The Japanese manga The Rose of Versailles features lavish outfits, palace intrigue, and passionate romance set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, but it also has its own revolutionary references.

The series, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with events including an exhibition currently taking place in Tokyo, has been a huge commercial success in the ‘shojo’ genre – comics for girls and teens.

It tells the epic story of two main heroines, Queen Marie Antoinette and the fictional character Oscar Francois de Jarjayes, a young girl who grew up as a boy and becomes the head of the Queen’s Guard.

The series had a massive cultural impact, causing Japanese fans to flock to Versailles and was praised for its rare feminist portrayals of strong female characters in manga.

At the Tokyo exhibition, 22-year-old Manami Suzuki said she grew up watching the series because her mother is a fan.

“Thanks to her, I’ve read it since I was little,” she told AFP.

“When I first saw Oscar, I was mesmerized by how cool, beautiful, strong and wonderful she was,” she said.

The series started in a manga magazine in 1972 and has since been adapted into several musicals in Japan and an animated television series called Lady Oscar, which was also a hit abroad, especially in France.

The manga has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, and an English translation was released last year as a sign of its enduring appeal.

“It’s hard to overstate how important and influential it has been in the shojo manga genre and Japanese pop culture in general,” said Deborah Shamoon, associate professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore.

“Oscar is an amazing ideal hero for girls,” she told AFP, noting that the series also portrays the love story between Oscar and her childhood friend Andre in a way rarely seen in manga.

“He admires all of her qualities and doesn’t try to change her or make her more stereotypically feminine,” Shamoon said.

“That kind of equality in straight romance in shojo manga is still rare.”

The author of The Rose of Versailles, Riyoko Ikeda, has been involved in leftist politics and has said that she made a conscious effort to shake up traditional tropes in manga.

“Back then there was a divide between men and women, and there were people who said, ‘Women and children will not understand the story,'” Ikeda said in a statement released alongside the exhibition, which will feature dozens of original drawings from the series contains .

“I was young and I said, ‘I’m going to make this a hit’.”

At the exhibition, dozens of visitors snapped photos with life-size cardboard versions of the series’ characters surrounded by realistic Versailles-style archways.

Rieko Takahama, 58, said the series prompted her to visit the famous French website, a dream she fulfilled a decade ago.

“I’ve wanted to go there since I was a kid, and I thought I couldn’t die without a visit.”