Zephyr

I have found when watching anime that sometimes the most unassuming titles end up being the most impressive. Last fall I loved Ore Twintails despite the fact that no one expected anything from it. Of course, most people don’t like it as much as I do, but maybe I’m just weird. But even more obscure than Twintains, last fall there was a little known one episode OVA by the name of Zephyr.

The thing that makes Zephyr interesting is how difficult it is to find online. Apparently it was a special made for some type of special event, and even months after it came out ... on dvd, there was nowhere online to stream it. I only recently found it online, but it wasn’t in English sub. Of course, after finding some version of it after so long, I didn’t care about the lack of subs, so I decided to watch it anyway!

So yes, I’m reviewing an anime where I didn’t know what the characters were saying 90% of the time. Well, as Kamina always said, sometimes you just have to throw logic out the window and do the impossible.

So, what is the story here? Well, I’m not entirely sure myself.

It’s a music anime, focusing on these 4 band members. However, there was a great war, that caused a lot of damage, and the band stopped playing music. We see the back stories of some of the characters and what they lost, but then see them come back together and play a song at the end. While it’s hard for me to judge the story beyond just the premise, what I saw here I liked. The anime seems to be less about music itself, and more about the band members and what they have gone through, with the music just being a link that ties them together. I really think a story like this could do well as a full series, really fleshing out the characters and what they went through in this war, and perhaps using the music to show how they cope, and maybe even the power of their music to influence others. So yeah, the story is certainly much more than just cute boys doing cute music things, and that I appreciate.

Animation wise the show did look really good most of the time. I even went to get a screen shot from the one part to use as a wallpaper for my computer. Although for some reason they switched to 3d for the song which just seemed odd. The background music was good, able to accent the moods the show wanted to convey, especially with the buildup to the band playing together again, and the song at the end was cool. The voice acting also seemed to be very good, able to convey the emotions, and what the characters meant, even if I didn’t know the exact words.

And well, I guess that’s about it. I’d like to say more about this show, but there isn’t much I can say. Still, it was an interesting experience trying to follow along with the story, and when it does get subbed, I’ll watch it again, and if they end up making a full series out of the story, I’d gladly watch it. So I give Zephyr a temporary score of 6.75/10, and a rating of Worth Checking Out. The score is based only on the animation and sound, so will likely change if I ever get to see the show subbed.

As for recommendations, let’s go with Number 6. It’s a dystopia story with some shonen ai through in because why not. It’s not the greatest, but if you got excited about watching Zephyr, I get the feeling you may like Number 6 as well. If you want something more music oriented…I can’t think of much. K-On is boring, Bakamatsu Rock tires to be fun by being complete over the top, but I lost interest in it. There is Show By Rock which also takes the music genre in an interesting direction with lots of pretty colors, so yeah, go with that.