is a Japanese one-shot

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...

written and illustrated by Ryoko Yamagishi. Published in the February 1971 issue of '' Ribon Comic'', it is considered to be the first (female-female romance) manga. The story follows the relationship between Resine and Simone, two students at an all-girls

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

in France.

Plot

The

orphan An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...

ed decides, against her aunt's wishes, to attend the same

as her late mother. She finds it difficult to fit into the life of the school. Resine must also share a room with , the beautiful and rebellious daughter of a famous actress. Simone does not make Resine feel welcome, and Simone takes advantage of every chance she gets to cause trouble. Simone goes out late with boys, copies Resine's homework, and teases Resine every time she cries. In spite of everything, the two girls become closer, although Resine cannot name the feeling. The school puts on a production of ''

Romeo and Juliet ''Romeo and Juliet'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with ''Ham ...

''; Simone is quickly chosen to be Romeo, whilst Resine is chosen to be Juliet. Resine expresses some worry about having to kiss Simone, but she is told that she can pretend to kiss Simone. On stage, however, their kiss is "passionate – and real". After the play, Resine and Simone go into the woods and kiss again. However, a girl who missed out on the role of Romeo saw them, and she begins to spread malicious gossip about the pair. Resine tries to distance herself from Simone because of the gossip, and Simone tries to comfort her. First she tells Resine to ignore the gossip. Resine finds that impossible. Later, Simone takes Resine out on the town to find her a boyfriend. Resine throws her energies into dating her new boyfriend, and Simone becomes depressed. Simone and Resine have an argument. Resine runs away, going back to her aunt's house, and becomes sick. Some months later, after recovering, Resine learns that Simone died. She returns to the school to find out that Simone incited one of her boyfriends to kill her. Resine swears to keep on living, forever loveless and alone.

Publication

was written and illustrated by Ryoko Yamagishi. It was first published in the February 1971 issue of

Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The fol ...

's (girls') manga magazine ''Ribon Comic'', a spin-off of ''

Ribon is a monthly Japanese manga magazine published by Shueisha on the third of each month. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are '' Nakayoshi'' and '' Ciao''. Its target audience is girls roughly 8–14 years old. It is one of the best- ...

''. Shueisha collected the one-shot (along with two other short stories by Yamagishi) into a compiled volume of the same name, published under the Ribon Mascot Comics imprint on September 10, 1973.

Hakusensha is a Japanese publishing company. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company mainly publishes manga magazines and is involved in series' productions in their games, original video animation, music, and their animated TV series. The c ...

reprinted the volume under the Comics imprint on August 10, 1975.

Kadokawa Shoten , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. It became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation on October 1, 2013. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, manga anthology magazines s ...

included in volume 28 of their series of Yamagishi's complete works, published under the Asuka Comics Special imprint on March 4, 1988.

Reception

is considered to be the first

of the (female-female romance) genre, portraying a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...

relationship. Manga scholar Yukari Fujimoto believes it influenced works by

Machiko Satonaka is a Japanese manga artist. She made her professional debut in 1964 during her second year of high school with the one-shot ''Pia no Shōzō'' ("Portrait of Pia"). She has since created nearly 500 manga in a variety of genres. Two of her most ...

, Riyoko Ikeda, and

Yukari Ichijo is a Japanese '' shōjo'' and '' josei'' manga artist. She made her debut as a professional manga artist in 1968 with ''Yuki no Serenade''. In 1986 she received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo for '' Yūkan Club'', and in 2007, she received ...

, becoming "prototypical" of a common story in the 1970s and 1980s which Fujimoto dubs "Crimson Rose and Candy". Here, "Candy" is a

femme ''Femme'' (; , literally meaning "woman") is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. Alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, ...

character who admires "Rose", a more butch character. The attachment between Candy and Rose becomes the subject of rumors or even blackmail, even while Candy and Rose grow to acknowledge their relationship as being romantic. Rose dies "almost without fail" in order to protect Candy from scandal. James Welker regards these stories to contain elements of "lesbian panic". Welker presents Frederik Schodt's view that melodramatic endings were "common" in "early manga", but also presents Fujimoto's suggestion that "patriarchal forces" were responsible for the tragic ending of the "Crimson Rose and Candy" stories.

References

External links

* {{Ribon 1971 manga Hakusensha manga One-shot manga Romance anime and manga School life in anime and manga Shōjo manga Yuri (genre) anime and manga