Kaze to Ki no Uta Sanctus: Sei Naru Kana

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 prominent one being the lack of consent the ones involved might face in their environments. Make no mistake though, plenty of scenes are reserved for the sometimes unnerving worship of the male body and intense homoerotic events that I fear might ruin a lot of the appeal for viewers not looking for such things.

Furthermore, the characterization stands fairly well for an OVA of merely an hour with reasonable amounts of development and a good foundation for occasional melodrama. Unfortunately, the anime is based on a manga of 17 volumes and lacks the time to include proper explanations for some bizarre plot points revealed later on which causes some confusion. This is not the major issue though as the narrative as a whole eventually ends up in a pit of glorified masochism only to wrap things up in a beautiful, intense and somehow redeeming scene with enough sense to rely on sensuality rather than sexuality.

In the end this is a fairly decent watch, with fairly standardized technical merits. The soundtrack is the most impressive part of the OVA, but the animation remains somewhat mediocre despite certain moments of beauty and great character designs. It suffers from the same problems shared by a lot of shounen-ai (it would seem) such as glorifying certain themes like masochism which are made all the more disturbing by the youth of the characters but is undoubtedly very palatable in its depiction. Despite the mediocre score, I was somewhat impressed by this title and will consider giving more titles within the same genre a chance; romanticized adolescent melodrama has its perks as long as it doesn’t drag I guess.

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 realistic to me; I just didn’t get why Serge suddenly cared so much about Gilbert.
Now this is a shounen-ai OVA and there is nudity and sexual overtones, but its not blatant and is done tastefully as it's a major part of the plot – but do not watch this if you are squicky about BL.

ANIMATION: The animation is very dated as this OVA dates to 1987 and is based on a 1970s manga. I found the character designs extremely unappealing as lots of the boys just look like girls (especially Gilbert) and there really isn’t a lot of detail to them or a lot of facial expression. The colours are muted and predominately on the yellow/brown side of the spectrum which just makes everything all the more dull. The backgrounds are nicely done though – they look like watercolour paintings and the set designs are very true to the time period depicted (1800s).

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: The score is excellent. Lots of classical piano and harpsichord pieces, which are very in keeping with the time period. I can’t really remember much of the voice acting though, don’t think it was anything spectacular.

Overall Song of Wind and Trees makes for slow paced, melancholic viewing – I’m sure that fans of the manga must have enjoyed it, but without that background this OVA came across as dull with muddled storytelling and much of the subtle nuances and symbolic motifs in the animation where completely lost on me I’m afraid.

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, considering when this was in production...

To be completely honest, I wouldn't rewatch it. It's not poorly done that's for sure. A decent BL film with palatable sexual scenes that don't go over the top...decent plot...poetic theme...good flow through out.