresses or Simple, yet Opulent gowns. Even Jeudi is dressed in a special red gown for the occassion.
- Gratuitous French: Jeudi and Lundi's "wanted" posters◊ are written in French, promising a reward of 1000 Swiss Francs.
- Historical Domain Character: Henri Guisan, Adolf Hitler, Charles de Gaulle and Basil Zaharoff. The Toulonchamps even claim to de descendants of the latter.
- Historical Fiction: The anime is set in pre-World War II Switzerland, a little while before it declared neutrality. It also focuses on the Nazi resistance movements of its time, and has a cast of fictional Nazis.
- Love Dodecahedron: Jeudi likes Lundi and Lundi likes Jeudi. Unfortunately, the Count also likes Jeudi, and he wishes to make her his wife, even though he's already married to a woman that deeply loves him in spite of how horrible he is. Leonhardt also likes Jeudi (as he knew her from her childhood, as "Alicia" and Mathilda Toulonchamp and Marie Miller like Lundi.
- Melodrama: In an anime trenchcoat. This series takes place in WW2 Switzerland, focusing on an amesiac girl who's relentlessly pursued by a Nazi. No one knows why, and no matter what she does, he won't stop being enamoured by her. Her heart already belongs to the kind little boy who rescued her after she fell out of the plane, Lundi, and together they join La Résistance in spite of their tender ages.
- Music to Invade Poland to: In-universe. The Nazis love music and piano music, so they sponsor a concert that Leonhardt plays. He secretly sneaks in the anti-Nazi anthem Alpen Rose and none of them are the wiser.
- No Swastikas: Averted. The anime blatantly◊ depicts◊ swastikas.
- An example is the cover for the DVD, as seen here.
- The Swastikas, (or, as Jeudi refers to them, "the black crosses") keep triggering Jeudi's memories, as her parents were a part of the resistance against the Nazis.
- An example is the cover for the DVD, as seen here
- Scenery Porn: Leon's garden is chock-full of roses and greenery, and Jeudi is awed by how pretty it is. The anime also takes place in the Alps, where there's a lot of snow and greenery.
- Something about a Rose: There are roses all over the anime's opening, symbolically bursting into pieces and flying all over the place. The anime also ends with a shot of the Alpen Rose, while the narration states the following:The Alpen rose is a red flower that grows in the mountains. Despite it's delicate appearance, it is resistant to wind and snow. And with it's beauty...it fills the hearts of those who go all the way to see it.
- Shōjo: Even in the Nazi-invaded Switzerland setting, the anime retains being a shojo because of the drama behind Jeudi's Dark and Troubled Past and the many complicated interpersonal relationships between the characters.
- Snow Means Death: In the manga, Toulonchamp's goons dump the injured Jeudi in the middle of a snowy and abandoned place, hoping she will freeze to death since she can't walk away due to her injured foot. She does her best but ultimately gets lost and then a snowstorm rages in. It turns out that a kind villager and his family found Printemps and then Jeudi just in time, taking care of her until Lundi and General Guisan come for her.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted. Lundi's father is Franz Courtot and Leonhardt's father is Franz Aschenbach.
- There are also two characters named Louise (the Jewish girl in Jean-Jacques' neighborhood, and Theodor's wife).
- There are also two characters named Marie (Marie Muller and Marie Strasser).
- "Wanted!" Poster: When Jeudi and Lundi escape the Count, he puts up posters with their names and faces, promising a hefty reward to whoever brings them to him. Hans does....at the cost of his own life.
- War Is Hell: War is portrayed as something that only determines who is left, with several Nazi Noblemen profiting off of it.
- Wartime Wedding: Subverted. After the war is over, in the year of 1945, Jeudi and Lundi get married, with Leonhardt, Jean-Jacques and Martha amongst the guests.
- Wham Episode: No less than five episodes in, it's revealed that Jeudi's real name is Alicia, and her traumatic flashbacks are linked to the Nazis. And halfway theough the anime, it's revealed that the Brandel family are Jeudi's true parents, and her mother is being duped into thinking another girl is her daughter, and her father is alive but on the verge of death at the hospital.
- World Tour: Jeudi and Lundi tour Switzerland, Austria, France and Lichtenstein over the course of the anime.
- World of Technicolor Hair: Leonhardt Aschenbasch and Françoise de Garmont have purple hair and Marie has green hair. No one raises an eyebrow at this.
- Yodel Land: Both Switzerland AND Liechtenstein are included in this.
