Info
- Title:: Kaze no Naka no Shoujo: Kinpatsu no Jeanie
- TitleEN:: Kaze no Naka no Shoujo: Kinpatsu no Jeanie
- Studio:: Nippon Animation
- Year:: 1992
- Format:: series
- Episodes:: 52
Log
2018-11-25, 2019-07-18 – 2019-09-25
EP1 (– 2018-11-25?)
dunno if i’m gonna watch this or just mine it for imagery,
there’s a lot of sparkly shots of jeanie here to start with
and her in a parade.
also i’m not sure who this anime is supposed to be targeted to. it’s got rough and tumble, but also kirakira.
(also the amazing grace was pretty convincing until it went to “that saved a reetch”)
aw beans it was 1838 and nobody knew about germ theory.
the shot of moon and daylight is nice, and also the shot of eggs. i should try to find more like that, and like eggs.
EP2 – 2019-07-18
oops it’s eight months later and i should probably watch the anime i torrented.
…wait is this now somehow the chinese dub? (oh this mkv has three audio tracks: japanese, chinese, and italian. yet this was never released in the country that conceivably would care about this the most. maybe? or is it just me? am i the only one who cares about this?)
(probably not considering how i’ve seeded it fifty times over)
nice uh romantic slavery shot. it’s nice that they’re all just workers and the kid can play with everyone else.
unless they are all just workers since it looks like stephen grew up in the north. either way there still would’ve been a power imbalance and this ain’t great.
did stephen really make a bet where he’s the only one putting something on the line.
EP3 – 2019-07-19
the fansubbers, uh, didn’t take the literal route with this one. although its choices for where it deviates are strange. like sometimes it seems more like a paraphrase, but maybe that makes it sound more natural.
but like, when she’s talking about being the best cook, there’s something very gendered in there that gets left out. like jeanie wants to be a proper lady, or to be grown up perhaps.
jeanie is actually kind of a complex character. like i definitely feel like she’s putting on a front for her mother.
(also another black people carrying crops part)
also wow one line was completely changed when she’s talking with her mom at night.
and her death really came at a time. maybe the time when it would have hit hardest.
EP4
i like the idea of setting apart 12:00 – 1:00 a.m. as the anime hour for me, but i picked some bad episodes to play right before sleep.
the covered up piano kinda looking like a grave or shrine now is telling.
also robert is hilariously the worst.
the boys kinda are too, but in a way that’s understandable for children maybe.
and the resolution from her father is the right way to end it, i think.
EP5 – 2019-07-20
wherein stephen gets darvo’d at the tender age of eight.
jeanie is so kawaii.
“but this is impossible!” is a really really weird way to translate そうですね here. even if it is supposed to lead into the phrase at the end, it still feels unnaturally phrased that way.
jeanie is totally overcompensating here. she is absolutely trying to mature up to fill the hole left by her mother, and be the good little worker girl she needs to be (or feels like she needs to be).
how is “mammy” translated as “nell” here? (oh. i just replayed this section with the italian audio. this totally is translated from the italian dub!)
EP6 – 2019-07-24
for some reason i feel painfully lonely, and i think i’m losing my grip on the projects that have kept me going since then.
jeanie is a handful. but it makes sense! she feels like she needs to be an adult, yet has no idea how, and so goes about it in a rather childish way.
even though the whole premise of the show is as a dramatization of stephen foster’s life, making her story the focus was definitely the right decision. although damn she’s getting really beaten up in these few episodes.
i find it unrealistic that she would bounce back that quickly. these are the sort of events that’d totally ruin her, and yet she manages to come to a neat storybook resolution anyway.
EP7
wherein jeanie hops into a buggy without asking questions and gets kidnapped.
i think the italian dub added gender into the script, since murimuri gets translated to “not a game for girls.”
smhh kids just running around barefoot
diana is an interesting character here. she’s like a mom version of robert.
i enjoy the note-swapped happy birthday song here.
also jeanie being forced to swap her combat boots for ruby slippers is an interesting gender thing. (and the translation hints at that)
also with the red shoes from the ed now appearing in the show, i’m starting to think that these lyrics might be telling as to where this whole thing is going.
