Run With The Wind Episode 23
There are very few anime that know exactly how many episodes they need to tell a story. That makes for dry middle stretches, rushed openings, dragged out sequences, non-endings, rushed endings, or series that just kind of limp along until they fall over in the final episode. Run With The Wind has happily ignored that trend and managed to tell a story about a team of ten characters and only in minor parts felt like it was belabouring a point rather than moving along at the needed pace to keep things from getting too dry.
While I’ll look more at the overall pacing and tone of the series in my full series review, a review I am very excited to write, I will just note here that 23 episodes is exactly what this story needed and it used its time wisely. While there were the occasional segments or sub-plots that were either a little stretched out or characters that didn’t quite get the focus they needed, considering the vat cast, this anime managed to accomplish a lot and maintained excellent quality of presentation while it did it.
But none of that reviews this specific episode which gives us everything we’ve come to love from Run With The Wind as well as absolute closure on the boys journey to run in Hakone and what happens next for the team. The final leg of the journey is run by Haiji and it is right that he brings the race to a close for the team given he’s the driving force behind it.
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However, that doesn’t take anything away from Kakeru’s amazing achievement in this episode. As the second last runner of the team he caught up an enormous amount of time and even broke the section record that had literally only just been broken. For Kakeru’s personal journey to find a reason to run and to enjoy running again it was such a great moment.
And great moments were to be found in abundance as we had the team cheering as Haiji finished. Finding out the outcome of the race and were they ended up overall. Seeing the team coming back together and a montage of what they went on with after the race. Seriously, the episode does everything it needs to do before quietly, and beautifully, coming to an end.
There isn’t much more I could have asked for in this final episode and I’m very please to say that I’m glad I gave Run With The Wind a go. I’m not huge on sports anime, a team of ten seemed a little excessive in terms of trying to characterise, and watching characters run seemed less than thrilling as a prospect when this first started. How wrong I was and I am very happily proven wrong.
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Karandi James
- Run With The Wind Series Review
- Episode 1 – Another character dragging others along in pursuit of their dreams.
- Episode 2 – The hard sell
- Episode 3 – As the wind blows
- Episode 4 – A wind of change
- Episode 5 – Scattered by the winds
- Episode 6 – No need to be frantic; It will all blow over soon
- Episode 7 – An opportunity to knock the wind clean out of their sails
- Episode 8 – The Downfalls of the Pursuit of Perfection
- Episode 9 – You Really Have To Step Back To See What’s There
- Episode 10 – How Run With The Wind Shows Us To Celebrate Effort Rather Than Achievement
- Episode 11 – Why Run With The Wind is an Oustanding Example of the Use of Sound
- Episode 12 – The Change of Seasons Welcomes a Changing Wind
- Episode 13 – Clearing the Air With The help of Friends
- Episode 14 – Facing Forward is Easier When You Know Someone Has Your Back
- Episode 15 – How Did They Make Me Start Caring?
- Episode 16 – The Moment Of Truth From All That Training
- Episode 17 – Should They Follow The Course Before Them?
- Episode 18 – May The Wind Be At Their Backs
- Episode 19 – They Are Three Runners Down With Seven To Go
- Episode 20 – Blowing Past Your Limits
- Episode 21 – Finding Your Own Wind
- Episode 22 – Running With The Wind And With Your Team
- Episode 23 – The Final Wind
- Images from: Run With the Wind. Dir. K Nomura. Production I.G. 2018.