Nao is the president of her junior high school's digital photography club, which only has one other member: her best friend, Miki. She likes to take pictures of the clouds above the school from the roof top, although she claims she is trying to capture the wind.
One day she sees a strange cat, which appears to be able to fly in the sky. When she tries to take its picture she discovers a whole swarm of such cats, seemingly floating on air streams. The surprise makes her fall down from the roof, but before she can meet her demise she gets saved by the wind manipulation powers of her math teacher, Taiki-sensei. This is the beginning of a quest for the secret of the wind manipulation techniques, in which Nao and Miki are joined by Miki's boyfriend Jun and a girl called Ryoko, who also appears to master some wind manipulation herself.
Windy Tales (Japanese: Fuujin Monogatari,) produced by Production I.G and released in 2005 as a 13-episode anime, has a very easy-going pace and the wind manipulation powers of Nao, Miki, Ryoko and Taiki-sensei are used as a device to string along various stories about the significance of wind in people's personal lives. Of special note is the artwork, which is quite different from the Moe-influenced design of most other anime with its emphasis on slender girls and big eyes. The character designs in this show have an almost sketch-like and permanent Super-Deformed quality to them, but with some of the most expressive facial features ever.
For lovers of heartwarming Slice of Life shows, Windy Tales is highly recommended, especially with the top-notch Japanese voice acting in this series.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: Nao dreams that she and the other two girls manage to fly by combining their powers.
- Blow You Away
- Cats Are Magic: Every cat in the show seems to have wind manipulating powers.
- Cherry Blossoms: Which make for a great combination with wind manipulation powers.
- Coming of Age Story
- Cute Kitten: Dozens of them. And they fly.
- First Kiss: Miki makes a big deal out of Jun being kissed by a girl when he was just a baby.
- Furo Scene: Nao has few, but they're not particularly fanservice-y.
- Idol Singer: Nao's whole class applies for an idol audition. Nao makes it to trial photo shoots, but gets rejected after all. Her professional classmate Karin doesn't even make it that far, though.
- Iyashikei
- Kissing Discretion Shot: During Miki and Jun's kiss.
- Magic Skirt: Despite all the wind manipulation the girls pull off.
- Mistaken for Suicidal: When Nao accidentally falls off the school roof in the first episode, it's initially mistaken for a suicide attempt.
- Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: When Miki is telling Nao about her vision.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The girls have strange dreams, which turn out to be about the approaching snow.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The cats. And they fly.
- Sitting on the Roof: The school's roof plays an important part in the series.
- Slice of Life
- Time Skip: Nao and Miki are shortly shown first as high school students and then in college, living in dorms.
- Tsundere: Miki, to some degree.
- Two-Teacher School: Averted, since the school staff is not only realistically sized, but also plays an important part in the story.
- Weird Moon
- Weirdness Censor: You'd think that the hordes of flying cats would get some more attention — not to mention the girls who simply hop off the school's roof.
