Honoo no Alpen Rose

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Alpen Rose (炎のアルペンローゼ・ジュディ&ランディ, Honoo no Arupen Rōze aka Blazing Alpen Rose) is a shōjo manga series created by Michiyo Akaishi. It ran in Shogakukan's Ciao from 1983 to 1986, later was gathered in nine short volumes, and then it was re-released during The Nineties in four volumes. It's actually the only of Akaishi's mangas made into an anime, which was done in The Eighties and reached quite the success in Europe and some Arabic countries; it has music by Joe Hisaishi and designs by Akemi Takada. The 20 episodes of the TV series would later be recopilated and mixed into two movies.

The main characters are two teenagers named Lundi and Jeudi. Lundi Cortot is a boy who lives in Switzerland with his aunt and uncle in 1932, few years before World War Two; in these days, he and his family finds a little girl in a dandelion plain, and take they her in alongside her cockatoo Printemps. Since she can't remember anything about her past, they rename her Jeudi and raise her for a while until she's taken in by a nearby store (manga) or a nursery school (anime).

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 Germont 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...

Needs More Love. Give it by reading the manga here!

Tropes used in Honoo no Alpen Rose include:
  • Armor-Piercing Slap: Jeudi, to the Count
  • Arranged Marriage: Liesl and Johan
  • Attempted Rape: Implied in the beginning of the manga. It wasn't the Count, actually, but the abusive new owner of the store Jeudi works in. She manages to run away and go to Lundi's home but his aunt and uncle don't take it seriously, so Lundi gives them a What the Hell, Hero?.
  • Body Double: After Helene is brought back to the Durant clan manse, a girl named Mathilda is taken in to pose as Alicia/Jeudi.
  • Break the Cutie: Oh boy.
  • Bridal Carry: In Berne, Jeudi is using new shoes. They hurt her feet, so Lundi carries her like this.
  • Cain and Abel: Jean Jacques/Tarantula and Lundi.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: A limousine almost runs Jeudi and little Clara over, but they're safe in the end. Its owner and passenger is actually General Henri Guisan, who protects Lundi and Jeudi since he knew a woman whom he thinks she can be Jeudi's Missing Mom. (And she is, in the end.) Not to mention there's the role he'll have later...
  • Chekhov's Gun: The song Alpine Rose. It's one of Jeudi's few memories of her past life.
    • Even more: it's a song to honor La Résistance, since both Leonhardt's and Jeudi's parents were supporters of it and went against Those Wacky Nazis. And also it allows Jeudi to tell her mother Helene that she's her child, via singing it when she's about to be taken away from the Durant mansion.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: The two leads get together very fast. The problem is to actually stay together, considering what happens later...
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Both Jeudi and Lundi can be bad about it, though Lundi may be the worst of the two.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: The Count, to Jeudi. Johan, to Liesl - though he gets better almost immediately.
  • Coming of Age Story
  • Dance of Romance: Subverted, because Jeudi dances a waltz with the Count instead of Lundi. It's also plot relevant since it triggers her recovering one of her memories: dancing the waltz with an older man... before her accident.
    • Played straighter in the OP of the anime, where she dances with both the Count AND Lundi.
  • Disguised in Drag: In the manga not only Jeudi has to crossdress, but at some point Leon has to do it too.
  • Diving Save: Jeudi saves a little girl name Clara like this.
  • Distress Ball: Chapter 17 of the manga has Leon as Germont's hostage.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending.
    • Bittersweet Ending: The recopilatory movies finish right after Lundi and Jeudi finally get free from the Count... and right as World War Two finally takes off.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The hitman Tarantula almost shoots the Count to death when he reveals his plans of building his ideal nation and asks him to kill General Guisan.

Tarantula: The Germont I knew has just died to me right now!