Run With the Wind

Ep13
Kakeru‘s background episode. Thank god he didn’t make the same mistake...thanks to his teammates. Kakeru‘s one step into understanding and taking other ppl‘s position into consideration.

Also, did anyone notice “Allez”.
 
Episode 13:

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Man, I knew there was a reason I liked Yuki. This hipster-ass music-loving douchebag.

This episode's got me feeling things again, so here's a bunch of scattered thoughts about it, 'cos I got nowhere else to put 'em:

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Sassman Haiji-san returns.


The Show: I really love this show for its quiet moments of power, and it's obvious a lot of care and love were put into it. The episodes unfold so carefully and purposefully, causing all these little moments to pile up and climax in the most satisfying of pay-offs. It doesn't matter if the end result's an improved time figure or a favorable result at the races. Thanks to all these gradual changes, the desired impact's still delivered in the end.


The Ex-Teammate: Now we know why the red-haired jerk is such a little bitch to Kakeru. Doesn't mean I'll dislike him less, but at least he isn't acting out for such bullshit reasons.


The Punch: The real meat of the story and the culmination of Kakeru's angst and baggage. The coach was clearly abusive, but this is a real issue that wasn't exaggerated for drama's sake. As such, Kakeru's hot-blooded moment wasn't glorified and wasn't shown as anything heroic, and it's noteworthy how impartial he was about the whole thing. If this were any other series, the moment would have been dragged out and maybe even justified. But Run with the Wind isn't like many sports anime, and it's clear where its priorities lie when it foregoes highlight reels for subtle moments of character development.

That Kakeru thought the punch was a selfish move on his part was a little weird to me at first, but looking back on what we know about him so far, it really does make sense that he'd think so. Kakeru also suffered because of his coach, and it was just the coach's bad luck that he bullied that one runner too hard, giving Kakeru an excuse to explode. The coach was definitely in the wrong, but even after Kakeru did that, nothing changed and things got worse than before. There are real consequences for spur-of-the-moment actions based on hot-blooded impulse. It's why so many people are being advised against rocking the boat to maintain the status quo, especially if the needs of the majority outweigh the struggles of a few.


The Flashback: Really great artistic choice there to seamlessly splice the flashbacks with present-day events through the canned audio. I especially loved how Kakeru's flashbacks got progressively darker and grayer, until the pivotal moment, where everything snaps back into focus and bursts into color. All of that to show this is the part Kakeru remembers the most and the part that continues to haunt him to this day. Reminds me of that earlier scene in a former episode, which showed Kakeru trying to outrun his past. Run with the Wind's artistic game has been really on point, and all the creative choices have really helped make this show something special.


The New Team: I liked that Haiji convinced Kakeru to tell his story to everyone on the team. It really shows how no one here is a throwaway character, and it's also a neat way of avoiding any unnecessarymisunderstandings or in-team conflicts. Everyone here has Kakeru's back 100% and knowing this allows the show to focus on the things that really matter, like their run to Hakone Ekiden and Kakeru's personal battles.


The Development: It's understandable why Kakeru would cut himself off from everybody, if the one thing he took away from his experience was, "my temper is dangerous, it could ruin the team." Being a dick to the weaker runners doesn't just show how poor a communicator Kakeru is; it also shows his results-first mentality. If the runner can't run, then he's better off dropping out to avoid troubling the team - which was exactly what Kakeru told Prince before. In his mind, Kakeru truly believes saying this is the best thing to do - it saves everybody from getting grief and prevents him from exploding again to make things even worse.

But now, he's finally taking real steps to learn how fun it is to really run with a team, and not other rivals who want to overtake your top scores. He's also taking real steps to be more honest with himself, and to communicate more directly with his new teammates. He didn't really want to avenge his injured teammate when he punched his coach; he just wanted to vent out against his coach's selfish pressure cooker-style of "leading." Now, Kakeru's grown to really appreciate the way a team can come together and help each other out, which is why even a cheesy line like "thank you for believing in me" becomes incredibly heartfelt.


The Running: Oh, so that's what Kakeru's naked running form meant from before, ha. It's really all about the running with Haiji, isn't it. He couldn't care less what your background or personality are, if you can run so good, you give him a hard-on, then it's all over for you.

Speaking of character development...

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... Nico-chan-senpai's munching on lollies now...
(also, peep the details on those blinds and that printer and everything else in the background)

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... King and Prince are starting to look like real runners...

