In the episode, it’s used to teach Seigi a lesson about not valuing people by their looks. Some of this is shown in the anime, particularly episode four, when Seigi’s praise annoys not just Richard, but a customer who quite clearly feels that her average appearance makes her worth less in terms of social status and romantic opportunities. It reminded me somewhat of Basil and Henry talking about Dorien Gray. It’s all rather innocent, with no hints of lust, but he’s very poetic about it, and such musings make up a sizeable amount of the first novel’s narration. He spends almost the whole of volume one internally monologuing about how beautiful Richard is. From the beginning, he’s captivated by Richard’s beauty. That’s Seigi’s first reaction on meeting Richard. That something of fate that began after you helped another – if the other person was a woman.” I was about to sincerely believe in that so-called something. Even time, air, and dust particles flowed around this person in a different rhythm. A creature who seemed to have gathered all of their parts from the world’s most beautiful people, and they harmonised together with a miraculous balance.
There were shades in those blue eyes, and it felt like I could stare at them forever. High cheekbones, a straight nose, golden hair that had a habit of being loose, smooth white skin. “I had never laid eyes on such a beautiful person in my life.
The novels confirmed what I’d suspected: that the developing relationship between Seigi and Richard was definitely more complex than a platonic friendship.* From the first chapter of the first novel, Seigi is captivated by Richard’s appearance: Thanks to other fans, I was able to read a translation of the first novel, along with snippets of later books by people frantically trying to share them with other non-Japanese fans. I found myself at the heart of a small but growing fandom, and at a time in my life when I absolutely needed something to focus on (I’m currently on annual leave for three weeks with no idea of whether I have a job to go back to in April). And hinting, also, that one of its lead characters might be gay or bi himself. Hot on the heels of ‘Hoshiai No Sora’ and its explicit validisation of transgender and x-gender people, here was another anime, aimed at a more mature audience, also standing up to say ‘gay rights’. When episode 2 aired, and Richard said, in no uncertain terms, that he was completely supportive of gay and bi people, set against a story about a gay woman trying to deal with being in a relationship that was seen as ‘unacceptable’, I was over the moon.
I knew nothing about this series until last December, when I was watching previews of the Winter 2020 anime season, and made a joke about how the preview for TCFOJR gave me ‘gentle gay adventure’ vibes. My tumblr is nothing but screencaps of the anime and analyses of episodes. I have eleven fics on AO3 and more on the way. In case you weren’t aware, I’m currently hyper-fixated on ‘The Case Files Of Jeweler Richard’ right now. As a blogger, it’s kind of disheartening to see a post getting tons of hits but no responses, so if you enjoyed this post or any other here, please consider liking or commenting – you can even suggest topics for me to explore if you want to see more posts about Jeweler Richard!
Update 18th April 2020: This post has been getting a lot of hits lately! And that’s great, but if you do find this post helpful, please consider clicking ‘like’, leaving a comment, or even buying me a coffee (ko-fi button is at the end of the post) to support my work.