One genre of media that I've never really gravitated towards was romance, namely because many of the plots for romance were always very melodramatic or formulaic. It wasn't that I inherently hated romance as a genre, I just never found any romance media that really appealed to me. That would get rectified later in my life as I began to read and watch more things. I'm also not really into yaoi or yuri manga or novels, mainly for the same reasons, along with many of them having very questionable ethics in regards to things like consent. Many of them tend to idealize and glamorize toxic relationships, and I'm not down for that kind of stuff (Though this is coming from someone who unironically likes Sakura Gari). Honestly, I never even heard of Goodbye My Rose Garden before coming across this article here, but when I read it, my interest was immediately piqued. I requested it at my local library, and was quick to rent it and read the entire series in one sitting. I'm glad I did because I'm really, really surprised at just how great this manga turned out to be, especially since the last manga by Dr. Pepperco that I read, Bang Dream: Girls Band Party Roselia Stage, was decent at best but had a lot of problems in regards to its artwork. Seven Seas, thank you for bringing this manga to the US, because I love it!

In the year 1900, Japan is in the midst of mingling with the West and adopting a lot of its cultural practices. Hanako Kujo, a teacher still reeling over being unable to help one of her students, travels to England in order to find the author of one of her favorite novels, along with finding a job. Unfortunately, she hits a roadblock and is unsure of what to do. Thankfully, a young noblewoman, Alice Douglas, notices Hanako and offers her a job as her personal maid. The two of them bond over their shared love of novels and literature, but for some reason, Alice wants Hanako to kill her. Hanako is unable to comprehend why Alice would ask her to do such a thing, but she's determined to not only befriend her mistress, but to make the best of her new surroundings.

One thing I really respect about Goodbye My Rose Garden is that it really makes great use of its setting. Rather than simply using it as a backdrop, the manga takes great care to embed itself in the history of the period, through the social and hierarchal norms the characters are expected to uphold to using real events that are happening during the time, such as the very heavily publicized trial of Oscar Wilde. It's made very clear throughout the manga that Dr. Pepperco really did a lot of research on Victorian England, and when wanting to write a story taking place in the past, you really need to make sure you get all your facts straight, because if you don't take care to portray the time period as it was, or take too much artistic/creative license with it, you run the risk of either making it feel too modern/contemporary or falsifying facts. Like, you won't find the characters here saying things like "The elephant in the room," knowing about the internet, or owning cars. It'd be one thing if Goodbye My Rose Garden was trying to go for an alternate history route, or go for a more fantasy/sci-fi like depiction like what the video game Code;Realize did, but the manga makes it clear it's trying to be just slice-of-life historical fiction, with no fantasy or sci-fi elements in sight.

Another thing that impressed me was the artwork. I mentioned in my Bang Dream Roselia manga review that I felt that the artwork could be lackluster at times, especially for the backgrounds. There, it felt like Dr. Pepperco didn't put in an effort to make the world of that manga feel alive, or only did the bare minimum. That manga came out several months before Dr. Pepperco would go on to make this, and it's amazing to see how much she learned from her mistakes, because the backgrounds here are not only very lavish and detailed, especially when it matters, but feel much more alive. Everything, from the designs on book bindings, to the period-appropriate dresses and hair styles the characters wear, to the exterior and interiors of the mansions the characters inhabit, is given a lot of care and attention, and I didn't notice any significant issues or anachronisms. Even the usage of English text is very cohesive, and I didn't notice any jarring grammar errors or awkward sentence structure, something that even most World Masterpiece Theater anime struggle with from time to time.

Of course, no matter how much research you put into the setting, you can't have a good story without a cast of characters to make you care about them, and thankfully, Goodbye My Rose Garden has a great ensemble to hold it together. The main duo are a joy to watch, as they both have equal amounts of depth, strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to the story and its progression, and Dr. Pepperco really worked hard to make sure they have good chemistry, and I found their budding friendship and later romance to be very believable. Other characters, such as Susanne, Marie, and Alice's older sister Jane are also pretty likeable and serve their purposes well. Even the antagonistic characters are surprisingly down-to-earth and aren't evil for the sake of it, as the manga is careful to show that they are products of their environment and are expected to uphold the Victorian-era values and social norms that have been drilled into them all their lives, and a lot of the conflict comes from their wanting Alice to be happy but wrongly assuming being the submissive wife of a nobleman and upholding the family's reputation is the best thing for her, since that's what women of the time were expected to be. Edward, Alice's fiance, isn't a cackling supervillain and does love her to an extent, but is a product of Victorian era sensibilities, thinking Alice will be happy if she becomes a mother, being openly suspicious of Hanako's relationship with her, and even displaying period-appropriate (But still unacceptable by modern standards) racism towards Hanako. My only real complaint is that other characters, such as the other maids working in the Douglas estate and Edward's unnamed friend who tells him about Alice's scandal and warns him about Hanako, don't get developed or utilized enough, to the point where Edward's friend doesn't even have a name. Plus, Susanne, a maid that Hanako encounters, is said to have left a bad situation in France, but we never see it. Dr. Pepperco has mentioned at the end of volume 3 that she'd like to make a sequel manga that goes deeper into exploring other characters and the consequences of their actions, but so far, nothing's set in stone.

For what it's worth, though, I'm happy with Goodbye My Rose Garden as is. It knows what it wants to be, doesn't drag itself out longer than necessary, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Now I wish I hadn't written off Dr. Pepperco back when I reviewed the Bang Dream manga she made. Goodbye My Rose Garden was clearly made with a lot of love and passion, and I can only hope she's able to make more stories like this. It helps that it's fairly short, too, only clocking it at three volumes, and Seven Seas released the whole series in the US, so you can read through it pretty quickly if you have a few hours to kill. So for anyone wanting to read a historical shoujo-ai/LGBT manga that doesn't have a tragic ending, definitely give Goodbye My Rose Garden a try. It's sweet, short, riveting, and I would honestly love for someone to make an anime out of this. I know that probably won't happen, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?