#it's not representative of the media as a whole!! these are shoujo/josei classics and yet are practically unknown outside japan!!!

[archduchessofnowhere]

I've always thought it was strange there wasn't any manga about Elisabeth giving how popular she (or at least the musical) is in Japan. Well it turns out THERE ARE. Like, many, in fact.

First we have Elisabeth by Kumi Morikawa! A single volume adaptation of the musical, published in 1996 (I think?). There seem to be two editions of it:

Then we have Tomoko Naka's two volumes-long Uruwashi no Kouhi Elisabeth, published also in 1996 (right and middle pictures). I couldn't find the plot of this series, but I suppose it's just an adaptation of Elisabeth's life. There is also a single volume edition that came out in the early 2000s (left picture):

The art looks pretty!!

Leaving the 90s shoujo behind, in 2017 the empress was once again depicted in a manga (a seinen this time): Cuvie's Erzsébet!

Swords?? Guns??? Yuri vibes???? Whatever this is sign me up!

In this story we follow Ida (not Ferenczy but clearly inspired in her), a Hungarian independentist infiltrated in Elisabeth's entourage to reclute her for the cause. The series ended at the beginning of 2020, closing with a total of three volumes The first chapter is available for free (in Japanese) so I might do a live reading blog of it because just the first four pages are absolutely BONKERS.

And lastly as a bonus, let's go back to the 90s with Hideko Mizuno's Elisabeth!

Now this Elisabeth isn't the Empress, but her granddaughter Archduchess Elisabeth Marie of Austria, Crown Prince Rudolf's daughter. Published between 1993 and 1996, this series covers the infamous life of the "Red Archduchess". Mizuno had years before written a manga series about Ludwig II that sadly got cancelled after only two volumes, so for her this was a comeback to a familiar era.

Now this is the sad part in which I tell you that none of these mangas has an English translation, not even fan translations. The fact that I had not even come across these until I searched "マンガ 皇妃エリザベート " shows how little diffusion these works had outside Japan, which is such a pity. Let's hope that at least a scanlation group gets interested in any of these one day!