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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.

That this film is at it's most interesting only when it's paraleling the original Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion tells all you need to know about the rebuilds.

For all it's worth, Hideaki Anno's seemingly well intentioned attempt at telling Evangelion's story one more time is, unfortunately, unneeded. both the 1995 TV series and The End of Evangelion needed not a continuation: they already carried, in their own flawed ways, a larger than life feeling within their own conclusions. It doesn't matter that the story was inconclusive since it ended up being about much more than just Evangelion, the anime.

The rebuilds, albeit sharing ... the same name, are another thing altogether. This is not coming from a purist rambling where there's a real Evangelion and a fake one. It's just that the 1995 TV series and the 1997 film continuation were a self concluded story told by a man trying to comes to term with his crushing incompetence at living and his wild search for meaning. There're, of course, a bunch of apocaliptic elements brought together in a rather cryptic way (usually some really thoughtless exposition thrown at your face) that makes Evangelion's story, but everyone knows that this was never really the point, regardless of Anno's intention. These films would come to life years after because he felt like telling Evangelion's story one more time, but that's not the same man anymore. He lived through that phase, experienced other things, met his wife and whatever. The point is: a different Hideaki Anno came back to the same story wishing to tell it one more time, but the inevitable result was that a different Evangelion came to life: and this isn't inherently bad or good, just an assertion that what he did then and what he did now are two separate things, even if they're all Evangelion.

... but the fact is that I don't really like this new Evangelion. The story about our lonely hero's legend is emulated once again, but not once have i felted the same weight brought by the (sometimes excessive) still frames from the original TV series. I feel like the rebuilds are the exact opposite: they are about Evangelion, the anime. They're about the giant robots and some very bad CGI action. They're about the (very convoluted) plot and all that vague terminology made ten times worse. They're about the character's as empty vessels (because that's unfortunately what they're reduced to, Asuka being the worst offender — but at least they changed her name). They're about some really out of place and intrusive fanservice that somehow is even worse than in the series early episodes. They're a throwback from everything that Anno went for back then. Gone is that raw creative power that could create incredibly impactful moments using only still frames, and those beautifully flawed characters that represented very well the state of mind of a man that struggled with his own existence. Now we have a brave Shinji with glowing eyes screaming "Give me back Ayanami!!!" while Asuka thinks about doing a special lunch for him. The driving force of Evangelion, a sort of creeping loneliness powered by the turn of the century – which conversely becomes a post apocalyptical setting that gets increasingly desolated as the series progresses, culminating in The End of Evangelion, an ending that evokes life from humanity's annihilation – , is completely lost here. Everything is obvious and sterile, a vulgar project using of the same clothing as Anno's most heartfelt work.

This last film is about giving the series, and Shinji, and the main cast, and probably Hideaki Anno's past "proper" closure – and this time he chose Gendo instead of Shinji to be his persona, in an incredible weak last minute attempt at expanding his character. It's Anno's last good bye and final liberation from this big struggle called Evangelion. It's One Last Kiss. And really, we get it, Shinji and everyone is happy now! They're living in a world without the EVAs! But does that really mean anything when these characters have become nothing but hollow shells?

I feel like the last part of this film could save the rebuilds as a whole. By that I mean it tried to. It abandons the terribly boring and horrid looking action sequences (and I still can't believe we went from Asuka's fight against the EVA series on EoE to the abysmal shit we have right now) and does a reimagination of EoE's famous third impact. It's the "Evangelion" part of the film, a sequence of dementia that the original is so well known for. I can imagine Anno having the most fun with this part, and being the talented director he is there're a bunch of interesting takes on the original scenes he's drawing from, but it's just never quite there. It's just a sort of transvestism. I can understand his intentions and I would be lying If I said It didn't move me at some parts, as I've been following Evangelion for many years now, but borrowing the power of what came before simply isn't enough to redeem itself. The film only had me emotionally when referencing the original, which only tells how good the OG is and how the rebuilds, which suppossedly started as an attempt at telling a new version of the story, couldn't stand on it's own two feet — everything that isn't self-referencing falls short and it's impossible to make any sense of these "original" films without seeing what came before. They are mostly such a hollow experience and the fact that there's good will behind it (though it's fair to question if that's even the case) doesn't change the fact that I spent the second, third and most of the fourth film wondering if I even liked Evangelion that much to begin with. And believe me: I do.