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... and Kakeru's learned to smile again.

Fuck, man, I really love this show.
 
13
I like those small directing things like the fuzzy dullness of that flashback getting punched clear, with the aforementioned punch itself. There are only a few other series I know that can do this kind of thing well without overplaying it or making it not noticeable and this is one of them. Anyways, very well done episode.
 
Episode 14
A nice series of flashbacks and team building continued. However this episode is really about Prince. How he struggles through various meets, each one improving his time, but he can see its not enough. Both via calendars and by the faces of his hopeful teammates. That kind of pressure must be immense, and the last run, I was literally yelling 'Go Prince!", man, that was a good feels episode there.
 
so after the late night porch exchange last episode, Musa's musings this episode, and considering his vantage point while running, I am having fun theorizing that Haiji has the hots for Kakeru...either that or something potentially boring but not unwelcome with Hana-chan, considering how she announced to her dad she's going to their uni...also I ship Nico & Yuki, out of all of them they seem to have potential
14
 
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so after the late night porch exchange last episode, Musa's musings this episode, and considering his vantage point while running, I am having fun theorizing that Haiji has the hots for Kakeru...either that or something potentially boring but not unwelcome with Hana-chan, considering how she announced to her dad she's going to their uni...also I ship Nico & Yuki, out of all of them they seem to have potential
14
I interpreted it as Hana-chan, but it would be fucking fabulous if it were Haiji staring at Kakeru's ass constantly while running.
 
14

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Fuckin-- awwwww!

Show never fails to warm my heart at this time of week. Such a good time. And I love seeing the characters' relationships evolve in different ways as always. So proud of king
 
Episode 14:

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Pictured above: local saleslady with incredibly cunning business sense.

Did Franco cry today? Nope, but it was pretty damn close. Fellas, best believe I was damn near sobbing out of sheer joy, because Prince is our shining star, goddammit, and he deserves everything.

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Really liked how this week's story was told, and how it mixed in the different timelines with each other. The direction for the race was just stellar too: my heart's prone to do all these little jumping jacks whenever Prince is involved, but the music, his monologue, and that little "Forward!" scribble helped enhance the effect. Loved that Prince wasn't the type to get self-destructive after seeing he was still lagging behind - with any other sports show, I guess, this would be an excuse to kick off another side arc and trigger the power of nakama or something. But these guys are all already friends, so to go through more friendship-building exercises would have been redundant. It's a great credit to Prince too, as this shows how strong his drive for improvement is, and how greatly he trusts in his teammates. Awesome development from his loner persona from the season's first half.

This show doesn't have to manipulate events to wrench emotions out of you, it just draws from the little seeds of investment already planted in there from the start and gently pulls them out, all to great effect. I didn't cry at the end of the episode - just barely, I confess I did get blurry-eyed like Haiji did at the end - but I did a little fistpump to celebrate the moment.

Musa's such a freak lmao, what's he think he's doing, scaring people like that in the bath?

And one last thing I want to know is why Yuki and Prince were the only ones who didn't get a tan at the camp. This is a very significant plot hole that demands immediate explanations.

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Also! King looks like such a big-time runner now, holy shit!
 
Episode 15:

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Hey there, Musa, you lovable man.

Son of a bitch, I'm so angry at that ending! Clumsy-kun better not fuck up Haiji's chances of getting to Hakone Ekiden, you hear me! I wonder if Haiji'll just jump over him or something, you know, kind of like a ninja. Surely his leg's fine enough to do that sort of thing, right?

Incredible sound direction across the board here. My favorite had to be the background music playing over Haiji's "polish the blade" speech, while the best had to be everything that happened before the race. Loved the sound of raindrops getting louder before the gunshot, the quiet determination among the runners, and the nervous energy rippling throughout the tracks. The show manages to stay true to form here, relying on these quiet little details to deliver the impact, instead of the louder, bombastic scenes used in the more traditional sports series. It's evidenced in the soft battle cry the team does before the race starts; where other teams would huddle and shout, these guys just do these little fistpumps and smile. That's cool.

Ah, and it looks like they're setting up some drama for Yuki here. It's the latest in a string of subtle-not subtle focused shots on the guy, like last week's scenes, where Haiji commented on his scientific know-how, and here, where he's avoiding his parents. Wonder what's got him so on edge there. You'd think passing the bar exam on his first try would have been something he did to please them or something.

