Anohito in CCFS

Myth # 6: Roses Symbolize Albert

Memories of Anthony

Poor Anthony.

In the story Candy Candy, his life was cut short. Back when we were children, when we first watched the anime or read the manga, the death of this gentle boy who we loved broke all our hearts. In France, his departure was so traumatic to young CC fans, the TV station and adults had to backtrack and tell the children viewers he didn’t actually die. 

Furthermore, he was Candy’s first love. He gave her so much happiness when the Lagans were mistreating her. So the least we can do is to honor his memories. Right?

Of course, leave it up to the Alfans to carelessly and selfishly shove him aside to take away what belongs to him even after his death. 

We’re talking about the symbolism of roses.

From the first moment we met him, Anthony was linked to roses. He first appeared to Candy in front of the rose gate at the great Ardlay mansion. The rose gate was dedicated to him, as the stone gate was dedicated to Archie, and the water gate dedicated to Alistair. Rose is the most romantic flower of all flowers. Perhaps Keiko Nagita, the author of the story, wanted to emphasize to us through this flower the sweetness of first love between Candy and Anthony.

Whatever was Nagita’s intent, the indisputable fact is that in this story, roses represent Anthony. This is the case in CCFS as well. All the plot lines and details relating to Anthony and roses remained the same as how they were written in the old manga, anime, and old novels.

Later on, when Candy got to know Anthony, she learned that the Ardlay mansion had a rose garden that was once maintained by his late mother, Rosemary. After his mother died, Anthony continued to tend the roses in the garden. With the help of Mr. Whitman, he planted and nurtured different species of roses. He didn’t simply take strolls in the garden. He got on his hands and knees and got to work to grow these roses. This was serious commitment.

And let us not forget one of the most important things Anthony did that led to her falling in love with him — he gave her the “Sweet Candy”. The rose, then, is a clear, beautiful symbol of their love.

The symbol of roses as the love between Candy and Anthony was so beautiful. As written in CCFS, after Great Uncle William adopted Candy and she moved into the Ardlay home, she and Anthony would meet there before everyone else was awake. The symbol couldn’t be more clear. The rose garden was the place of their budding romance. This garden was also the place where Candy confessed her love to him.

Even the day before he died, he and Candy met in the rose garden, and he told her his deepest thoughts about his memories of his mother. That was their last encounter alone before the day of the fox hunt. 

Sadly, their love story would come to an end. But Anthony’s presence in the story is one of the things that made it so special. No matter how we feel about Candy and the people she loved afterward, we know that Anthony will always have a special place in her life and in her heart. Because of that, it is only right that we respect and honor him and everything that is symbolic of him. 

And after all, he was the one who taught Candy (and us) that people who died can live in our hearts forever when we remember them.

But Alfans don’t care about any of that. One of the things that irritates them most is that the Candy Candy story did not assign a flower to symbolize Albert. We know that roses represent Anthony, and daffodils represent Terry. So Candy’s two great loves in the story each had a flower that symbolizes them. This drives the Alfans crazy, as Albert doesn’t have a symbolic flower. 

So what do they do? The stole the roses from Anthony.

Yep. You heard that right. In their convoluted, twisted minds, roses do not only represent Anthony. Roses have somehow evolved in the story to represent Albert.

In their desperation to fix the problem that Albert had no representative flower of his own, which might lead to the horror of a conclusion that Albert was not a romantic love of Candy, the Alfans stole the symbol of roses and applied it to Albert.

You might ask: Where they got this crazy idea?  Well, we can only try to explain it, but we cannot truly or fully make sense of it for you, because we’re not insane and it’s not a concept that contains any logic.

Anyhow, their attribution of roses to Albert seems to be based on these:

  1. After Anthony died, Albert kept the rose garden as a memorial garden for his sister and his nephew. Since he kept the rose garden and roses still grew there, roses therefore also represent Albert.

