In the midst of the overcrowded Fantasy animes in Spring 2024, from the comeback season of My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer, heavy Isekai hitters such as Mushoku Tensei, Slime, and Konosuba airing simultaneously this season that pleases the hardcore Isekai fans, newcomers arrive as Kaiju No.8 takes the spot for newly come Shounen audiences, and oldtime classics such as Spice and Wolf are returning for a brand new reboot of the series. One anime that stands out from the rest, earning the #7 spot for the most popular anime of Spring 2024 (data from Anilist on May 31, 2024), WIND BREAKER is an anime that you wouldn't expect standing up firmly amidst the heavy hitters this season, but through it's refreshing and intriguing plotline, it is bound to grab people's attention and hold firm into it for longer. ***

WIND BREAKER offers a refreshing yet familiar plotline mixing high school anime tropes and delinquent tropes, forming a blend of refreshing plotlines and sequences that went on a different path from your usual action anime. We follow the main character, Haruka Sakura (Yuuma Uchida), through his journey of softening up from the tense environment he used to live in. Sakura is not the most interesting character in the series, especially when his motivations and the attention of the series aren't mainly focused on him, as he's mostly being used as a vessel to progress the plotline. However, the supporting characters of this series, mainly Togame (Yuuichirou Umehara), are a huge standout even with their short presence due to their convincing character revelations. Other side characters in the show are fun and watchable in their own right, but they're not a huge standout since they didn't get enough screen time to fully flesh out their own characters. ***

One huge standout of the series that definitely brings people to watch this series is its action. The anime scene is filled with power fantasies and weaponry combat that's fairly entertaining in its own right, but there is a huge underrepresentation of hand-to-hand combat in recent anime, which this series brings to the forefront of the action-oriented sequence of the show. Not only that, the animation might not rival that of this season’s heavy hitters, but it still stands out on its own with the stylistic hand-to-hand fighting sequences where you can actually feel the weight of the punches. In addition, it doesn't take its actions nonsensically, as the punches of each character reveal their background and motivation for being in the position that they are, a great method of storytelling in an action genre. ***

Despite all of that, the series still has a long way to go when it comes to its story. It might be really entertaining for now, but it's the type of series that I will eventually forget about the plot and characters. The first few episodes are a little slow and can be out of place sometimes, not to mention where the series takes on a drastic turn with its story, which I would argue is where the series truly shows its real strength. However, the series hadn't convinced me to care or leave a lasting impression on me once the series ended, as there are still elements of the show that they presented that have a lot of potential for story but have never been used.

In those cases, a second season of WIND BREAKER might be glossed over, but the series already has the right ingredients from its intriguing and stylistic hand-to-hand action sequence, more exploration in its storytelling from the world they've built, and greater character growth for these characters. If you have all of these things and cook them well, it might turn the future of this series from good to great. ***