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EP. REVIEW: Run with the Wind


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rahzel rose
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Joined: 19 Apr 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 9:46 am Reply with quote
I am in love with this show. I actually hate running with a passion, although I did play soccer for years, so I get the masochism thing. (It makes me kind of want to pick it up again.) But the cast is so endearing, and I love Haiji’s evil side. And the part where the twins confronted Kakeru was pretty refreshing, because there’s nothing I hate more in a show than when people don’t communicate. So for them to call him out was a pretty great moment. I absolutely can’t wait to learn more about him and everyone else. I also hope the novel gets licensed. I would love to read it.

The animation, character designs, sound design, everything for this show for me is A++. Plus I love the opening and ending songs. There’s something about Reset that I find especially poignant. It’s been stuck in my head since I watched the third episode last night.
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AksaraKishou



Joined: 16 May 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 9:58 am Reply with quote
I'll be honest, this season has quite a few "good" show's, but this is the one i look forwards the most out of them all.
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Merida



Joined: 21 Feb 2012
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:03 am Reply with quote
Quote:
He hits the jackpot with Kakeru, a clearly troubled student who zooms past Haiji while robbing a convenience store.


He might be troubled, still that looked a lot more like shoplifting than actual robbery to me...

I'm enjoying this quite a bit, though i'm firmly with Akane and his t-shirt when it comes to running. I don't mind Haji's "intimidation tactics", it's not like the guys couldn't back out any time. We don't even know if they really would get kicked out of the dorm if they refused to run ( i seriously doubt that to be honest). So it's not really Haji's fault that most of them are either too gullible or too horny (or both in the case of the twins). Laughing
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:09 am Reply with quote
Decent but mixed bag. The portraying Haiji behavior as little more then benign extortion is definitely a problem for me, and it's hard to see why it actually work when it's clearly illegal (I reckon him running a dorm using club house itself is illegal). But he's a fun character so it's not too bad. Kakeru is just really boring now and I wish he wasn't in the show, his whole "dark pass" thing just clash with the more easy going vibe the show has.

And yeah the elephant in the room is really that it's completely unrealistic to expect them to be able to qualify and honestly kinda insulting to people who take running seriously "You've been training for years to get this results but even a couch potato could do the same with just a bit of training". I know it's not going to happen but I'd find it hilarious if they resorted to using massive amount of drug and steroid to get the results. Laughing
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Oggers



Joined: 29 Nov 2017
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 12:07 pm Reply with quote
I get why Haiji's manipulation tactics wouldn't set well with some people, and I agree with the points about how he uses Hanako to motivate the other guys to run, but aside from that, I'm actually enjoying this show quite a lot so far. Looking forward to seeing where it goes!
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BVerfG



Joined: 23 Oct 2015
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 12:51 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
Decent but mixed bag. The portraying Haiji behavior as little more then benign extortion is definitely a problem for me, and it's hard to see why it actually work when it's clearly illegal (I reckon him running a dorm using club house itself is illegal). But he's a fun character so it's not too bad. Kakeru is just really boring now and I wish he wasn't in the show, his whole "dark pass" thing just clash with the more easy going vibe the show has.


How is it clearly illegal? Without knowing too much about the japanese laws none of what is portrayed strikes me as anything close to that. Running a club house as a dorm might very well be intended, e.g. to provide club members with cheap housing as a perk of club membership. So if you're not a club member that might very well be a requisite to being elligible for said subsidized housing. Therefore "threatening" someone with eviction if he isn't in the club would be a-okay. The only thing that seems unusual is that they apparently moved in without knowing. But they might not have read the fine print, which isn't illegal in and of itself.

Every other technique he employed is based on perceived social obligations and bribary, so all clearly in the legal column.

Anyhow I don't much understand why anyone has a problem with it. It's played for laughs. The worst that could happen to them is that they would have to find another dorm. Hardly cruel and unusual punishment.

