Manga / Rosengarten Saga

Lynn's life suddenly changes when the people in her village are attacked and raped by bandits after the hero of her kingdom, Prince Siegfried, was killed. She flees into the nearby forest where she finds a magical sword. This sword is possessed by the spirit of Siegfried, who takes control of Lynn's body to defeat her assailants. Her village is then saved by an army led by Brunhild, the queen of the neighboring kingdom of Burgundy.

Vowing to become a strong woman like Brunhild, Lynn is invited to enter the Rosengarten Schlacht, a tournament where the winner will be rewarded with the treasure Siegfried left behind after his death. Lynn and Siegfried then decide to participate in the tournament. Lynn wants to win to get Queen Brunhild's attention, while Siegfried needs to get his hands on one of his magic tools that can revive him.

Rosengarten Saga (ローゼンガーテン・サーガ, rōzengāten sāga) is a manga written by Fuji Sakimori and drawn by Yōsetsu Tonooka, published in Shogakukan's Monthly Hero's magazine and on its Comiplex website since August 2020.

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Rosengarten Saga provides examples of:

• Amazon Brigade: Queen Brunhild's personal corps of ass-kickers are naturally all female.
• Anachronism Stew: The setting seems to be a medieval fantasy world with dragons, crossbows and swords, yet Arthur is a modern Idol Singer and Ali Baba is riding a motorbike.
• Answer Cut: The morning after the preliminary rounds, Lynn wonders aloud what "beautiful Brunhild" might be doing. Cut to Brunhild, who reveals the answer is "vomiting her drunk-ass guts into a bucket".
  "Five barrels of wine is one barrel too many..."
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Lynn's not sure she believes rumors of a dragon hassling travelers on the road to Burgundy while she has a ghost haunting her and carries a sex-changing magic sword on her back.
• Ass Shove: Arthur stops Alibaba's nanomachines from killing him by giving him a stabilizing enema with an oversized syringe. And yes, it's every bit as painful as it sounds.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • While lamenting her misfortune at home, Lynn catches the village elder leering at her through the window. She's equal parts flustered and flattered that he appears to find her attractive enough to stalk her... until she sees that he's being raped by a bandit and that the village is under attack.
  • Siegfried recalls his defeat of the dragon Fafnir as an outrageous battle. His flashback has him comment how dragons truly have incredible power... before the scene is shown for what it really is: Siegfried raping Fafnir after turning him into a woman. And by "turning Fafnir into a woman" we mean "giving Fafnir tits and a vagina".
  • After Lyng becomes determined to participate in the tournament in spite of her injuries, Lofn remarks that "it can't be helped" and kisses Lyng, who promptly dissolves into sludge. Lynn becomes disturbed by this, until Lofn's shadow complains that Lofn should give her a heads-up next time. Turns out Lofn just hid Lyng in her shadow so that she can recover faster, allowing her to participate in the tournament at full strength.
  • (Nude) Dietrich is facing down the invincible Queen Brunhild and her army of Valkyries. He strikes a pose, makes his move... and loses the hand of cards he was playing. The Money round is a casino challenge with her majesty's card table as the final obstacle.
  • Brunhild exudes a menacing aura when her turn comes to fight during the tournament. It's just the stench of all the booze she had the night before.
    Hagen: She... She reeks of booze!
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Ring of the Nibelung is said to be a magical artefact of divine power capable of granting the bearer's wish. However, it is also said that the aforementioned wish will always be granted with a negative twist. Attila and Hildebrand deduce that the curse on Lynn's face might be a consequence of a wish made by Kriemhild, and wonder to themselves what wish could she have possibly made, how did the ring grant it and how is Lynn related to her in the first place that she bears the same face under her curse.
• Beehive Barrier: The stage for the one-on-one duels of the namesake tournament are cordoned off by a magic dome-shaped barrier; it's ten times stronger than steel, has regenerative abilities, and as per the trope made of hexagons.
• Black Comedy Rape: All over the place. The comedy usually comes from how absurd the circumstances are.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • Siegfried is far more outraged at Hagen stealing his treasure and using it for his maternity roleplay than he is at being murdered by him, which he notably doesn't hold a grudge over.
  • Arthur has no problem with Siegfried raping women wantonly, but he draws the line at the fact that some of his victims are men that Siegfried intentionally turned into women using Gram. Arthur sees this as a waste since, in his mind, men can also be "virgin maidens" at heart. Naturally, Arthur's logic only confuses Siegfried.
