The last volume of Koi Kaze goes into even more taboo territory than the previous volume.  The feelings and sexual longing between a two siblings comes to a head and the series ends in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

Koshiro is a 27 year old salary man working at a company that caters and arranges wedding parties.  He doesn't have a girl friend and still lives at home with his father who is divorced.  He and his father are enjoying living the lives of a couple of bachelors, until they discover that Koshiro's 15 year old sister is coming to live with them.

After work one day, Koshiro meets a young high school girl.  Having a pair of tickets to an amusement park, he invites the girl, Nanoka, to spend some time with him and she agrees.  The two have a fun time, and both admit to each other that they've had a hard time with love.  After the rides, Koshiro takes Nanoka to where she is supposed to meet her father, and much to his surprise, Koshiro's father picks her up!  It turns out that Nanoka is Koshiro's younger sister.  Their parents were divorced many years ago, and Koshiro hasn't seen his sister since they were children.

The problem is that Koshiro has become attracted to the Nanoka.  Both emotionally and sexually.  The fact that she feels the same way about him just makes it harder for Koshiro to ignore his feelings.

As this volume opens up, things come to a head.  Koshiro is tortured by the physical love he feels for his little sister, so he moves out before anything can happen.  The last night he is at home, Koshiro and Nanoka promise each other that they won't see each other ever again.  She is crushed since she's in love with him too.

Though he's out of the house, Koshiro still has strong feelings about his sister.  He buries himself in work, but that doesn't make him forget how much he loves her.  He isn't dating, and has no interest in girls anymore.  His life is totally miserable.  When Nanoka shows up on his door one afternoon though, he's overcome with joy.  Just seeing her puts him on cloud nine, and she feels the same way about him.  Why shouldn't they be together?

This is a very slow and deliberately paced program.  I don't have anything against that, I like slow moving anime shows, but this one is just a little too creepy for me.  An adult smelling the underwear of a 15 year old girl and  masturbating while thinking of her is bizarre enough, but when the girl is his sister, that makes it really sick.

Even if you can look past that, this wasn't the greatest series.  I couldn't relate to any of the characters.  They spend a lot of this volume declaring their love for one another, but I couldn't see it.  Why was Koshiro so attracted to his sister?  Because they spent one nice afternoon together?  That didn't seem very realistic, especially when he knows that he's breaking a lot of taboos.  It was even harder to see things from Nanoka's point of view.  Koshiro treated her like crap most of the time, yelling at her and berating her, but she seemed to find that endearing.

I kept on wondering what these two siblings have in common.  What would they talk about when they are lounging around the house?  They don't seem to have any hobbies or interests in common.  They didn't show them getting along, just sitting quietly on the train.

The ending didn't give a feeling of closure either.  There was still a lot that was left unresolved, and though they end on a happy note, you get the feeling that this happiness is very fleeting and will end all too soon.  All in all, this was just a very odd show.

Audio:

This disc has both the original stereo Japanese soundtrack and an English dub in stereo.  I alternated tracks while viewing the show, and thought they were both fine.  The show is mainly speech based, and both tracks did a good job of presenting the dialog.  While there wasn't much use made of the soundstage, there wasn't any audio defects either.  The background music was clean and crisp, and it was reproduced well.  A nice sounding disc, even if the soundtrack wasn't exciting and dynamic.

Video:

This show is presented with a nice anamorphically enhanced widescreen image.  The picture was sharp and clean, with no aliasing or other digital defects worth mentioning.  The show uses a lot of earth tones which are not bright and flashy but it gives the program a more realistic feel.  This fits the tone of the show very well, and the transfer does the color scheme justice.  A nice, if not flashy, looking show.

Extras:

This disc also features two clean endings along with the original Japanese ending.  There is also Bear's Mini-theater, which retells the whole show, episode by episode with two teddy bears and does it in a tad over three minutes.  This was pretty cute, and wonderfully irreverant.

Final Thoughts:

I have to admit that my jaw was on the floor during some scenes.  The show does more than imply that a sexual relationship between a 15 year old girl and her 27 year old brother was okay.  The show is creepy in that respect, and I can see where that would turn a lot of people off.  If you can look past that, the show still isn't all that engaging.  I could never really see the character's motivations for what they did.  After all was said and done, this series went in a totally different direction than I expected.  I can't really say that I liked it, though I'm not sorry I watched it.  Rent it.