Putting that aside I like the show, but it sure likes its bathhouse shots, so it might as well come with the tagline "Cute guys: Running edition".
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 4:55 pm Reply with quote
BVerfG wrote:
How is it clearly illegal? Without knowing too much about the japanese laws none of what is portrayed strikes me as anything close to that. Running a club house as a dorm might very well be intended, e.g. to provide club members with cheap housing as a perk of club membership. So if you're not a club member that might very well be a requisite to being elligible for said subsidized housing. Therefore "threatening" someone with eviction if he isn't in the club would be a-okay. The only thing that seems unusual is that they apparently moved in without knowing. But they might not have read the fine print, which isn't illegal in and of itself.


There's a reason a landlord can't write in small print "The person who signed this agreed to give me a millions dollar" and then claim 1 millions dollars of the person. Contract have to pertain to the activity there about. A lodging contract would be about lodging, so something like a damage fee or something like that would make sense in it. But participating in a marathon is clearly outside the scope of lodging.

As far as running a dorm, that I'm less sure of but I doubt the university would be okay with club sub-letting the room given to the club for club purpose. Otherwise you'd get a bunch of fake club being created just for the purpose of getting free room to rent, that'd be crazy lucrative. Also there's a bunch of building code requirement that club room would likely not respect. Student housing is already in very high demand, I doubt the university would just build a dorm and then give it to a club, at most they could reserve some room from the dorm to be given to the club member as a priority.

And the problem is exactly that it's played for laugh. This is extortion, plain and simple, you could have a similar situation where a landlord put in small print "the person has to work 20 hour every week in my sweatshop" and threaten the person with eviction, after they payed for all there furniture to be moved, unless they work for free. Preying on the less fortunate ignorance of there rights. This is no laughing matter.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 5:32 pm Reply with quote
Merida wrote:
He might be troubled, still that looked a lot more like shoplifting than actual robbery to me...

Yeah, robbery requires some sort of intimidation or violence. They probably wouldn't even arrest him for lifting a sandwich, just make him pay for it.

Lauren wrote:
Haiji has covertly been scouting if not talent, at least warm bodies capable of forward motion.

In Akane's case, I'm not even sure he scored that much. Very Happy

@meiam: All this was covered in the first episode. The dorm is the officially registered training camp for the club, the coach lives there, the rental agreement was the club membership application, and the sign out front identified the place for what it was. If no one noticed any of that, it's on them.

In Japan it's not unusual to have training dorms for athletes (e.g., see Ace of Diamond, which is merely high school level). When you leave the team, you leave the dorm. Don't you think Japanese readers/viewers would be rolling their eyes at this if it were as egregious a departure from reality as you seem to think it is? It probably wouldn't have gotten past the editorial stage before someone flagged it as "no one will believe this, it's too unrealistic."

So in the immortal words of Joel Robinson, "...repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"

I'm really enjoying the hell out of this series. Every once in a while, I'll get a bad flashback to Ballroom because of the character designs, but the Haikyuu!! look pulls me back from the edge right away, so it's all good. For me this is the best of all the new shows (at least until KyoAni's archery boys take the stage in a few days).
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 7:15 pm Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:

@meiam: All this was covered in the first episode. The dorm is the officially registered training camp for the club, the coach lives there, the rental agreement was the club membership application, and the sign out front identified the place for what it was. If no one noticed any of that, it's on them.

In Japan it's not unusual to have training dorms for athletes (e.g., see Ace of Diamond, which is merely high school level). When you leave the team, you leave the dorm. Don't you think Japanese readers/viewers would be rolling their eyes at this if it were as egregious a departure from reality as you seem to think it is? It probably wouldn't have gotten past the editorial stage before someone flagged it as "no one will believe this, it's too


Like I said I don't know much about the law and custom in japan, I'd find it scandalous if my university was just giving away building for dorm of specific club but maybe it's accepted (getting lodging at my university is really hard because demand is so high). But could a club who's literally not done a single thing in at least 4 year really keep it's building? Wouldn't the university at least ask for some token participation? I know at my university every year every club/association need to do a full report of there activities and room are in such high demand that even very active one often have to vacate just because the needs are so high.

