Fuujin Monogatari

Nao, an 8th grader, is one of the only two members of a Digital Camera Club, where she also serves as the manager. It's a mystery that she shoots nothing else but the skies and clouds. One day, she finds a cat on a rooftop where she usually shoots her camera. It's a cat that knows how to manipulate the flow of a wind. Shocked to find a strange animal, Nao loses her footing and falls off from the rooftop!

Miki is the other member of the club, and also Nao's best friend. Mr. Taiki is the teacher who's taught the cat how to manipulate the flow of a wind. Ryoko is a girl who has a huge crush on Mr. Taiki. And there's Jun, who helps Nao and Miki look for a cat that can fly. Then, there's Yukio, who is the widow of Mr. Taiki's deceased brother.

On the outskirts of this big city, a town off the "Wind Handlers," has been formed—and a mysterious Wind Festival is about to begin...

(Source: Production I.G)

Ueshima, Nao Main

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Kataoka, Miki Main

Hanamura, Satomi Japanese

Nomura, Jun Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

The Wind Cat Supporting

Yoshino, Ryouko Supporting

Iwamura, Aiko Japanese

Makino-sensei Supporting

Nakamura, Akio Japanese

Karin Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Yukio Supporting

Mizuno, Risa Japanese

Mr. Taiki Supporting

Sugiyama, Ooki Japanese

Atsuko Supporting

Ogasawara, Arisa Japanese

Oshii, Mamoru Producer

Tanaka, Shinsaku Producer

Ogisu, Hirotsugu Producer

Nishimura, Junji Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard

Reviews

Oct 25, 2024

Quaggy

Recommended

If I were to give a basic synopsis of Windy Tales, I'd describe it as a simple down to earth slice of life story about maturing, photography, and the wind. All of this culminates in a uniquely ephemeral and dreamlike feeling. Often a feeling as if a strong gust of wind could sweep you off your feet and whisk you far into the sky. This strange and specific atmosphere conjures such a rare emotion I don't often feel that is hard to pin down. Windy Tales puts the viewer in a melancholic trance and leaves you with a certain warm fuzzy feeling in the end, ... not unlike a lot of other SoL anime, simply much more subdued and grounded.

Additionally, there is much more complexity underneath the feeling of nothing of note happening. This complexity is executed in a quite realistic way with lots of subtle messaging about life, philosophy, and our interpersonal relationships with each other as well as the world. The story beacons you to think deeply about these themes and try to understand them which I quite like!

On another note, the characters are very simple but enjoyable. They are not flashy in the slightest, some may even call them boring, but I found myself relating to their experiences. Seeing them slowly mature and progress feels so real and I think they're simply enjoyable characters. They are much more subdued than your average anime fair, but if you look into their psyche there is quite a bit to explore! There are lotsa sweet scenes between the main cast and they have a rather enjoyable dynamic.

The thing that most captivates me about this anime is it's extremely unique art style! Everything about its very airy, loose and heavily stylized look works well for the series and is simply immensely appealing to me personally. A keystone of this show's art is very exaggerated body shapes and facial expressions while staying subdued and grounded in reality. Its quite fascinating and the abstract nature of this show's art really adds to the whimsical and dreamlike tone the story is going for! The art can be quite experimental and the general light and airy feel of the art really enhances the wind theme.

In tandem with the art is the animation, which really impressed me with its attention to detail when it comes to wind. As the name suggests, an immense focus is placed on wind within this show and the animation reflects that heavily. A banner flapping, a girls skirt fluttering in the wind, a person's hair flying every witch way, a cat's fur being pushed back as it flies through the air, even the air itself being depicted with colorful flowing lines, so much observation and thought is put into how the wind interacts with the world. The details are subtle but they radiate a great awareness and love of the wind which both fits the show well and accentuated the experience! Outside of the wind, the rest of the show is animated perfectly okay. I especially like a lot of the character animation! Though some scenes, especially the more artsy and avaunt garde, I find simply beautiful. You can tell there wasn't a huge budget for this show but they allocated those resources where it really mattered and it payed off! All of this combined with occasionally very unique direction makes me appreciate the animation more and more.

