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WINDY TALE - Fuujin Monogatari -
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Animation - 7.3 |
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Sound - 8.3 |
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Story - 7.3 |
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Character - 7.0 |
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Value - 8.5 |
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Enjoyment - 7.3 |
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Average - 7.6 |
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andy |
(2007-09-28 19:05:54) 2007-09-27 22:42:40 |
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| Average |
7.5 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
7 |
| Character |
7 |
| Value |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
| Without a doubt, the first thing you will notice about Windy Tale is its interesting interpretation of the human body and its geometrical representation of clouds. Overall, the animation isn't of a high quality. Windy Tales will often put up a still shot for extended periods and play a conversation over the still shot. As a whole, the animations aren't particularly smooth either. It is still a great example of how to make a series look good on the lower budget. The character animations never look exceedingly awkward. Because this whole series is about the wind, the animation does well to bring out some of the magic, and beauty of it. Textiles and hair flapping in the wind has an attention to it that most TV series' cannot boast.
Windy Tales is a slice of life anime centered around 3 middle school girls. They learn to control the wind from one of their teachers, but every other aspect of their lives is pretty normal.
In this series, wind is equated with wonder and magic. Magical states of being, or emotion manifest into the ability to control wind. It sounds almost like a girly saturday morning cartoon but: only people with magic in their hearts can control the wind. Love, nostalgia, and the simple carefree-ness of youth are a few examples of these magical states of being. The series devotes itself to exploring these emotions, and occasionally, to how they are disrupted.
The first two episodes of Windy Tales are incredible. Character relationships are established and developed fast, and our first look at the magical elements of the wind is nothing short of wonderous. From there on, the series falls into a filler-esque, episodic format, which in nature is not necessarily bad, but in Windy Tales, it seems like the rest of the episodes want to say so much but just couldn't come up with complex and interesting story material to communicate it in an engrossing way.
The two biggest problems with Windy Tales' story are the lack of a build-up/climax structure in many of its episodes and how stagnant the character relationships are. To elaborate on the first, it's almost surprising how little story material a lot of these episodes have. There's a lot of repeated animation, and this combined without really solid build up, and a solid climax makes it a little tough to sit through some of the episodes (not all). To its credit though, the storytelling structure of some of its episodes are pleasantly complex, sometimes juggling 3 chronological timelines. Like a point of narration, the story that is being narrated, which happened before, and another story that relates to the story being narrated which happened before still. It's thoughtful, and put together in a way that if used, helps stave off some of the conceptually boring episodes. Windy Tales also has a beautiful soundtrack that not only compliments the range of emotions it goes for perfectly, but also just sounds good all by itself. When you hear the soundtrack, you'll see how it can give a pretty still scene, something like a person staring at the sky, some pretty serious emotional impact.
On my second criticism, Windy Tales takes place over the course of a year, but so very little changes between these characters in such a significant amount of time. It teases you with vague relationships that have plenty of room to be explored in the first two episodes, but winds up just letting it go.
Slice of Life is almost always paired with gag and punchline comedy. While there is certainly some latent humor in Windy Tales, the absence of the kind of stuff that makes you spray your drink all over your coffee table means there's very little to cut through the uneventful parts of the series.
While it's on the boring side a tad too often, that was never enough to rob it of its charm. It presents everything that's magical about youth with what else but actual magic. While it's not the first Anime to attempt to highlight the essence of youth in everyday kid-activities like hide and seek, this genre is still far from played out. While not as entertaining as Kamichu, and a little less endearing, it has a greater focus on nostalgia which adds a layer for anyone old enough to feel nostalgic about middle school.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
7.6 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
9 |
| Character |
6 |
| Value |
0 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| There is only ever one word to describe this light-hearted series: magical.
I have to say that the direction taken by this anime is indeed different. Everything in this show is a magical moment. The art is splendid. The music accentuates every moment spent watching it. It's as if you're watching an artpiece at the museum move, slowly, breezily, even. Conceptually, artistically, this is one anime that takes the cake.
However, one of the things that it does suffer is the story. Admittedly, it is a little slow-paced, however, in consideration that the whole anime is supposed to feel breeze-like, like the wind, it's not too bad.
In the end however, this is always worth watching.
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petran79 |
(2007-11-26 16:56:16) 2006-09-04 09:41:21 |
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| Average |
7.7 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
6 |
| Character |
8 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
| (watched all 13 episodes by Animefaith and Shining Fansubs. Very slow progress overall but they deserve praise for taking the project. Also very good and carefull translation, especially in the poems.)
As the few reviewers here mention this is a masterpiece and one of the most original and refreshing animes of 2004. Similar to Someday's Dreamers in a sense, only much better overall.
Except that here wind is used instead of magic. But the major difference here is that in comparison to other similar animes where characters manipulate elements as a means to an end, like in Naruto (bah!!!), ''the protagonists seem entranced by the *instrinsic* nature of the wind, and revel in the ability to fly, to soar, to float''. To avoid plagiarism here's the source for the quote http://www.davidslife.com/anime/reviews/windy_tales_2.php As if I'm writing a university treatise here for an anime :P.
There its also mentioned that the anime's design reminds the reviewer of the design of Roal Dahl (http://www.quentinblake.com), though I havent read his books yet.
The animation reminds me of Mind Game, though it is much more smooth and less frenetic. Simplicity in animation works in a marvellous and magical way here. Yet again it proves how animation deviating from anime standards can be effective. Viewers who watched animation other than standard commercial anime and Disney/Pixar will appreciate this style much more. Unfortunately that animation is an exception to the rule and too arty for some, so it is not recommended for beginners in animation and by that I dont mean cartoons.
The story is a slice of life but to me this is the best slice of life anime I've seen, since it adds so many magical moments. I admit I wasnt impressed in every scene or episode, but in the majority I felt that the series was of the most underrated yet beautiful animes I've seen. 3 young middle school girls and a boy are members of the school's photo club and in some episodes they try to come up with a good picture to take. In other episodes they meet the Wind Manipulators and they try to control the wind themselves too. Other episodes revolve around the flying cats, that are the best and funniest cats I've seen in anime. Very realistic cats despite the design. Other episodes have to do with each characters story. Of all the characters Nao was the best, but also her two friends were very original. Yun for a boy was also very good, considering he's the only male club member. Adults werent given that much screen time and if they were the anime would get even better. There are also beautiful excerpts from poems that fit with the artistic atmosphere quite well.
The music is also outstanding, done than none other than Kenji Kawai as the reviewer below accurately mentioned. Good to see overall that the staff of Windy Tales takes part in not so commercial titles. The intro is of the best anime intros I heard. Reminded me of my school days and I really felt nostalgic.
So if you love anime, try to forget all those genres like shoujo/shounen/yaoi/yuri/hentai for a while and enjoy animation from Japan in its finest form.
One of the masterpieces of 2004 and like Mushishi that I watched prior to Windy Tales recommended to all fans of animation.
If you watched the Melancholy of whatever her name is (I'll watch it soon), try to give this title a shot. Both girls are members of photo clubs anyway
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