Gorgeous Carat

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The general summary of Gorgeous Carat you’ll find if you’re trying to decide whether to read it is that a phantom thief becomes enamoured of a young man’s jewel-like eyes, and determines to make them his at any cost. From that, it’s easy to assume the series is a trashy yaoi and write it off. That is the basic starting concept, and there is certainly a trashy yaoi element to this manga, but i don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of Gorgeous Carat as a whole. The story is much more complicated than that, and the story is far more important than the sex or ... fanservice.

One thing that threw me was that the story is not actually about Ray’s activities as the phantom thief Noir. I was expecting something like CLAMP’s Man of Many Faces but less lighthearted, or Maurice Leblanc’s short stories about Arsène Lupin, which were a clear inspiration, but this wasn’t that at all. After the first volume – really, after the first chapter or two – Ray didn’t pull many heists. The story was actually about a rival crime organization, the Black Hand, which has chapters across much of the world. Florian encountered them more or less inadvertently and dragged Ray after him, but in the second volume we learn that there’s actually a deeper tie to Ray, and the remainder of the story is about the villain’s obsession with him. It kind of feels like You Higuri wasn’t sure what kind of a story she was telling and found herself dragged around by the narrative. As a writer myself, i can sympathize, but typically you can go back after the fact, clean it up, and make it look like that was what you were planning to write all along. Not being able to do that is one of the shortcomings of serialized storytelling, and Gorgeous Carat in particular suffered from it.

Yes, this manga is dark. It has elements of human trafficking, physical and sexual abuse, drug addiction, and manipulation that may be hard for some people to read, and if you’re uncomfortable with those topics, i do not recommend you pick this series up. One thing i respect about the series is that You Higuri doesn’t shy away from the negative impact these actions have, and doesn’t romanticize them. Florian, who bears the brunt of the abuse, has trauma from it that doesn’t magically go away as soon as the experience is over. The power dynamics definitely need to be addressed, since it’s a common problem in yaoi manga for one partner to be abusive, the other to meekly take it, and for that to be portrayed as a healthy relationship. At the beginning, Ray does start out that way. He does essentially buy Florian off his family, who have fallen on hard times. He does whip him in an attempt to gain information about a jewel he intends to steal from Florian’s family. But after the first or second chapter, Ray stops mistreating Florian, and the two of them are able to develop a much better relationship (still not ideal, mind), to the point where it’s believable that they might fall in love. They don’t fall into bed with each other right away, as in so many trashy yaoi; in fact, they only kiss twice, in the fourth volume (i’m expecting more from the sequels). The main source of the darkness doesn’t come from their interactions, but rather the villain Azura’s obsession with Ray, and his using Florian in an attempt to get at Ray’s weak points. Again, this isn’t presented as fanservice as another manga might have done, but a logical progression of a dark story.

The supporting characters are also quite fleshed out. I’m particularly fond of Laila, as it’s rare to see a complex female character in yaoi. Every phantom thief needs a detective nemesis hunting them down, and for Noir that’s Solomon Sugar, who is kinda fun but not fully developed. It’s hinted that he has more of his own stuff going on that connects to Ray and the villain Azura, so it’s possible Solomon will be more fleshed out in the sequels as well. Other characters such as Noel, Louise, Fatima, and so on all feel like people in their own right, with their own goals and motivations.

Normally i talk about historical accuracy in my reviews, but i’m not familiar enough with the histories of early-20th-century France, northern Africa, or the Crusades to be able to judge that for this manga. Aside from one question that came up at the very beginning – why would Mughal rulers (who were Muslim, for those who don’t know) embed their precious jewel into the forehead of a Hindu statue? – and then never came up again, there was nothing that raised any historical alarm bells for me. That’s the best i can do with this aspect.

Gorgeous Carat is far from perfect; i’ll be the first to acknowledge that. The plot got away from the author, and some of the darker elements can be read as in bad taste. In spite of that, though, i found Gorgeous Carat to be impossible to put down, a story that gets its hooks into you and won’t let go. I enjoyed it immensely. It was just as dark and complex as i like my fiction to be, and the male-male relations served the purpose of the story, not the story serving the purposes of yaoi fanservice. This is a great historical adventure story featuring queer characters, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.