In conclusion, Windy Tales is a fairly mundane anime with likeable characters, realistic writing, and a super unique vibe with interesting and well done art to go along with it! Its a shame I couldn't find the show in higher than 480p xD. Its obscure and seems hard to find physically, but Windy Tales is Definitely worth a watch if you like artsy, philosophical leaning SoL stuff like me!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Quaggy (12)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Apr 4, 2023

rooster_

Recommended

Windy Tales is one of those offbeat, pensive, largely un-marketable shows that filled out timeslots and release schedules for anime distributors in the 2000s, when the Western anime boom encouraged them to localize anything they could get the rights to. It's about as far as one can be from the battle shounens, shoujo rom-coms, and loopy gag shows that dominated that decade. A largely episodic story about a group of schoolgirls who discover a secret ability to manipulate wind, this unexpected superpower is introduced into an otherwise un-fantastic world, albeit one with healthy amounts of whimsy. As the characters enter their last years of school, ... this "wind in the heart" serves as a symbol for untapped potential and childhood innocence (which most users lose at a certain age, but some rare adults manage to retain). There are no wind-based fights if that's what you're looking for, and this ability often takes a back seat to more low-stakes stories about the characters who fill out the show's neighborhood. As a coming-of-age show about the cusp of adulthood, Windy Tales is sometimes languid to a fault, and most inner conflicts are merely hinted at or left unresolved, true to the show's ethos of melancholy magical realism. No one in the show has any major problems other than the usual doubts and misgivings of a person wondering what their life is going to be like. This leisurely, muted tone is contrasted against a nearly-abstract, unique art style of sketched-out, disproportionate characters, and backgrounds--courtesy of Shichiro Kobayashi--that seem inspired by Expressionist paintings (the show's memorable depiction of the sun in particular strongly recalls Edvard Munch). There is a sense of unreality and timelessness to Windy Tales' world--compounded by Kenji Kawai's soundtrack--which fits the seemingly-endless summers of adolescence and the equally-endless days of school. It's not the kind of show you should binge, but one that should be taken slowly and casually, the kind of thing that could hypnotize you if you're ready to get on its wavelength. If you've ever wanted Dennou Coil's sense of urban mystery with Tekkonkinkreet's abstract-fantastical sensibilities, Windy Tales is your show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by rooster_ (42)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Feb 5, 2015

NavyCherub

Mixed Feelings

Slice of life as a genre has a small problem. By itself, there is not much to base an entire show on – there has to be some sort of focus, a setting or concept that allows for individual stories to exist while also providing a solid base that pulls all of the ideas together. Fuujin Monogatari takes its identity as an episodic slice of life show to heart, almost to a fault – the individual episodes contain themes and ideas that are usually interesting and sometimes even compelling, but there is just about no connection between episodes thematically. The consequence to this is that ... Fuujin Monogatari is a show of widely varying quality.

Not to say that there is not a string tying the show together, loosely at least. That string is the titular wind, which the main characters (among others) can control at will, for some reason. This seems like it might be an important mechanic that would set Fuujin Monogatari apart from similar shows, such as having the main characters using the wind powers in otherwise normal situations to make them more interesting. In execution it is actually not so. Instead, the show offers a low key usage of the wind powers, mostly used for interesting visual effects while the story and the characters take breathing time. This is also useful for the viewer, as this downtime provides a relaxing section of an episode where one can reflect on the events that have occurred; on the other hand, these scenes could be replaced by just about any sort of relaxing or visually interesting scene, making the wind mechanic seem like little more than a gimmick in the end. A very pretty gimmick.

