Wind Breaker

(Spanish review below). I didn't like it. I was prepared to like 'Wind Breaker', but it didn't. I started the anime thinking it was going to be about gangs and honor and fights and all that. But... I discovered an anime about winning fights with the power of friendship and knowing and accepting yourself. There's nothing wrong with that, but in this case it feels childish and incoherent. I have no problem with stereotypical characters, but in the case of 'Wind Breaker', they offer nothing more than the stereotype. I don't like any of the characters, I don't care about any of them. As the plot progressed, I startedto get confused. Is that what this season was going to be about? Is that all? Nothing happens in the season. There's a lot of "fights", but there's no real plot beyond, as I mentioned, the power and importance of friendship and all that. I don't understand what the Furin is. Are there no teachers? No classes? What do a group of teenagers do without supervision and no plans for the future, at least to finish school? (I feel old thinking about this but I can't stop thinking about it.) The idea is interesting, but the development is not. The beginning is not that bad, but as the anime progresses, it becomes boring and more boring. ... No me gustó. Estaba preparada para que me gustara 'Wind Breaker', pero no fue así. Empecé el anime pensando que iba a ser sobre pandillas y honor y peleas y todo eso. Pero... descubrí un anime sobre ganar peleas con el poder de la amistad y conocerse y aceptarse a uno mismo. No hay nada malo en eso, pero en este caso se siente infantil e incoherente. No tengo problemas con los personajes estereotipados, pero en el caso de 'Wind Breaker', no ofrecen nada más que el estereotipo. No me gusta ninguno de los personajes, no me importa ninguno de ellos. A medida que avanzaba la trama, empecé a confundirme. ¿De eso se trataría esta temporada? ¿Eso es todo? No pasa nada en la temporada. Hay muchas "peleas", pero no hay una trama real más allá de, como mencioné, el poder y la importancia de la amistad y todo eso. No entiendo qué es el Furin. ¿No hay profesores? ¿Ni clases? ¿Qué hacen un grupo de adolescentes sin supervisión y sin planes de futuro, al menos para terminar la escuela? (Me siento vieja pensando en esto pero no puedo deja de pensar en ello). La idea es interesante, pero el desarrollo no lo es. El comienzo no es tan malo, pero a medida que avanza el anime, se vuelve aburrido y más aburrido.

TL;DR Wind Breaker's only good merit is the action thanks to Cloverworks' production, unless you delve deeper into what the anime is about. If you know me, most of you would be familiar with me pointing out flaws in character detail since they're mostly the bulk of what makes an anime good. Besides that, I'm just an avid fan of action anime, it's just blatantly obvious that I regularly watch them every year. It's one that I felt most comfortable with, one where many greats were born from it, ones that have made me laugh, ones that have made me cry, but it's also one whereI have a high standard of, and it's also easy for others to fumble with the action genre, most commonly with animation issues, just being still drawings being dragged in and out of the screen that is supposed to be "action" for the audience. And having Wind Breaker on the radar, I had to personally check it out for myself. I have a mixed view of Cloverworks in general. They have proven that they can produce good new anime series which are pretty popular mangas at that given time, especially since one of my favorite anime was My Dress-Up Darling from Cloverworks, but whenever they decided to make sequels, they would always discombobulate it to ashes just so they would never have to associate with it ever again. At least that's how I felt when they animated TPN S2 and WEP sequels (well to be clear, they were released a while ago, but ever since then I couldn't trust Cloverworks anymore when it came to hyped sequels.) So when Wind Breaker was announced to be animated by Cloverworks, I went on to assume the former, whereas they will be able to bring good production to this anime and likewise, the anime on the surface looks really good. The choreography looks sick, the visuals are bright and vibrant, along with a good 1st impression in general thanks to the OP being quite fitting with what the anime wanted to portray. But even so, Wind Breaker has a long way to go to reach the gold standard of what a good shonen anime should achieve. First of all, what is Wind Breaker all about? Well, you could see a whole group of delinquents ganging up together to be acknowledged by everyone, foes and friends alike. Sakura Haruka is the MC who yearns for acknowledgment and it's prevalent to see that in him. I hate to use comparisons but you can deliberately see that his ideals are like Naruto's, only with a more juvenile personality. The only thing he knows is fistfighting, punching the living soul out of anyone who dares to stand in his path, a lone wolf who has been ostracized by his peers and community alike, and you guess it, he wants to attain the crown at the top for himself just so he can be