Finished Rose of Versailles. Due to the fact that I know the whole story and it's basically a tragic story thru and thru - so towards the end, I did feel it weighing down on me a bit - but enjoyed it to the end.
It's a director Osamu Dezaki's work - at least from episode 19 to the end - and it shows. (Including sudden change of the several character designs) The whole anime itself has more of serious tone unlike original Manga by Ikeda Riyoko. Some of the action scenes, especially when guys fist fight with each other, whole "Tomorrow's Joe", which was also (mostly) directed by Dezaki - at several times, I was quite surprised and wondered if I was really watching a Shojo anime, not boxing anime! Now I'm rather fired up to watch more of Dezaki's work. Since I watched Ashita no Joe movie versions at least 20 times each on VHS and practically memorized the whole lines back then, (I like rough 1st one better, although 2nd movie is a visual tour-de-force in Dezaki style) - so thinking about watching Ace-wo-nerae (Aim for the Ace), as I just finished watching Gunbuster: Aim for the Top, which by the name itself suggest is a part parody of Aim for the Ace.
At least the movie version.
Some of his earlier works that I grew up watching - Nobody's Boy: Remi (Sans Famille)...
and my favorite "Treasure Island". (1978)
This anime.... has very unique art style. Very western influenced, somewhat Disney like character designs. I still remember the pirate's songs as they sail, and Long John Silver. His complex character and eventual betrayal to the main character Jim, really scared and shook me when I was watching it as a boy.
Anyhow, while watching RoV - been reading up about french revolution, and also the characters of the anime, both fictional and also the lives of the real characters. Of course the anime is fictional and obviously skewed towards older interpretation of the history of French Revolution, but nontheless very interesting stuff. Also I've been reading up about main character Oscar, I read that the author based the character Oscar to this Swedish young actor, Bjorn Andresen. He starred in 1971 movie called "Death in Venice", and became especially a popular star in Japan - he even recorded albums in Japan. He became prototype of a lot of Japanese Shojo manga's pretty blonde main characater - including The Legend of Galactic Heroes' Reinhard von Lohengramm.
Interestingly, the pretty/hansome young movie stars also made music albums in Japan regardless of their musical talent - an interesting phenomenon during bubble era - and Terminator 2's Edward Furlong was one of them. Shortly after T2, he became quite popular as a teen idol in Japan... I had a chance to listen to that CD long long time ago, and I regret ever doing so. LOL. I'm not sure if it was ever released in U.S.
Anyhow, this Andresen guy, actually became a musician - so maybe his music is far better than Furlong's...