Spring Anime

WIND BREAKER is the Whirlwind Hit of Spring 2024

Aside Roderick J "Jay" Friz Anime, Anime Reviews , , , , , , , ,

WIND BREAKER Series Review

Delinquency is like a universal constant in the course of human history. It doesn’t matter what day, age, or society you look at. There are always going to be young people who go against the grain and do things like skip school, wear edgy clothes, and pick fights with others. Maybe that rebellious attitude makes them so popular in Japanese pop culture, and I can see the appeal. And while some of my favorite anime characters take inspiration from them, I’ve never been into a full-on delinquent anime before. Until I came across one of the best anime of the Spring 2024 season, WIND BREAKER, on Crunchyroll. It has all the hallmarks of a good anime: great sub and sub, good animation, nice music, and some good themes if you look hard enough.

And yes, the fistfights are cool. Think JoJo without the supernatural elements.

The Delinquent’s Paradise that is Furin High

All his life, Haruka Sakura’s been an outcast. He’s got little social skills, and his eyes and hair are both heterochromatic, making everyone think he looks like a freak. Eventually, Sakura gave up on being friendly with everyone and decided to become the delinquent everyone thought he was. Training himself to become strong, he has no time for the weak and for weaklings who think they’re strong. And once he’s old enough to go to high school, he decides to go to Furin High. Its the school with the lowest marks in the country, but the strongest fighters. A paradise for delinquents like him where he can rule!

Or so he thinks.

Once he gets to Furin High, Sakura discovers its not quite what he thought it is. While everyone there is as crazy strong as people say, they dont act like your typical delinquents. They go around protecting the town from anyone seeking to cause trouble, protecting the weak from the strong. That’s why they’re known as “Bofurin,” the Wind Breakers. And for the first time in his life, people don’t reject Sakura. Even though he’s confused by this, Sakura still aims to become the strongest at Furin while learning what it means to be accepted by others.

A Male Tsundere with a Heart of Gold! What’s Not to Like?

I know I’ve said I’ve never been into delinquent anime before, but that’s not quite true. While I’ve never been into the genre itself, I’ve seen plenty of Shonen Series that have characters with varying degrees of delinquency. Naruto Uzumaki started out as a prankster and troublemaker. Bakugo acts like a hot-headed delinquent despite wanting to be a hero. And even though he doesn’t regularly cause fights, Jotaro Kujo acts like a delinquent and doesn’t put up with people’s nonsense.

The bottom line, I’ve been exposed to plenty of misfits and delinquents in anime before. And one thing I’ve noticed about some of the best of them is that, despite their attitudes, they’ve got hearts of gold. Now imagine an entire high school of people like them, and you get Bofurin of WIND BREAKER. They’re delinquents, to be sure, but besides using their fists for justice, they are pretty friendly people.

That’s why, during the first episode, Sakura has no clue how to react to them, and he’s a big reason why I like the series.

Sakura is a tsundere. He acts like he’s tough and doesn’t care about anyone or anything, but as the first episode demonstrates, its the opposite; he does care about others. The problem is that hes been scorned and spat on for so long, the idea of people being nice to him is practically a foreign concept. Thus, he acts like any tsundere would: with hostility. Yet despite everything, he never says no to others kindness and never pushes them away. As a result, seeing Sakura begrudgingly start to open up to the other Bofurin is pretty endearing.

Its not just Sakura, though. The anime’s only eleven episodes long so far, but a good deal of that time is spent fleshing out the side characters in the coolest way possible: fighting.

There’s More to Fighting Than just Fists in WIND BREAKER

I know it sounds cliche, but there are some things that can’t be communicated through words alone. Sometimes, the best way for people to truly understand each other is by trading blows from their fists. In that regard, the fights between the members of Bofurin and those they fight can become whole philosophical discussions. I’d explain better, but its best to watch for yourself. And the animation used for the fights is also pretty incredible. It’s just normal people trading punches and kicks, but the way the anime does it feels as good as any shonen battle.

WIND BREAKER is one of the best anime to come out of the Spring 2024 season, and I think that it’s a must-watch for fans of delinquent characters. The fighting is awesome, the characters are great, and the emotions it tries to convey can make a grown man tear up a little. I really love it!

I say WIND BREAKER is a must-watch anime for 2024

Higan Got His Butt Kicked by Robot Ninjas

Aside Roderick J "Jay" Friz Anime Reviews, Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Ninja Kamui Ep 5 Review

Everybody knows who Batman is. The Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the man who can seemingly best anyone simply because he’s Batman. But there’s more to him than being a memetic badass; he can beat almost anyone because he knows how to use prep time. When he goes in and fights someone that he knows little about, he can get his back broken by someone like Bane. Why bring up Batman in an anime about ninjas, though? Because this episode, Higan is Batman. And the other ninjas, and AUZA, are Bane. 

Batman, Meet Bane

Having come within inches of making it into AUZA City, Higan’s efforts prove to be for naught. Zai’s presence is enough to throw him off long enough for the barriers to go up. However, instead of the two former comrades fighting regardless, Zai merely tells him he’s going to die and then walks away. It’s a move meant to make Higan feel powerless and impotent so that he’ll make a mistake. And judging by the events that follow, it worked.

Rather than let him fester in anger or kill him, the leaders of AUZA decide to let him in their city to test out their technology. And despite knowing it’s a trap, Higan runs in anyway. However, instead of fighting more ninjas, he winds up fighting the execs who are remotely piloting the ninja equivalent of Iron Man armor.

The end result is like watching someone try and take on the boss fight when they’re far too under-leveled. It’s less of a fight by the end and more of a curb-stomp, like the anime equivalent to watching Bane break Batman’s spine. If Higan represents the old ways of being a ninja, and AUZA represents the future, then it looks like the old ways have gotten kicked to the curb. If it weren’t for a last-minute save, Higan would be dead. More on that later.

The FBI Has Turned on Us!

Meanwhile, Agent Morris pursues his own leads into AUZA City, leading him to track down Jason, a former AUZA employee turned hacker trying to blow the whistle on them. Together, the two do manage to hack into the company’s servers and starts to uncover some of what they have been doing. To be more precise, they find a list of fake IDs that they’re using to plant agents as. And one of them happens to be…Emma Samanda?

The show doesn’t give us, or Moriss and Jason, time to understand what’s going on. AUZA security arrives and attempts to kill them in an epic car chase. If that was the show’s way of distracting us, then it worked. Car chases have long been a favorite of mine in action shows. In addition, the fact that it ends with both men dragging themselves away from the wreck brings their ultimate fates into question. They’ll likely make it out fine, but how long will they be able to survive with AUZA after them.

There’s also the fact that Emma’s name is on that list. The possibility that she’s an agent of AUZA has just jumped up significantly. The fact that AUZA responded so fast to the hack also doesn’t bode well. Emma will need to have a good explanation next time she appears.

Really Looking to See What Comes Next

This episode was clearly meant to leave the audience with more questions than answers. Higan and Morris have been badly wounded and are on the run. And if things had gone a little bit differently, they would be dead at this point. Worse, Emma may no longer be trustworthy, only making things worse. The fact that the anime forgoes the normal outro in of black credits only hammers home how serious the episode is. Anime don’t skip out on the ED unless it’s serious! With the series reaching the halfway mark next episode, I’m curious to see how Higan and Morris will come back from this. Hopefully, they’ll manage to regroup and plan something, like Batman would. 

Also, this episode is out in full on YouTube. If you want to watch it without waiting for Toonami or don’t have Max, watch it there. 

https://youtu.be/sy2peIRSH0Q

I Give “Episode 5” a 5/5