Kaze to Ki no Uta
I finished reading the Kaze to Ki no Uta Japanese scans a few weeks ago. I'm nowhere near fluent and Takemiya is very fond of flowery language, so I understood a pretty pitiable fraction of all the text, but all those agonizingly romantic emotions are universal. And although the the fate of Gilbert - the archetypal tragic beauty - can be predicted by anyone after one glance at those mournful sparkly eyes, I very nearly cried a little. If something makes very nearly cry a little, you can assume it's pretty powerful. Still, I didn't want to watch the anime until the English scanlation was done. I'm a fervent believer in the "original first" school of thought, and I thought it wouldn't be right to watch the adaptation before I completely understood the manga. But after watching the beautiful French movie Les amitiés particulières (which was the inspiration for both Kazetoki and Moto Hagio's Thomas no Shinzou), I was lusting for something in the same vein.
Fifty-nine minutes later, I'm not sure if I'm satisfied.
Kazetoki is technically and artistically beautiful. The animation is fluid and graceful, especially compared to most anime made during its time period. The palate is as subdued and elegant as a good period drama should be. It makes good use of its aesthetic,
with lots of manga-esque stylized representations of whatever's going on. 
Yeah, it portrays the idyllic Catholic boys' boarding school atmosphere perfectly. And for the first half hour it felt like it was portraying the drama of the manga just as well. Soon, though, it seemed like it was scrambling to wrap things up - a problem pretty common to OAVs of the time period, with their time and budget constraints. We never really learn why Gilbert is so messed up. We get none of the climactic emotions that led up to his inevitable suicide. Instead, we get a hentai-esque sex-as-plot ending, and it just makes everything seem much more shallow. Still, Kazetoki is far better than any other BL anime I've seen, and for that it'll remain one of my favorites.