  2. After Albert revealed his true identity as Uncle William, he and Candy took a walk in the rose garden.

  3. The garden was tended to by Rosemary. Rosemary was Albert’s sister, so he was connected to the roses too.

  4. According to a phrase in the old Candy Candy novels (not CCFS), Albert planted wild roses at the spot where Anthony died.

Yes. That’s our reaction too. But let’s talk about how ridiculous these reasons are.

Reason 1: Albert kept the rose garden after Anthony died

First, about Albert keeping the rose garden after Anthony died. That was a very nice thing he did, to keep a little corner of the earth to remember his sister and nephew by. But unlike Anthony, who planted roses with his own hands and nurtured them with his heart, it’s not even clear to us how often Albert even went back to visit that garden. From what we can gauge from CCFS, he seldom went there, as he was always busy working either in Chicago or in Sao Paolo. (Let’s not forget either that in CCFS, he also sold Lakewood, so the rose garden was gone in the end. Albert didn’t keep it forever.) Moreover, he was a millionaire. Keeping a little rose garden wasn’t exactly a difficult thing for him when he could pay gardeners for the upkeep.

And if we’re going to say Albert was also a romantic interest of Candy, and roses represented Albert because he kept the rose garden after Anthony died, then we would have no choice but also agree that Mr. Whitman was one of Candy’s true loves, and roses represented Mr. Whitman as well. Mr. Whitman was also very fond of Anthony. They planted roses together. Certainly then, the rose garden and roses meant as much to him too. Also, after Anthony died, he was the one who maintained the garden with his own hard work. That was much more commitment to the roses than simply paying gardeners.

So unless Alfans will apply roses and the rose garden to Mr. Whitman too, we find this claim completely unconvincing. Come back to us when they agree that Mr. Whitman is Anohito.

Reason 2: Albert and Candy took a walk in the rose garden.

Really? They’re saying because Candy and Albert visited the rose garden together after he revealed he was Uncle William, that meant the roses now are attributable to Albert?

If Albert ever takes a walk with another person in any other part of the world, would that mean he was in love with that person too? Would the plants that grow in the place come to symbolize him as well? He was in the jungle and woods a lot. There must’ve been so many flowers and fauna in areas where he once set foot. Damn! The man was practically a walking floral arrangement.

Sorry, but if a walk was enough to make roses symbolic of Albert, then the symbol itself would lose all meanings. Everything that Anthony did for the rose garden would have no meaning. He should’ve just taken an afternoon walk there with Candy. He didn’t have had to put in all the time and effort.

Reason 3: Rosemary was the link for Albert to be connected to roses

According to the Alfans, when Albert was taking that one walk with Candy in the rose garden, he reminisced about his late sister Rosemary, as Anthony also reminisced about Rosemary, who was his mother, in the rose garden. Therefore, roses also represent Albert.

We hear this preposterous claim and all we can think of is Albert is a tag-along. An also-ran.  He didn’t have a flower symbol of his own, so he has to hitch on Anthony’s coattail to hang on to a connection that is barely there. We almost feel sorry for him—Almost.

Reason 4: Albert planted wild roses for Anthony in the old novels

You’re really grasping at straws when you have to go back to the old novels to find support for your argument, when the author has released the new CCFS and said that the new CCFS is the authoritative final version of the story. 

But that’s what Alfans are resorting to because the association of roses to Albert simply isn’t there in CCFS. So they’ve been pointing to this paragraph in the old novel, which says:

アンソニーが落馬して死んだところは野ばらが一面に咲き乱れている・・・と書かれています。 アルバートさんも薔薇は好きだったでしょう。

We note here again that Nagita had said the old manga and novels contained concepts and ideas that belonged to other people (illustrator, production teams) and not hers. So on the outset, relying on the old novels is enough to discredit this argument. But for amusement, we’ll entertain and dissect it.

To begin, we asked two native Japanese friends to translate this paragraph. The two friends do not know each other, and are not related to the CC fandom.

