Episode 9 of Wind Breaker, titled “Umemiya’s Style‘ begins with the aftermath of the intense battle between Jo Togame and Sakura Haruka.
Togame, having realized the error of his ways, decides to face Shishitoren leader Tomiyama directly. This sets the stage for the final confrontation between Choji Tomiyama and Hajime Umemiya, the leader of rival gang Bofurin.
The episode focuses on Umemiya’s perspective and his unique fighting style. Umemiya is known for his strategic approach to fights, often using his opponents’ weaknesses against them.
This is highlighted when he faces Tomiyama who has been portrayed as a ruthless and powerful leader, and points out, even though he has been hitting Umemiya many times, his fists don’t hurt.
That is because he has no strength to his punches, because he isn’t fighting for anything — in essence, pointing out that Tomiyama is weak and has no morals.
Tomiyama responds he doesn’t care, and he will just keep hitting Umemiya until he wins.
He then tries to do that but, as he thinks he got a direct hit that will knock Umemiya out, Umemiya responds by grabbing him and slamming his face into the stage floor.
Umemiya then gets up insisting he will keep going as he wants to be “free” and have fun. But when Umemiya asks him what free and having fun means, he responds by saying it is when he fights strong guys like him.
Umemiya, continuing to taunt Tomiyama, then tells him he doesn’t look like he is having fun. In fact, he looks empty as if he knows nothing about himself. Because of that, Umemiya pities him, and pities a gang that would have a leader like him.
This infuriates Tomiyama, who begins to randomly swing at Umemiya, until Umemiya swings hard and knocks Tomiyama across the stage shouting he needs to stop making the Shishitoren members look like they look now.
As if they belong to the worst gang in the world.
At this, Tomiyama has a mental breakdown (screenshot above), as he remembers how much fun being in Shishitoren used to be until every member he had fun with was kicked out of the group by himself.
A look at Tomiyama’s inner thoughts then has him admitting he is dead inside, while in the present day he loses all control, kicks at Umemiya and knocks him down.
He then jumps on top off Umemiya and starts to uncontrollably punch his face, while the other Bofurin members are appalled at what is going on — until, that is, Sugishita tells them to stop talking and just watch.
Umemiya then apologizes to Tomiyama for backing him into a corner, angering Tomiyama even more, and causing him to punch him again while biting him in the neck.
At this, Umemiya pats him on the head and tells him the answer to the pain he feels is in his own heart.
He also reminds him of the time Bofurin and Shishitoren ended up fighting each other because of a misunderstanding, but that they all ended up having fun while they fought.
He points out his fists felt heavier back then, while Tomiyama himself was much more of an amazing person than he is now.
He then asks him to remember what he had back then that he doesn’t have now, before headbutting Tomiyama and knocking him unconscious.
We then get a flashback of Tomiyama with his closest friends in Shishitoren, back before he became the gang’s leader, laughing and having fun.
But, as he turns around to shout for Togame, Togame is nowhere in sight and Tomiyama then finds himself in a dark space dreaming that he is all alone.
He wakes up to see Togame leaning over him looking concerned, and realizes he lost his fight with Umemiya.
He tells Togame he had a dream about the past where everyone was smiling, and he now realizes, if everyone else is smiling, he is happy too, and he tells Togame to smile.
Togame apologizes to him for taking everyone away from him, as he didn’t want the other gang members to hate Tomiyama.
He then explains the things that the Bofurin members said during their fights made him realize he should have confronted Tomiyama when he started kicking Shishitoren members out of the gang, rather than just letting him have his way.
In his turn, Togame insists everything was his fault because, when he became leader of Shishitoren and wasn’t having fun anymore, he blamed everyone else for his own failings.
It wasn’t Togame’s fault at all. It was his own fault for destroying everything. And he thanks Togame for protecting him.
Finally, Tomiyama gets up, walks over to Umemiya (see screenshot above) and hands him his Shishitoren jacket telling him, because he lost, the gang now belongs to Umemiya.
Of course, Umemiya tells him “Hell, no”, and insists the whole handing-over-your-gang to the person who wins the fight thing was never anything he agreed to.
In fact, having an even bigger gang to be responsible for would be a gigantic pain in the ass. So… let’s just be friends instead, eh?
Then he breaks up the tournament and tells everyone to go home.
And, while Windbreaker, Episode 9 was superb for its fight scenes and animation, the plot was one of the weakest of the season so far as we are supposed to believe a perfectly normal person turned into an absolute psycho just because he wasn’t having any fun.
Then, turned back to becoming a normal person with decent morals after he was beaten in a fight.
Meanwhile, Togame, feels bad and so takes the blame on himself when, in reality, the psychopath was the one to blame all along.
So disingenuous is the plot, and so badly written from a screenwriter who is usually brilliant (Hiroshi Seko — Vinland Saga, Jujutsu Kaisen, Twittering Birds Never Fly etc), after the episode ended it left me feeling more than a little cheated.
That being said, the anime is still one of the best of the season. If you can fast forward through the latter half of Wind Breaker, Episode 8.
Read the recaps of the prior episodes of Wind Breaker on Leo Sigh – Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4 , Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7 and Episode 8.
You can watch all nine episodes of Wind Breaker on Crunchyroll now.