#aotake

[avakkins-alter]

🙏 | 青竹色🎋

[tikklil]

Spring at Aotake

[bleachbleachbleach]

🗻🏃🏻‍♂️箱根の山は？ 天下の険！🗻🏃🏻‍♂️

We finished our annual Run with the Wind rewatch last night, which is a series I love so intensely that if I had to recommend one anime to someone it would be this one. It clocks in at a cool 23 episodes, which makes it approachable, and it's so character-driven it doesn't matter if the premise sounds inherently interesting or not.

Do you love running? asks fourth-year university student Kiyose Haiji in the opening scene. If you don't, YOU WILL, as all of his roommates are about to find out, whether they want to or not (they do not).

It's based on a light novel by Miura Shion, who also wrote The Great Passage, which is a book (and anime series!) about writing a dictionary, which if you're like me will sell you on her instantly and if you are not might sell you on the premise that it's not the premise you need to be drawn to. The premise of Run with the Wind is the Hakone Ekiden: An annual, university marathon relay held up and down the mountains of Hakone just after New Years. Specifically, a 10-person college dorm that gets tricked/dragged/lovingly blackmailed into becoming an elite, 10-person marathon relay team.

Except most of the house aren't runners, and none of them wanted to be (except Haiji. Haiji's the one in the green. Can you tell?). They're law students and game show-loving job hunters; sun-starved otaku; coders who smoke; they're at the club; they're after girls; they have a girlfriend, actually; they are unassuming exchange students who like bathing in the dark and tuning into their friends' shoujo-style love lives; they are stealing 100 yen buns because they lost all their rent money in a single night of gambling.

Run With the Wind comes with all the tropes (extreme underdog story! DESTINATION TRAINING CAMP! fireworks! bathhouses! shared meals! hurt/comfort! very questionable driving (is this a real trope? it is to me)! cute dog! extremely homosexual soliloquies! extremely polyamorous nakama! It's goofy and charming and incredibly grounded in all of the small details of its characters lives and passions and insecurities. It's philosophical without being pedantic, existential without being nihilistic, and it's pure in the sense of being genuine, pure in the sense of being about some weird dudes who are willing to be deeply weird and to witness each other's weirdness.

There's so much to love about this series: The little notes on the walls of their dorm; the personalizations of everyone's shoes and phones and clothes; the amount of mayo someone is willing to put on curry; the eyes of the taxi driver as people have an insane conversation in the backseat; the amount of shit that exists in piles in the halls of the dorm; the slopes of Hakone; the team cheer; the sound of a metal windmill, creaking in strong wind.

It makes us cry every single time. The world for the Aotake boys. <333 Plus, this year (2024) was the ONE HUNDREDTH RUNNING of the real Hakone Ekiden!

For additional recs, here's my favorite:

film "about" running - Atanarjuat (2001)

fanfic "about" running - Run, glasshoe (2009)

essay "about" running - Repetitive Stress, Devin Kelly (2021)

[honmakurara]

Ten kisses, a confession and a showdown

Ever wondered how the Aotake members found out about the resident couple?

Kakeru x Haiji, Kazetsuyo, fluff, crack, comedy, Aotake squad

There's that one time when they're languidly snogging in the quiet darkness of the bathtub at Aotake, lukewarm water lapping their shoulders as Kakeru and Haiji both reach out for each other's; suddenly, the sliding door opens and the couple is caught staring at a naked figure before them.

Musa's big eyes widen to no end, and his cheeks redden at once as he tries to suppress a cry. The next moment, a merry and bright-smile Haiji is eagerly inviting him to join them in the water; they’re done, he claims, feigning indifference and pretending there’s no possible embarrassment within Musa’s gentle soul.

Musa gently refuses, bowing profusely and excusing himself; once safe behind the sliding door he tells them he'll patiently wait until they'll be done for real, and he will keep the secret about them, of course.

“Which secret?” Haiji asks furrowing, and Kakeru merely sighs.

(keep reading @ao3 )

[hideyseek]

ao3 first lines

tagged by @mister-eames, mwah thank you!! love to do games like this :3

Rules: Post the first lines of your last 10 fics posted to AO3 (Sort by date posted.) If you have less than 10 fics posted, post what you have!

1. keep me here (kazetsuyo, haiji/fujioka)

It’s not the first time they’ve met like this, and it won’t be the last, not if Haiji has anything to do about it.

2. bet on losing dogs (kazetsuyo, haiji/kakeru)

The days that Kakeru goes straight from mahjong to Hanaji’s are never good days, and the days Kakeru doesn’t make it to mahjong beforehand are worse.

3. the still of your hand (kazetsuyo, haiji/fujioka)

It’s the first day of the new year.

4. wire synchronous (kazetsuyo, haiji/kakeru)

They make temporary port on an icy planet, white rock core and a wild surface swirling with blizzards.

