Do not fear the yaoi.
 
Gorgeous Carat isn’t really yaoi…it’s just…yaoi-esque. Implied yaoi. Yaoi undertones, if you will.
 
Yaoi (pronounced “yow-ee”) is a generic term for male homosexual media that is targeted at a female audience, much like slash fan-fiction in western culture. Just associating the term with manga can be a turnoff to some readers. Don’t let it. Gorgeous Carat is that authentic Louis Vuitton purse you find in the bottom of a clearance box in a thrift store. It is, for lack of a better pun, a gem.
 
The turn of the century is an exciting time to be in Paris, unless you’re one of the wealthy elite being plagued by the phantom thief Noir. Florian Rochefort is the son of impoverished nobility. Facing difficult times, his mother has sold nearly everything she owns just so that she and Florian will not need to work. There is only one item priceless to their family, and that is the Flame of Mughal, a 120-carat blue diamond that has been passed down from generation to generation.
 
Instead of selling the priceless heirloom, Lady Rochefort agrees to sell Florian off to the wealthy aristocrat Ray Balzac Courland. Ray collects fine jewels and has seen none finer than Florian’s amethyst-colored eyes. Seriously, he says that quite a lot. At first, Florian is resistant to life with Ray, a.k.a. Noir; but when his wicked uncle attempts to use him to find the Flame of Muhgal, Ray’s determination to keep his “precious jewel” safe drives him to some extremes.
 
The rest of the four-volume series unfolds first with a short tale of a young boy whose father and stepmother are caught up with a mafia group called the Black Hand. That transitions into the main plot where Ray’s blood-brother Azura calls him back to Morocco to help him find the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. Little do Ray and his friends know what Azura has in store for them when they get there.
 
You Higuri’s artwork is as stunning as ever, but this manga is far from perfect. Overall, it’s too short. There is so much potential for a nice long series with various mystery stories. At first, the series appears as though it will go in that direction, until the big Azura plot…then it just ends (though there is another standalone manga out called Gorgeous Carat Galaxy and the upcoming Gorgeous Carat L’Esperanza is coming out in August of 2009).
 
The manga’s other weakness lies in a few of the characters. Florian is so frail that it gets a bit tiresome at times to watch him faint, but at least he comes back to hold his own now and then. Then there is Petit Noel, who works fine in his initial introduction story, but he serves almost no purpose as the series goes on. He’s hardly even seen, so it’s hard to justify why he sticks around.
 
Gorgeous Carat really should not be categorized with typical shōnen-ai (“boy’s love”) or yaoi titles. Yes, there is a drug-induced, TV-14, homosexual sex scene, but that’s beside the point. This is not a romance series. This is a Victorian mystery/intrigue series with subtle romantic and sexual tension between the lead male characters. That gentle subtlety is what gives the manga the extra dimension it needs not to avoid being a completely ham-handed, slightly disjointed shōnen-ai title. It’s rather hard to describe in its 80% adventure/20% romance balance, seeing that there is very little that’s actually “romantic” about it at all.
 

Remember, it’s just…yaoi-esque.

written by You Higuri