Anime Review: Wind Breaker

While I have my main preferences with the types of shows I like to watch, one little genre that doesn’t get much in the way of mainstream attention is one of my guilty pleasures and Wind Breaker fits into this category. That is the delinquent genre. Sometimes it’s hit or miss but when it hits, it hits pretty well. Besides, who doesn’t like seeing a bunch of dudes just beat the crap out of other dudes? This is where Wind Breaker comes in. After being disappointed in God of High School, I was saved by Tokyo Revengers. With Tokyo Revengers in a holding pattern, I needed another show of this type to scratch that itch.

Does it?

Let’s Jam!

The Story

No matter where Sakura went, he was belittled for the way he looked. He has one dark gray eye and one amber eye… Plus, his hair is half-black / half-white. None of it is dyed nor does he wear contacts. That’s just the way he looks. However, any who make fun of him soon learn their lesson as he’s really strong and a good fighter.

Sakura moves to a town where he looks to attend Furin High School. He heard that the delinquents at Furin are the lowest of the low so he wants to use his strength to rise to the top and take over the gang. He claims that he doesn’t need anyone; however, there’s a human side to him that he just can’t let go of… the willingness to help people.

When a small café worker named Tachibana gets cornered by delinquents, Sakura jumps in and saves her. She thanks him and treats him to some omurice. Despite the kind gestures, Sakura’s trust issues kick in and he gets quite defensive. When he leaves, those delinquents from before are back with friends. Sakura shows off how much of a badass he is by practically soloing the gang all by himself until Tachibana gets taken hostage. He gets his ankle sliced by a knife trying to protect her; however, four members of Furin show up and even up the odds.

Afterward, we learn that Furin USED to be known as the weakest two years ago. Today, the town adores them as they have become known as Bofurin… the town’s protectors. Sakura aims to become the leader so that he can prove that he’s not the weak and belittled kid that he used to be. His journey causes him to learn to lean on people and trust others although he is reluctant to do so. Through battling Shishitoren, a neighboring gang; however, some of those realizations begin to settle in!

The Characters

As outlined above, Sakura has a difficult time trusting people due to being ridiculed for his two-toned hair and heterochromia. Even though he’s extremely rough around the edges, Sakura has a softer side to him that he gets embarrassed about whenever he shows it and it gets recognized. Even though it’s a slow process, he begins to learn how to trust others around him. Even though he is like an emotional tumbleweed rumbling through a desert junkyard obstacle course, he is a very skilled fighter. Perhaps one without as many flaws as I would have liked to have seen from him. The main characters need to be put into peril from time to time; however, Sakura doesn’t seem to have that problem as he wins every fight he’s in. While being strong and overpowered can have its merits, I would feel as if his character development could have benefitted from getting his rear kicked a time or two. Despite this, his development has been pretty solid as it’s more of a show don’t tell approach. Perhaps, one day, he will lose a big fight and come back mentally stronger.

Next, we have Nirei who doesn’t fight at all. Instead, he has an amazing eidetic memory and can memorize the names, faces, and stats of nearly everyone he comes across. He carries around a notebook with him which is filled with useful information. This would make him an incredible strategist if he wasn’t a bumbling weakling. He’s always apprehensive about getting into any sort of physical confrontation, scared to speak up to just about anyone, and would rather tag along to collect data while trying not to get in the way. Still, he admires Sakura for saving him one day and becomes his friend without Sakura’s permission, although Sakura doesn’t mind it all too much. Nirei is a good balance to Sakura. One might say that he’s Sakura’s sun, metaphorically speaking.

While that’s it for the main characters, there are many supporting characters, some of which bounce into the spotlight and briefly act like main characters. This is a good thing because it makes the supporting cast feel important!

With those, there is Suo. He wears an eyepatch and looks very calm. Of course, he is. Despite his insanely high and unorthodox fighting skills, he claims that he doesn’t enjoy confrontation. When he fights during the Shishitoren arc, this is shown by dodging most of his opponent’s attacks and using their momentum to embarrass them. He’ll either trip them, knock them down, shove them away, and do everything he can to eviscerate their masculinity with a smile on his face. Later on, he stands back and lets the others handle a fight with some thugs all while protecting a girl by guarding her. When it came for his match during the “tournament” arc, he truly shined and stood out!

Umemiya is the leader of Furin High and believes that fights are nothing more than conversations. He says that you can learn and understand a lot about the other person you’re fighting just from the fight itself. Despite being powerful, he has a soft side in the fact that he cares for everyone at school and wants nothing but the best for him. He also has quite a green thumb as he spends most of his time on the school roof tending to his personal garden. Umemiya is a bit odd and brainless at times but his deep passion for the people he surrounds himself with coupled with his willingness to help anyone and everyone makes him a true benevolent leader that anyone could be proud to have!

Introduced late into the season, Kiryu is regarded as one of the five strongest in his grade. He comes off as a womanizer; however, we quickly learn that he was just protecting one while trying to make her feel relaxed because he was concerned about the ordeal she just went through. Of course, respect always comes first with him and when his fellow classmate, Taiga who is into pro wrestling and even fights like a wrestler, is too loud and obnoxious, he gets in his face and demands that he mind his manners. When he’s not pressuring people into being respectful of others, he’s very light-voiced, jovial, and seemingly happy all the time. His skills; however, are the direct opposite of his personality… fierce, precise, and scary! Even though he was introduced late, he quickly became one of my favorites in the show!