The art in the show is a juxtaposition of purposefully rough character designs and almost impressionist background art, which works to a good effect and is most definitely the strongest part of the production. The minimalist design of the characters allows for exaggerated yet meaningful motions and facial expressions, and they also give the characters a definitively “Asian” look. There is not much detail in their designs; luckily, the show avoids characters looking too similar to each other by keeping the cast small, though in darker scenes where you can't see the color of their hair they look a little too similar. The backgrounds, though, are consistently beautiful. It's almost a shame that Nao is so obsessed with taking pictures of clouds, because the world of Fuujin Monogatari is lovely and detailed, contrasting in many ways the simple character designs – though they both share the sketchy, purposefully rushed-appearing aesthetic, keeping the overall feel of the show internally consistent, despite the huge difference in detail.

There are also some cool visual ideas used sparingly in the show - portraying texts with handwritten-looking colored text on the screen, or a phone call by overlaying the characters onto each others' settings, or flashbacks and dreams indicated with characters filled in with a single color. On one hand I appreciate that it did not abuse these things, but on the other they feel a bit wasted, sometimes only being used once in the whole run.

Similarly, the soundtrack and voice acting are lovely but subdued. This is a good thing – the sound is never overbearing, but is consistently supportive of the atmosphere that Fuujin Monogatari naturally builds. Voice acting is done in a subtle way, never overacting but also hardly ever relaying strong emotion, even when a scene calls for it, which is unfortunate.

However, the most hit and miss aspect of the entire production is the writing. As I stated before, there is little consistency when it comes to theme. Supporting others, avoiding responsibility, and finding your worth are all examples of ideas that Fuujin Monogatari plays with, but none is given a decent amount of time before the next comes along to take its place. In this sense, Fuujin Monogatari tries to live up to its main character Nao's goal as stated in the very first scene – to capture the wind. Like the wind, Fuujin Monogatari moves and changes as it pleases. Consequentially, not all episodes are created equal. There are a handful of absolutely amazing, perfectly executed episodes, and it is not a coincidence that these episodes tend to make good use of the interesting visual style matched with an equally simple concept as well as Nao as a competent narrator, but there are many more flops, usually too self-indulgent to come off as meaningful.

The episode about trying to get a perfect picture of a runner, for example, manages to use Fuujin Monogatari's strengths to much better effect than an episode about helping a momonga learn to fly, even though the latter has much more to do with the show's distinguishing idea. I should also point out an episode that takes place almost entirely in the nurse's office, featuring a fever dream contrasted by a completely normal conversation which utilizes Fuujin Monogatari's visual style to an extent never matched again.

If only every episode was as simple and effective as that one, this show would be an instant classic. As it stands, though, it is a compilation of mostly uninspired stories interspersed with small moments of genius. If you are a fan of the slice of life genre, you will definitely find plenty to like in this show, but people less patient with the trappings of the genre will frequently have their patience tested.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by NavyCherub (12)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Mono no aware

by yuzuturu

28 Entries · 20 Restacks

OSTs and Sound Design

by Gsarthotegga

46 Entries · 3 Restacks

In the mood for something episodic

by lainnvx

23 Entries · 6 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for July

Here are the North American Anime & Manga releases for July 2015 Week 1: July 7th - 13th Anime Releases Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky Comp...read more

Jul 8, 2015 7:28 AM by Snow | Discuss (14 comments)

	Poll: Windy Tales Episode 13 Discussion tainteddonut - Jul 24, 2008	21 replies	by eblf2013 »» Nov 12, 2024 7:23 PM
	Poll: Windy Tales Episode 5 Discussion tainteddonut - Jul 7, 2008	19 replies	by coloresajenos »» Nov 8, 2024 9:29 PM
	Poll: Windy Tales Episode 10 Discussion tainteddonut - Jul 20, 2008	14 replies	by Quaggy »» Oct 15, 2024 10:09 PM
	Poll: Windy Tales Episode 11 Discussion tainteddonut - Jul 23, 2008	13 replies	by Soap »» May 4, 2024 6:44 AM
	Poll: Windy Tales Episode 1 Discussion tainteddonut - Jun 29, 2008	26 replies	by Bebop_the_Bear »» Apr 11, 2023 6:26 PM