Wasn't expecting Hana-chan to fall for one of the twins, honestly. I really thought this whole time she would've gotten paired off with either Haiji or Kakeru.
 
Episode 15
The Haiji/Kakeru bromance continues, and perhaps a bit more in my lewdy, lewdy mind. Anywho, I do hope Haiji manages to avoid the pitfall of tangled limbs and further injury, that would be a terrible way to end the team's chances at their dream run.

This episode had a lot of background sound to, raindrops, the chanting and cheering, musical instruments from other schools, that fierce looking monk guy giving the serious stare, until he started banging on the drums. It was an enthralling and mesmerizing scene that works so well with the sound of running. A glorious tempo as it all swirled into a few moments.
 
Ep16:
The animation was surprisingly shoddy. Bad CG, a lot of still-frames and so on. It had some good moments, too, but it was quite a low, considering the high standard they set in the episodes before. Still, I loved the faces of Haiji and Kakeru when
they qualified for Hakone. I don't think I've ever seen an anime portray a character not believing what they just heard better than this. Sheer astonishment on their faces and overall very expressive.
 
Ep16:
The animation was surprisingly shoddy. Bad CG, a lot of still-frames and so on. It had some good moments, too, but it was quite a low, considering the high standard they set in the episodes before. Still, I loved the faces of Haiji and Kakeru when
they qualified for Hakone. I don't think I've ever seen an anime portray a character not believing what they just heard better than this. Sheer astonishment on their faces and overall very expressive.

I'm actually pretty much ok with the animation thus far. This might just be me unable to get over my favorite type of a story - a basic slice of life with some ambition/tournament in the background but I feel the studio did a pretty decent job considering the material given.

I mean you *could* do fun animation with running (it's been done even with cooking nowadays) but I just think this isn't supposed to be that kind of a show. As long as character design and chemistry between them are depicted decently I think I'll feel good about the series ;-)
 
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I'm actually pretty much ok with the animation thus far. This might just be me unable to get over my favorite type of a story - a basic slice of life with some ambition/tournament in the background but I feel the studio did a pretty decent job considering the material given.

I mean you *could* do fun animation with running (it's been done even with cooking nowadays) but I just think this isn't supposed to be that kind of a show. As long as character design and chemistry between them is depicted decently - I'll feel good about this show ;-)
My problem was not the absence of sakuga moments. My problem is that the animation in this episode was outright bad. Like, they didn't even animate lip flaps kind of bad. I had to check if my stream was still working because there were a dozen moments with no animation at all, but they continued speaking. Bad CG of characters running where they would have animated normally in the episodes before.

I mean the animation was objectively bad on a technical standpoint. Which is confusing, because this is the first episode where the animation isn't great. I don't complain about characters, plot or anything else you mentioned, I still love them and I will continue watching the show, but the animation just took a huge dip in quality. I assume they had problems with time management and next episode will be good again, but it was jaw dropping enough to at least mention it.
 
(...) I assume they had problems with time management and the next episode will be good again, but it was jaw-dropping enough to at least mention it.

I agree with you here. Or they suddenly run out of money ... or did something longer than they predicted and didn't have the funds/time to properly animate some things ...

Hm...

To tell the truth this might be just my subjective experiences talking (I did three or four indie films when I was younger) but when at least the story and the characters are done correctly I have an ability to turn a blind eye to even *very* bad technical problems ;-) But hey, that's just me
 
Episode 16:

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, if a show can ace its most important aspects (character, story), then I really don't mind if they drop the animation ball sometimes. But yes, after a few race episodes, I've learned not to get my hopes up too high for Run with the Wind's race scenes.

Not a lot to say about the episode, but I admit I was really, really tense the whole time they were reading out the results, I don't care if the show would have ended then and there if the boys hadn't made it. I also appreciate the big development Kakeru and Prince's friendship has gotten. While everyone else was looking out for Prince at the finish line, Kakeru, who would've been the biggest worrier of them all, looked very sure he was going to make it. Nice, subtle moment of trust right there I especially liked.

Some new dramatic plot points to consider for the future: Yuki's parental problem, the twins' moment of crisis and doubt, and Haiji's knee. Oh, and the red-haired bitch boy's coming back next week, it looks like. Yeck.

EDIT:

Everyone, look at this derp shot.

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Prince is a national treasure.
 
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