Introduction
1887, at a remote, elite boarding school in France: Serge Battour returns after his graduation, and remembers the days of his youth...
1880, at the same school: Son of a viscount and a Roma prostitute (both deceased), Serge is intelligent, sweet, talented, and alienated by his family due to his heritage. Upon being sent to his new school, he rooms with Gilbert Cocteau, a gorgeous loner of a boy who sells his body for reasons unknown. Serge's attempts to reach out to Gilbert fail spectacularly, and yet there is something in both of them that attracts them to each other.
Audience reviews
12 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
himepuddingsama
i found this to be one of the most beautiful pieces of animation i have ever seen
its profound exploration on themes of longing, desire, lust, and eroticism, deeply resonated with me and touched my heart
i love the way that homoerotism is represented in both subtle ways and extreme ways. the film very clearly appreciates the beauty of the male form, and it is not afraid to show it. speaking of the visuals, they are very impressive. i may be biased because i love the style of the 80s and 90s, but something about how everything is drawn just really appeals to me. the art is expressive enough to where you can tell the messages that are trying to be sent not just through the words but also through the visuals. it also captures how homophobia was in that timeframe quite well, and you can see th…
Read at the sourcesuper_toad_fan
If you consider how old the story is and how hard it might have been to address queer topics back then, the anime is good enough for being a retro Shounen Ai / Yaoi.
To be honest, I wouldn’t watch it again — but I have to say the setting was refreshing, and the melancholic tone worked well. You can watch the full movie on YouTube.
The animation is mid, and I don’t care much about the characters — but maybe I’m being too harsh.
I’d recommend it, but I’d also say there are other shows that are more interesting and worth your time.
Read at the sourcek-0da
A great classic, the first BL ever made. Kaze to Ki no Uta is fine. The animation's pretty good for how old it is, and the music is nice. Witnessing Gilbert and Serge's journey is sweet, even if it's cut short by it's 50 minute runtime. It's a perfectly acceptable BL OVA. I watched this a while ago, so my memory's a bit foggy, but I did enjoy it. A bit slow going, but nothing really that terrible. I watched this with a friend, and we both realized that it seemed to treat its racier elements with more respect than other BLs---Gilbert's desire for sex is painted as self harm, not sexy. Not for everyone, but for any BL fan, it's worth the visit to know your history.
Read at the sourceNid_Vicious
Most of you, I assume, already know that this OVA is based on a 17-volume Manga (well if you didn’t know, now you do) so having this be only 1 hour was gonna make me skeptical.
Anyways, since the Manga isn’t fully translated (which is honestly outrageous) I can only imagine that not a lot of people outside of Japan have read the whole thing (correct me if I’m wrong) Having read all volumes, I feel like this OVA is really for fans of the Manga who know what’s gonna happen.
Aside from the obvious fact that this OVA was way too short for the whole story, I’m a bit confused as to which scenes the producers chose to animate. Like, I’m not really sure what they wanted to tell us, but I guess they wanted to focus on how the relationship between Serge and Gilbert developed, but they way they ende…
Read at the sourcepomegranit
As someone who has seen and read only a little yaoi (not counting dojinshi, that is) I was surprised at the depth this show offered.
I found this through a Youtube video debating yaoi which described this OVA as one of the best 'gay anime' of all time. After being the victim of a few disappointing anime like Koisuru Boukun and Citrus, I was waiting for another disappointment-- after all, most LGBTQ+ representation in anime and manga is notoriously poor as even I can tell, being a straight person myself.
However, I was pleasantly surprised. Even for an OVA that's just an hour long, they manage to encompass a heartwrenching story of two boys in a homophobic climate, one of whom is 'straightlaced' and the other is abused and broken. The writer manages to create realistic plot points that…
Read at the sourceTakishima_Shin
I enjoyed it. As a BL fan that usually tries to stay away from the more sexually explicit scenes, it's not bad at all.
The plot flowed nicely. Easily understood. It went through a more poetic like theme to the entire story. But the story was boys sharing the same room in a dormitory and developing a love-hate relationship. Kind of cliche for BL though.
