Natsu e no Tobira

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
~David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-40

Someone once asked me how to best describe *The Door into Summer*, and the word that came to mind is “humid.” The film resides in that certain kind of summer afternoon where the sun is overhead and the clouds are beautiful, but the air is dense and heavy, as though it was so thick that you had to swim your way through it. The characters all feel the weight of imposing emotional pressure ... upon them, while their inner restlessness leaves their personal feelings practically begging for an exit, yet constantly being denied. Just as a humid day doesn’t need much of a push to make the rainclouds move in, the characters can only hold themselves back up to a certain point. And it’s when they move past the point of no return that the torrent of rain overtakes them, innocence lost forever in a swoon that is both visually gorgeous and morally grotesque.

At the film’s center sits Marion Fiesse, a handsome boy of Europe’s fixation with rationalism. Self-assured of his own mind to the point of nauseating, he always finds a reasonable justification for anything under the sun, even reading the “truth” behind his mother’s letter wondering if he’ll join her and her new husband over the summer recess. Though historically framed within a certain ideology, Marion’s personality lies in that uncomfortable teenage time when you are somewhat drunk on your own hubris, that you know everything there is to know and that you have it all “figured out.” Anyone who has been a teenager knows that such is never the truth, but it’s an illusion that we all become privy to at some point or another, and in our own way. After all, how could someone claim to be so rational, yet throw themselves into the path of an oncoming train to settle an argument? All the flowery, elegant words don’t change someone being fourteen years old.

But rationalism is wielded by Marion and his group of friends like an armor, for which Marion is its greatest knight. Adored by nearly everyone he encounters, he even has the affection of the school’s most beautiful girl, Ledania Francois. But for Marion, the concept of allowing any kind of emotion, and especially affectionate emotion concerning Ledania, to cloud his judgment or enter his life in any meaningful capacity is unthinkable. For as much as Marion might voice the illogic of the rules that govern the students during the summer, there’s one rule that he clings to more tightly than any other: the door to the emotional side of his heart is to be shut tight forever, never being allowed to let his “irrational” feelings see the summer light. Let them be repressed forever in the dark.

Beyond the foolishness with the train, the cracks in the façade begin to show. Marion meets Sara Veeda, a woman who expresses her thanks at Marion stopping the train, and kisses him. Marion is justifiably repulsed, but he cannot get the candidness of her kiss and comments to him out of his mind. In his blind lack of understanding in the ways of love, he is choked by the pouring rain and the oppressive humidity of his heart, swimming through agony until he finds himself suddenly in Sara’s home, nude and vulnerable. His rationalism, and the misogyny he held tightly onto to try and keep his feelings under control, bounces off her with nothing to stick to. Unable to run away and with no defense against her emotional current, Sara seduces him. Marion fashioned himself as an immovable object, only to encounter a force he found completely unstoppable. The door to Marion’s heart is violently opened, straight into—and into—Sara’s waiting body.

Make no mistake about it – this relationship is not consensual, and even taking into account the time period of the story, this kind of relationship is more than enough to tilt a head or raise an eyebrow of any viewer who might be watching, if not worse. *The Door into Summer* acknowledges this to be the case, framing the entire story as a tragedy from its first minute and making clear that, as beautiful as Sara is, her presence sets the dominos in motion to bring about Marion’s final torment. The music, vocally seductive and wispy and with yearning timbre through its strings, oscillates between major and minor through mode mixture, revealing both the exhilaration and underlying darkness of the world Marion has entered. He falls into a vortex of feelings he has long since denied, now growing out of control in Sara’s hands, and at the cost of nearly everything else in his life. What was once important seems unimportant, from friendships to social tact.

Marion’s change does not go unnoticed, and his time with Sara causes the undercurrent of his friends’ own emotional qualms and struggles to also come out. With their knight having abandoned them, they too are thrown into a series of horrible collisions and tears, consumed by an all-encompassing heat that causes tempers to get frayed and rash decisions that defy any sense of reason beyond traditional notions of honor. Left in the wake of their troubles, they never learned how to reconcile them. Ledania, the most emotionally forthcoming and conscious out of everyone in the cast, can only watch the melancholic wheels turn and the humid air in the sad narrative sunset.