EP8 – 2019-07-25
stephen being a concerned side character is an interesting perspective to take with this.
also if that scrap of paper ends up starting a fire then jeanie might go in as most beaten up character for minor indiscretions.
wherein the white kids don’t fully understand the power relations going on here. mammy and bill staring at them all because she knows that if this white woman gets upset her ass is history.
and diana drops the lesson i was expecting that jeanie should really only have to concern herself with being a kid.
and then the shop goes up in flames because of the one time she decided to just be a kid and god damn that girl just cannot catch a break huh
EP9
at least the show isn’t brutal enough to make jeanie responsible for her schoolmate’s mother’s death.
also she’s such a millennial with how often she has to retreat to her safe space.
wherein jeanie learns that correlation is not causation.
there is something really nice about a community banding together to help a fellow family in need
EP10 – 2019-07-30
jeanie clocking stephen in the mouth with her head has to be one of the best moments so far.
diana straight up telling jeanie that her mother died with the cold hard shinda was also a very good moment. like, damn.
also jeanie’s irrational stubbornness is extremely childlike. this show is so well-written, but in a way that kinda hurts to watch.
and i guess this is the episode where freddy chooses horny over his daughter’s irrational wishes. it makes me wonder what’d happen if she left on the train, since then jeanie would know he abandoned her and he lost someone he loves again and nobody wins and this will all leave permanent scars, but since she didn’t leave it means everybody is going to have to confront and work through their issues.
maybe that’s sort of the unrealistic aspect of this show’s painful moments.
most of the time people don’t have what they need to stitch themselves back up, and the search for something that’ll do the job is what wrecks them.
EP11
wherein it is revealed that bill doesn’t go to school. the caucasity of the school room should’ve tipped me off earlier but i wanted to believe.
also the dentist being a bro here. i love the dentist.
also for this show ostensibly being about stephen, he’s kind of a heel.
…
ok, jeanie suddenly having a brain blast and making the “right choice” is incredibly unrealistic. like, she’s already proven herself to be rather stubborn… but also fickle…
EP12 – 2019-07-31
stephen vs. the boy she told you not to worry about
holy shit it really is! even with the glasses flash and everything.
my guess here is that stephen also thinks that thomas also wrote the song he played.
also i think this is the first stephen-focused episode, and while it isn’t a great look for him, with him potentially leaving it’ll be interesting to see who the show focuses on.
EP13 – 2019-08-01
i like how it flirted with serious class issues and then decided to buy in as soon as it became uncomfy. everyone’s just getting sorted into the places they’re expected to fill in life, and honestly stephen’s the only one trying to find some resistance in it.
i swear if he burns that building dow… oh.
why can’t any of these kids fuckin catch a break
at least the ending was proper heartwarming
i wonder what separates this from other sorts of iyashi anime. is it somehow too sentimental? is there too much drama?
EP14 – 2019-08-03
oh no robert’s getting shipped to new york.
wherein a black kid has a gun pointed at him and the white kids don’t understand how it could be a threat.
also wherein we meet my new supercrush (or i shouldn’t say that about a kid. i just like her hair.)
there’s some real interesting underlying class issues going on here, what with jeanie sorta being this white savior wannabe here who doesn’t grasp her privilege. like even the idea of self-sufficiency kinda rocked her, as well as seeing everybody working on a sunday.
also is it me or is jeanie’s face longer? like she’s maturing.
EP15 – 2019-08-05
i still find it amusing how different the sound quality is for the animal noises.
also wherein jeanie sticks her finger in the milk rag and is surprised when the animal with teeth bites it. but then the power of cute white girls and sentimental anime tames the animal.
i think that the moral here is gonna hinge on the parallel between diana and jeanie, and jeanie and the fox.
you know, i gotta say that a good chunk of this anime’s tension stems from train schedules.
