Hello and welcome to another, if slower than normal, week of Kaze Fui! This time we have friendship, training and Haiji continues to get off scott-free! Lets jump in!
Now Kaze Fui this week was, in my opinion, a bit of a non-starter. I don’t think it really addressed or dealt with many of the issues introduced last week. I enjoyed aspects of the content though. Once again, Kaze Fui is focusing on all of its characters instead of just our two leads Haiji and Kurahara. Really, I can’t call them our leads anymore because they got less screen time this week than everyone else in the dorm. The wide range and spread around attention of Kaze Fui continues to be my favorite part of the series. None of the character’s are wasted, or feel superficial. The closest ones to that are the Twins. And even for them, I have hopes for an arc focusing on their differences and wanting to be treated like their own people. Kaze Fui just has a lot of promise.
Sadly, Kaze Fui didn’t really rise up to this promise in regards to King this week. Oh sure, Kaze Fui did a good job showing us his emotional state. Showing us his separation from everyone else, as he sits playing with grass and not eating dinner with the group. Cinematically, King was never in a shot with the rest of the cast, in the same outfit, until the end. He was always either in a suit while they were in jogging clothes, or just not present. The one time he was, excluding the end, he quickly left the scene. I loved that! It sold his isolation and how inward focused he was. The problem comes in how his issues were resolved. It never came back to Haiji, no one really addressed his core problem. They all just sort of ganged up on him and said “Hey, do it”.
That isn’t to say Kaze Fui completely failed on this front. I quite liked that Shindo was the one to come up and talk to King. We were introduced to them at the same time in episode 1, and this was Shindo’s first real showing as a character. Aside from Drunk Shindo at least. Kaze Fui showed how Shindo cared for King, as a person. Meeting him in private, talking to him about his problems and trying to understand him. Shindo tried to get King to join them for runs, and knowing it would cause him to miss his shows, recorded them for King. It’s these little things that show that Shindo really does care about King, and about everyone. He knew he didn’t have an answer for King’s problems, so he just explained why he does it. It’s a level of mutual respect Haiji is largely lacking.
You see, Kaze Fui disappointed me this week by basically letting Haiji get away with what he is doing. The only person he deigns to explain himself to, to answer questions from, is Kurahara. So far for everyone else, he has just tricked or blackmailed into his dream. I was hoping for this debacle with King to force him to do just that. To acknowledge the concerns of his dorm mates. Maybe even have it blow up in his face a bit. Sadly, that did not happen this week. Kaze Fui was content to let the other characters work it out amongst themselves. It’s still good, as I said earlier I loved Shindo this week. But it puts off a much needed scene with Haiji. Hopefully this upcoming track meet will be the reality check he needs as a character.
Now onto the technical aspect. Namely, their times are insane. The clearest example of this is Prince. The kid’s form is a mess, he looks like he has broken bones when he runs, and he is dead in the water. Yet somehow he is bringing in a 34 minute 5K. A little over 3 miles in 33 minutes, like that. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that Prince could pull that time, running like that. I get that he is supposed to be the comedic outlet, but the suspension of disbelief can only go so far. The training regime seems fine enough though. I don’t run full time myself, splitting my time with Boxing and some daily jogging, but it sounds doable. I would say 2 hours or so a day to get it all done would be enough.
Finally I want to talk about Kurahara. Our boy is finally starting to fit in with his dorm mates, and starting to show some personality. The teasing of the twins at the end, showing they think Kurahara is a part of the group. Plus his reaction with the shirt, scrambling to put it on, to join with the others. He has come a good ways from the anti-social silent treatment he had in the first episode. He is still anti-social, but now he has a small group he can be himself with. After the episode with Sasaki, it makes me think it’s exactly what he has always wanted. The only one he is still eh around is Haiji. Seeing Kurahara act a little goofier is a treat to me. I enjoy the slow build of his character and am looking forward to how he acts after the Track Meet.
So all in all, while Kaze Fui didn’t give me what I wanted from this week, it still wasn’t bad. Kaze Fui went down a different road, focusing on our other characters, instead. This is good because it builds them up and makes us care about this large cast. However the longer Haiji is allowed to run around with impunity, disregarding everyone else, the bigger the payoff the audience will need. Haiji’s comeuppance becomes a long-form promise, which in anime have a bad habit of backfiring. Still, for 6 episodes and halfway through a cour, I think Kaze Fui is in a good place.
What about you? Was this the first crack in Kaze Fui for you, or is this slow burn right up your ally. Tell me below, and I will see you next week!
One more thing worth mentioning about the times: someone (https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/9urjf8/kaze_ga_tsuyoku_fuite_iru_episode_6_discussion/e96gxes) translated the training chart, and that gives you a rough idea of the current abilities of everyone in the group. And interestingly, going by that chart, Haiji is trailing not only Kurahara, but the twins as well! I always assumed Haiji and Kurahara were the top dogs, but by the looks of it Haiji really is still in the process of rehabilitation.
As for Haiji, I don’t think he really did anything wrong this week: he’s right that running needn’t conflict with King’s job hunt, and may actually give him some much needed peace of mind – spending all your time anxiously waiting for a response obviously isn’t healthy. But even if his choices don’t really leave anyone worse off, I agree that his disrespect for others’ personal autonomy leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and the show really needs to deal with that already. I’m sure he’ll get his tragic backstory, but really wanting something obviously doesn’t justify dragging others into your dream, and Haiji needs to start realizing that.
This week Haiji was fine. He didn’t fix the situation, but he didn’t make it worse. I just want him to acknowledge how he is forcing his ideals and plans on people.
Most likely he wanted to run more than anything, and had an injury, cutting it short. Now this is his one final chance with it having healed up. Probably running will exacerbate his injury, so after this season he won’t be able to run competitively ever again. He may even be holding back in training so that he only really pushes himself, opening up his injury, in competition.