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Lilacs
In the Japanese language of flowers it means first love. Lilacs are seen in the opening credits of the Kakyuusei OVA, they are later seen in ep. 4 of the TV series. In the episode
pink and lavender lilacs are blooming in the rain. Ryoko gets to know Tsuushi in this episode and the two meet in the rain. He is her first love and she asks him to model for her
Apollo drawing. As the series is about first loves the lilac is an appropriate symbol for the credits and thus for all the girls.
From Rose of Versailles: "A rose is a rose, whether it blooms in red or white. But a rose can never become a lilac."
The lilac seems to have quite a few layers of meaning. In ep. 28 Andre says the above to Oscar after she tells him she won't need him by her side anymore, and that she's going to live her
life fully as a man. Her response is "Do you mean that a woman will always be a woman?!" Throughout the series the rose has been the important symbol for the women in this series
(Oscar, Marie, du Barry...), and so has stood for womanhood and everything involved with it. In this particular context, the lilac thus as Andre has set it up at it's introduction, becomes a
symbol specially for Oscar. It's a flower and has a feminine connotation thus, but it does not have as womanly an association for most people as a rose would. So for Oscar to take on
an association as well with the lilac means in this series she has stepped out of the world that the other women must inhabit, and become the independent flower.
Now when Andre uses it, he uses the comparison to say that Oscar can not totally change who she is. She's a woman and can't change that fact. Even if she wants to give that part of herself up,
it's impossible to change.
In ep. 31, the title is A Lilac Blooming in the Barracks. This takes the lilac back to that idea of the independant or at least different flower. Oscar is now taking charge of her life. She's in the
position she wanted for herself, not the one her father set her up in. And the same will be true for other aspects as well like love and marriage, which as happens in the series are sometimes
choices which the female character has no power in regards to, such as Marie who the rose is a very big image for.
This is further illustrated in the next episode where after the attack on their carriage, Oscar called out for "MY Andre," and then is left thinking to herself at home with the rain falling outside her window,
and she says that at one time she would have gone after Fersen, but instead thought only of Andre, and outside the window lilacs are blooming.