天下制覇

If you can believe it, this is Gonzo’s underhyped show for the season behind Bokurano, Seto no Hanayome and of course, Romeo x Juliet. Is our flame haired huntress actually decent? Even outside just being stuck in a Gonzo show?

It starts off decently enough, with Ayane exterminating a spider monster, though the CG effects were a bit cheesy. The wind wastes no time in going straight for the skirts while Ayane yells how she hates it. The Shana vibes are a bit powerful right there.

Yagami Kazuma (subtle name…), our protagonist and wind master comes back to a few people who are a bit surprised to see him. While they’re trading verbal jabs and the like, a spirit appears which torches the house after flame boy attacks him and Kazuma uses his power of bad CG to blow out the flames and then carve up the spirit.

Back to Ayane, a young boy (didn’t catch his name) tells her that Kazuma has returned, but she doesn’t really remember him too well. Flame boy from before is in their house and they all discuss Kazuma and his new wind powers.

Cut to the next morning and Kazuma is waking up from a dream of being trained in the past. He feels a spirit and jumps to the window, but there’s nothing.

Back to Ayane’s house and Team Flame is discussing black magic and other oh so interesting things going on. Kazuma realizes that they’re following him and the spies report back.

Ayane and a couple grunts are tailing Kazuma in a car when they all get out and start to chase down Kazuma. Ayane immediately gets trapped in some form of wind barrier. The grunts catch up to Kazuma while Ayane summons her flame sword and tries to attack the barrier to no effect. Kazuma shows off that he knew they were following him by attacking a still hidden spy. He then effortlessly tosses them aside when they try to attack him.

A moment later, a spirt appears behind him and attacks, missing him, but collapsing the structure on the grunts, killing them. Ayane comes in at this point and attacks him despite his protestations of innocence. He pretty effortlessly deflects all of her attacks too before teleporting away while Ayane is apparently more concerned with her skirt than following him.

The short answer to the question of “Is this good?” is “God only knows.” Gonzo does such a good job of pitching series, that even if they amaze and impress you, it’s hard to tell how things are going to go. Not that I’m bitter about Speed Grapher or NHK or Samurai 7 or… I digress.

Unfortunately, Kaze no Stigma doesn’t really even meet those Gonzo standards. It’s nowhere near as much of a Shakugan no Shana knockoff as the promo artwork would suggest, but at the same time, it doesn’t really do much to sell itself either. It’s well-enough animated, although the artwork flops around quite a bit and Ayane’s face seems to gain angles and lose them.

At the end of the show, my main thought was “wow, this was really generic,” followed quickly by “Wow Gonzo… I guess this is where you were getting the money you’re using for RxJ from.” The two fights were decent, but nothing that impressed me either. Had it not been for the cheesy CG sparks, I would have thought it was JCStaff doing them by the utter lack of any kind of choreography.

For now, I guess if you had really been looking forward to this, there’s enough to like to keep the pre-show fans interested, but I don’t think there’s enough to attract those on the fence. Ayane and Kazuma are just way too stereotypical thus far and the whole impetus for the series is just the The Fugitive plotline which we’ve already seen fifty times over, and there’s little in the episode that led me to think that it would rise above Kazuma acting aloof and brooding while Ayane is a good little tool. It’s basically like a slightly more mature Naruto in that sense I guess. And at this point it’s 2:00 am and I’m rambling. Thank you and good night!