After the events of the previous episode, this episode was more of an aftermath, in which the things that happened during the climax are resolved. The episode specifically focuses on stopping John to cut down the forest, and for Emily and John to make up again. John is quite the interesting character, and he never really was evil, it seems. He just doesn’t know how to control his anger, especially towards Elizabeth. After the things she said to him in the previous episode, he just had to retort somehow. And the only thing he could think of was cutting down the forest that belonged to him, even though this hurts Emily and Jimmy more than Elizabeth.

In fact, through the course of the episode, John keeps hoping for Emily to return to her. Emily, however, doesn’t know this, and is very busy with thinking up a plan to stop John somehow. It’s interesting how she doesn’t confront him directly, but goes to the local priest instead. This definitely shows how naive she still is, but then again, I wouldn’t suspect anything different from a poetic girl of her age.

Overall, this was more one of those heart-warming episodes than the exciting ones. Still, I found myself really liking it. I’m looking forward to the next episode, by the way, as something tells me that it’ll be the turn for either Perry, Teddy or Ilse to get fleshed out a bit. Kaze no Shoujo Emily definitely is the most underrated series of this season.

Okay, my prediction the episodes would alternate between each of the four main characters was wrong. This was pretty much an Emily-episode as well, but nevertheless, it was a beauty, mostly because of the introduction of another character: John. He lives in a cottage on the grounds of the farm of the new moon, though he seems to have managed to claim it as his own property. Furthermore, he hates Elizabeth; if I had to guess then he’s one of her younger brothers as well, though I’m not sure.

In any case, at first Emily easily becomes friends with him, due to the fact that they both hate Elizabeth. His impression of her also was truly brilliant. It’s not often that in anime, characters do impressions of each other, strangely enough. Still, it works great, especially when the more serious characters are copied. I can really understand why Emily almost couldn’t hide her laugh when she talked to Elizabeth later on.

On a side-note, by the way, the trees already looked great during the summer, but now that the autumn has arrived, they really look beautiful, with their wide ranges of colours.

Anyway, back to John, he may be a nice guy, he also goes too far at times, and he clearly doesn’t know when to stop when he plays a prank, by leaving a note near a basket of apples which says that these were meant to get rid of the mice. When Emily came to his house after having a fit with Elizabeth (which resulted in her, burning her own notebook), she ate these apples without noticing this note only after about a minute. Because of this, she really believed that she was going to die.

While Emily definitely was a bit annoying at this, I can definitely see a little girl getting tricked by this. Especially since Emily is overly poetic, and she already was really angry and lost sight of her emotions when she ate these apples. She’s really become a unique character. Most characters of her age in anime are totally different, and she really shows the difference between Japanese storytelling, where you often see characters act more polite, and western storytelling, where characters are more often to speak their minds.

Still, the best part was when everyone found out that Emily was going to die. Perry got extremely worried, while Elizabeth immediately understood that John played another prank of his. When Elizabeth went to his house and actually told him this, he never really realized that this was his fault, and he never thought of apologizing. All he did was yell at Elizabeth. I believe that with this episode, this anime really showed that it knows what it’s doing. I’m hooked; it’s just too bad that so little people are watching this as well, due to the lack of good subs… the fansubbers seem to have something against shoujo-anime…

Ah, the introductions are finally over, and now this anime can start building upon its characters. This episode was another great one, with unsurprisingly, the focus being aimed at Emily. The next one should focus on Perry, if the show is going to keep building on the same pattern, which will probably introduce his parents and their problems.

The current episode was really meant to flesh out Emily’s talents. We’ve seen her write, we’ve seen her get enthusiastic about it, but this episode shows that she actually has real talent, when she writes an entire two-person play for the school theatre-plays. Roda and her friends, who have been preparing a different story, take this too lightly and fail miserably. This episode also shows that Emily’s teacher doesn’t really fancy her as well.

Two more relationships got quite a bit of development as well. First of all, Ilse, who performs along with Emily in her play. It’s obvious that during the rehearsals, the two of them would get really close together, despite the few arguments that they have when Ilse doesn’t want to read the exact lines Emily wrote. Obviously, as a writer, you would get ticked off when you hear that. ^^;

The second is the relationship between Emily and her aunt. I like how she isn’t really evil. She just has different viewpoints, and her methods are a bit extreme. She just doesn’t approve of Emily writing, as she doesn’t see the use of it. In the end, she also tears up the paper that Emily wrote her play on. While the fact that the play couldn’t be read anymore, a day before the performance, wasn’t really that worrisome (Emily and Ilse knew their lines anyway), she did write it on the back of one of Teddy’s incomplete sketches. That probably was the biggest shock for Emily.

Still, Elisabeth did visit Emily and Ilse when they had to perform their plays. Yet, she never smiled, or showed any sign of appreciation. If I had to guess, then she’s trying to understand Emily in her own way. She’s trying to figure out why Emily continues to write. Perry, meanwhile, gets some nice practice in trying to read while coaching Emily and Ilse in their practices.

