All New Manga Adaptation of Famous Literary Work! Said Literary Work is… Richard III?

From the creator of Otomen, Aya Kanno, comes an adapted version of The Immortal Bard’s Richard III. The manga is titled Bara-Ō no Sōretsu (The Rose King’s Funeral Procession) and takes place during the Wars of the Roses, an actual series of sporadic wars for the throne of England during the 15th century. The story follows a young Richard III who happens to be a hermaphrodite.

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Wait, what? I’m not a Shakespeare expert, but I’m at least 83.379% sure that part isn’t in the original play. So, there’s that, I guess.

But putting that aside for now, the basic storyline of Richard III  roughly goes like this: Richard murders his way to the throne of England, so I’m sure that there will be folk who get some entertainment out of that. The first chapter was released for free here on Friday, though I haven’t been able to find a translation anywhere, and there likely won’t be one for a while. So, for English speakers(or any other language besides Japanese), your options are basically learn Japanese, or wait.

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork

Fun Fact: There’s also a Japanese film from 1969 of the same name about the gay subculture of 60’s Tokyo loosely based on another play, Oedipus Rex. You’ll likely see some very similar themes running through both works.