is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keiko Takemiya. It was serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazines Weekly Shōjo Comic and then Petit Flower from February 1976 to June 1984. One of the earliest works of (a genre of male-male romance fiction aimed at a female audience), follows the tragic romance between Gilbert Cocteau and Serge Battour, two students at an all-boys boarding school in late 19th-century France.
The series was developed and published amid a significant transitional period for manga (manga for girls), as the medium shifted from an audience composed primarily of children to an audience of adolescents and young adults. This shift was characterized by the emergence of narratively more complex stories focused on politics, psychology, and sexuality, and came to be embodied by a new generation of manga artists collectively referred to as the Year 24 Group, of which Takemiya was a member. The mature subject material of and its focus on themes of sadomasochism, incest, and rape were controversial for manga of the 1970s; it took nearly seven years from Takemiya's initial conceptualization of the story for her editors at Shogakukan to agree to publish it.
Upon its eventual release, achieved significant critical and commercial success, with Takemiya winning the 1979 Shogakukan Manga Award in both the and (manga for boys) categories for and Toward the Terra, respectively. It is regarded as a pioneering work of , and is credited by critics with widely popularizing the genre. An anime film adaptation of the series, , was released as an original video animation (home video) in 1987.
Synopsis
is set in late 19th-century France, primarily at the fictional Lacombrade Academy, an all-boys boarding school located on the outskirts of the city of Arles in Provence.
Serge Battour, the teenaged son of a French viscount and a Roma woman, is sent to Lacombrade at the request of his late father. He is roomed with Gilbert Cocteau, a misanthropic student who is ostracized by the school's pupils and professors for his truancy, and for having sexual relations with students and faculty. Serge's efforts to befriend his roommate and Gilbert's simultaneous efforts both to drive away and to seduce Serge form a complicated and disruptive relationship between the pair.
Gilbert's apparent cruelty and promiscuity are the result of a lifetime of neglect and abuse, as perpetrated chiefly by his ostensible uncle Auguste Beau. Auguste is a respected figure in French high society who has physically, emotionally, and sexually abused Gilbert since he was a child. His manipulation of Gilbert is so significant that Gilbert believes that the two are in love, and he remains beguiled by Auguste even after he later learns that he is not his uncle, but his biological father.
Despite threats of ostracism and violence, Serge perseveres in his attempts to bond with Gilbert, becoming friends and eventually lovers. Faced with rejection by Lacombrade's faculty and students, Gilbert and Serge flee to Paris. Serge finds work to support the pair, causing him to unintentionally alienate Gilbert, who is now desperate for his affection. Gilbert is later attacked and forcibly drugged by a group of men, and descends into a life of drug use and forced prostitution. While hallucinating under the influence of opium, Gilbert runs in front of a moving carriage and is fatally crushed under its wheels, convinced that he has seen Auguste. Some of the pair's friends, who have recently rediscovered the couple, console the traumatized Serge and return him to his parents' home.
Characters The transliteration of the characters' names is sourced from the Italian edition of the manga, which the author approved. Voice actors in are noted where applicable.
Primary characters
A fourteen-year-old student at Lacombrade from an aristocratic family in Marseille. He is the illegitimate child of his mother Anne Marie and her brother-in-law Auguste Beau, the latter of whom has abused Gilbert physically, emotionally, and sexually since he was a child. This abuse has left Gilbert as an antisocial cynic, unable to express love or affection except through sex. Gilbert is initially antagonistic and violent towards his new roommate Serge, and rejects his early attempts to befriend him. Serge's persistent altruism slowly wins Gilbert over, and the two flee to Paris as lovers. Gilbert has difficulty adjusting to their new lives of genteel poverty and begins using drugs and engaging in prostitution, and dies after being struck by a carriage while under the influence of opium.
A fourteen-year-old student at Lacombrade, and heir to an aristocratic house. The orphaned son of a French viscount and a Roma woman who faces discrimination for his mixed ethnicity, Serge is a musical prodigy with a noble and humanistic sense of morality. Despite Gilbert's initial ill treatment of him, he remains devoted in his attempts to help and understand him. His attraction to Gilbert causes him confusion and distress, particularly when he finds that he can depend on neither the church nor his friends for guidance and support. He gradually grows closer to Gilbert as they become friends and later lovers, and the two flee Lacombrade together.
Secondary characters
Gilbert's legal uncle, later revealed to be his biological father. Adopted into the house of Cocteau as a child, Auguste was raped by his elder step-brother in his own youth and has abused Gilbert from a young age. At first attempting to raise Gilbert to be an "obedient pet", he later works to transform him into a "pure" and "artistic" individual through neglect and manipulation of Gilbert's obsessive love for him. Upon learning of Serge's relationship with Gilbert, he works to separate the pair.
