The ending is a bit of a deus ex machina-- are we really suppose to believe the reason Rosalind did what she did? I can't tell if I love the ending or hate it. Anyway, the manga is beautiful in that old shoujo way we readers don't get to see anymore. The violence, however tastefully represented, is a nice contrast.


... Last updated on April 15th, 2010, 4:15pm

Watanabe Masako, one of the first female mangaka to become popular, is best-known for her fluffy, feminine shoujo manga. Her art style reflects that. You won't often see as many ruffles and sparkles fit onto a page. Saint Rosalind, however, is no love story. Rosa may be as sweet and pretty as Watanabe's other heroines, but she far prefers murdering the people who irritate her in creative ways to forming maidenly friendships or helping those in need.

It's supremely creepy, but Saint Rosalind doesn't have any depth to speak of. There's hardly even any plot - it's just Rosa blissfully traipsing from person to person and killing them in some strange new way. The stream of victims starts slowly but snowballs as the story progresses. When the entire routine from meeting to murder passes in the course of four pages, you know you're reading ridiculous horror porn.

It's fun ridiculous horror porn, though, even for me, the hater of gore. There isn't really all too much gore here, in fact - Watanabe's style is too cute and stylized for anything to look particularly gross. There's nary an organ in sight. (Well, there might be one - I couldn't really tell. It was kind of cute.)

But the star here isn't all the bizarre violence but the ending. It's the best kind of ambiguous, and it makes you think. Was Rosa really evil, or was she as pure as she looked, forced into committing those atrocities by some outside force? Were the people she killed really the evil ones?

It's the kind of thinking you definitely won't be doing as Rosa throws a match into a safe full of cash and children and shuts the door.