As far as being on them, again that's not that simple. They could easily claim that Haiji didn't have the sign up, or covered the important part (10 of them missed it despite coming and going every day). He obviously never mentioned it, despite some of them being there for years at this point. And the activity never came up, despite them supposedly being an active club. I think if he tried to evict them they could very easily not only get exempt from the eviction but Haiji would be the one in trouble for it.

I would ignoring it, and I could easily, if it wasn't for the serious part of the show. It's hard to take a show seriously, like the stuff with Kakeru and his coach demand when the rest of the show operate on "don't think about it" logic.
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NeedMoreCats
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Joined: 06 Oct 2018
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Location: Westchester, NY
PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 10:46 pm Reply with quote
I love this show. So far, it's my favorite of the season. I loved it right from the start: Kakeru running in the dark with just his breathing and footfalls for sound.

I think the animation, color palette and character design are all top-notch. Throughout the show, the running is fluid and beautiful. Everyone has a unique look—there's no confusion over who's who in the core cast.

@rahzel rose: I, too, am loving Reset, the ending song.

I really dig the humor. Enjoyed all of Haiji's strong-arm tactics (because, you know, it's just a show)—especially repeatedly taunting Akane with moving boxes, and that whole scene with Musa's boss (friend for life!). I watched it a second time and laughed all over again. Also gotta kick out of how the boys all put their bowls down in unison when they realized their delicious meal was really a sneaky bribe.

I also like that all the students—except for poor Akane—have athletic backgrounds of one sort or another so they're not quite going from "couch to 5k" (perhaps shrinking the so-called elephant in the room?). I guess we'll see how realistically training progresses.

I just loved how Haiji threw the gauntlet down to Kakeru at the end of episode 1, clearly saying "I know exactly who you are." That was a thrilling moment. I'm looking forward to getting the full story behind Haiji's knee surgery and Kakeru's (apparently) unpleasant high school track and field experience.

Can't wait to see how it all unfolds, so excited to hear we get two couers.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
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Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:55 pm Reply with quote
I'm not a big fan of most sports anime, so I don't know if I'll stick around for the whole marathon, but the first 3 eps were fun. Besides, Akane's running look almost changes the genre to zombie anime! Very Happy

@meiam, while I agree that no one realizing that this dorm is actually the training camp of the track and field club for years is a bit ridiculous, having discounted room & board for a specific club on a college campus is not (they're paying 30,000 yen in rent a month, about $300).

Anyway, if it were illegal, you could bet law student-kun would sue!

So, does Nico-chan have to give up smoking? Do they have nicotine patches in Japan? (I love how they draw a picture of a cigarette on the chore chart instead of writing his name).
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MiloTheFirst



Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 429
PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 5:01 pm Reply with quote
I am enjoying this show quite a bunch. thougg I am seriously concerned about how they will even qualify for the hakone without a time skip of at least 2 years. running 10k in less than half an hour is a level quite above being a pro sportsman, leave alone just having an athletic bacground, you gotta be a specialised runner.

the whole issue with the thread of eviction due to "leaving the club" didn't seem all that unrealistic to me, neither did the fact of an university not having taken away a run down building from an inactive club that is couched by a track and field legend that migh as well be on such university's pension pay roll. I am guessing such missmanadgment of campus real state would be unthinkable in america but it would surprise you guys how different the rest of the world manage its university funding, I think only in the USA full profit colleges where a student pays $ 60k a year only so that the managment can unilaterally decide to build facilities in order to atract yet more future student looking for a 3 year resort is the norm instead of the exception. in most rest of the world, the students are only required to pay for tuition and most everything else is optional, so if a college is having a run down low rent apartment building that only lodges club members, you might aswell be sure that it isn't being maintained by everyone else's student fees. you can draw the rest of the picture easily, at some point track and field was huge so the university build the team what is pretty much a shack, then the fad passed out and the managment doesn't even want to spend the money needed to turn down the building so might as well let it pay for its own maintainance (or lack there of). the guys in here aren't taking scarce subsidised lodeging away from anyone because pretty much no one else wants to live there, they only do because they are either too cheap or too poor (not that there is anything inheritly wrong with either of those). the only real suspension of disbelief is that not one of them cared to properly read their application form
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rahzel rose
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Joined: 19 Apr 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:03 pm Reply with quote
RwtW has definitely become my favorite show of the season. I've actually started preordering the Japanese blu-rays because I love it so much, and I've had Reset on repeat non-stop since last week. I still like all of the characters, and the animation and sound are still excellent. It was nice to get some insight into what has brought Kakeru to where he is today. With Japan's culture of not being the one to stick out, I can only imagine how rough the rest of his high school career was after his coach essentially turned everyone against him.

