Kaze to Ki no Uta (it's like Emma meeting Ouran, just grimmer, and better)
One of the funny parts about working with teenagers is seeing how class is reproduced by seing how we take after our parents. The kids doing vocational schooling are overwhelmingly from working-class homes, while white-collar parents usually find their children preparing for higher education. Working with teenagers READING also produced some unexpected insight into class and the consumption of entertainment, at least as far as girls are concerned. Sixteen year old girls from the middle class will read the kind of thing I'd expect from sixteen year old girls - YA stuff, light fantasy, whatever trendy teenage thing is around. The girls doing VET in nursing or childcare, though? Well, mostly they don't read, but when they do, they have an enormous preference for biography, and not just any biography. No, they want the gruesome stories. Children murdered by their parents. Middle schoolers dying from terminal disease. Boys who died from abuse, girls who had the children of their rapists. I probably should've just handed out "Christiane F." to all of them, god knows they'd eat it up and ask for more.
The reason I'm starting with this statement is because that kind of literature is the very same thing that I myself never could understand. I've read some of the same kinds of books myself, but I've never enjoyed them. But without fail, this is the recurring theme when I ask girls in these classes what they like to read: "True stories, the sad ones". It isn't that I think these stories are inherently less valuable than whatever else people read for entertainment, it's just that I can't comprehend the fetish for suffering. Consuming stories about terrible things happening to others - preferably others who lived for real - seems to be the only reason they read books. I, on the other hand, can stomach most whatever is thrown at me, but I won't see the purpose of constant pain and sadness unless I'm at least guaranteed a reasonably happy ending or at least some kind of subtextual message about life. I've grown wary of anything being marketed as "the heartbreaking story of someone sad and pitiable."
God only knows why it was I decided to read Kaze to Ki no Uta despite having seen it mentioned somewhere that it's full of abuse and ends as expected. I had things to do this weekend. They didn't happen.
Kaze to Ki no Uta is credited with having single-handedly invented the BL genre. I wouldn't know, but what I do know is that every thing BL I've read has been garbage. Entertaining garbage at times, but never reaching any quality standard beyond mediocre. My personal impression has varied from fond exasperation (oh Gravitation) to annoyance (how can people like Fake?) to just being pissed off (why would anyone pay money for Only the Ring Finger Knows). The only times I've seen m/m relationships in things that are good, it has been things that belonged to different genres entirely - Clamp's lesser dreadful attempts, as well as Antique Bakery.
I went into Kaze to Ki no Uta expecting something that was 1) Full of gratuitious suffering and 2) probably bad. As of nearly the halfway point - that's as far as the scanlations have gotten - it is neither.
First of all: Ignoring the genre and the subject matter, this is a damn good comic. It's seventies shoujo and looks exactly like that; it's full of flowers and messy shoujo panels, but it works. I rarely take the time to notice page layout and composition when I read comics - I did here. Thank you, Keiko Takemyia, for everything you have taught me about contrast and non-panel framing devices. The story, too, works so much better than I had expected. I really feel that this is a statement that needs to be stressed - if you're wondering if this is a comic it's worth reading, the answer is yes. Yes, it is, and out of all the ten million idiotic comics that has been brought overseas because OMG MANGA, it is a bloody shame that Kaze to Ki no Uta hasn't been published in any western language for that very same reason. Comic aficiandos don't read shoujo manga, and the Fruits Basket audience aren't going to pay money for psychologically sound and visually explicit stories about child abuse.
That being said, the combination of the setting and the genre likely demands some willing suspension of disbelief for the reader who wants to enjoy the ride. Our story takes place in an 1880s boarding school in France. Our two heroes are Serge Battour, son of a viscount, and Gilbert Cocteau, who likewise belongs to the upper crust. They're both fourteen, and they're both semi-outcasts in good society - Serge because it's well know that his mother was a gipsy and a prostitute, Gilbert because it's well known that he'll sleep with anything that moves and there aren't exactly many girls around a boys' boarding school.
This is about all the two have in common, however: The dark-skinned Serge is friendly, talented and in posession of a distinct sense of justice. The blonde and frequently underdressed Gilbert is cruel, oversexed and rarely shows up for class. Serge is a beacon of morality. Gilbert... isn't. And of course their fates are intertwined because of course Serge ends up as Gilbert's roomate when he enters the school. And of course Serge is determined to befriend Gilbert and end the bullying he is subjected to, despite Gilbert's overblown attempts at driving him away. And of course it works.