EP16 – 2019-08-07
it’s cool how they were only able to license a few of his public domain songs.
freddy is low-key an interesting character, since there have been hints that he loves his practice most of all. although, philosophically, if someone gets sick during the year he’s gone, they’re pretty much screwed (new general hospital aside). meanwhile, he can always refer people to new york, so it’s more that his own insufficiency bugs him more than the lives of his patients.
jeanie x bill is a nicer otp.
i hope they don’t make jeanie Catholic. please fight the power jeanie.
EP17
wherein jeanie fights against being reproduced into the same sort of rando diana is.
the master/servant (white/black) power relations here are the sort of thing that, if anything, are way lighter than how they would’ve been in reality, but still. it’s one of those things where i wonder if japanese audiences would fully understand it.
the world runs on white woman tears.
holy shit diana is like abuser-adjacent. it’s only the nippon animation sentimentality that keeps her from going all in. (and also maybe that hint at the end that she resented sandra’s education too)
EP18 – 2019-08-09
oh is this a review episode? or just, well, a review minute. a nice way to wrap up what i’m guessing was the first act.
and now we get the culture clash between midwestern hospitality and big city callousness.
also we get the monkey’s paw curling and she ends up in the same finishing school mess. keep your strength and nobility… for as long as you can…
although it’s still the sort of thing where, even though this school sucks, she’s terrible at sticking up for herself too. she lacks the ability to properly defend herself (due to intelligence and power relations and not even knowing the system she’s fighting but making demands anyway), and is absolutely going to get hell for it until every last shred of boldness is beaten out of her. which, incidentally, will almost certainly kill the spark leading her to pursue her doctor dream too.
maybe it’s for the best, since she definitely still views herself as exceptional, and we all have to lose that at some point.
holy shit they put real evil in this children’s cartoon. like seriously already pitting the girls against each other from day one. these are such accurate depictions of abuser tactics!
…did diana set this up to begin with? did she allow jeanie to go to new york because she knew it’d result in the same outcome for her? so she never really had a choice to begin with? holy shit that’s devious. that’s some real new york cunning. i hate it.
EP19 – 2019-08-10
holy shit asking to see the manager actually worked here.
oh huh now she’s translated as mammy.
i can’t tell if this school is full of catty bitches or if it’s just two.
and now i can’t tell if jeanie is lowkey the most devious of them. like damn she played garland.
…and then got counterplayed hard. although my bet is that even taking the fall here won’t repair her relationship with the rest of the class. like she won’t become a pariah this way, but it’ll definitely be strained.
EP20
wherein the school tampers with the students’ mail.
and jeanie just gives the libertarian speech—the right answer, and even slips in the mail fraud conspiracy.
also garland coming in and erasing the word “liberty” is very unsubtle and definitely indicative of a complete heel turn soon (as if she wasn’t already a heel)
also that one girl is like rin x beavis.
and jeanie being an ostensible-tomboy comes in handy here.
i can’t tell if anna marie or garland has seniority here. i have to assume it’s garland, but the director would easily veto it.
…oh i hope the proletariat revolt. i’d love to see at least one guillotine in this nippon animation feature.
honestly at this point i’m stuck because it’s hard to cheer for jeanie’s belligerence and willingness to speak to the manager to get her way but at the same time garland is worse. really they’re both awful, but jeanie is just more optimistic and willing to play naïve (because half the time she is naïve). really all the girls are awful, with the exception of betty, who deserves a happy life even though she is almost certainly going to get married and that’s it. still, i hope she at least marries someone nice.
EP21 – 2019-08-11
wherein jeanie tries to institute true democracy, and teach the girls to think independently.
i will say that it’s rather nice that her freedom is that ridiculous and uncontrollable thing called true freedom, where everyone’s opinions are respected. normally those urging for freedom use it as a pretext to leverage their own cult of personality.
and amy is less of a catty bitch than a petty douchebag. (though wow she totally exploits it at the end!)
how did bill ex machina happen. like it’s wild that big joe would just have his son shipped over a couple of states. it’s the sort of thing whose power relation mechanics i don’t entirely understand.
