Kaze Fui returns, contending with and maybe even beating Mob Psycho for best episode of the week! We have introspection, backstory, and the team coming together to protect their emotionally stunted friend! Lets charge in!
Everything about Kaze Fui this week was fantastic. From the narrative to the VA’s. But one I want to hit on before we get into spoilers that is often overlooked is the sound design. Yuki Hayashi did an amazing job this week. Some of the music played during this episode fit perfectly with what was happening on screen. Hiromi Kikuta also did a great job this week. The buzzing static noise during the flashbacks confused me at first. I thought maybe my audio was breaking down. But once we cut back to present time and it went away, once I realized it was a purposeful effect, I loved it. I loved how it got louder and louder the closer Kurahara got to his breaking point. The visuals getting more static filled as we went through. Kaze Fui really nailed the emotions this week. But now, onto details!
This week Kaze Fui focused entirely on Kurahara’s past and how he worked through it. Giving us a full explanation for what happened, why he is how he is, and his relationship with Sakaki. Some of it was what I had expected, the coach for example, but Kaze Fui still managed to surprise me here. For example, I was correct that his Coach was where Kurahara got his attitude about runners and how only the talented can run. Before I thought that was based in some kind of arrogance. However seeing this flashback, seeing his reaction to his broken teammate, I think Kurahara was trying to protect Prince. He didn’t want Prince to hurt himself trying to keep up with them, didn’t want to break another teammate who couldn’t keep up.He cared, but couldn’t express it properly.
Meanwhile I was totally surprised by how… justified Sakaki’s anger towards Kurahara is. Sure, he is a dick, he could handle it better. No question there. But the fact of the matter is, Kurahara ruined 3 years of hard work for his entire team. None of them were allowed to run in meets. Their college prospects probably dried up and their Highschool career ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Its not entirely his fault, their coach treated them like shit. He broke his players, very similarly to what many college football teams are revealing recently in the news. It is a very real system of abuse, where speaking out can destroy a career. But while Kurahara is right to be angry at his Coach for this, he responded improperly, and in doing so brought punishment down on his innocent teammates. Its a situation where no one wins.
On Kurahara’s reaction to the Coach, like I said the anger was justified but the violence was not. I loved how the rest of the boys didn’t try to defend the violence either. They all recognized Kurahara’s actions as wrong, even if done with good intent. It is a very mature outlook on the situation, where many anime would try to defend Kurahara’s actions. Would say something like “The coach deserved it, you didn’t do anything wrong!”. But I think that downplays and, had Kaze Fui done that, stunted Kurahara’s emotional growth. Or made it feel disingenuous. By handling it maturely though it lets him face what he did and grow from it. The first step of that here being his honesty with his teammates. Explaining why he acted how he did, how he was afraid not of them holding him back, but him bringing them down.
This leads me into one of my favorite character developments so far, Kurahara and his emotions. We have seen up to this point that Kurahara is terrible at communication. We saw this with Prince, we saw it when Haiji was hurt and we saw it with Nico. Kurahara has not taken any public speaking courses. But it seems like his confrontation with Sakaki and the apparent support of his team, all of them moving forward to defend him, has made him think. He spent most of the episode lost in his own head after all, reflecting on Sakaki’s words. What I love the most about all of this though is that the first person he try’s to talk about it to is Haiji, who then immediately makes it a team issue. Immediately telling Kurahara that he is not alone, that everyone deserves to hear this.
It is but one example of many in this episode of the team coming together. Not just as teammates, but friends, who understand and accept each other. And at the heart of it all is Haiji. He prompts Kurahara to do this as a team, he makes it known how much he respects him, and he knows how to make him relax. Take for example his teasing about Kurahara having a girlfriend. A throwaway tease we see often in anime, but here it had deeper meaning. Haiji was trying to distract him, pull him out of his head so he could get a good nights sleep. I said before that I wanted to see Haiji get some comeuppance for his twisting actions at the start of the series, and I still do to a degree. But this episode solidified that, for all his manipulation, Haiji does care for his team.
So all in all, a fantastic episode from Kaze Fui. Down right perfect in some respects. I wanted nothing more than to re-watch it to catch all the little details. To hear the VA’s stellar performances and to see this cast come together. I can’t believe that a show about running in circles has become the best character drama in years. Well done Kaze Fui, for a stellar start to the new year. Please keep it up, please don’t fall apart at the end. Please, be another Rakugo.
What did you think of the episode though? Is my praise justified or do these characters bore you? Let me know down below, and I will see you next week!
I don’t entirely agree Sakaki’s anger towards Kurahara is justified. Kurahara was at fault, no question. But so was the rest of the team, for letting things get this far. No one did anything while the coach was forcing a guy to run through his injury, risking his career. No one did anything while he treated a bunch of high schoolers like his pet project. No one did anything while things got worse and worse. And it’s not just the runners: there’s the school too. Who puts a guy like that in charge of teenagers? Just look at Kakeru: the kid is emotionally damaged, and I’m sure he’s not the only one. And if I understood it right, they were the ones who punished everyone for Kakeru’s lapse too, to protect the coach.
So, yes, Kakeru is partly to blame, no doubt. He shouldn’t have let his anger get to him, understandable though it was. But this was a difficult situation, and I think in the end the responsibility lies with many different parties, not just one of them. To get back to Sakaki: his anger towards Kurahara is understandable, but I also think he’s just a convenient scapegoat for him, a natural target for his bitterness and resentment, when the real villains are the adults who were responsible for, enabled and defended, the abusive culture that made Kurahara snap.