acknowledged by everyone. From there, the MC's development begins from a juvenile lonely Go-haired boy to someone who starts to learn what it means to strive for the top seat. On the other hand, let's not act like this is an uncommon thing. Teenagers being insecure with their own identity is just common to see in any anime whose majority of the cast are teenagers, but it's difficult to find anime that knows how to portray it without relying on too much melodrama or making up plot conveniences. For instance, show flashbacks for 3 minutes to supposedly bring context to characters' backstory or make the main characters say the right thing at the right time which somehow dealt damage to the adversary's psyche. Not to mention being an anime revolving around high school students, you can tell from a glimpse of it, it was going to be about gaining the respect of the community and beating the shit out of others for treating people ill-willed. The anime is another one of those "make your MC scream their own righteous goal in your face and have their adversary be bamboozled by their screaming" kind of schtick. I may sound like I'm criticizing it for an abundance of cliches, but that's not my point. It's not the idea that any anime should try to always be original or do things out of the ordinary in every aspect, some of my favorites have done these things that I am speaking of, but the anime does nothing but feel like it over-relied on the stereotypes for too long that any form of freshness the anime could produce is just non-existent compared to what the anime commonly shoves in your face. Besides, it's filled with so many character archetypes and cliches that it further cements the point that the anime lacks its own identity and originality. Even Umemiya's character is basically a knock-off version of Gojo Satoru with the same VA. And it's not just him, it's the whole cast themselves for being so one-dimensional and archetypal. Typically, Sakura has the most depth out of all the different characters, given the fact that he's the main character, and I'm willing to say that even the new adversaries that showed up also have some depth to them. Albeit what he has managed to achieve is just a minuscule scale of what a good character should be. It felt like he had barely touched the surface of many possibilities his character could be. And the cast has done nothing to complement each other but rather more like cheap gimmicks just to arouse your attention. Nirei is a comic relief that also serves as the show's exposition, but oh no, since the writing is so blatant, you'll see Nirei acting like a narrator who doesn't know how to shut up. Suo acts how "normal" Mahito would do without his psychopathic tendencies. Don't even get me started with the show's humor. When you have characters this bland, you'd have a better chance of laughing at a reflection of yourself than this one, it is cluttered with these archetypes playing random quips just to cue for a laugh, but to no avail. Their connections and dialogues are superficial, none of them has any meaning other than to drive the plot to where it needs to be. To add further, I'm not trying to say a show shouldn't put stereotypes, it can be used if done with care and some creativity behind it. The stereotypes that many found annoying need to receive growth or any form of subversion to serve as a breath of fresh air, but because the show rarely tries to do so for the main cast excluding Sakura, you won't be able to see any ideal growth from them either. Despite the excessive criticism I'm giving to this anime, there is some merit to what Wind Breaker has managed to offer despite its many blunders. As much as it is an action anime, for the most part, it isn't really bad, in fact, I'd say it's pretty good. It follows all of the ideal ingredients that make a good action anime, and as a result, most of its fights are spectacularly good, well for a couple of exceptions, (of course, I'm looking at you, Umemiya). It's nice how Cloverworks still continues to bring lively visuals and slick animation for their new projects and it definitely shows here. Even when you have simplistic characters or some of the most embarrassing dialogues known to mankind, action isn't particularly affected by it that much, so the action shines like a glimmering light on all of its weaker aspects. The pacing is also nice and it didn't suffer from too much downtime, it's straight to the point, and boom, you get a good action anime. Just not that great on the others. In the end, Wind Breaker, without a doubt, delivers the action sequences, much of what you should expect from an action show. However, it's difficult to recommend this when you have the weakest cast to support a somewhat decent main character. If you can tolerate archetypes or abysmal characters, you should be able to watch this with particular ease. Otherwise, it will be a painstaking gauntlet to get to the good part, since it spends a lot of time on the cast, and it's just a norm for shonen to have an ensemble cast to appear for most of the show, but when the cast is really bad, it can be quite a downer. Thank you for reading.