Akane's outburst was certainly a highlight too since he's normally so quiet and passive. His passing out directly after also cracked me up. Hang in there, Akane! But for me the other highlight was Haiji. He's just a great guy? The fact that he's essentially been bouncing in place next to Akane for a week (for what was probably close to an hour or so the first couple of times) when he could have just left him behind or given him grief is really heartwarming. He is genuinely encouraging and wants everyone to run and do their best and he's going to stick with them without any judgement. I am very much looking forward to getting to his story.

I'm really glad this show is two cours.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:16 am Reply with quote
This series is kinda like watching Bob Ross paint. You think you know what the picture is going to look like, but then he slaps on some more paint and changes the whole scene. We've gotten the story of the shoplifting incident three times now, but instead of feeling repetitive, each time it's from a slightly different angle, with emphasis on different details that gradually build a different image than was at first apparent. They've been doing a similar slow reveal of Kakeru's past issues. It's really impressive, in a vaguely Rashomon sort of way.

Ouji-sama might be my favorite character now. Haiji's pretty fascinating too, but we've already seen darker hints of what lies behind his affable, wide-eyed-innocent face, so no trusting him until he lays more of his cards on the table. Very Happy
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BVerfG



Joined: 23 Oct 2015
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:27 am Reply with quote
meiam wrote:

There's a reason a landlord can't write in small print "The person who signed this agreed to give me a millions dollar" and then claim 1 millions dollars of the person. Contract have to pertain to the activity there about. A lodging contract would be about lodging, so something like a damage fee or something like that would make sense in it. But participating in a marathon is clearly outside the scope of lodging.

[...]

And the problem is exactly that it's played for laugh. This is extortion, plain and simple, you could have a similar situation where a landlord put in small print "the person has to work 20 hour every week in my sweatshop" and threaten the person with eviction, after they payed for all there furniture to be moved, unless they work for free. Preying on the less fortunate ignorance of there rights. This is no laughing matter.


I dont wanna highjack this thread for a discussion that is entirely besides the point, but your interpretation of fine print - if it was that - pertains only to a very limited number of jurisdictions. It is not a general principle. The general principle is that if you sign a contract youre bound by it (pacta sunt servanda) and only if what is asked of you is illegal or violates certain principles you are free of your obligation. One of those principles in some jurisdictions is "surprising clauses" in so called fineprint. Thats not universal though and might not be a thing in Japan. Anyway it wouldnt say run a marathon, but be a member of the track team. And why that might be okay, i already explained. That you have a social welfare concern with it, doesnt make it close of oviously illegal.

Also it is not extortion. Just like a landlord demanding you pay rent or move out is not extortion. If they agreed to additional services being rendered as part of the rent - manynappartments used to demand cleaning services etc at least in my part of the world - that is also grounds for termination if those services arent rendered. Your comparison is way off base. They either are club members and can stay in subsidized housing or theyre not and all that happens to them is moving out. Neither the threatened "punishment" nor the goal of the threat nor their conjunction is reprehensible, although obviously legal spheres may differ. To me at least there is quite the difference between a 20 hour a day sweat shop and a track club. So that might be extortion in your legal sphere, but it clearly isnt in mine and I dont know if it is in Japan. It certainly isnt obviously illegal.

This weeks episode was a little too angsty for my taste. I guess the show is getting more serious but I waa enjoying the more lighthearted comedic moments.
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