Wind: A Breath of Heart (TV)

Wind is an example of a show that sounded great in theory and on paper, yet falied to deliver on almost every level. Based on the visual novel by menclave (also behind the masterful ef - A Tale of Memories) the story set-up is quite interesting. Inside a town, every person, bar our hero Makoto, has a special power, whether it be high jumping, calculator memories or sound cancellation, the power is unique to the person. A blimp constantly flies over the town and Makoto meets a girl he promised as a child to marry at school once again. He also meets anotherstrange girl that seems not to talk much and be part of a some strange ritual. Alright alot of the story isn't unusual for a visual novel-based anime, yet has enough uniqueness to be interesting. The problem is that it fails to deliver any potential set-up from the plot, and this maybe due to time constranits, being 12 episodes long, at 12 minutes each. The characters, although enteraining in their own way, and personify the typical arachetypes for a harem show, jump around too much, and suddenly changed their minds on life with very little convincing. The whole blimp and the mystery behind the town is hardly explained, and the concusion to the main problem and *spoiler* the sacrifice ritual to keep the town safe from harm* is quickly concluded with the aformentioned easy changing minds of characters, with no real conflict at all (Hell, even a fall off a cliff for two character's is totally lost due to constraints, and dodgy episode timing. *end spoiler* That's another problem. Very rarely the episodes seem to have a link up to the previous or following episodes. It's almost like watching a sketch show of different aspects of different character's lives, without ever attempting to conclude anything. One time there at school, with problems about cooking lunch, then we're back in the past, to look at some character'sold life (and i mean really old), then we're at a beach as if nothing happened. There is no fluidity in the story and it feels like the show would have been alot better as just a feature length movie focusing on the main love traingle. With all that complaining, the saving grace to the show is that it actually looks pretty nice. The backgrounds have alot of 3-D rendering that rival Gonzo works, and the character's look cute and colourful Characters move realistically and it at least made the time i wasted watching the show easy on the eye. The Sound was nothing brilliant and mostly forgetable, but did nothing to enhance the atmosphere, ending up falling into clichés of the genre. Voice acting was solid rendition's of the character's, who are actually an interesting bunch, especially the waitress sister's, and the white haired girl (sorry i can't remember there names after general loathing of the show I felt it best not to need to keep it in mind), that only falls flat because of a dodgy script and the worst time constraints I have seen for a show. Overall, this show was a waste of my time (although it doesnt last long so luckily it wasn;t as much of a waste as 52 episodes of Kiba). The decent set-up was ruined by poor directorial choices and makes the series fall flat on its face. If anything the show does make me wan't to play the visual novel to see a group of character's not so mutilated by an animated version that doesnt even give the time of day to care about its creation. The only hope for the franchise is if SHAFT pick up a TV remake after the success of ef - A Tale of Memories and show this bunch how anime is done right. Don;t waste your time on this tripe, no matter how gorgeous loking the tripe may be.

