風と木の詩

KAZE TO KI NO UTA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
17
RELEASE
June 1, 1984
CHAPTERS
139

DESCRIPTION

Serge Battour is the son of a French viscount and a Romani prostitute, and despite his kind nature and academic talent, is shunned by his family and his peers due to the color of his skin. He begins to attend Lacombrade Academy, his father's alma mater, in the hopes that there he will find a place to belong.

Gilbert Cocteau is, like Serge, the orphaned son of a wealthy family, and is infamous at Lacombrade for his beautiful and delicate appearance, lack of dedication to schoolwork, and habit of prostituting himself to other students. He has no intention to connect with any of his classmates, instead devoting himself to his uncle Auguste.

Due to a shortage of living space, Serge and Gilbert become roommates even though Gilbert's antisocial nature has in the past made it impossible for him to room with anybody. Serge, being sociable and idealistic, is determined to be friends with Gilbert; Gilbert is only interested in either being able to manipulate Serge or push him away entirely. To the surprise of both of the boys, however, the two eventually form a deep, albeit generally dismal, bond that leads to a romantic connection.

CAST

Gilbert Cocteau
Serge Battour
Arion Rosemariné
Auguste Beau
Pascal Biquet
Aslan Battour
Karl Meiser
Pavia Battour
Jules de Ferrier

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO KAZE TO KI NO UTA

Cover Art for Kaze to Ki no Uta SANCTUS: Sei Naru Kana

OVA DramaKaze to Ki no Uta SANCTUS: Sei Naru Kana

Cover Art for Kami no Kohitsuji: Agnus Dei

NOVEL DramaKami no Kohitsuji: Agnus Dei

ONE SHOT DramaKoufuku no Hato

REVIEWS

llorando
80/100
I’d recommend this to anyone that is seeking aesthetic excellence and isn’t bothered by shoujo melodrama
What initially brought me to read KazeKi, besides my general interest in the Year 24 group, was Chiho Saito's, member of the Be-Papas, remark about Revolutionary Girl Utena being "based" on this series. They're indeed alike on the surface: a beautiful and mysterious student that is treated like a heartless doll meets a white knight that sets out to save them but soon finds out that things aren't always what they seem. The main setting is also an isolated boarding school with similar architecture, like Oniisama e... and Heart of Thomas, there's a green house shaped like a cage where Gilbert and Anthy do their thing, and this mysterious student's closer relative is the one running the school. But that's about as similar as they get, just the skeleton (this isn't a RGU review anyway, so...)

Gilbert is a gorgeous self destructive angel whom'll put a demoniac facade to get what he wants. His existence is ethereal-like and he'll often be, in a poetic tone, painted as a white dove; the inspiration for his character seems to be Björn Andrésen, the boy from Death in Venice, and the idea behind both characters is the same: rather than human beings they're a stand in for beauty itself. He sleeps around because he can't stand being alone, and is very casually raped from time to time – which he expects to be the only way people will always treat him anyway. The way he understands the world is generally different from normal people. Then we have Serge, a goody-two-shoes with a strong determination, a harsh past and a golden heart. They both meet and somehow form a unstable connection on the first volumes, but then we're thrown on what must have been the biggest flashback I've ever seen (or maybe it's Berserk's, but it's been long since I've read that one)

There're two flashbacks that serves to explain both of our MC's past and how they're supposedly similar to each other. Gilbert's past is covered with an unconfortably high number scenes of abuse and pedophilia: he's constantly assalted by... basically every male character that set their eyes on him, and has a very, uhm, "distinct" relationship with his guardian, August. Gilbert, being "beauty", is capable of awakening desire on seemingly anyone he chooses (or not) – with the exception of Serge, the only one who manages to partially control his urges around him. Serge's flashback starts with his father, before he himself was born, and is a very linear, predictable high born boy meets low born girl story, and then evolves to the evil step mother tale, which I don't find worth dwelling on and seems to me to be the worst section of the whole story.

Problem arises as our two main characters walk towards their fateful bounding, and pretty much all of it involve some form of physical or sexual abuse, to the point of exhaustion. Not only Gilbert but also other characters – there's a lot of rape being thrown around and being hinted as the reason why some characters act the way they do, which sometimes is of pretty bad taste. It's not that there's something inherently wrong with portraying abuse, but there's only so much one can take before it becomes redundant, merely a shock factor. Speaking of abuse and repetition, there's a particularly exhausting plot device on the last third of the manga that involves Gilbert silently suffering on the worst way imaginable while Serge is obliviously being his happy go lucky self, only to later find out everything and greatly suffer from remorse. We're supposed to suffer like Serge, I think, but after so much has been done it's pretty hard to play along with it. There’s also one particular character who rapes Gilbert early in the series and is then portrayed in a very benign light later on. Not that I’d ever want a one dimensional evil monster, but even if I let the moral dilemma aside and try not to be anachronic with my approach, i'm still left wondering what exactly Takemiya was trying to get on with this particular plot line.

SPOILERS:

Towards the end of the manga there's a instance of self sacrifice that our boy Serge indulges on thanks to his father's life story, but much like the naive boy who jumps on a river to save a drowning girl and ironically dies, from Utena, Serge quickly discover that life isn't a fairy tale, even on this shoujo manga, that despite his good intentions he can't save someone who doesn't believe they need to be saved in the first place, and that sometimes love just isn't enough – and so he fails his quest. But unlike Utena’s brilliant ending, KazeKi plays like a more predictable tragedy and ends where you think it will: Gilbert as a character never displays agency beyond one impactful event earlier in the series (where he chooses to be with Serge instead of August), he continues being hopelessly thrown around by everyone and tragically dies after pedophile number #57 in the last minute turns him into a drug addict (which felt silly, to say the least). Gilbert, who could only live for love, then becomes a symbol for Serge’s missing other half, whom’ll live a straight life, probably in both senses of the word, carrying his adolescent love in his heart.

August, the series third center character and “main antagonist”, if you will, is weirdly never confronted in this ending. He just dissapears after the 15th volume and it’s up to you to imagine how he reacted to his child’s death.

END OF SPOILERS

When it’s all said and done, and despite all the criticism, KazeKi isn’t a bad manga, it’s in fact a very good one, and is rightfully considered as such a classic. Simply put, the whole thing is gorgeous: the art itself and the paneling combined to create some stunning imagery. It's seriously outstanding. I found myself hitting the print screen button almost every chapter. Like most older shoujo manga, character’s emotions are usually presented in a very melodramatic way, they are prone to overeact and there’s a lot of blanky eyes, flowery imagery and all sort of embelishments running around the page. It’s dense and a bit overloaded, but also extremely beautiful (and Takemiya is particularly above the rest when it comes to her craft). The moments where Serge and Gilbert get together are breathtaking and staring at these pictures never failed to deliever a wild range of sensations. KazeKi is erotic not only because the story is filled with a huge amount of sex, but because the art exudes such quality almost to an intoxicating degree. It's impossible to ignore Takemiya's talent even when taking notion of the aforementioned contrivied elements that fills the narrative; she knows how to do manga and this one is way above of most of what would come after it under the same genre.

I’d recommend this to anyone that is seeking aesthetic excellence and isn’t bothered by most shoujo troupes. If you’re here looking for ancient BL history, I’d say that this one is a more fulfulling male x male story than it’s cousing, The Heart of Thomas, which is tamer about homossexuality, instead being more focused on telling a (exceptionally beautiful) tale about grief.

Just, for the love of god, do not read this if you’re triggered by rape.
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