Koi Kaze

Koi Kaze is a sweet but positively heart-wrenching series. Every moment of it hurts. Every scene that should be beautiful is tinged with sadness. Everything that should be right is wrong.

And it's amazing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Long story short, Koi Kaze is about forbidden - absolutely impossible - love, and how two people deal with themselves, each other, and the world around them when faced with it. In essence, it's about something completely horrible when observed from the outside, but that feels more perfect than anything else in the world to the people involved in it.

Koushirou is a 27-year-old guy who lives with his dad in the city and works at a company that plans weddings. He has never been particularly capable of managing his feelings, nor able to really connect with anyone else on any truly significant level. His girlfriend recently broke up with him because he had not been able to commit to her in the way that she wanted. While he is upset by this, he seems to be taking it in stride, as he apparently was never able to invest much in the relationship anyway.

Nanoka is a 15-year-old girl who is moving to the same city to reduce the commute time to her new high school. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and she has been living with her mother in a town about an hour away since then. However, she is now moving back in with her father, as he lives much closer to the school. Nanoka is charming and outgoing and pretty, but nevertheless was recently rejected by a boy she had liked for a very long time. She is still in pain over the loss, and wishes she could just discard the feelings she carries for him.

Koushirou and Nanoka meet by chance one day when she drops her train pass on a platform and he returns it to her. They both feel something unusual in the moment that they first meet, but they part soon afterward. However, another chance meeting later on leads the two into an impromptu date when Nanoka asks Koushirou to pass the time with her while she waits for a meeting with her father. The two go to a nearby amusement park and end up on the ferris wheel, where Nanoka tells Koushirou about being rejected by the boy, and about how she wants to toss her feelings away. In response, Koushirou tells Nanoka that he and his girlfriend have just broken up, and that he's not sure that he ever loved her in the first place. He says that a love as straightforward and simple as what Nanoka feels is something that should be treasured, even if things can't work out the way that she wants. Realizing that these are his true feelings about love and that he has not ever loved anyone from the bottom of his heart, Koushirou breaks down and cries in front of Nanoka. Comforting him, she gently places her hand on his head.

And in that moment, the two fall in love.

They don't know it right away, but over time they both come to understand that the feelings they have for each other are romantic, real, and world-shattering.

Now, I mentioned that this show is about forbidden love. The fact that Koushirou is 27 and Nanoka is only 15 is enough to make many people squirm. But the legal marrying age in Japan is 16, and massive-age-difference stories aren't all that uncommon.

No, the true taboo here is something much greater. Something that is a truly insurmountable obstacle. Something that will bring the two doubt, confusion, pain, self-loathing, and even contemplations of suicide. Something that very few viewers of the show will be able to condone, or even forgive.

You see, after Koushirou and Nanoka get off the ferris wheel, they meet with her father.

Who also happens to be Koushirou's father.

The two haven't seen each other since their parents separated, when Nanoka was still in diapers, and did not recognize each other when they met.

The two are brother and sister, and they love each other more than anything in the universe.

Koushirou recognizes his feelings first, and hates himself for them. His horror at the implications of his thoughts causes him to attempt to distance himself from Nanoka, but no matter how hard he tries to shut her out her kindness and his feelings always end up winning in the end. Regardless, he is unable to accept how he feels and tries to run away from it at every opportunity.

Nanoka, for her part, eventually realizes that she feels the same way about Koushirou, and - in her youthful naivety - is much more accepting of her love. As a result, she fights to get close to Koushirou, even as he tries his best to stay away.

What follows is a story of continuous heartbreak, both for the characters involved and for the viewer. Both Koushirou and Nanoka know their love is wrong, but neither can deny how powerful it is. By the same token, most people who watch the show won't be able to understand how the two could feel the way they do, but in the end it's difficult not to sympathize with them and share their pain.

The journey to the conclusion of this series is not an easy one, and I wouldn't recommend it to many people. However, the story is so profound and the very touchy subject matter so carefully handled that I must give the show my approval and respect.

It doesn't hurt that the art design is lovely (especially for anything related to Nanoka), that the music is great (you even get Masumi Itoh during the end credits!), and that the show is professionally produced on every level (though the animation is obviously low-budget).

It also helps that the voice performances are perfect, with moments of pure humanity that are rare even in anime. Kenta Miyake completely inhabits his role as Koushirou, not only voicing his wildily flailing emotions with honesty and power, but also giving him some offhand grunts and other minor vocalizations that really make the viewer feel as if there's a microphone in the secne with Koushirou sometimes. Yuuki Nakamura makes for an ideal Nanoka too, despite this being her first major voice role and the fact that she wasn't a whole lot older than Nanoka when the show was made.