Things start out fairly predictably. Serge is a stencil stereotype, and little depth has been given his friends this far. Their shenanigans are well-told but hardly surprising. Gilbert's self-destructive behaviour is the only part of the story that's unexpected, and the fact that 70% of the school population seems to be lusting after him is just another part of the story where realism is obviously not present. In fact, I was kind of annoyed with Gilbert in the beginning. 60% of the panels he was in seemed to portray him in the same slump with a half-open shirt, head vulnerably tipped back to display his neck while his hair would artfully cover one eye. His only actions seemed to be to manipulate others to get his way, usually with sex or the suggestion of such, and his motivation for behaving this way is never explained. But for all that Gilbert's perceived by most of the school to be a master of manipulation, it's also obvious that he's not entirely the one in control. He is shunned and bullied by his classmates, he's beaten by his lovers, and his idea of sex seems to be to submit fully and let them do whatever they want with him.
Gilbert is far from a functional human being, and eventually, we're told why that is. At great length and with great detail, and this is where the story shines.
To return to manga that pissed me off: Fruits Basket did, mostly because there wasn't anyone who wasn't abused by their parents or bullied in school, and particularly the treatment of the guy who ended up with Tohru galled me immensely. I felt that the story was blackmailing me into rooting for the pairing because who would want to take the girl away from someone who has suffered so much already (easy. Give him the girl who was initially prejudiced and repulsed, but who loved him and who because of her love for him struggled to become a better person). It's been a while since I've read it, so don't give too much credit to my memories of it. What I do remember, however, would suggest that Furuba was using the abusive backstories as a way to garner sympathy for the characters, but these were characters that were caricatures to begin with - it was just "oh, really? Ouch" and then when it happened the fiftieth time, "wow. You don't say. Look at me not rolling my eyes." In Kaze to Ki no Uta, it is used to explain how an extremely twisted boy became what he was. And unlike, say, Gravitation, it's not just "trauma happened, that's why he's an emotionally stunted jerk".
Bit by bit, every incongruous part of Gilbert's person becomes logical when we learn about his childhood, and that is beautifully rendered and painful as all hell. It doesn't come off as gratuituous or pandering; there are spots of happiness inbetween, and the parties involved are all portrayed not as one-sided villains, but as faceted people whose actions - or inactions - might well be cruel, but sometimes merely ignorant, or even well-intended. To return to the topic of senseless abuse and suffering, and my aversion to the stuff: it doesn't feel senseless here. Maybe it's because the very rules of fiction demand that it has a wider consequence than ruining someone's life; unlike the RL accounts so loved by the working-class girls around here, it isn't there just to make us feel horrible because horrible things happen to people who don't deserve it. It is fiction and in fiction, it has a purpose - if nothing else, the purpose of strengthening the narrative. The story is just moving onto Serge's backstory now, so I can only hope that he is given a depth matching Gilbert's.
Maybe I'll be less gushing about this when it isn't quite so fresh. But you know? Prestigious manga award - this won it. If you want good drama, get it here. If the quality is kept up post volume 7, however, I can't say. Because, well: Never published outside Japan, and scanlation demands for seventies shoujo titles.
In conclusion: FFFFU- it appears I need to learn Japanese now.
The reason I'm starting with this statement is because that kind of literature is the very same thing that I myself never could understand. I've read some of the same kinds of books myself, but I've never enjoyed them. But without fail, this is the recurring theme when I ask girls in these classes what they like to read: "True stories, the sad ones". It isn't that I think these stories are inherently less valuable than whatever else people read for entertainment, it's just that I can't comprehend the fetish for suffering. Consuming stories about terrible things happening to others - preferably others who lived for real - seems to be the only reason they read books. I, on the other hand, can stomach most whatever is thrown at me, but I won't see the purpose of constant pain and sadness unless I'm at least guaranteed a reasonably happy ending or at least some kind of subtextual message about life. I've grown wary of anything being marketed as "the heartbreaking story of someone sad and pitiable."
God only knows why it was I decided to read Kaze to Ki no Uta despite having seen it mentioned somewhere that it's full of abuse and ends as expected. I had things to do this weekend. They didn't happen.
Kaze to Ki no Uta is credited with having single-handedly invented the BL genre. I wouldn't know, but what I do know is that every thing BL I've read has been garbage. Entertaining garbage at times, but never reaching any quality standard beyond mediocre. My personal impression has varied from fond exasperation (oh Gravitation) to annoyance (how can people like Fake?) to just being pissed off (why would anyone pay money for Only the Ring Finger Knows). The only times I've seen m/m relationships in things that are good, it has been things that belonged to different genres entirely - Clamp's lesser dreadful attempts, as well as Antique Bakery.
I went into Kaze to Ki no Uta expecting something that was 1) Full of gratuitious suffering and 2) probably bad. As of nearly the halfway point - that's as far as the scanlations have gotten - it is neither.