Lastly, as far as Furin goes, one I would like to touch upon is Ren Kaji. He’s the leader of the second-year class and seems to be a lot like Sakura in a way except unlike Sakura, he has already learned to lean on others. He’s always listening to music via a pair of headphones; however, the volume is cranked up so loud, that he has to scream and shout without realizing that everyone can hear him just fine. Even his personality mirrors that of Sakura so it’s pretty obvious that he’s one that Sakura can learn the most from.

As far as Shishitoren, wow, there’s a lot to cover here but the main theme behind their gang is that their leader Chouji wants to have fun. When he was just an underling, going around, beating people up, and laughing with his friends gave him the most fun he had in his life. When he became the leader, something changed within him. He felt lonely at the top and if people weren’t as strong as him, he wasn’t having fun anymore so he turned Shishitoren into a vicious gang where if you can’t even win in a fight, then you’re beaten up and tossed out. Chouji felt that if he weeded through the weaklings and kept only the strongest, they could become an unbeatable force and, therefore, he could learn to have fun again.

Along for the ride is Togame: Chouji’s friend. At one point, he had the opportunity to stop Chouji from following a dark path but he elected to stand by his side rather than betray his friend. He rose to second in command and upheld Choiji’s new rules even if, deep down, he disagreed with him. While there are other members of Shishitoren, it centered around these two and created one of the most compelling stories of the entire first season… probably because the arc took up the majority of it!

Art, Animation, and Sound

I don’t wear a hat but if I did, it would be off for CloverWorks. Not only were the character designs top-notch, unique, and stood out but the animation in this series was *chef’s kiss*

Okay, so animation during the normal parts of Wind Breaker was about as standard as it can get but whenever a fight started, the budget was well-spent! The choreography, the camera angles, the smoothness of the moves, all of it was incredible! I would even dare say some scenes were anime movie-level quality. It was obvious that the team put a ton of love and effort into these fights. They knew that this series was about delinquents beating the crap out of each other and that it was one of the main selling points of the anime. In other words, they understood the assignment and delivered heavily on expectations.

As for the sound? A banger soundtrack with some great music that enhanced the fights plus some insert songs which you could jam out to create an atmosphere that helped immerse you into everything that was happening. Convenient that the soundtrack was released a day before the final episode and this is one I would recommend going out and converting some USD to YEN and picking up! I know that I’m going to (heck, I probably already did that by the time you finish reading this review!

Overall Thoughts

As I said, this genre is a guilty pleasure of mine and I’m happy to say this one delivered big time. Before the Shishitoren arc, I was on the fence about this show… not whether or not I liked it or found it interesting… but whether or not to name it my Anime of the Season. It was a three-way tie between two others but once that arc kicked in, it sold me. What’s even better is that once the final episode aired, they dropped the news that Season 2 is coming in 2025 so we’re going to get more Wind Breaker! I haven’t read the manga but it ends on the very beginning of the KEEL arc. Had there been no season two announcement, I would be destroying this show right now for having a “to be continued” style ending without any confirmation of it continuing. I’ve seen too many shows tease us with more and then just disappear and never deliver.

Despite having a large cast, they somehow found a way to make every character stand out and feel unique. That is a really hard thing to do. To not only do this with your Furin cast but with the casts of other gangs makes it even tougher. It’s obvious that the mangaka took their time to flesh out the story arcs before committing to them, giving people a reason to care about the characters involved. It never felt as if the highlighted characters were inserted into the story just for the sake of being there. Everyone felt like they had a purpose and a story to tell. Some even had a history with each other which was touched upon, making you care even more.

Very few series can be called a masterclass of how to handle and develop characters and while I’m not going to claim that Wind Breaker is one of them as of yet (that’s hard to do after only thirteen episodes) I will say that it’s on the path to becoming one of those series.

If you want a character-driven show with exceptional fight scenes, a banging soundtrack, and characters that you can actually get behind that are not just flat one-dimensional props to move the story along, Wind Breaker is the show that you need to watch. There is a reason why it came from out of nowhere and gained immense popularity online so quickly. It’s a show about delinquents fighting done correctly!

There are a few minor nitpicks that I have with it, though. As well-designed as the characters are and as good as the fight scenes were, there were some miscues in consistency with the characters’ faces throughout the show. Some of the shaping and proportions were slightly off at different angles. It wasn’t a glaring problem but it was something that was easily noticeable from time to time. Another nitpick, and this is a personal one, is Sakura’s reaction to just about everything. I don’t like characters screaming and yelling in an attempt to pass that off as humor and that is the epitome of what Sakura is. Since it was just limited to him, I gave it a pass but with someone like him that has a dark backstory, I would have expected him to be a little more serious in his attitude as it’s just not my cup of tea.

But that’s all that I can really find wrong with this show. Despite me loving it, it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to delinquent gang series but, it takes that genre and does it the right way, and that counts in my book.