One complaint, I have is more of a personal taste issue...I just don't like the art. It was bothering me the entire movie. I never had a taste for the...like any pre-00s art style, over beautifying eyes on characters/guys...just not my taste. (And what was with Rosemarine's eyes?!!?!...creepy)
I would say the voice actors did pretty well to portray each part of the story. I was questioning the feminine voice choices though, but I guess,…
Read at the sourcenoretus
It's an old old anime, "classic", and the feeling is like that as well. The reason I was hesitant about bothering with it was because the characters are more than a little bit androgynic and I usually don't like that, plus it came off as this really glittery and over-beautiful, romantic anime-cliché story ( save the fact it was about a boy and a boy, rather than a boy and a girl ). Well, the funny thing is that it kinda was all of those things I said but it was wonderful. Reminded me that anime doesn't always need to be comedic to entertain me. As soon as I started watching, I was almost immediately entranced by the skillful and detailed animation and drawings ( remember that this is old anime ). Classical music playing on the background suited the feeling really well. Usually, when I watc…
Read at the sourceCaraniel
An uninspiring early BL OVA that takes the idea of bishounen to the extreme.
PLOT: This is a very early shounen-ai OVA based on a long running 1970s manga series of the same name. As such the OVA is really only geared towards those who have read the manga and have an understanding of the characters motivations and relationships. The copy I watched had a preface that gave a basic overview of the setting and main characters, but even this didn’t really help me much when actually watching the OVA. The pace is extremely slow going too, everything is understated and slow to unravel – it’s hard to stay interested. There also seems to be large gaps in the storyline which I assume are covered in the manga – as a result the developing relationship between Serge and Gilbert didn’t really feel reali…
Read at the sourceSolemnmind
Let's just cut to the chase; the answer is yes, this anime does depict romantic relationships between people of the same sex. I'd choose to describe the more sensual scenes as highly palatable and sometimes even intensely beautiful, but if you're unable to handle a story of such nature, then read no further.
Basically, this anime uses a prestigious French school as its setting where our protagonist, the virtuous and talented Serge, meets his new room-mate and polar opposite in the manipulative Gilbert who uses his body to gain various favors from other men. Unlike some other anime of the same genre I know of, the story takes place in a world with enough regard for realism to avoid an ideal depiction of same-sex relationships and instead aims to depict some of the obvious cons; the most pr…
Read at the sourcediadora
bEAUTIFUL .... simply piece of art.
just one word says it all. I havent read the manga , but the essense of the story in the anime is simply brilliant.
Story of human love and pain.
Human cruelty and fear.
It should be in the collection of everyone who values anime as art.
10/10
Read at the sourceAnomalous
Anime like Kaze to Ki no Uta are hard to quantify. Like so many short OVAs and series, the KazeKi anime is a compressed version of a small part of a much longer manga series. That said, as someone who has seen this OVA both with no knowledge of the manga and after having "read" (in the sense of looking at the pictures, anyway) all of it, I find it a wonderful work to be a wonderful work no matter how familiar you are with it.
Kaze to Ki no Uta is an epic boys' love tragedy oftentimes labeled as the first boy's love manga -- this is untrue, although KazeKi's mangaka also wrote the real first BL manga, a oneshot called "In the Sunroom". It was, however, the first to contain explicit sexual content, including rape, pedophilia, and incest (oftentimes all at once), although all of this is trea…
Read at the sourceRyosei_Hime
I thought this to be a beautiful yaoi in my own personal opinion. I was completely engrossed with the character Gilbert and I would love to read the manga if I could find it. The story was very interesting - hence my wanting to read the manga - and I love the time period it's set in. I've read plenty of novels set during the same time though usually in other parts of the world. Certain aspects remind me of a few of those novels in particular. It is a bit melodramatic but if you can watch a soap opera without screaming in agony you should be fine. I thought the romance was beautiful and even the art for it's time. The relationship between Serge and Gilbert was the most interesting to me - especially on Serge's side. I can't really put into words why I liked this one so much. It has to be Gi…
Read at the source