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It has been so long since I have been so moved and inspired by an anime series. Run with the wind (Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteru), with its amazing graphics, soul-stirring music, likeble cast of characters, will remain one of my favourite animes for a long time.

Story: 8/10. Run with the wind is adapted from a novel by Shion Miura. The storyline is quite straightforward. But what impressed me was the dialogue and pacing of the show. Dialogue was meaningful and deeply thought out. The pacing of the show was very well done as there wasn't a single episode which felt dragged out or redundant. Every ... scene contributed to either plot progression or characters development. Thank God there were no long lenghty discussions about game mechanics/sports terminologies or how a certain character's "special technique" works (ahem, Kuroko no Basuke, Prince of tennis).

Art: 9/10. The art was very beautiful. I really like the clean, crisp art style alot. Using a bright color pallette really brought the scenes to life. I really like how beautiful the backgrounds looked (especially during the final Marathon), which made me wish I was there running with the characters. I also like how realistic the character designs were. The characters look like a group of students that you would find hanging out in your neighbourhood cafe or shopping mall. Only thing that disturbed me was Fujioka's cheekbones haha.

Sound: 10/10. The music in this show was PHENOMENAL. All the background music were masterpieces of their own. There were so many instances where I was moved to tears due to the music accompanying the scene. (Eg. When King passes the baton(?) To kakeru on the final Marathon). I can play the OST songs of this anime on loop forever. Voice acting was done well and voice actors/actresses voices suited their characters well.

Characters: 9/10. Each member of the race team were well-developed, and everyone had their motivations, fears, insecurities, backstories. No one felt like a one-dimensional cliche character that was there just to behave in a predictable manner. Furthermore, characters were written in such a way that they felt relatable, with real-world problems (eg. King worrying that taking part in the Marathon will distract him from finding a job, Yuki being unable to deal with his mother remarrying).

Overall: 9/10.

Having been in the D.Gray-Man fandom for almost a decade, I was so excited for the release of D.Gray-Man Hallow. I couldn't wait to see my favourite characters Allen Walker, Kanda Yu and all their other exorcist pals donning their cool black suits and fighting Akuma again. D.gray-man was my "gateway anime", in other words the anime that introduced me to the wonderful world of anime and Jpop. Hence, I must say I had very high expectations for the sequel.

Story: 6 At 13 episodes, Hallow is a very short anime, compared to it's predecessor's whopping 103 episodes. It covers several arcs in the manga, ... namely the Timothy/Phantom Thief G arc, Alma Karma arc and also the Seed of Destruction arc. Trying to squeeze so much content into so little episodes was fatal to the pacing of the show. Watching D.gray-Man Hallow as a long-time fan, I could understand what was happening, but I feel that newcomers to the show may struggle to do so. I was also disappointed by the execution of the Alma Karma arc. Kanda's dark past as being one of the experiments in the second exorcist Project deals with very dark and mature themes like ethics of scientific experimentation, torture, loss and grief etc, and it is during this arc where we see how broken Kanda is. Having to dice up your best friend and witness the bloody massacre of an entire crew of scientists is horrifying but I could not feel the full emotional impact. This was because the entire flashback was crammed into 1-2 episodes, making it hard for the scriptwriters to flesh it out properly.

Art: 5 I am actually okay with the new character designs/art style since it was probably meant to follow that of the manga's current style. In fact, some characters look even better. I like how Kanda and Lavi look 10x more manlier than before. However, the color scheme was too BRIGHT. Hallow should have followed the darker color scheme of the original anime. This bright, shiny color scheme made Hallow lose some of the gritty, gothic-y atmosphere and more like a typical shounen anime. The biggest holdup for Hallow was it's animation. Gosh, there were some moments in Hallow where I cringed from seeing the poor animation. Some action scenes looked really bad (esp when the Noah invaded the Order). And in other scenes, background characters looked like balls smushed together. And ALL THAT PINK. LIKE WHYYYY

Sound: 7. I adore the Openings of original DGM and this new opening did not cut it for me. It felt like any Opening from Naruto or maybe Black Clover idk. Ending was okay. Background music was good. Playing Lala's lullaby during Kanda and Almas last moments in the place where Lala died brought me to tears. Voice acting was great. All the voice actors did a commendable job at bringing their characters to life. I looooved Ayumu Murase as Allen and Takuya Sato as Kanda (maybe even more than their previous VAs?) But Road's VA was a little too high pitched for me.

All in all, I give DGM Hallow a 7/10. Despite all it's flaws, I found myself enjoying the show. I found myself chugging through all 13 episodes in no time. Perhaps if TMS Entertainment had funnelled more money into this show, changed the color scheme and increased the no of episodes, it would be a better show.