Review of Koi Kaze

We have ourselves another controversial anime and I was really having a tough time with how I wanted to review this one, just because of the nature of this series. What we know going in is that there are instances of incest, which almost feels like a norm in anime these days, so if you're strongly against seeing this portrayed, this is probably your queue to stop reading this review and go on to watch something else. Story & Characters: Love Wind starts us out with Koshiro Saeki, who works in a small office that does arranged marriages. He lives with his divorced father,but seems to be able to hold down his job. Not long into the series, he gets dumped by his girlfriend, Shoko, because she falls for someone else and tells Koshiro that their love their felt cold and distant. He then starts to question whether his heart was with her near the latter stages of their relationship. While on a train one morning, he notices that a young high school girl drops her identification card before exiting, and he leaves the train to give it to her. This doesn't seem like much, but he later notices her outside his office, where he was handed two tickets to the nearby amusement park. He decides to take her with him on a whim. Koshiro eventually opens up to this girl and after an emotional moment, they leave the park together where she says she needs to meet her father. However, when her father arrives, he notes that this girl is actually Koshiro's younger sister, Nanoka, who were separated in the divorce more than a decade ago. During the course of the series, Koshiro and Nanoka meet up multiple times and eventually start to fall in love with each other, despite being brother and sister, and separated by twelve years in age.

Koshiro has a very stern attitude with most people and always tries to defend his actions, despite how not everyone will agree with him. When we realize his heart wasn't in his previous relationship, he doesn't realize until far later into the series how his feelings towards Nanoka contrast with what he felt with Shoko. Nanoka, despite what we may see in front of us, is actually fairly mature for a fifteen year old. She takes her chores and studies pretty seriously, while making sure her social life spark a decent balance. We see multiple instances of her acting like a casual teenager though, and like the series, keeps our expectations mostly in check.

Love Wind doesn't really sport much in the way of notable side characters. However, the one that drives much of the plot is Kaname Chidori, one of Koshiro's co-workers. Not long after meeting Nanoka, she starts to see both her and Koshiro hanging out together, and eventually catches wind of what's going on with them. However, she acts in such a realistic way, while asking the same questions an honest person would today. She is a fantastically written character and its her input that pushes this series to thrive even more. Koshiro and Nanoka's parents are shown in short spurts in the series, but neither really add to the plot. We also see some Nanoka's classmates and Koshiro's other coworker, Kei, but again, don't do much to advance the plot, with the latter failing to provide some comedic relief that I feel was attempted here.

This type of content will not be for everyone, as it tackles such a serious issue, mostly deemed as taboo. However, if you can get past that, the story is actually well told. One of the things that I noticed is that it takes an incredibly mature pathway through the story. It never gets to the point where I'd say it's explicit, particularly with what we see, but there are a lot of implications that are meant for an older audience. One example is when we realize that Koshiro is masterbating after a certain event. This series doesn't "want" us to be super controversial like newer series that have aired such as Domestic Girlfriend. Instead, it takes level headed approaches at serious issues that exist between our characters and seeks to address them. One flaw of this is that it really doesn't tackle longer-term issues, but instead, asks us to be satisfied with what we see there. As a result, while the ending is solid, I can see how audiences could be left unsatisfied with how our characters leave their relationship off. (Story: 7/10, Characters: 7/10)

Art: Love Wind has a pretty typical art style with strong foreground and character visuals, while using faded water-colour style backgrounds. This is mostly okay, as they never clash enough that it makes it look poor - especially because this series came out in 2004. They really enhance the art with more details at certain times, but it is noticeable that they didn't put nearly as much care into less relevant scenes where the art does falter a touch. However, this is still decently animated by today's standards. And while we're talking about an older anime, I did notice that the lip-syncing was inconstantly off near the back half of the series. Dubbing back then was still trying to figure things out, but I don't think the entire thing was behind a split second because it occurred at an uneven rate. (6/10)

Sound: The series mostly took advantage of piano tunes for the OST and I was actually a pretty big fan of them - despite not sporting much in variety. The OP and ED were fine soft tunes as well. The VO work was definitely better than I expected, sporting extremely strong performances from Stephanie Sheh (Nanoka) and Patrick Seitz (Koshiro), the latter of which used a softer voice that you don't hear in a lot of his work these days. Liam O'Brien (Kei) did a great job at sounded about as creepy as his other similar roles and actually did the script and voice directed this too, something he did successfully in His and Her Circumstances, another really old work. Michelle Ruff (Kaname) also puts in an extremely strong performance here and might've been the best of the cast. Johnny Yong Bosch (Kazuya, one of Nanoka's classmates), Wendee Lee (Makie) and Kari Wahlgren (Futaba) round out a strong cast. It definitely matches the level of many dubs nowadays. If anyone ever tells you older English dubs were poor, you should point them to this one (9/10).

Overall enjoyment: I enjoyed the mature take that Love Wind takes at such a controversial topic, especially with what happens in the final two episodes. It stays level headed and, thanks to Kaname's inclusion, always asks our characters questions that we, as an audience, would have ourselves. I can definitely see this not being to the liking of a large portion of anime fans out there, but if you're okay watching such, this series is worth a watch. (7/10)