And what to say about everything that comes before the finale? One hour of a boring-looking experience that has NONE of the instropective brilliance of the original — whatever creative forces pushed Anno to create things like the final scene of "Rain, After Running Away" are completely dead and instead we have something that is technically acceptable, but fails to evoke much of anything. After that we're forced to witness one of the most atrocious action sequences ever made. So much EVAs and so much explosions and so much one liners from Mari and everything is so fucking ugly and nothing really seems to matter anymore because who fucking cares about Touji's sister and all of that who-are-they characters and about whatever the fuck was happening. If everything happens then nothing happens.

Evangelion ended back in 1997 with The End of Evangelion. The rebuilds are a sort of weird fanfiction created by Hideaki Anno with god knows what intention. If Evangelion pushed the envelope, then the rebuilds retracted It. What we have here is something diametrically opposed to the original series and it's no wonder it's far worse. No matter how good Anno's ideas were, and even if he tried to prove otherwise with that ending, I guess It couldn't save the rebuilds from feeling like much more than a masturbatory experience for fanatics. Or, like I like to say, Evangelion for people who hate Evangelion.

Spoilers bellow

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I have a soft spot for Shimura Takako's idiosyncrasies as a writer. She tells mundane stories about mundane people - even if the subject matter is something fantastical, like "Sayonara, Otokonoko", it's still told in a way that resembles everyday life - but the way she does it is not very conventional in itself. The story is always jumping from present to past and then to present again, from a real situation to a imaginary one, from reality to dream. Sometimes a conversation is being held by two characters and in the next panel - without warning or proper closure - different characters are ... now the ones talking about the same thing. The flow of time always feels off: days, weeks and sometimes months can pass by from one chapter to the other with the only indicator of it being few, very easy to miss, hints. She seems to really like this little tricks and abuses it, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility, that's true, but it's generally easy to follow. Hourou Musuko is the work where her techniques shines the brightest.

The reason for this became quite apparent for me this time around: it's because of it's length and the nature of the story itself.

HM's major selling point, sexuality and gender non-conformity, isn't explored in a big, dramatic fashion, but rather in a very grounded way. It's an important thing to understand about the story: it isn't so much about depicting non-conformity in the usual on-your-nose way, instead of being concerned with passing down a message it's more about following Shuuichi and Takatsuki and observing how they'll deal with this feeling of not belonging while slowly, and I mean slowly, growing up. This is a character piece before being a thematic driven story. Making that distinction is vital to knowing what you're getting yourself at.

The first 2/3 of the series are spent introducting and getting us to know the characters which will form Shuu's group and their (I'll be using they to refer to Shuuichi, see below) family. We follow these kids living their every day life, slowly growing up. New characters are introduced, others are forgotten, others are re-introduced with the passage of time. Different combinations between the characters are explored; conflicts also show up, but it never feels bigger than it really is (think about how Shuu being bullied after that event is portrayed).

However, the point where the series full strenght resides is, for me, the last third, which ironically is the most criticized section of the manga. While before there was a feeling of steady progression - for Shimura's standart, that is - and familiarity with the cast and their environment, now, starting with the last year of middle school, they have to face separation. For Shuuichi, that also means that their body will start developing into a male's one. The ground on which everything was built upon is now no more.

That separation isn't only there as a stone cold fact, but it's felt organically through storytelling. What I mean by this is that the way that Shimura was handling the whole thing until that point starts to change. The progression of time, which was never very clear, becomes even more unsteadier. Shimura also takes an interesting decision: instead of parting from the other kids and shifting our POV completely to Shuu's high school life, Shimura's allows us to see, even more than before, tiny pices of each character's life.