First of all: Ignoring the genre and the subject matter, this is a damn good comic. It's seventies shoujo and looks exactly like that; it's full of flowers and messy shoujo panels, but it works. I rarely take the time to notice page layout and composition when I read comics - I did here. Thank you, Keiko Takemyia, for everything you have taught me about contrast and non-panel framing devices. The story, too, works so much better than I had expected. I really feel that this is a statement that needs to be stressed - if you're wondering if this is a comic it's worth reading, the answer is yes. Yes, it is, and out of all the ten million idiotic comics that has been brought overseas because OMG MANGA, it is a bloody shame that Kaze to Ki no Uta hasn't been published in any western language for that very same reason. Comic aficiandos don't read shoujo manga, and the Fruits Basket audience aren't going to pay money for psychologically sound and visually explicit stories about child abuse.
That being said, the combination of the setting and the genre likely demands some willing suspension of disbelief for the reader who wants to enjoy the ride. Our story takes place in an 1880s boarding school in France. Our two heroes are Serge Battour, son of a viscount, and Gilbert Cocteau, who likewise belongs to the upper crust. They're both fourteen, and they're both semi-outcasts in good society - Serge because it's well know that his mother was a gipsy and a prostitute, Gilbert because it's well known that he'll sleep with anything that moves and there aren't exactly many girls around a boys' boarding school.
This is about all the two have in common, however: The dark-skinned Serge is friendly, talented and in posession of a distinct sense of justice. The blonde and frequently underdressed Gilbert is cruel, oversexed and rarely shows up for class. Serge is a beacon of morality. Gilbert... isn't. And of course their fates are intertwined because of course Serge ends up as Gilbert's roomate when he enters the school. And of course Serge is determined to befriend Gilbert and end the bullying he is subjected to, despite Gilbert's overblown attempts at driving him away. And of course it works.
Things start out fairly predictably. Serge is a stencil stereotype, and little depth has been given his friends this far. Their shenanigans are well-told but hardly surprising. Gilbert's self-destructive behaviour is the only part of the story that's unexpected, and the fact that 70% of the school population seems to be lusting after him is just another part of the story where realism is obviously not present. In fact, I was kind of annoyed with Gilbert in the beginning. 60% of the panels he was in seemed to portray him in the same slump with a half-open shirt, head vulnerably tipped back to display his neck while his hair would artfully cover one eye. His only actions seemed to be to manipulate others to get his way, usually with sex or the suggestion of such, and his motivation for behaving this way is never explained. But for all that Gilbert's perceived by most of the school to be a master of manipulation, it's also obvious that he's not entirely the one in control. He is shunned and bullied by his classmates, he's beaten by his lovers, and his idea of sex seems to be to submit fully and let them do whatever they want with him.
Gilbert is far from a functional human being, and eventually, we're told why that is. At great length and with great detail, and this is where the story shines.
To return to manga that pissed me off: Fruits Basket did, mostly because there wasn't anyone who wasn't abused by their parents or bullied in school, and particularly the treatment of the guy who ended up with Tohru galled me immensely. I felt that the story was blackmailing me into rooting for the pairing because who would want to take the girl away from someone who has suffered so much already (easy. Give him the girl who was initially prejudiced and repulsed, but who loved him and who because of her love for him struggled to become a better person). It's been a while since I've read it, so don't give too much credit to my memories of it. What I do remember, however, would suggest that Furuba was using the abusive backstories as a way to garner sympathy for the characters, but these were characters that were caricatures to begin with - it was just "oh, really? Ouch" and then when it happened the fiftieth time, "wow. You don't say. Look at me not rolling my eyes." In Kaze to Ki no Uta, it is used to explain how an extremely twisted boy became what he was. And unlike, say, Gravitation, it's not just "trauma happened, that's why he's an emotionally stunted jerk".
Bit by bit, every incongruous part of Gilbert's person becomes logical when we learn about his childhood, and that is beautifully rendered and painful as all hell. It doesn't come off as gratuituous or pandering; there are spots of happiness inbetween, and the parties involved are all portrayed not as one-sided villains, but as faceted people whose actions - or inactions - might well be cruel, but sometimes merely ignorant, or even well-intended. To return to the topic of senseless abuse and suffering, and my aversion to the stuff: it doesn't feel senseless here. Maybe it's because the very rules of fiction demand that it has a wider consequence than ruining someone's life; unlike the RL accounts so loved by the working-class girls around here, it isn't there just to make us feel horrible because horrible things happen to people who don't deserve it. It is fiction and in fiction, it has a purpose - if nothing else, the purpose of strengthening the narrative. The story is just moving onto Serge's backstory now, so I can only hope that he is given a depth matching Gilbert's.
Maybe I'll be less gushing about this when it isn't quite so fresh. But you know? Prestigious manga award - this won it. If you want good drama, get it here. If the quality is kept up post volume 7, however, I can't say. Because, well: Never published outside Japan, and scanlation demands for seventies shoujo titles.
In conclusion: FFFFU- it appears I need to learn Japanese now.