Short Synopsis: Teddy’s mother is very protective of her child, while Emily and Ilse keep trying to get her to let him play outside. Perry meanwhile, has never really learned to write
Good: Teddy and Perry.
Bad: Emily’s voice actress sounded a bit different in the beginning of the episode.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

This episode marks the end of the introduction of this anime, and it ends quite fitting with the positive part of the premise for the future episodes: Emily dreams of writing for her profession, Teddy wants to be an artist, Perry aims to become a politician and Ilse fancies to become an elocutionist (or a public speaker), and all four of them are already quite good at their desired professions.

I expected this episode to be about Teddy, but Perry gets fleshed out as well. During the first half of this episode, he gets his hands on one of Emily’s books, after making fun of her fantasizing. He came from a poor family, so his literate skills aren’t too good. He seems to be able to read, but he’s never learned to writ. That’s why he keeps practicing writing Emily’s name, which she wrote at the last page of the book. Because of this, he’s really getting respect for Emily, who already is able to write so well, and he apologizes to her, which already shows that the guy can take responsibility.

Still, the largest part of the episode was dedicated to Teddy, since it’s the first time we really see him. And I have to say that his case is another beauty. During the entire episode, we see no signs of his father, which suggests that he either disappeared, or died at a certain point of time. Because of that, Teddy is the only thing his mother has left, and she’s become overprotective of him over the years. She blatantly refuses to let him play along with Ilse and Emily, and Teddy catches her crying at night.

Obviously, Emily doesn’t just listen to her quietly, so she starts yelling at the woman for not letting Teddy do what he wants. I think it’s here where Ilse realizes that she wants to do the same thing. Unlike Perry, she decides that it’s better to just ignore Emily, and closes the door right in front of her face, running away from things. Luckily, Teddy isn’t stupid, and he manages to convince his mother to let him go (great scene, by the way).

Emily also got a small bit of airtime, when she attempts to read a book and Elizabeth takes it away from her. This’ll probably be quite a problem for the future, as Elisabeth can’t see why Emily would read for her own entertainment while she could study.

Overall, I love this anime so far. Each single character has his or her own problems, and so many people have different morals and views that they complement each other perfectly. It’s a shame that this series isn’t getting any attention (or heck, fansubs), as it’s definitely one of the best series to have aired this fall. :)

Short Synopsis: And the foursome is complete when Teddy gets introduced at the end of the episode. Emily, meanwhile, gets herself in quite a number of fights.
Good: Characters that are far, far away from stereotypes.
Bad: Some annoying moments.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

One thing I like about Kaze no Shoujo is that Emily really is a unique character. She’s especially different from all shoujo heroines, in the fact that she just keeps involving herself in fights. She’s new at her school, she tries to make friends, but she just can’t keep quiet when the different students try to pull jokes on her. This started the previous episode with Ilse, and this episode shows that first impressions aren’t always right. It’s surprisingly realistic, as I can imagine that especially children have problems with judging people and are often naive.

Ilse turns out to be a very similar girl to Emily, in the fact that she just likes to get into fights, but while Emily doesn’t forget or forgive people, she just doesn’t care that much, and actually acts nice just half an hour later. Obviously, the two of them become friends quickly. ^^;

I suspect that the next episode will be the introduction of Teddy, so that the fifth episode can really set this anime off, and introduce the different stories and backgrounds of the four children. I’ll be waiting for that, as they’re definitely interesting. The past few episodes have already showed that the tension in this anime can become pretty dense, especially in the fight between Emily and Ilse, and when Emily found out that her classmates have been deceiving her. There is no way for the later episodes to just stop getting interesting. :)

Short Synopsis: Ah, it seems that Emily will be living together with both Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle (?).
Good: Clashing personalities for the win.
Bad: The music seemed to be a bit too dramatic at times
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10

Now that I started comparing Seirei no Moribito with Wellber no Monogatari anyway, I also began to notice that Kaze no Shoujo bears some similarities to Les Miserables. Both feature a young girl, losing her parents, they’re both taken in with people whose personality clash hugely, and they’re both HUGELY underrated. Seriously, I can’t believe how little attention this anime is getting. It’s quite good.

I’m not sure though whether Emily can ever equal the brilliance of Les Miserables, bit it’ll be interesting to find out. In any case, Kaze no Shoujo is lighter in terms of storyline than Les Miserables. Still, that doesn’t mean that there were some dark parts in this storyline. I especially loved when Emily and Elisabeth had a conflict with one another, like when Elisabeth planned to cut Emily’s hair, or when she locked her in the room with all the scary paintings. She’s also not a totally evil bitch like Thenardier either, her personality and views just clash hugely with those of Emily.

So far, we’ve yet to see a lot of the cases of the other characters. Perry was present in this episode, though nothing was revealed about his background, other than that he’s often involved in dirty work. The end of the episode also introduced the third character, and so far, I love her. I’m looking forward to the cases of these different characters a lot, as according to Wikipedia, they seemed very interesting. :)