It's all too easy to make fun of an anime christened with an unfortunate name like "Wind: A Breath of Heart" (try saying the title fast) ... but that would just be immature of me. "Wind: A Breath of Fart" is one of those patchy anime that feels like it got stitched together from three different shows. Starting off with some horribly crappy first scenes, it improves into a borefest with the occasional amusing moment, then magics in a dramatic story towards the end. When I first watched "Wind: A Breath of Fart", I found its mix of highschool hijinks with a dash of magic ratherpeculiar, but this was before the time when Kyoto Animation studios conquered the anime world with its adaptations of Key's haremy magical realist visual novels. Even taking that into account though, I still think the anime's poor execution of the premise added to my confusion. There's a scene early on where a group of friends were casually discussing their superpowers. I didn't really take it seriously, thinking that the girl who claimed she can jump really high was just athletic, and sympathising with the one who said she can create wind because I assumed she was simply suffering from flatulence. Either that or they're delusional chuunis who think they can do things like shoot ninja stars out of their arses just by yelling out the name of their special attack. Anyway, like I said, I didn't think much of it, particularly as the series plodded on as a dull highschool slice of life. Then it turns out those superpower are real. I was like "WTF?!" If the anime had been less casual about those earlier conversations then I would not have felt so shocked. At around the three quarter mark, I started to wonder what's the point of this anime. I think the people who made it must have pondered the same question, cos the all of a sudden "Wind: A Breath of Fart" started breaking wind in a different direction and actually - to my utter amazement - began to carve out a story line. On one hand it's sure is an improvement on fuck all happening; on the other hand, the change of pace and direction made it feel like a completely different show. While I won't deny the newly made-up-as-they-went-along-story had points of intrigue, there weren't many episodes left to play with. Predictably, this resulted in a half-baked story that didn't feel like it's been thought through properly, and an ending that cuts off so suddenly it left me wondering where the rest of the story was. "Wind: A Breath of Fart" then took the odd decision of making the last episode a recap. It flashed back to all the boring part of the show, and it's a testament to the extraordinary depth of the dullness that I don't even recall seeing some of these scenes, so they actually felt like new material to me! Like the story, the characters are a bit boring, and could have done with better designs that distinguished them by more than just their hair colour. The character writing also leaves much to be desired, particularly around consistency. I struggled to discern convincing motivations for when characters do something unusual, like when a cheerless girl decided to break character by dressing up and going to a fair. Also, the main character has a habit of under-reacting to what should be shocking revelations. On the positive side, at least he isn't too annoying like a typical harem lead, though I am a bit puzzled by why his harem seem to look up to him as though he's a much older senpai rather than a peer. Dialogue wise, "Wind: A Breath of Fart" tends to fail the hardest when the writers tries to go deep. For example at one point in the show a cat got stuck in a tree and they had this bizarre discussion on whether or not to rescue it, with the content of the discussion serving as a metaphor for something more serious that was going on in the story. Now, perhaps I'm just an uncultivated buffoon, but "to rescue or not to rescue a cat" does not strike me as an intellectual heavyweight question worthy of philosophical debate, so the aforementioned dialogue made no narrative sense, and I found the whole thing unintentionally hilarious. As much as the last few episode jars with the rest of the series, I have to say I rather enjoyed the plot development and the unfolding of drama, and vastly prefer it over the pedestrian portion of the show. And for me, this last unexpected charge salvaged the show somewhat. I also quite like the music, though admittedly it had an easy job to do for most of the series as nothing was happening on screen. The opening theme initially made a decent match for the anime, though it matched less well once the anime radically changed direction towards the end. I really struggled to judge this anime as a whole because the different parts of it is SO different. But on balance, "Wind: A Breath of Fart" probably averages out as a mediocre show. But ironically, despite its inability to do anything particularly well, I much prefer its incompetent mediocrity to the meticulously engineered terribleness of those KyoAni visual novel adaptions. In the very least, it doesn't make me want to throw things at the screen. Personal rating: -0.5 (mediocre)

I never thought that this will be my first anime I have to write a review on. But still I feel like I have to write this so here goes. Let's just say my review on this may be have a little bit spoilers so depends on you guys whether to read it or not. I've always thought that every oldschool anime like this would be great because it's pure romance and I'm a romance anime fan. But not an otaku. But unfortunately, not all animes are great. Story : When it comes to the story, it's like any other any romance anime I've watched but still Ijust feel super weird after it. Even if it's like any other romance anime, I expected a usual ending but not for this. The story is quite off, there are some scenes that were cut off like it was not important at all. How funny that the main character don't even feel shocked seeing them using their powers. He didn't go like, "Wow that's your power?". It has romance in it but I end up asleep watching a few final episodes of this anime. Plus, after the final episode, the girl which happens to fall in love with the main character, go like hating him because he didn't even realize her feelings so I was like, "There must be more to this story". All of a sudden, the end????? I seriously could not believe that. There must be more. Art : Art? Well, as long as it's not too oldschool like 2000 or below, I'm cool with it. Not to mention, I feel like this anime is like a game or something because they use a game visual technique instead of the usual anime ones. So yeah that's pretty unique. Sound : I'd say decent. No comment much but so far so good. I like the background piano soundtrack they used for this. It gave me a sad feeling too whilst watching this. Character : I'd give 5, but still, yeah it's pretty much good. No comment much on that. Enjoyment : I end up asleep watching this. But the first few episodes was quite fun but not the end that is. Overall : Before you guys downloading or watching this, make sure to think twice first. Since this review is just my opinion it's up to you guys whether you guys wanna to watch this or not. Although the rating goes for 6 but still