• The Caper: Aladdin forms a crew with the other major players, heist-movie style, in order to win the Money round of the qualifiers.
• Dark Horse Victory:
  • From the qualifiers: Following the contestants in the People and Items rounds all being disqualified, it's Aladdin's motley heist crew that pulls out a win after successfully pulling a Host Club scheme on Queen Brunhild.
  • From the tournament proper: Bench-filler Unferth manages to defeat Orochi in a single exchange thanks to his taxpayer-funded lewd cabaret experience and vibrating magical sword.
  • Rüdiger manages to defeat Fafnir by doing nothing but running after Attila exploits Rüdiger's curse.
  • After Brunhild passes out from a severe hangover during her duel with Mulan, Team Burgundy ends up losing to the Huns in only two fights.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Aside from Siegfried, Lynn's traveling companions joined her after a sound trouncing. In Dietrich's case, it was because of the trouncing.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Unusual fetishes aside, most characters view rape and other forms of sexual harassment as no big deal. Siegfried is seen as a hero despite stealing and raping his way to power because in the past, that's what made someone a hero: getting everything they want no matter how many try to stop them.
• Doomed Hometown: Played with. Lynn's village had a very bad day indeed, but fortunately Queen Brunhild and her knights rolled in shortly after the attack began; the raiders are slaughtered to a man, and the villagers receive considerable material and medical aid.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The story borrows a lot of characters from famous German epic poems like the Nibelungenlied, but mixes it up with other myths and stories like the Arthurian Legend, Arabian Nights and Beowulf.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Aladdin's Caper Crew for the Money course become close comrades after fighting Brunhild and the Valkyries together.
• Fractured Fairy Tale:
  • Most prominently featured is the Nibelungenlied, with Siegfried being renowned for defeating a dragon and being murdered by Hagen von Tronje, and there are other prominent heroes like Dietrich von Bern, but everyone is incredibly perverted.
  • Arthur is supported by Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table... but Arthur is a cross-dressing Idol Singer and Merlin acts as a producer.
  • Ali Baba is riding a motorbike and is also a Mad Bomber.
• Graceful Loser: Both Alibaba and Arthur refuse to take the win after Alibaba is saved by Arthur and Arthur can't win as an Idol. When each of the two tries to forfeit, the other punches them in the face. If Sinbad and Aladdin's commentary is any indication, however, the fact that Alibaba is so adamant about being the loser means he really is being sore about it. In the end Gernot declares the match a draw before their squabble can escalate and has them both shoved out of the arena.
• Gratuitous German: Rosengarten is German for "garden of roses" and the subtitles of the chapters always contain German words.
• Groin Attack: Lynn accidentally headbutts Arthur's family jewels while trying to get on her feet. It's the first attack that deals anything beyond scratch damage to Arthur, and while Lynn is squicked at touching Arthur's groin with her head, she promptly apologizes after seeing how much pain he's left in.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: During the People course, when Siegfried starts raping a dragon while possessing Lynn's body, the men can't seem to look away while commenting how Lynn's penis is bigger than theirs and how impressive it is that she's going for a third round. Lynn is so mortified that she begs for anyone to just kill her already.
• Informed Deformity: Lynn is stated to seem unattractive to all men who see her, even though she looks average at worst. This is because there is a curse on her face which prevents people from noticing that in truth she looks exactly like Princess Kriemhild. Morgiana and Witige independently deduce that the curse is so powerful it can only have been cast by a divine artefact... such as Kriemhild's Ring of the Nibelung.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Gawain defeats an alligator monster right after having his cherry popped by Orochi, after casually jumping into the air to avoid its attack, while holding Orochi in his non-sword arm, while his rod is still inside her, before sticking a perfect landing with Orochi still in his arm, his rod still inside her. After Gawain gently puts her down, Orochi commends him for being able to fight while having sex on top of making her orgasm.
• Invisibility Cloak: Siegfried's famous Tarnkappe makes an appearance in Hagen's hands. In addition to the expected use, it also has an alt-fire mode. A lewd alt-fire mode.
