The boy is young, wide-eyed and innocent even for being fifteen years old. Feeling trapped by the aristocratic life of Paris, full of opportunism and scandal, he sets out with his best friend on a journey around space, seeing the sights far and wide, attempting to get perspective both on his own life and on worlds beyond his own. The man eludes an aura of absolute authority, acting humble and open but leaving an indelible impression everywhere he goes while keeping his motives—and indeed his very identity—buried so deep within that they seem to not even exist. But exist they do, for this man has riches immeasurable, and yet still there is something just outside his grasp: revenge. When the boy meets the man, he sees a coincidence, a lucky twist of fate that has given him a compatriot, a like-minded soul, a friend. When the man finds the boy, he sets the gears in motion after waiting for what seemed like an eternity.
Gankutsuou is a divergence from its original work, what some have called the greatest revenge story ever written, The Count of Monte Cristo. Instead of following the Count, from his youthful days of bliss to his betrayal to the enactment of his perfect revenge, we begin our tale near the end of the original story, with the boy who will become the key to his success. Albert is an aristocrat, and as much as he may despise the humdrum dismal life in Paris, decked out in riches but poor in soul, he does not have the courage nor the knowledge to escape that life, still firmly tethered to his kindhearted mother Mercedes and strong-willed father General Morcef. And so the Count, while giving him hope of finally finding what he needs to push forward in life, has Albert lead him directly to these two individuals, into the heart of Parisian society where he can be poised to strike.
The dramatic irony runs deeply, even beyond our 21st century knowledge of how the tale must end. We focus on Albert and the people around him, on the surface of Parisian society and how it is framed within his mind. As mysterious coincidences and omens pile up, there is a sense of confusion; who could have done such a thing? They suspect the Count, but how, and why? Then our camera cuts to his perspective, where there are no secrets and no mystery. It becomes hard to remember amidst all the time spent away from the depths of his heart that everyone else remains in the dark. For us, of course it was him, the mysterious man, drawn with blue skin and fangs as if to single him out in the crowd for us and us alone. We even get a sly reference to this confusion of ours; in one scene a four-year-old child exclaims “he’s blue! He looks like a vampire!” and is immediately dismissed as if they can’t see the semblance themselves, or are simply too polite to point it out.
The first thing to jump out from Gankutsuou is a stunning light show. Going into an adaptation of 18th century literature, it is an immediate surprise to see flashing neon lights lit against a dark sky filled with spaceships, less a Carnival of eras past and more of a rave for eras yet to come. Another visual trick is the textures and patterns on clothing. Rather than render a set pattern onto the clothes and having it contour as people move, there are elegant and gaudy patterns laid behind a clothing-shaped hole in space, and so as things move the pattern does not bend, but simply shifts, still laid flat in two dimensions. It is entirely incongruous to physics and our mind’s desire to project the characters into our three-dimensional world, and thanks to it our eyes cannot help but be drawn to their outfits, as overly pompous and decorated as an aristocrat’s attire could possibly be.
Albert is surrounded by friends and even a fiancée, with whom he often goes out on drives in awkward silence, going through the motions of a couple even though they were better childhood friends than lovers of their families’ conveniences. Everyone in their circle is someone, whether it be heir to the largest bank in Paris or a distinguished soldier from a highly profitable war long since past. Their parents are someone, their associates are someone, they only make connections to people who are someone. Everything they do is for the purpose of becoming even more. Yet in this stagnant microcosm of wealth, separated by a wall from the dirty slums of Marseilles and the rest of the world, what does being someone even mean?
The first episode passes by in a whirlwind of shock and confusion. The trapped Albert latches onto the Count’s indomitable will and ineffable charm, while his friend Franz advises him otherwise. That Franz is clearly correct is not the issue, because what we see is people trapped in their ways, even as they try and transform. The Count is more trapped by his history than anyone, and yet on the outside he seems free as can be, commanding rather than being commanded, giving life to a condemned prisoner on a whim and refusing to spare two others as the guillotine drops on their necks. From the art to the lights to the Count to the confusion, few opening episodes have left the impression on me that Gankutsuou ’s did, to the point that after going back to it for the first time in six years scenes came to me vividly before they had even come on screen.
There is an air of mystery and suspense even with everything out in the open. There is contrast between the futuristic setting and the classical French elements that form the bedrock of the story. There is tension and righteous indignation as the true sum of the crimes of Parisian society unfolds, deconstructed and utterly destroyed before the Count and his associates. And there is also an internal struggle we have never seen before, both within Albert and within the Count. At the start of each episode we hear a narrator speaking directly to us in French, lamenting Albert’s innocence and the Count’s absolute need for revenge. It is the voice in his head, Gankutsuou, a supernatural replacement to the Count’s mentor from the original story whose presence in the story is minor despite being the titular character. That he narrates our story, putting a wall between us and the actors on stage, only adds to our overwhelming sense of irony and helplessness.
Another interesting schism is between the writing for the Parisians and the writing for the Count’s circle. The aristocratic nobles speak in stilted lines, as if they learned to speak from dramatic novels or, more likely, were forced to rehearse this direct yet roundabout way of speech. There are no such issues for the Count and his servants, although some of them have lingering speech patterns themselves that allow them to freely integrate and associate with their new home in Paris. As scandals and shock pieces reveal that a number of our supposed aristocrats are self-fashioned frauds, if we watch the dialogue closely, it becomes even less ambiguous as to who came from where, and who is truly royalty. Moreover, there is one who speaks too eloquently to be a mere vassal, and hearing them speak and dress like the other high court figureheads portends some of the drama to come.
Gankutsuou is a tale as steeped in the corruption and decaying of aristocratic society as Dumas’ classic, and yet with the focus shifted to Albert on the inside looking out, the work becomes less of an accusation than a lamentation. We are caught wanting the Count to succeed while also hoping the lives of these tragic young innocent teenagers will remain intact, remaining strong in front of the Count’s carefully controlled chaos. He is even more alluring and mysterious than before, and with the help of the faceless spirit of Gankutsuou he transcends a mere human and becomes for us the merciless spirit of vengeance itself. No longer do we wonder if he will or won’t succeed. To borrow his own words etched on the clock he gives to Albert in the prelude to his onslaught, “death is certain; its hour, uncertain.”