Wind Breaker is one of the big names in the 2024 spring season and is praised by many. However, It seems to be overhyped by the incredible animation and action sequences so much so that it distracts people from the bad writing. The show started off really fun, but once it gives the story some attention you start realizing that there isn't much besides those amazing action sequences. Story/Writing: [4/10] The synopsis on MAL explains the story enough that I feel I don't have to go over it. It's not exactly winning any awards, but there is nothing wrong with it. But as you may haveseen I gave this category a low score, and that is all thanks to the god-awful writing. All the tension that was built up between the characters goes out the door after each fight. The antagonists were meant to be ruthless to their own school, beating them if they lose a fight. They even paint the main antagonist to be so mentally unwell it appears he's going insane. Things needed more time to develop but they solved all of the conflict within 3 episodes which was filled with flashbacks to force you to understand and like the characters, and even decided to make them friends right after like nothing had happened. The writing throughout the show wasn't as bad as this, but the arc I am talking about is the center of the entirety of this first season. The show rushed something so incredibly vital and that is bad writing in my book. Premise/Plot: [6/10] The premise makes no sense if you talk about it like it's real, but at the end of the day it's just fiction. Why are kids running gangs in schools? Where are there teachers and parents? Who really knows, but honestly I don't think it's all that important either. Characters: [6/10] Wind Breaker's characters are the one thing that is somewhat enjoyable about the show besides the action sequences. I love seeing the way the characters bounce off of each other, but I do have two big complaints. The first complaint is Sakura. I understand that he is scared of getting close to people and is very shy, but they keep making it a running joke, one of which gets extremely old very fast. They seriously need to tone that down, because after awhile it just upsets you. The second, I feel like they introduced a lot of characters and couldn't flesh them out properly by doing so. I hope in season 2, they don't introduce an absurd amount of characters and instead give more depth to the existing ones. Art/Animation: [8/10] Let's not kid ourselves, the animation is the only reason a lot of you are even reading this review. The fights were choreographed amazingly and the sakuga was great. The show kept the production steady throughout the entirety of this first season. It absolutely carries the show, and is one of it's only redeeming qualities. Audio: [7/10] The OST is fine, the opening and ending were both great. Not much else to say. Conclusion: If you go into this show wanting strictly action, I think you will come out from this show very satisfied. However, for those who need more substance in terms of writing, story, and deep characters in their anime, you will leave with a bad taste in your mouth. All in all a fine show to turn your brain off to. I personally hope season 2 comes back and swings harder, because as unsatisfied as I was I did catch myself enjoying this show. Critical Rating: High-Medium 5/10 (If you're curious to see how I rate, check "My Rating Criteria" on my MAL.) Enjoyment points: 1 (An enjoyment point means it doesn't fully deserve it's critical rating. To know more about enjoyment points, check my MAL.)

Sakura leaves urban life for a quieter town known for its school of the strongest delinquents. Convinced he has what it takes to climb to the top, Sakura is ready to spend his high school days fighting for supremacy. Story & Character: 3/10 & 4/10 Delinquent series typically incorporate elements of conflict over territory, finances, and hierarchy. While Wind Breaker includes turf wars, it lacks intensity, with fights ending in trivial ways. The series feels more like a civilized drama than a battle shounen, focusing on character dynamics and situational comedy rather than rivalry. Sakura's goal of rising to the top is challenged by the reality thatFurin's hierarchy is determined by democracy, not meritocracy, making the story risk-averse. Wind Breaker attempts to develop characters through conflict of identity, addressing their feelings instead of fostering rivalry. This results in characters with cringe-worthy personas and dialogues, particularly seen in Sakura and his enemies. The delinquents of Bofurin all seem one-dimensional, friendly types, with unique traits limited to unexpected hobbies or quirky habits. The series tries to develop character bonds with witty humor or forced camaraderie through minor events and flashbacks, leading to shallow connections. Ume and Chouji have split personalities that become delusional and awkward when they 'break,' making it difficult to endure. Art & Sound: 7/10 & 6/10 The art and animation are Wind Breaker's saving grace. The character designs remain consistent, and the fight animations have superior visual impact and fluidity, making them breathtaking to watch. However, beyond this, the average frame is filled with minimal movement and typical comedic art tropes like super-deformed characters or expressive typography. The quality disparity between action and dialogue scenes is jarring but necessary to focus on the more important aspects. The sound design in Wind Breaker is not too ambitious. There are thematic soundtracks, especially in conflict and comedy scenes. The voice acting suits the characters but lacks expression beyond their personas. Despite being the stereotypical weakling of Bofurin, I enjoyed Akihiko's unhinged dialogues of panic throughout the series. Overall & Enjoyment: 4/10 The series would have been more enjoyable with a greater variety of characters. I expected turf wars, brawls, crime, and other delinquent activities, but ended up watching a class of truant students on neighborhood watch, rescuing missing cats. A grittier premise and more masculine characters could have enhanced the series, especially with its visually appealing fight choreography.