Gilbert Cocteau
"Gilbert Cocteau, you were the greatest flower to ever bloom in my life.
In the faraway dreams of youth, you were a bright red flame, blazing to fiercely..."
The story
Gilbert Cocteau is one of the main characters of Keiko Takemiya's Kaze to Ki no Uta, also known as The Song of Wind and Trees or Kazeki. The story is placed in a private boarding school near Arles, France, in the XIXth century, where he and Segre Battour meet. Gilbert is first presented as a boy who doesn't care about rules or formalities, an excentric creature with which his companions have a great time teasing. From the start, we are shown how he keeps looking for human warmth and attention, no matter how, which ends up with him selling himself to older students. He is portraits perfectly the bishounen, being a pretty boy with blond, curly hair and shining green eyes, for which he is often mistaken by a woman. I believe it is the portrait of a beautiful young man that due to his young age and androginous looks what allows others to fall in love with him despite the homosexuality being condemned in the XIXth century. At first, it seems like he doesn't mind it, even seeking it at times, but as the story goes on, we are shown the true origins of his behaviour, that come from none other than his father, Auguste Beau, a rich poet who passes as Gilber's uncle due to an affair with his brother's wife. The couple left Gilbert at their house at Marsella, until five years later Beau arrived. Gilbert was an uneducated boy, who believed bunnies and blankets were his family, until Beau took all that away, becoming a constant in his life that would be hard to erase, leading to his death 14 years later.
The character
Gilbert is a very interesting character due to his actions and minset, since as mentioned before, he never manages to truly get rid off his father, leading him to a fatal accident. He is presented as an excentric character, as I said, but with time, Serge manages to slowly change his behaviour, showing us beautiful scenes as the ones during their stay at Lancombrade during summer. There is a crutial point at the story where the two of them escape the academy, with help of the prefect Rosemarine, as he was abused by Beau too. They run off to Paris, where he needs to start working for them to pay the room they were renting. It is truly interesting how a boy as self-indulgent as Gilbert decides to push his abusers away, who offered him a life full of riches and amenities in exchange of his love, to live a hard and poor life next to Serge. Unfortunately, at the end, he is subministrated drugs by a mafia, and ends up running towards his father's carriage, dying in the act. His evolution is clear, as he is first the representation of the Femme Fatale, a boy who takes advantage of his looks to get what he wants, and to even make other men fight for him; but ends up running away with Serge to Paris, to a life full of hard work. At that time, he manages to earn a bit of money, but instead of spending it in the shoes he wished for, he buys Serge some partitures for him to find a job as a piano player. I believe that Gilbert isn't the manipulative and rude boy he is at the start, but the one that manages to push Beau away even after being dependent of his love for his whole life.
My opinion
Kaze to Ki no Uta was a really important work at the time, as it was one of the first Shonen-ai, which also featured the common Bishonen in characters like Gilbert, Liliath or Rosemarine, as well as it being an example of Shonen manga in its full meaning. Reading it was truly shocking, and I believe I've never felt such anger and revulsion towards a character like I did with Beau or Bonnard, but I also found other parts beautiful, such as Gilbert and Serge's relationship, or even funny and amusing, like Pascals interventions, as well as from other students. I really enjoyed Gilbert's character not just for his design, but for his mindset and growth, and how subtle things can be noticed about him, how even ten years after meeting Beau for the first time, he will keep clinging onto blankets, or just enjoying nature's breeze. Even so, I don't really really recommend reading it or watching the OVA, as as the writing was sometimes really hard for me for it's harshness and hardness, and the OVA is really hard to understand without reading it before, as it only covers the first chapters and the end. It's lovely to admire Keiko's work from outside, but without really diving in too deep... Or at least I believe.
The website
The website! My head hurts, but I want to finish this. It is roughly finished, and I wish to add more details and decoration, but I think I'll leave it like this... It's the first time I design something like this, and my website is more... Plain than this, but it didn't turn out that bad. I wanted to at least add some things with relation to Gilbert, and so I added a simple background, with a plaid resembling the blanked from his childhood, which he refered to as his "mother". With the same idea, I added the bunny, which he saw as his "father". There is also a vinyl, in reference to Serge's music and how Gilbert sings too. Finally, thinking of the sequel Kami no Kohitsuji (Agnus Dei), I added the lamb, which I believe I have also seen people representing Gilbert as "Agnus Dei". And the flowers are just... Because. After all, it's Poem of Wind and Trees for a reason, isn't it?
And to end up, I added some links to the manga and the OVA, but here's the really really small WikiFandom Page, and some other people who still keep the fandom alive (at Tumblr): gilbertscocteaus; sergebattouille; pokophobia; askgilbertcocteau;
d1rtyf4gg0t or kazetokinouta-a among others!
