There were English translations of the first two volumes of the manga briefly available in the early 1980s; but those were actually intended for the Japanese market as fun material for English language students, and their availability in the North American market was an afterthought; they're long out of print and very hard to find.
There was a live-action 1979 English film adaptation, Lady Oscar, which also appears to be long out of print in the US (although legit Region 2 PAL DVDs are available.)
The anime, to the best of my knowledge, has never been licensed in English. (If you're fluent in French, however, legit translations of both the manga and anime are available in France and Canada.) There are at least plenty of fansubs floating about -- the whole series even used to be on YouTube, although it looks like most of those (except for some of the Spanish and Italian dubs) are gone, and all that's left are fanvids and clips from the Takarazuka musical. Checking out some of the better AMVs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTMWdcKfbNU) might at least be a quick way to tell if the shoujo-riffic sparkley 70s animation is unbearable or not...
With all of the other 70s and early 80s series that are finally getting picked up here, I'm really rather stunned that nobody's licensed BeruBara yet; it's longrunning popularity and influence on other series would seem to make it a shoo-in.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-01-16 06:06 am (UTC)There were English translations of the first two volumes of the manga briefly available in the early 1980s; but those were actually intended for the Japanese market as fun material for English language students, and their availability in the North American market was an afterthought; they're long out of print and very hard to find.
There was a live-action 1979 English film adaptation, Lady Oscar, which also appears to be long out of print in the US (although legit Region 2 PAL DVDs are available.)
The anime, to the best of my knowledge, has never been licensed in English. (If you're fluent in French, however, legit translations of both the manga and anime are available in France and Canada.) There are at least plenty of fansubs floating about -- the whole series even used to be on YouTube, although it looks like most of those (except for some of the Spanish and Italian dubs) are gone, and all that's left are fanvids and clips from the Takarazuka musical. Checking out some of the better AMVs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTMWdcKfbNU) might at least be a quick way to tell if the shoujo-riffic sparkley 70s animation is unbearable or not...
With all of the other 70s and early 80s series that are finally getting picked up here, I'm really rather stunned that nobody's licensed BeruBara yet; it's longrunning popularity and influence on other series would seem to make it a shoo-in.