Reviews for Fuujin Monogatari (7.25) 6s2l3r

Without a doubt, the first thing you will notice about Windy Tale is its interesting interpretation of the human body and its geometrical representation of clouds. Style aside, speaking as a whole, the animation isn't of a high quality. Windy Tales will often put up a still shot for extended periods and play a conversation over it. The animations generally aren't particularly smooth either. It is still a great example of how to make a series look good on a lower budget. The character animations never look exceedingly awkward or confusing due to lack of frames. Because this whole series is about the wind, the visuals do well to bring out some of the magic, and beauty of it.Textiles and hair flapping in the wind has an attention to it that most TV series' cannot boast.

Windy Tales is a slice of life anime centered around 3 middle school girls. They learn to control the wind from one of their teachers, but every other aspect of their lives is pretty normal. Most of the series follows their regular lives as they discover the beauty of people, emotions, and everyday activities.

In this series, wind is equated with wonder and magic. Magical emotions,states of being, manifest into the ability to control wind. It sounds almost like a girly saturday morning cartoon: only people with magic in their hearts can control the wind. Love, nostalgia, and the simple carefree-ness of youth are a few examples of these magical states of being. The series devotes itself to exploring these emotions, and occasionally, to how they are disrupted.

The first two episodes of Windy Tales are incredible. Character relationships are established and developed fast, and our first look at the magical elements of the wind is nothing short of wonderous. From there on, the series falls into a filler-esque, episodic format, which by nature is not necessarily bad, but Windy Tales' episodes are too deadly focused on beating you over the head with one message or emotion. The episodic stories themselves are often a little lacking in complexity, and in the episodes where that mixes with Windy Tales' aforementioned tendency towards blunt repetition, it can be tough to sit through. There usually isn't enough plot to fill a whole 25 minute episode.

To its credit though, the storytelling structure of a few of its episodes are pleasantly complex, sometimes juggling 3 chronological timelines. For instance: a point of narration, then the story that is being narrated,which happened before, and finally another story that relates to the story being narrated which happened before still. With all the flash forwards and flash backs, it may take some thought to figure out what's going on in the middle of an episode. When used, this helps stave off boredom in some of the episodes not totally saturated in the plot department. Windy Tales also has a beautiful soundtrack that not only compliments the range of emotions it goes for perfectly, but also just sounds good all by itself. When you hear the soundtrack, you'll see how it can give a pretty still scene (which occurs quite often), like a person staring at the sky, some pretty serious emotional impact.It's pleasant and light, which isn't very specific but I can't describe it in anymore detail than that. The OP embodies a feel that the rest of the soundtrack follows.

Slice of Life is almost always paired with gag and punchline comedy. While there is certainly some latent humor in Windy Tales, the absence of the kind of stuff that makes you spray your drink all over your coffee table means there's one less element that could have brightened the boredom viewers will inevitably feel at one point or another with this series.

My final criticism is the lack of development in the relationships between the characters. Windy Tales takes place over the course of a year, but so very little changes between these characters in such a significant amount of time. In the first 2 episodes, the main characters and their relationships get all the development they'll see throughout the whole series.


While it's on the boring side a tad too often, that was never enough to rob Windy Tales of its charm. It presents everything that's magical about youth with what else but actual magic. It's not the first Anime to attempt to highlight the essence of youth in everyday kid-activities like hide and seek, but this genre is still far from played out. It's not as entertaining as Kamichu, nor is it quite as endearing, but it does have a greater focus on nostalgia which adds a layer for anyone old enough to feel nostalgic about middle school. Its feel-good subject matter will keep spirits high, and make some of the boredom forgivable.