• Naked People Are Funny: Players who lose at Kasino Walhalla lose their shirt. And trousers. This applies to Aladdin's heist crew, who proceed to strip him in the name of solidarity.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: When used to cut any creature that isn't a human, Gram will make them develop breasts and a vagina for the wielder to toy with at their perverted discretion.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: Gernot explains that the barrier surrounding the arena during the first match is both extremely durable and capable of repairing itself. He states that its purpose is to prevent outsiders from trespassing into the match and to stop the contestants from attacking the audience. Both Arthur and Takeru react in confusion to this, even though those are the exact things they did during the redemption match.
  Arthur: Who would trespass during the events? Scary...
  Takeru: Foreign countries are dangerous, indeed.
  Gernot: JUST GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRIES ALREADY!
• Only Sane Man:
  • In a world full of degenerates, lunatics and degenerate lunatics, Lynn stands out as the only person with a shred of common sense.
    Lynn: Why is this world full of weirdos...?
  • While Gawain is the only sane man in KRT13, he tends to be outvoted on the crazier decisions made by Arthur since Kay always takes Arthur's side and Merlin will do anything to boost the group's marketability.
  • Aladdin is not at all amused at having to work with a bunch of psychotic weirdos in order to pass the Money course.
  • Mulan appears to consider herse- *ahem*, himself to be this compared to Attila.
  • An omake has Gernot point out how, even though Lynn, Gawain and Aladdin may try to play the trope straight, they are still pretty weird themselves (for having sex with a dragon, a serpent goddess and his own genderbent boss, respectively). Mulan can only look on in smug amusement.
    Gernot: You guys think you've got some common sense playing the Straight Man, but you're all pretty messed up too. Don't get the wrong idea.
• Public Domain Character: Most of the named cast is drawn from folklore and legend.
• R-Rated Opening: While the series doesn't shy away from mature content—built on it, even—the first two chapters are notably more intense.
• Refuge in Audacity: The Manga. Probably the most blatant example is chapter 45 showing off Lyng's completely uncensored, though not highly detailed, vagina while in dragon form. Three times.
• Respected by the Respected: If Beowulf praises you in any shape or form, you're doing something right. Gawain, Brunhild, Hildebrand, Unferth and Takeru are some of the few who have earned such an honor.
• Superpower Meltdown: When Alibaba loses control of the Kamikaze Suit, the nanomachines it's made of go berserk and start, uh... toying with Arthur.
• Tag Team: The second round of the Rosengarten Schlacht consists of team battles where each team may send up to two fighters for each fight. In order to spice things up, the winning teams from the first round are allowed to enlist the assistance of the teams they defeated (who themselves are free to refuse said assistance), effectively absorbing them into their own teams to bolster their numbers to up to six people. The one restriction is that, when sending two fighters, they must belong to different teams.
• Tournament Arc: The eponymous event, the Rosengarten, is a series of annual competitions held for the amusement of the Burgundians. The current tournament in particular offers Siegfried's considerable collection of magic items and piles of money as potential prizes ^note Princess Kriemhild shocks the crowd when she adds herself to the spoils. Contestant teams have to earn a spot in one of the qualifier rounds: "Money," "Items," and "People."
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • The morning after the party Aladdin and his Caper Crew threw during the Money course, Brunhild finds herself violently vomiting on a bucket after drinking no less than five barrels of wine.
  • During the tournament, Mulan finds herself in the unenviable position of having Brunhild vomit on her face after waking up. Apparently the drinks Tsuchigumo mixed for her were strong enough to "plaster a dragon".
• Wham Shot: Upon Kriemhild's introduction, Lynn realizes that they have the same face.
• World of Jerkass: Excluding the main character, most people in this world are either sexual deviants or highly violent psychos. Or both.
• World's Strongest Man:
  • Beowulf is considered by far and away to be the most powerful man alive, and several people who can be considered badasses in their own right have nothing but praise for his strength. Orochi, herself a Physical Goddess, states upon looking at Beowulf that his body bears the might of the gods, and Hildebrand declares that, while there are plenty of strong people in the world, Beowulf is in a class of his own.
  • Brunhild, on the other hand, is stated by Beowulf himself to be the strongest woman alive. Even when she's restraining herself, lasting for ten seconds against her is considered an accomplishment. When she goes all out, she's virtually unstoppable.

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