Honoo no Alpen Rose

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!

• Famous Last Words:
  • Hans: "I'm sorry, Clara... so sorry I can't go back home..."
  • Friederich: " Alicia, my sweet Alicia... My time has come... please forgive me..."
• Flower Motifs: Obviously, the Alpine rose (Rosa pendulina ^{[dead link]} )
• Hair of Gold: Jeudi and both of her parents.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Hans. Having repented after selling Lundi and Jeudi out, he tried to prevent the Count from getting to them and give them some info that he had just picked up... only to get shot In the Back by the Count himself.
• Historical Domain Character: General Henri Guisan
• Hospital Hottie: Jeudi is taken away to become a nurse in the anime. In the manga she was a store worker, and later forced into maid-hood by the Count.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: The Count wants to do this to Jeudi
• Ill Girl: Clara and Marie. And also Helene aka Jeudi's mom, who has a weak heart and eyesight problems.
  • Ill Boy: Not to mention Jeudi's father Friederich. Who passes away right after they find each other again.
• Important Haircut: Jeudi cuts her hair short in Berne, so she won't be recognized by the Count's henchmen.
• Innocent Flower Girl: Martha
• Intimate Healing: When an injured Lundi is about to suffer hypotermia, Jeudi strips both of them and lays next to him.
• Intrepid Reporter: Robert
• Impoverished Patrician: The Durant clan, by the time Jeudi meets thm
• Kick the Dog: The Count wanted to shoot Jeudi's pet bird Printemps down, and beats up Lundi when he interfers.
  • Also trying to foce Leonhardt (a supporter of La Résistance) to perform for the Nazis, under death threats.
• Lady in Red: In the anime, Jeudi gets dolled up in a red dress when the Count abducts her to his Big Fancy House
• La Résistance: Leonhardt and his friend Heinrich are members of it. So were Leon's parents (and they die for it) and Lundi's (who survive, but are broken)
• Les Collaborateurs: The Count is allied with Those Wacky Nazis.
• Love At First Punch: Jeudi calls the Count out for trying to shoot her pet bird Printemps and beating up Lundi. He notices how brave and pretty she is and takes her to his castle.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Lampshaded by the Count himself as well as his wife.
• The Messiah: Both Jeudi and Lundi
  • Broken Messiah: Jeudi is so angry at the Count crossing the Moral Event Horizon that she breaks down in anger. Lundi has to calm her down.
• The Ojou: Liesl, who's a little childish and selfish but has a good heart underneath.
• Names to Know in Anime: Keiichi Nanba (Lundi), Yoshino Takamori (Jeudi), Shuichi Ikeda (the Count), Rihoko Yoshida (Francoise), Noriko Hidaka (Martha), Yoku Shioya (Hans), Kazuhiko Inoue (Leon), Show Hayami (Tarantula), Masako Katsuki (Printemps), Saeko Shimazu (Mathilda)
• No Swastikas: Averted. An example is the cover for the DVD, as seen here.
  • And here as well. Which keeps triggering Jeudi's memories. It's never referred to as such, but as "the Black Cross".
• Parental Abandonment: Jeudi's parents died in the accident that left They actually didn't. Leon's parents, however, were killed by the Nazi.
• Plucky Girl: Jeudi already was both sweet and outspoken, but fully starts to become this as she and Lundi are separated.
• Promotion to Parent: Hans, who has to take care of his baby sister Clara
• Proper Lady: Francoise, the Count's wife. She still goes "Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right" and helps Jeudi and Lundi to escape the castle.
• Refuge in Audacity: Invoked when Leon uses his own "Nazi concert" to get away from Those Wacky Nazis with Jeudi AND give them the musical finger via inserting an anti-Nazi song in his "Austrian symphony". The Von Trapp family would be proud of you, son.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: The Count and Lundi. Obviously Lundi wins.
• Shoujo
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Hans and Clara.
• Smug Snake: The Count, as well as arms dealer Tranchart who is pressuring the Durants aka Jeudi's maternal family into supporting him.
• Sole Survivor: Jeudi and Printemps. Subverted, they weren't alone in the end.
• Stalker with a Crush: Count Germont, who wants to have Jeudi because she looks a LOT like a woman he loved in the past. Said woman? Her mother.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: As things get worse and worse, it seems the Universe itself is conspiring to give Lundi and Jeudi trouble. Specially when Lundi disappears when the train he and Jeudi have boarded to reach Austria is caught in a bomb attack, and Jeudi has to go to Austria alone.
  • Not to mention, Jeudi's parents Friederich and Helene. Friederich explains to Leon and Jeundi that he was already disliked by the Durant family by the time they got married, and after she was wounded in their escape they too her back in but kept them separated.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: In the manga Jeudi has to crossdress to go to Austria unnoticed, calling herself Julian. She does it so well that two girls find her boy self "handsome", and Liesle is quite infatuated with "him" too. (And she may be a bit infatuated too *after* finding out.
  • Unsettling Gender Reveal: Robert the Intrepid Reporter has to reveal to Liesl and Johann that "Julian" is Jeudi. And later, Jeudi has to reveal herself as a girl to Leon.
• Team Pet: Printemps, Jeudi's cockatoo
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Jeudi can't remember anything from her past, except the Alpen Rose song. She gradually recovers her memories, ans it's a HUGE Tear Jerker when she finally can remember the accident, that her name is Alicia Brandel, and the sight of her mother Helena covered in blood.
• Tsundere: Leonhardt Aschenbach is a male Type A.
• Those Wacky Nazis: They're pretty much in movement by the time the story begins.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Leon, to Jeudi. Or better said, to Alicia - that is Jeudi's real name.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Martha slaps and berates Hans for ratting out Lundi and Jeudi to get money for Clara's medicine.
• World War Two: The main action is set in 1939, inbetween Austrian Anschluss and the the invasion of Poland (With the Swiss declaration of neutrality thrown in between.)
• Yodel Land: Both Switzerland AND Liechtenstein are inclued in this.