EP22
oh my god this school is corrupt. and then someone else just comes along and yoinks it?
jeanie teaching bill to read is nice. maura cracking at the first sign of pressure is hilarious.
and honestly maura being such spineless enough to go along with the plan is perfect. (the thing is, though, i get it)
and there’s something interesting with how the “servant class” is structured, in that it seems they can work basically anywhere so long as they work as servants.
i like how basically everything is setting up for a proletariat revolt here. jeanie is gonna become a political prisoner and then the schoolgirls are gonna go apeshit. everyone is finally being nice and not very infighty as garland throws more and more of her lackeys under the bus to protect herself, and soon they’ll all be united under a common enemy.
EP23 – 2019-08-12
(i guess it would make sense that jeanie would react to stephen’s illness like this, what with her mom going down the same way)
god that is the most obvious plant i’ve ever seen. the only reason she’s able to get away with this is because they’re all middle-schoolers.
and the kids are all looking for the 200 iq answer when the 50 iq answer is right there staring them in the face.
at least we get to watch her have a evangelion-esque breakdown over this. wait, over this? compared to all the other shit she’s legitimately pulled?
and i guess this is wherein jeanie is too stubborn to back the fuck down and take the fall.
EP24
wherein jeanie is gonna fuckin give them all the mumps.
bandaged stephen is cute. also him being bull-headed too is fitting.
and wherein jeanie is outright told by rosa that justice won’t salvage her lost relationships but you bet that won’t break her stride.
and wherein jeanie is outright told by kathy that garland won’t ever confess and the staff won’t narc on her but you bet that won’t break her stride.
damn though if jackson breaks this loose.
and then garland turns on another one of her lackeys, and leaves herself with one fewer person she can trust. it’s become something of a formula, albeit a rather annoying one.
EP25 – 2019-08-13
(i’m curious if that diagonal background pan of diana’s house makes geometric sense)
diana so bougie even her parties have parties.
although i’m not sure if this plot development is really the best way to take this episode. like, the clash of jeanie with high society would’ve made for an interesting story. but instead we have her trying to deal with robbers alone? like home alone, but before home alone, and without the wily antics of kevin.
or wait, is she going to employ the wily antics of kevin mcallister? (or just pretend to be a cute ghost)
wait isn’t the water bucket trick actually in home alone? is that just something that all kids innately learn, like the cool s?
this is another episode where basically it’s only coincidence (and the antagonists’ incompetence) that gets her out of a scrape, except the consequence of failure would’ve been her getting raped and murdered (or the closest anime can really get to that). which seems like a step up from almost-”oh you fought garland and lost subscriber,” but arguably a step down from ep9’s almost-”you acted carelessly once and burned down your best friend’s house and killed her mother.” so hm.
(oh and home alone was 1990. damn. i would’ve expected it )
EP26
wherein garland makes betty read her werewolf fic out loud to the rest of the class.
i have a feeling that this will develop the plot very little and mostly exists to justify the 52 episode run length.
also wherein jeanie is going to get her dog euthanized, except a series of coincidences will manage to get her out of this jam once more. i feel like this doesn’t make for great storytelling, but what do i know.
and yep, there was a real wolf after all who tray helps to chase off, thus he saves the day and gets to stay.
…
and with this we’ve hit the halfway point of the anime!
i can’t say i regret watching this anime, but were it not for special interests i almost certainly wouldn’t have picked it up. but i feel like nippon animation is important enough that i’d need to watch one of their works eventually.
EP27 – 2019-08-25
(you know, having friends makes it hard to do things,
but also i don’t regret that.)
wherein jeanie actually takes the fall and doesn’t stop taking the fall. it’s an interesting development.
my (38f) students (14f, 13f, 13f, 14f…) have unionized
why is jeanie taking the fall for garland. you’re a dolt, or believe in her potential for redemption.
but since this is nippon animation, of course she can be redeemed.
EP28 – 2019-08-27
wherein bill has a crush.
i support it.
(wait. is julia slumming)
and stephen has a crush too, despite having the most canon ship one can possibly have.
and then they end up on a boat.