An eccentric, iconoclastic classmate of Serge and Gilbert and a close friend of the former. A super senior who is dismissive of religion and classical education, he insists upon the importance of science and takes it upon himself to teach Serge about sexuality. Though mildly attracted to Gilbert, he is the most frankly heterosexual of Serge's confidants, and helps to introduce Serge to women.
Serge's first friend at Lacombrade. A gentle, pious boy who struggles with his attraction to Gilbert.
The sadistic student superintendent at Lacombrade, nicknamed the "White Prince". A distant relative of the Cocteau family, he was raped by Auguste at the age of 15. Rosemarine cooperates with Auguste's manipulation of Gilbert, but forms a friendship with Serge and ultimately aids Gilbert and Serge in their escape to Paris.
A student supervisor at Lacombrade, and Rosemarine's childhood friend. His aristocratic family's fortune was lost with the death of his father, and he is only able to attend Lacombrade through his intelligence and friendship with Rosemarine. He provides comfort and guidance to Gilbert and Rosemarine through their troubles.
Development Context
Keiko Takemiya made her debut as a manga artist in 1967, and though her early works attracted the attention of manga magazine editors, none achieved any particular critical or commercial success. Her debut occurred in the context of a restrictive manga (girls' manga) publishing culture: stories were marketed to an audience of children, were focused on uncomplicated subject material such as familial drama or romantic comedy, and favored Cinderella-like female protagonists defined by their passivity. Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of artists emerged who created manga stories that were more psychologically complex, dealt directly with topics of politics and sexuality, and were aimed at an audience of teenage readers. This grouping of artists, of which Takemiya was a member, came to be collectively referred to as the Year 24 Group. The group contributed significantly to the development of manga by expanding the genre to incorporate elements of science fiction, historical fiction, adventure fiction, and same-sex romance: both male–male ( and ) and female–female ().
Takemiya was a close friend to fellow Year 24 Group member Moto Hagio, with whom she shared a rented house in Ōizumigakuenchō, Nerima, Tokyo, from 1971 to 1973. The house was nicknamed the "Ōizumi Salon", and came to be an important gathering point for Year 24 Group members and their affiliates. Their friend and next-door neighbor was a significant influence on both artists: though Masuyama was not a manga artist, she was a manga enthusiast motivated by a desire to elevate the genre from its status as a frivolous distraction for children to a serious literary art form, and introduced Takemiya and Hagio to literature, magazines, and films that came to inspire their works.
Of the works Masuyama introduced to Takemiya, novels by writer Hermann Hesse in the Bildungsroman genre were particularly relevant to the development of . Masuyama introduced Takemiya and Hagio to Beneath the Wheel (1906), Demian (1919), and Narcissus and Goldmund (1932); Demian was especially impactful on both artists, directly influencing the plot and setting of both Takemiya's and Hagio's own major contribution to the genre, The Heart of Thomas (1974). Though none of Hesse's stories are explicitly homoerotic, they inspired the artists through their depictions of strong bonds between male characters, their boarding school settings, and their focus on the internal psychology of their male protagonists. Other works that informed the development of were the European drama films if.... (1968), Fellini Satyricon (1969), and Death in Venice (1971), which screened in Japan in the 1970s and influenced both Takemiya and Hagio in their depiction of "preternaturally beautiful" male characters; Taruho Inagaki's essay , which influenced Takemiya to select a school as the setting for her series; and issues of , the first commercially circulated Japanese gay men's magazine.
Production
Takemiya initially conceived of the story of in 1970, following which she stayed up through the night with Masuyama discussing the series over the telephone. She wrote a detailed outline of the plot in December of that year, and drew the first 50 pages of the manga in a sketchbook in January 1971. Takemiya showed the sketchbook draft to multiple editors, but none were interested in publishing the series, citing its controversial subject material. Several editors advised her to move the opening scene of the series, which depicts Gilbert in bed with an older male student, to later in the story; she refused, stating, "I want to put the page that best reflects the story at the beginning."
At the time, manga censorship codes specifically forbade depictions of male–female sex, but ostensibly permitted depictions of male–male sex. Takemiya's decision to focus on male over female protagonists – still a relatively new practice in manga at the time – was born from her desire to write a sexually explicit story that she believed would appeal to female readers. Per Takemiya, "if there is a sex scene between a boy and a girl, [readers] don't like it because it seems too real. It leads to topics like getting pregnant or getting married, and that's too real. But if it's two boys, they can avoid that and concentrate on the love aspect." In developing the main characters of the series, Takemiya considered that Gilbert's complex background necessitated the creation of an equally compelling background for Serge, prompting her to place focus on Serge's deceased parents. She drew inspiration for Serge's mixed ethnic background from (1852), saying "if you had to tell a story about a child of a viscount, I thought, you had no other choice but ."