Kaze to Ki no Uta [OVA]
Dealing both with lighter subjects of adolescence and coming of age and with darker themes such as racism, homophobia, pedophilia, rape, and drug abuse, Kaze recounts the personal histories of and relationship between two students, Serge Battour and Gilbert Cocteau, at a boarding school in Provence in the late 19th century.
Serge is the son of a French viscount and a Roma woman, attending the Lacombrade Academy near Arles at the request of his late father. Upon arrival at the school, he finds himself roomed with Gilbert, who is reviled by the school’s pupils and professors for skipping classes and engaging in relations with older male students. Serge’s efforts to befriend his roommate – and Gilbert’s efforts to drive off and seduce the young aristocrat, in response – soon form a complicated and disruptive connection between the two.
Despite his apparent cruelty and promiscuity, however, Gilbert proves to be a tortured young man with a history of abandonment, objectification, and abuse. The primary antagonist in the story – Gilbert’s uncle, Auguste Beau – is a respected figure in French high society who manipulates and molests his young nephew. Auguste’s influence is so great that Gilbert believes that the two are in love and remains enthralled by Auguste, even after learning a disturbing secret about their relationship.
Serge perseveres in his attempts to bond with Gilbert despite threats of ostracism and violence, and eventually the two boys become friends and lovers. Faced with rejection by the faculty and students of Lacombrade, Gilbert and Serge flee to Paris and live for a short while as paupers. Gilbert, however, remains unable to escape the trauma his past and finds himself dragged into a life of hard drugs and prostitution. Hallucinating under the influence of the former, he runs in front of a moving carriage and dies under its wheels, convinced that he has seen Auguste. Some of the pair’s few friends, who have recently rediscovered the couple, find and console the traumatized Serge.
