Papillon Rose

Papillon Rose

Lingerie Soldier Papillon Rose (パピヨンローゼ, Papiyon Rōze?) is an anime which parodies the magical girl genre, particularly Sailor Moon and Cutie Honey. Created by dojinshi group ECHIGOYA, Papillon Rose started out as a metafiction joke on a website, and the official website only had a few pictures of characters (which were usually copied from scenes in Sailor Moon, with the artwork changed) and a few lyrics to opening and ending theme songs. Demand grew due to people finding the page and assuming it was for an actual series, and in 2003, the series was picked up by the animation studio Pink, and an OVA was produced (Lingerie Soldier Papillon Rose: Tsubomi no Yume wa Yoru Hiraku).

An episode guide for the (non-existent) first series and manga was also made available, as well as a set of CD-ROMs containing a 2-minute animated promotional clip, eight songs (6 BGM and 2 vocal songs), system voice clips for computers, a Papillon Rose mahjong game, and two screen savers. The CDs were only made available for Comiket, and were not distributed outside of Japan. Later an episode guide for the second ('R') season was made as well.

The homepage was redesigned and updated with fake manga covers and notes from the fictional author. Amateur voice actors and singers were also contacted to provide sample character voice clips for a handful of the villains and heroines. An English version was initially intended for release on the Internet, but plans failed to materialize. In March 2010, Section 23 films announced plans to distribute the 6 episode series and OVA on DVD for North America on behalf of Maiden Japan. The DVD set is planned to be released on June 8, 2010. Maiden Japan is a division of "J-Horror" and "Pink Cinema" licensor Switchblade Pictures. Papillon Rose will be their first release.

From 2003 until early 2005, no new news was made available about the series, save for profiles of new characters and various fictional incarnations of the series:

• Papillon R which parodies the 2nd season of Sailor Moon;
• Papillon G which parodies the 3rd season (S).

In early 2005, however, the site went blank, with nothing other than a graphic that stated the website would return in the new future. As of October 2005, this page is still in existence at the prior location.

On October 8, 2005 Anime News Network reported that the site was relocated to a new official website, with information on the development of a Papillon Rose television series. The TV series was called 'Papillon Rose New Season' and was six episodes long, covering what happened to the girls a year after the ending of the OVA and introducing new characters.

The DVD release of the TV series was halted after the third DVD was released, a while after a soundtrack for the series was put on sale and a box set containing all six episodes was released in October 2007, although various changes (such as music) had to be made due to copyright limitations.

Despite the seemingly hentai overtones, the series has yet to feature sex, or extremely graphic nudity.