I also don’t think it’s quite as simple as Sakaki hating Kakeru for ruining his chances: Sakaki still ended up at a top university after all. There’s probably also some resentment and jealousy there: why was it Kakeru of all people, the coach’s favorite with all his privileges, who snapped, when everyone else endured his abuse? And how dare Kakeru act all friendly with his team, and find some actual happiness in running, when he’s the one who ruined things for everyone? While he (Sakaki) has to fight for his place in his team, and has to play second fiddle to his seniors? There may be some grudging respect too, judging by the looks Sakaki sometimes gives Kakeru, but not sure.
But yeah, Sakaki turned out to be a significantly more complex character than he seemed when he was first introduced. The show isn’t perfect (that broken promise still bothers me), but it has nailed its character development.
The issue with blaming the team here, is you are blaming victims for not standing up to their abuser. Its all well and good to say they should do that, but you have to remember that coach as all the power and they are highschoolers. To stand up to him is to have exactly what happened to Kurahara happen to them. To ruin their careers, possibly get kicked out of school. To get ostracized.
I agree that Kurahara is a scapegoat for his anger. I didnt mean to say that Sakaki is in the right, I believe I make it clear he is still being a dick. But he is well within his right to be angry at the situation.
As for other resentment, yeah Sakaki is definitly more complex than just “he ruined my chances”. I touch on it in the last episodes post, but I would wager its a mix of “Why do you work with them” and “Why did you ruin my chances?”. Its much more complex of a relationship than I was expecting when he was first introduced thats for sure.
I’m lying awake anyway, so I might as well reply. 🙂
As always, I think we we agree much more than we disagree. I totally agree the athletes are victims here, and that we therefore shouldn’t blame them too much (if at all) for not standing up to their abusive coach, especially given that – as you rightly point out – they’re risking their future and scholarships by doing so, and their coach has all the power.
That being said, there is obviously a lot of room for action in between breaking their coach’s nose and doing nothing at all, and I do think the team could have done more to improve their situation. Even without reprimanding their coach, after all, they could still have tried to do something about the poisonous atmosphere. Instead of standing by while a guy was risking his future out of desperation, they could have tried to help him out, given him some advice about how to avoid making things worse while staying on the coach’s good side. (To be fair, Kakeharu did try, but he’s so socially awkward it ended up backfiring.) And more generally, the team could have tried to stand by each other more. Being more kind to each other in such an abusive atmosphere, and being the first to reach out, takes courage, and there is no one person to blame here for not making things better, but they are at least not risking their careers by doing so. Small things like that can make a big difference in the long run, and if a leader like Haiji or Fujioka had been around things may not have gotten quite as terrible – not good, but better.
And don’t worry, I know you were qualifying your statements more than I gave you credit for in my post, but, you know, I didn’t want to make my post even longer than it already was by adding even more qualifiers myself. :p
No worries! I love the chat, so few people comment, so when you do it makes me happy!
Like you said, we agree more than we disagree. It looks like our core disagreement is just how much the team did. Yeah they could have done more. I tend to look at it as Kurahara’s PoV in all this though, and he wasnt particularly social or communicative. Like you said, he tried and it backfired. I am willing to get them a bit of benefit of the doubt on it.
I look forward to seeing how it gets addressed later on, because with this backstory, Sakaki has really jumped up my list of characters. He’s an ass, but an ass with a messed up history and I wanna see how he develops from it all, if at all.
By the way, if you have any links to stories of real-life abuse in sports, I’d be very interested. I haven’t heard a lot about it myself, so reading more about it could help me place the experiences of Sakaki & co a bit better.
There are afew. Look up Jordan McNair for one who died of heatstroke because of how is coach pushed him. Its pretty much the exact same environment as Kaze Fui’s, except instead of breaking an ankle and having to quit, he died. Then there is the whole USA Olympic Gymnastics Physician for the girls team, Larry Nassar. Lastly, from my college, Art Briles from Baylor. Covered up sexual assault accusations against his players to keep them playing. Its a disturbing amount of power these people wield.
Then you have all of the coaches you see screaming from the sidelines in games, who get away with it because of their win records. Not the mention all the ones that dont get out there.
The big 3 though, Briles, Nassar and McNair, should give you a good starting point though. In all of them, the players stay silent, because they either think “This is just how it is at the best school, I have to accept that” or “If I speak out, I lose everything.”
Thanks! I’ll look them up later today. The point about embracing an abusive culture because you think it’s normal for good schools is a good one. We saw some of that in Kaze ga too, with how Kurahara internalized the idea that only those who are fast should run, and everyone else is worthless. So it’s not just fear of going against the coach, but fear of going against the prevailing norms too, combined with an inability to imagine things could be different at a competitive level. And as a result the athletes unwillingly become complicit in the abuse. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Sad to hear it happened at your own college too. But then, I suppose it can happen anywhere.
I find Kurahara astonishingly relateble for a main character since mains tend to be flawless in anime. Even when they are pretending to have some flaws or a partly dark past in the end the flaws always happen to be just some harmless quirks played for laughts while the past gets relativized quickly, turning the main characters to innocent bystanders to whatever might have happened years ago.
But Kurahara has actual flaws and problems that are even shown instead of told and I can identify with a bunch of them as well as the fear to repeat mistakes again and hurt others by doing so. I generally like this series but the potrayal of Kurahara makes everything even better.
I am kinda eager to learn more about the other books of this author now. I mean I was already a fan of Fune wo Amu too. She seems to be pretty talented.
The author without a doubt has talent for characters.
For Kurahara, I get where your coming from. A lot of MCs in modern anime have that “I have this curse or bad backstory that is actually boon I just dont know it yet!” or “It isnt actually that bad, I just dont have all the information!” kinda of issues. Kurahara though… Its pretty cut and dry, he assaulted his coach. And everyone, including the reporter from ep 12, knows.
There is a reason I compared it to Rakugo.