EP29 – 2019-08-29
wherein julia gets trauma-bonded to being slapped
and thus becomes the inspiration for “he hit me and it felt like a kiss”
and becomes ready to settle down.
(though i don’t think i really like what julia brings to the table, outside of being rich love interest)
EP30 – 2019-08-30
the neat thing about julia is that, because she’s rich, she is entitled to what she wants.
and i like how jeanie gets radicalized into this because she knows what it’s like to be forced into situations “for her own good.”
i hope julia x bill happens
EP31
wherein jeanie gets trafficked.
preview for next episode: wherein jeanie gets trafficked by a different man
(i seriously don’t see what value this adds, other than being weird incidents for stephen to prove that he really does love jeanie. but couldn’t they have worked that more into the events of his life?)
EP32 – 2019-09-01
i don’t know how this contributes to enhancing our understanding of the characters.
also i’m glad these kids have children’s cartoon immunity to harm because once again, they would’ve been fucked so many times by now.
…did stephen really leverage the power of 30–50 feral hogs
(and aren’t bill’s premonitions useless when there’s nothing you can really do with them?)
EP33
and jeanie makes an alliance with the bandits.
EP34 – 2019-09-03
it would be nice if her stubbornness came back to bite her at least once, in a way that doesn’t end in her vindication.
also their songs being entirely monophonic is so bold.
and naturally the swindler is sympathetic
EP35
wherein a scuzzy alcoholic fleeces the kids and sends them off into the mountains to die.
i don’t want to watch children be taken advantage of by dirty old men only to have them eventually reveal some tragic past and be redeemed.
maybe city life has hardened me. maybe i’ve lived too long in a society where i lock my doors.
oh, it’s wherein the kids boldly stride into a cave and get shot.
EP36 – 2019-09-04
wherein they guilt an old friend into committing malpractice.
(because the real doctor doesn’t give a shit)
also i feel like good samaritan laws might apply here.
also shouldn’t jeanie be back at school by now?
wherein jeanie calls for jury nullification.
EP37 ★ pathos
or wait… did she graduate already? is that why they’re not too worried about getting back on time?
! ! holy shit alert ! !
that scene with bill and the donkey is by far the most moving moment of this show. the allegory for race relations. bill’s empathy with the donkey’s position and wishing for his own annihilation. stephen and jeanie believing in the dignity of life without realizing that such a belief is only possible through massive amounts of white privilege. and yet, since killing the donkey would be killing himself—his living, breathing, suffering self—he can’t bring himself to. the donkey is kyoudai to him.
this episode is genuinely great and almost a payoff for getting lost some eight episodes ago. still, i’m surprised at how heavily they dance around the issue of race here.
EP38 – 2019-09-08
i’ve been meaning to watch this one for a while with how nice the colors were in the preview.
and i feel like this is a solid enough resolution for bill. i always felt like he kinda got shat on.
i’m not sure how much of a fan i am of the “jeanie delivers rousing speech to save the day” development though.
and once again they kinda sidestep race.
EP39 – 2019-09-09
i like this first track
i also like how jeanie is getting actually jealous whenever he interacts with a woman.
wherein stephen’s folksy songs get shot down by an elitist. and i actually really like how the idea of folk music vs. art music is explicitly involved here.
and it’s nice that beautiful dreamer appears, anachronistic though it may be.
it’s less nice that he gets demoralized and vindicated within like a ten minute span but…
at least it makes for a wonderful way of wrapping up the end of the half-cour
EP40 – 2019-09-12
wherein jeanie isn’t putting up with any parent’s shit.
or any doctor’s (except when she gets tricked into it)
also, why are they setting us up for a story arc where we’re basically going to be around the worst people for multiple episodes.
it’s realistic storywriting! it’s very accurate to how duplicitous pieces of shit are! but jeanie is annoyingly stubborn too and that just makes it all irritating to watch! i like none of these people!