Perhaps the ending of the story could have gone differently if the characters were a little more forthcoming with their own honesty. Wondering about this though, I would argue, misses the point. *The Door into Summer* captures just how helpless people can be when at the mercy of feelings that they do not understand, or to be more precise, **choose** not to understand. It is a warning that feelings that arise from moving into the realms of love for the first time are both raw and powerful. To repress them or pretend they don’t exist is to deny oneself not only happiness in the general sense, but a healthier kind of happiness rooted in emotional reconciliation and maturity. There is a dismaying irony in that Marion denied his feelings under the auspice of logic yet did not have the logic to realize that he should try and understand those feelings beyond simple dismissal. And because of that, with or without that encounter with Sara, one thing is certain – Marion’s life could only end one way.

There's a moment in the show where it says, "But even though they spoke of greater things, they weren’t adults yet."

Indeed, they weren’t.

As the oldest listed BL on this site, I had certain expectations. Unfortunately, watching this made me feel like I wasted an hour with nothing in return.

The most important part: the BL element was introduced in even a more subtle way than Ladiva from Granblue Fantasy. Worse than an NPC, the content in question is a snake in a field, only visible when it clamps its jaws down on the audience at the last minute. By no means was it the center of the story, which feels a bit like misrepresentation. If it was based off the BL alone, I'd give it a 2.

The next ... most important part: I'm not sure if it's been mentioned previously, but PG-13 is NOT the correct rating for this movie, as there are scenes featuring nudity and implied sexual content. It's plausible that that was the standard of that time. But as we all know, standards change, and I certainly couldn't call myself watching that in public.

I will admit that this is a passable drama that portrays the messy relationships of teenagers in love. Disregarding its execution, it faintly reminds me of A Midnight Summer's Dream--everyone is connected to everyone, no matter how small--and what affects one affects all. As a drama, it has the potential to pass the test of time, but as a romance and a BL, it fails horribly. Certain scenes were stagnant: frames lasted anywhere from 15-45 seconds, and a sketchbook of pictures that are supposed to portray a relationship falls flat due to its lack of substance. It feels desperate at least, and irrational at most. It's a shame that Studio Deen couldn't have covered this. They might have performed just as poorly, but they seem to have a good enough grasp on insinuating feelings between characters to at least make it juicy.

As for the animation and sound, it's indicative of its time period. You wouldn't go to the Philharmonics or the Colonne for dubstep; similarly, the look and feel represent the artistic appeal and focus of that time. The beautiful are beautiful, regardless of gender. The plain are plain, and the ugly are ugly, and all will be accentuated. (For more examples of this, see Tokimeki Tonight and the original manga/anime of Glass Mask.) Likewise, the sound is mainly orchestral. Especially as this is a drama, this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, neither should the movie be condemned for using it.

Conclusion: I'd like to come out saying, "Wow, that was a great movie! I'd sure love to watch that again!" To gain an understanding of how far the anime industry (and the BL genre) has come, the movie is worth at least one watch. Yet while I do respect this anime's age, there's just too many rotten tomatoes in the basket to feel like I've received nothing short of a rip-off.

Regularly scheduled disclaimer: I don't believe in the MAL rating system, so ignore everything but the overall score if you actually want to know my opinion for some reason.

Natsu e no Tobira is, like many films from this era, more interesting from a historical perspective (in this case as one of the earliest depictions of gay characters and perhaps the first proper BL anime). Unfortunately unlike films like Ashita no Joe in a similar position, its characters are lacking the core appeal they need to make the growing pains of anime as a medium more tolerable, and ultimate there isn't much to actually say ... about the film as a piece of art beyond its historical context. It is, at times, very pretty, but its style doesn't particularly convey a depth of character or an interesting enough aesthetic to really justify the existence of the film. None of the characters are necessarily unlikable per se, and I actually do think that thematically it is fairly interesting: an exploration of the passion of love and youth and the inability to rationalize them, the way neglect can prime people who think they know better for abuse, etc. However there's just not enough substance or nuance here for me to say that those themes are explored well.

To keep it short, this film certainly has historical interest, and isn't particularly long, so if you're curious about the origins of BL and want to observe fairly pretty art for a while, it is worth checking out. From a purely artistic perspective, though, it ultimately falls short.