Our first friend gave a literal translation: 

It is written that wild roses are blooming where Anthony fell off his horse and died. Albert must have liked roses, too.

Our second friend gave a translation that smoothed out the English:

It’s written… in the area where Anthony fell from a horse and died, wild roses are blooming everywhere. Albert probably liked roses too.

In both cases, the translations are pretty much the same.

And yet, from what we heard, the Alfans have morphed this paragraph into Albert planting wild roses in the spot where Anthony died. Because Albert had done this, and this paragraph says Albert liked roses too, that means roses represent Albert as well.

This theory apparently came from an Alfan blog. And to be fair, we don’t know for sure if the blogger herself said this, because the blogger has chosen to put everything said on that blog somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. So we have no way to verify she said this. Nevertheless, the takeaway by Alfans from her argument is that Albert planted wild roses at the spot where Anthony died, and there’s a reference of Albert liking roses. Therefore, roses are now also a symbol of Albert.

But if we look at the translations by actual Japanese people who also speak, read, and write the language, the Alfans’ claim here is totally wrong because:

  • Nowhere does it say Albert planted wild roses.

  • Wild roses, by their nature and definition, are wild. Nobody plants wildflowers. If they were planted, they wouldn’t be wild anymore. — Duh!

  • It doesn’t say Albert likes roses. In the paragraph, Candy was thinking to herself. While reminiscing about Anthony, she pondered: Albert would have liked roses too. It was a mere afterthought.

Back to Reality: Roses Symbolizes Anthony Only

Ok, now that we’re done taking a walk in crazy town, let’s come back to the facts. The truth is, no matter how much Alfans want to ascribe roses as a symbol of Albert, and to transfer it to mean love to Albert and Candy, their attempt fails. In fact, their wild claim failed spectacularly with the upcoming release of the Spanish edition of CCFS. 

Last week, on April 23, 2020, Carles Miralles, the editor of Arechi Manga in charge of the publication of CCFS in Spanish, held an interview on YouTube. (See our blog post with the interview here.)

In the interview, he said that the rose on the cover of the Spanish edition of CCFS was a symbol of Anthony. He further said that in the interior pages, the first part of the book will have an illustration of roses, as a tribute to Anthony.  The second part of the book will have an illustration of daffodils, as a tribute to Terry. These flowers will be there in their respective parts to symbolize Candy’s two loves. The third part of the book will have illustrations of letters, to signify the epistolary format of Candy’s letters exchange with the secondary characters in the story.

Unless anything is still unclear, Mr. Miralles said roses meant Anthony. Only Anthony.

He also revealed that Arechi Manga had consulted with Nagita on the book cover design. Initially, a concept of the three Ardlay boys — Anthony, Stair, and Archi — in kilts was raised. They thought kilt was symbolic of the Ardlay family. But Nagita rejected that idea because kilts were Igarashi’s idea. Nagita rejected that as the idea of the mangaka, and not hers! So the rose, illustrated specifically to look like the pink sweet candy rose that Anthony gave to Candy, was chosen instead. (The rose is pink as written in CCFS, not white as drawn in the anime, as white was also not Nagita’s idea but Toei’s.)

Of course, we have no doubt that Alfans will continue to remain in denial. They’ll say that the cover and all the roses for Anthony in the Spanish edition are Arechi Manga’s ideas, not Nagita’s. They’ll try to discredit Arechi Manga, claiming they misinterpreted or whatever. But the indisputable fact is that they are the official publisher of a translated version authorized by Nagita, and they consulted with Nagita on the book cover creation. Nagita personally approved the book cover and the interior book design and all that they represent. Between Arechi Manga and Alfans in their own bubble of echo chamber, who would you believe?

Final Thoughts

So let us remember here for a moment Anthony, the boy who was such a big part of this story, who deserves his rightful place in the CC fandom. Anthony should not have to cede his spotlight. It is wrong to steal what belongs to him, to dilute his significance, and to desecrate his memory.

Roses belong to Anthony, and nobody else.

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