I am not athletic by nature, and to double down a bit I really really hate sports. Watching them, playing them, the whole she-bang. Running has always been a task for me, I remember in middle school and high school in gym classes we’d have to run “the mile”, and my friends and I would try and get away with just walking. Some years we’d have a coach that would accept this and let us get by with passing marks, others would push us to run and it would be sheer misery.

Now for the true to life moment of sadness. 3 years ago, my Dad died. I’ve had a treadmill collecting dust in my house for years. I weighed 190 pounds, which doesn’t seem like much, but it was overweight for my body type, and coupled with the fact that my Dad died with extremely high blood pressure, and heart issues, I decided to get on that treadmill, starting slow, and make myself, maybe not a super athletic runner, but someone who could do it. I’m still not great, my legs still itch it I take a day or two off, but I did manager to lose 40 of those pounds, and managed to mostly keep them off.

Why do I mention this?

Run With the Wind Follows Haiji, Haiji IS a runner. This dude LIVES to run. But his dream is to run an iconic race called the Hakone with his friends, unfortunately, he doesn’t have many willing friends to run with him. He begins by convincing his dorm-mates to begin running with him, with the eventual goal of doing the race. He does this with small events, and eventually making it to the main event.

Watching Run With the Wind was interesting. I had no one in my life like Haiji, but I could connect with the desire to inject purpose into my life by tying it into an event much like Haiji and his group of friends and dorm-mates tried to do with the race. The characters felt reasonably realistic and the show had a nice slice of life vibe that I enjoyed. The 23 episodes went by at a clip because of the connection I was able to forge with it.

Sentai presents the series in a very solid 1:78:1 1080p transfer. Everything looks solid with nice detail. Audio is presented with DTS-HD 2.0 tracks in English and Japanese. Extras include clean opening, clean closing, promos, and trailers. RECOMMENDED.