I’ve never seen any anime with the same art style as Fuujin Monogatari. I’ve also never seen an anime which nailed how cats look and move as perfectly as this series does. Most anime are content with just moeblobs and some poor voice actor doing a bad imitation of a meow, but not this show. Just look at them. Those are cats with character.
Our protagonist Nao was on the roof to take pictures of clouds when she saw that cat jumping off the roof and catching the wind, surprising her so much she falls off herself. It would be a short series had she not survived this and she was indeed saved by the teacher, Taiki-sensei, walking the school grounds who, like the cats, turns out to be a wind user. Nao isn’t the only one who knows this; there’s Ryouko, who has a habit of feeding the cat Nao found on the roof and who has learned a bit about using the wind from Taiki-sensei. Together with Nao’s friend Miki, the only other member of the Digital Camera Club and her boyfriend Jun, they start experimenting with wind manipulation.
Fuujin Monogatari is basically a Slice of Moe/Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show with no real overarching plot. The girls practise their wind powers and go on small adventures in and around the school using them. The wind magic itself is never explained, it just exist and some people can use it, most cannot. In one episode for example the girls meet a bunch of elementary school boys who also have these powers and use it to play kick the can. The closest show it reminded me of was Flying Witch, which also grounds its magic in the more mundane world surrounding it. Where it differs is that the wind magic of this series is far more random than is usual for anime. Normally there would be some shadowy magical organisation, or the magic is rooted in Japanese folklore and mythology, but here wind control just happens to be something some people and cats can do.
What makes Fuujin Monogatari from a good into an outstanding anime is ultimately its unique art style. This might have worked with a more generic art style, but not half as well. It’s not glossing up a somewhat dull premise with a lick of style; it’s the integration of the art style with the story and the world it takes place in, the way it works so well to depict wind that makes this great. Like the best Shaft anime, you cannot separate style from function.
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