The usual criticism thrown at HM's endgame - actually in it's entirety, but especially the last part - is that the focus becomes so lacking that it feels like that it is a story about nothing at all, but said argument couldn't be further from the truth. The beauty of the whole thing is that Shimura backs away from one character and let us witness something much bigger than just that single perspective. By seeing a bit of each character, little by little, without us noticing, a much bigger picture is formed right in front of us. It's by seeing how them - not only Shuu's group, but their mother, father, sister, sister's boyfriend, Yuuki, Shii, the crossdresser they met while working as a waitress, in short, everyone, really, everyone - lives their life that a larger than life feeling is born. Shuuichi's still is the central character, but what we're shown is the network that sorround they, even if they're not aware of it.

What makes it so poignant is the fact that everything is really mundane: no major conflicts, no high stakes, so there's no chance for a happily ever after ending. It's like that quiet, sad feeling you get sometimes without any specific reason. This feeling is born from the awareness of the passage of time. The constant shifting of focus and the ambiguous nature of time in HM creates a blurring feeling that dominates it's pages. I'm talking about Shuu suddenly thinking about their friends from their first school and how they're a distant memory and then recalling their girl friends' faces, or when Shuu and Sasa meets and they just chat a little, or when Takatsuki sees Shuu and all they can do is exchange fast greetings, or when Shuu is thinking back when they used to be confident about wearing girl's clothes, but the image we're actually seeing is they shaving their now manly face.

Time is passing, we're aware of it and from that awareness a bittersweet feeling is born. We see the characters changing, growing up. Some of them are still together, some grew apart, some are making new bonds, and none of this really has any big significance or serves for advancing the plot, because there's barely one to begin with. Time will continue to pass, some things will be forgotten, others will be remembered, and nothing will ever be like it used to, but there's no real tragedy about this fact; it's a universal truth that affects not only these fictional characters, but also us, real people.

"One wanted to be a boy. One wanted to be a girl. One stopped wanting to be a boy. That's all there is it to it"

This cathartic moment is simultaneously Takatsuki and Shuu's much needed resolution and the best way to end and summarise what everything is about. It's where everything, in such a loose story, comes full circle. Because that's really all there is to it. That's the story of the life of two kids (and some others) who were once closely bonded but aren't anymore. Takatsuki's crying while thanking Shuu for holding her hand is just that. She knows that they aren't like they used to be, that they chose different paths and, because of that, the very thing that made them once kindred spirits is now the one that separates them, and she feels sorry and sad for it. But Shuu will keep walking, for it's already decided: she's a girl.

Shimura's choices as a storyteller that I mentioned earlier is precisely what makes the ending such a heavy blow. The climatic interaction between our two main protagonists has already happened in the past, but we, as readers, only get to know how it really ended on the last chapter, where, in a context where Shuu is getting ready to leave home and move to the beginning of their adulthood, the flashback from Takatsuki's crying face is revealed, and it's that single page that takes our emotional awareness to it's climax.

What happens afterwards - just a few pages, that is - is such a small, non-epic, almost matter of factly way of ending such a huge story that it has precisely the reverse effect. It feels huge, real and important

I personally think that the story plays out much better if you read Shuu not as a representative of what a transsexual woman should or should not be, but as a person who wants to live their life as they please. You can call them a trans woman or a man with a clothes fetish, but this doesn't diminishes Hourou Musuko's power.

This is really, at heart, a coming of age story, even though gender and sexuality plays a big part in it, this still is a story - Shuu's story, but also about the ones around them - about growing up and everything that comes with it.

Someone pointed out perfectly in the last chapater's discussion thread: Yuki is not the transexual. Yuki is Yuki. And this doesn't mean that being a transexual is unimportant to who Yuki is - this would be an exetremly naive assumption - but rather that her identity, a transexual woman, doesn't tell us everything there is to say about her. She, as a person, doesn't end in the trans label. The same goes for the others: Mako is Mako. Shuu is Shuu. Chiba is Chiba. Takatsuki is Takatsuki. That's the story of their lives and how they're interconnected. To achieve this is really so exemplary and just proves how great and worth of it's length this series is.