EP41 – 2019-09-16
i wish i had the ability to background videos
god i hate all these people right now.
i thought jeanie was supposed to go through some sort of emotional growth process, but instead it seems like her luck meant she never actually had to learn any hard lessons. which might be a neat lesson to learn from this, but it seems too deep for a children’s anime.
and there are some really neat ideas here but i don’t have enough time to care about any of the kids.
…
if at first stern, you earn the dog’s respect.
EP42
god i do not care enough for michelle for this.
like i know it’s bad praxis to lose one of the people you’re caring for but also i’m ok if she perishes.
so it’s gonna come out that michelle stole and planted it.
i like how the city board is literally thoughts and prayersing.
and i feel like this sort of incoherent rhetoric could only work in fiction.
EP43 – 2019-09-19
sam is definitely the most adorable of the bunch.
how are all the adults in this show shit.
how are the orphans worse.
why did they bully the mayor’s daughter.
EP44 quote
wherein the orphan kids are pieces of shit except for sam.
and sam can’t fuckin catch a break
(at least michelle got better)
i feel like at some point this show became less about showing good morals and more about how the innocent get crushed by people who think they are good people.
still, the chorus part made me almost cry. i can see a really good show coming out of these dynamics, where all the kids learn to stop being shits and stick up for each other. that’d be a nice show. but we don’t get enough time to watch these kids develop!
EP45 – 2019-09-20
is the orphanage saga even canon? like, to stephen foster’s life?
i like how the highfalutin folks are from ohio. it’s a nice, uh, change of pace.
also admittedly the ending made me cry a little bit. i’ve started to like these kids.
EP46
are literally the orphans the only children in this town. you’d think that there’d be other kids around sally’s age!
this is a really cute episode idea. everyone loves a good prince and pauper story.
until naturally it turns rotten because adults get involved.
maybe that’s the moral here.
EP47
(oops i have to know how this resolves)
wherein the mayor shoots a child.
“i hate you!” and she pulls out a knife is the strongest power move i’ve seen in a while.
q: how are they gonna bring all the kids back in like three boats
(a: of course the mayor’s enough of a shit to let the others die)
and i love how everyone’s becoming delusional here.
…
this show is undertale hard mode.
EP48 – 2019-09-24
why does so much of this arc revolve around trying to make the orphans homeless.
also conrad has strange priorities. i think she might be both stubborn and a dumbass, but hey that’s life.
also why is everyone horny for the nun.
lol what if stephen gets rejected in his own anime.
EP49
though it makes sense for jeanie’s personality to be like this, considering how uncompromising she is.
if conrad seriously marries this person despite being manipulated into it and knowing she is being manipulated then it would be the most catholic thing i’ve ever seen.
EP50 – 2019-09-25
damn bill is hot now.
and i don’t think tornados work that way but…
and maybe i’m just distracted but this is the first time where bill’s concerns aren’t as telegraphed as they used to be.
EP51
i have no idea how they’re gonna pay this series off in two episodes.
also stephen is kind of a dick to bill, in that he feels sorta entitled to bill’s labor.
also now they’re learning self-sufficiency? the american dream? wherein some orphans rebuild their own house?
also stephen, after fifty episodes of growing and learning, is somehow more massive of a dick than before. like, baby rage bad. like, wait-is-he-actually-the-villain bad.
EP52
i still don’t know how they can just… build a house. like, no foundation or anything (unless they’re building off the last one’s, which i doubt if the last one was just logs).
unless everyone in the 1800s just built groverhauses and only some of them survived.
…
and it all worked out after all.
moral: life is hard and people are shit but i guess sometimes things work out?
i did like the background art though, but by god basically everyone in this show got on my nerves at some point or another (except for maybe bill).
and while there’s a lot i would cut were it not for the two-cour format—
- ep 25 and 26
- ep 31–33 and 35 definitely (34 thematically fits, as well as 36)
—there’s also a lot that i think went underdeveloped. for all the interesting developments that come out, the resolutions end up feeling dashed off.
would i recommend the show? nah, not really.
but it was fun for what it was, whatever it was.
Notes
Episode 40 was released July 15, 1993