Run with the Wind | Episode 4 & 5 Review

God, it feels good to be back to writing about good anime. Seriously. It’s very painful to talk about a show you have lost all interest/respect for. Because I didn’t get to drop this last week, you will get my review for episode 4 and episode 5. I actually re-watched the first few episodes again with some friends over the weekend and man… This show is just everything I can ask for and more. So let’s jump right in!

Episode 4

We are back where we left off. Kakeru meets what looks to be an old teammate and possibly new rival. We get a firm glimpse of him on a team years ago. The team environment looked nothing but toxic for all parties. Their coach gave Kakeru special treatment for how well he was doing and punished his classmates. As much as I understand rewarding someone for good work, you are alienating Kakeru from the team and probably making the team envious/upset with him.

We not only gained perspective of Kakeru on a team but also when he was homeless. This is done by showing Kakeru watching himself in a flashback. This seems to mostly display the battle within himself to determine whether he wants to just leave the team and go back to whatever his life was before. He then snaps out of it thanks to bumping into Prince and hangs out with the manga club members. Unfortunately, it seems that Kakeru is haunted by his old teammate’s last words towards him and his past overall.

Haiji knocks a bit of sense into him to temporarily ground him but Sakaki rears his ugly head once again but this time belittling Kakeru’s team altogether. To everyone’s surprise, the one who spoke up was Prince, someone who truly hated running more than anyone. I truly felt every word he said that put Sakaki in his place and it seemed to help Kakeru understand that these guys will be there for him and believe he will do the same for them.

Great episode! We seem to not know all of Kakeru’s background but we can pretty much fill in the blanks at this point and that’s good enough for me. If they don’t give us any more information than that, I’d still be happy. We as the audience should be accepting to less information so that we can paint the rest of the picture the anime started for us.

Episode 5

We start this episode with King at a job fair. When he comes home you get to see the gang drunk commending Prince for all the great things he said in the last episode. Shindo, drunker than anyone else, makes a declaration that he is determined to run in the Hakone Ekiden and he will do it on his own strength and not as an extra. We, as well as most of the gang, learn that he actually has a girlfriend. This somehow reminded me how much these characters being in college can change the pace and feel of the series. I hope to see more series in a more adult setting like this. Or maybe I just need to make more of an effort to find them.

After Shindo made this grand declaration, Musa breaks down to tears and now he is also on board. When Haiji then asks Kakeru if he would run, we received a different response than expected. He said that he wants to be a better speaker. I thought this was really cool mainly because he finally felt that he can open up to these guys and probably even knows that these guys can help him towards that goal. Although most seem to have signed up, there seem to be more concerns from King.

We learn a bit about what the team will need to do in order to climb their way to Hakone Ekiden. They will need to run meets and be able to complete them in the required time to be considered. Kakeru approaches Haiji while everyone sleeps asking why put the other through this sooner than later. Maybe with more time, they can be more prepared to run later in the year. Haiji responds with “Are only the chosen allowed to participate? Is that what running is about?” I don’t know why but that hit me hard. This can be applied with almost anything you want to be good/passionate about.

Yuki shows some distaste for how much everyone has accepted the challenge of running for Hakone Ekiden and even questions Akihiro once again. This time he learns that he quit cigarettes. Akihiro seems to have his reasons for wanting to run but he yet to fully disclose them to anyone which makes me very intrigued by him. I look forward to any character development he gets down the road. Also, I really like that he’s a software engineer(like me). He does give a small explanation later to Yuki in the episode but it wasn’t much.

We also get to learn a little bit about track and field during this episode. Haiji talks about a few techniques for the group to work on to get better and that’s something I personally love about great sports anime. You get some passive knowledge from watching something you enjoy. I was a bit concerned initially that we wouldn’t get much of that but I feel like the beginning of the series need to put that time and effort into other things for now.

The end of the episode came as a bit of a shocker but it made everything else make sense. Haiji dropped a bomb on the group. He told everyone that they are not permitted to work and they need to focus all their energy/time into practice. This is where King explodes and walks out since he feels that he doesn’t have time for this since he is about to graduate and has yet to gain any leads on potential occupation opportunities. Well, that’s what I got from it.

Final Thoughts

I’m so happy I picked this show up. As soon I have seen the cover art and who was behind it, I knew it was going to be a great series. Episode 4 was pretty eventful but Episode 5 seems to slowly transition us into more character development and relationship building between the group. It’s currently sitting at a 7.62 on MAL but I currently would hold it between an 8-8.5 and with a large amount of potential to be a 9. I would love to hear your thoughts on the show! Leave a comment down below because I need more people to talk about this show with. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!