If the production wasn't so lovingly done, if the story wasn't so carefully balanced, if the conflict wasn't so real, it would be easy to dismiss Koi Kaze as something made for shock value, or - even worse - fetish material or a justification of incest. However, it is none of those things. It is a story about a situation that is inconceivable to most of us, but that can and does happen, and how it can tear apart the people involved. It's a story about two people who want nothing more than each other, despite how wrong that wanting might be.

The show never avoids asking the difficult questions, and isn't afraid to leave them unanswered. Is Nanoka's love for Koushirou just a simple infatuation? Are the feelings the two have for each other simply the result of genetic sexual attraction, wherein two siblings who didn't grow up together can come to love each other because each contains traits that they see in their parents and in themselves? Nanoka has some of their mother's personality, after all, and Koushirou obviously has issues about losing his mother when he was a kid. The patting on the head thing that attracted Koushirou to Nanoka in the first place was something that his mother used to do to comfort him. That may not be so creepy if it was another girl, but it's unnervingly Oedipal when Nanoka does it.

Furthermore, is Koushirou just not doing his duty as an adult or as an older brother? Shouldn't he act responsibly and cut things off with Nanoka? He's old enough to know that she would eventually be able to move on without him, no matter how much it hurt her in the near future. Is he, in fact, a huge loser? We see him sniffing Nanoka's underwear and alternating between bouts of masturbation and self-loathing. He's got some real Shinji moments during the story, which do not instill confidence that he is a well-adjusted person.

Would it really be possible for the two of them to be happy together, even if they decided to try? Is there any place in society where they could fit in? Would they have to spend the rest of their lives lying to everyone around them?

How would their parents react if they found out?

We never really get the answers to these difficult questions. What we do know is that Koushirou and Nanoka feel a love that is more powerful than anything they have ever felt when they are together. It's something that elevates them. Something that completes them. Something that neither of them wants to give up, even if it means descending into taboo and separating themselves from the rest of society. Regardless of anything else, their love is something that seems true to them.

It would be easy for the show to gloss over the real issues and play up the romantic aspects of the story, but in not doing so it makes itself into something far more meaningful than it might have otherwise been.

While most viewers will not be able to relate directly to Koushirou and Nanoka's situation, many will recognize the feelings of true love and the sacrifices one can be willing to make for it. This show should be seen by as many people as possible, because it really is that good. However, much of its potential audience will never be able to connect with it, or worse, ever even consider watching it. And that is a shame, as love stories this beautiful and impactful are rare in any medium.

Score: 8/10 (Don't Miss It). I know that a lot of people just won't be able to watch this series, but if not for the taboo subject matter it would be recommended viewing due to its quality alone.

P.S. and HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD SO DON'T READ THE REST OF THIS POST UNTIL AFTER YOU'VE SEEN THE SERIES!

I just have to mention something else that struck me as being unusual about the Koi Kaze. Basically, Koushirou and Nanoka do all of the things that you always wish the two leads would do in a show of this type. Nanoka is not at all shy about her feelings, and will go so far as to take Koushirou's hand when they walk, make him go on dates with her and ask if she can sleep in his bed with him. More significantly, when confronted with a perceived challenger for Koushirou's heart she firmly holds her ground, despite the fact that she is but a girl and the challenger is a mature woman who isn't, you know, Koushirou's sister. She puts her foot down in a way that many anime characters would not have the guts to, and that impressed me. She isn't Naru, I'll tell you that.

But there's more to it than that. By the end of the series, Koushirou and Nanoka have actually consummated their relationship (yes, really). How often does that happen in romantic anime? Pretty much never, is how often.

And that's what makes it all so hard. Koushirou and Nanoka are honestly a great couple with real chemistry, and they don't act like the morons that so often populate the genre of romantic anime. However, the inherent taboo about their relationship tinges everything they do with a dark hue of sadness. There were many moments during the show where I said to myself, "This would be one of the most rewarding scenes I've ever seen in a romantic anime series, if only...well...you know." That feeling of melancholy is important, though, I think, and it gives the story another layer that only makes it more significant.

The very fact that I'm thinking about Koi Kaze this much says a lot about how good it is. I really do love it, and as much as I feel that the relationship between Koushirou and Nanoka is a tragic one, I also just want them to be happy.

Personally, I think that's a sign of a great series.