5. i wish you the wind (kazetsuyo, haiji/kakeru)

Kakeru learns that his running idol is leaving Aotake Publishing Co. in the middle of a bath, the day after he runs the New Year’s ekiden for the first time.

6. bursting into life (kazetsuyo, haiji/kakeru)

The winter wind, which had howled around his train and yanked menacingly at Kakeru’s scarf as he made his way through town, disappears abruptly when he steps over the threshold of the old dormitory building.

7. Professional (Mis)Conduct (inception, arthur/eames)

Arthur lies about it, on the phone with Cobb.

8. Anything Worth Keeping (inception, eames/robert)

Eames had just been jealous.

9. The True Meaning of Poinsettias (inception, arthur/eames)

A poinsettia is tasteful and holidayish and undeniably platonic, Arthur consoles himself.

10. but i grew weary of the threshold (tsurune, seiya/minato)

Seiya has been sitting in the half-dark for thirty-six minutes, when the door opens.

tagging (no pressure!!): @frogiwi @swimmingseafish @queuebird @zrllosyn @rebournetime @therealscarymarlowe @yin1se4 @rogueyami

[himebushou]

I found some Run with the Wind fics from 2019 sitting around on my phone so... here we are!

Solitude

The fastest forgets how it feels to be left behind.

The sky is overcast.  There is no wind but the March chill still seeps through Kakeru's clothes.  He is unmoved by the cold; his eyes are fixed on the vanishing outline of Kiyose Haiji, jogging down the street with a boisterous Nira at his side.

Even after they disappear, Kakeru hears Nira's cheerful yaps.  And he hears the steady drumming of Haiji's feet, if only in his head.

Kakeru wants to avert his gaze.  He can't.  That strange, demanding man is difficult to ignore.  He's seized Kakeru's attention.  And he's –

Gone.

Kakeru realises that he's seldom left staring at someone's back.  He's always been the one ahead.  He does not lead and he does not follow: he stands apart, carving a path, a lone feather gliding through the air.

He wonders if it would have been so terrible if the senior had stayed... just for a minute.

Alone, again, Kakeru returns to Aotake.

[tsaltyshims]

Seize the Chance

Rating: T 💛

Summary:

Kakeru knows he’s awkward, poor at social cues (getting better, though), tragically unfunny, has trouble keeping his emotions in check. His teammates all know that about him, too. They accept all those things about him, which is great, and he’s forever thankful.

But who could actually manage to develop a crush on that combination of dysfunction?

He looks at Haiji. Haiji beams back at him, and Kakeru swallows, looking away.

--

Haiji thinks someone in Aotake might have a crush on Kakeru. Kakeru has absolutely no idea who it could be

My thoughts:

Refreshing when someone is able to capture how insane Haiji is. This is really cute and feels like it fits right into canon and Haiji is so so Haiji, love it.

[animestuff-iguess]

Why all the familiars hot-

Is it just a trait of the familiars-

[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

Well? Did you get to see the top?

[avakkins-alter]

💚BIG LOVE💚 | 青竹色🎋

[nai-re-sideblog]

Haiji Kiyose -

I fell in love with this anime, it gave me so much force. And Haiji is the person everyone need in their life, so caring, so awesome..he is really such an inspiring person.

I hope I'll be able to draw the other Aotake boys

[esselley]

Here’s a little fic I wrote for Meteor Road, a team-focused KazeTsuyo zine! I had so much fun working with @egg-noodle on this - her artwork is embedded in the fic and posted here on Twitter! <3

Kakeru is glad he's always been an early riser, because he likes the way nobody bothers him at dawn. He still doesn't feel at ease in the dorm, not when he can't tell what Haiji wants from him. But it's not as bad as his parents' house, he thinks… not the way it had been after he screwed everything up and let everybody down.

He doesn't think he's let anybody in Aotake down, yet.

--

As the days and weeks and months pass, Kakeru learns what it feels like to belong.

Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Kiyose Haiji & Kurahara Kakeru, Kurahara Kakeru & Everyone Additional Tags: Team as Family, Team Dynamics, Friendship, Belonging

[hideyseek]

i wish you the wind

G, 3.4k, pro runner!kakeru & coach!haiji

Kakeru learns that his running idol is leaving Aotake Publishing Co. in the middle of a bath, the day after he runs the New Year’s ekiden for the first time. From the main room of their shared athletes’ dorm he hears Joji shout, The ogre is leaving—? and Kakeru startles so badly he dunks himself and sends lukewarm bathwater splashing all over the floor.

here we go again, hoho. is this fic just a collection of "what if they turned left" au ideas? yes.

ao3 link

[motoyas]

I'm not sure if these people are my friends or not. But at the very least, they recognize me, my ideas, and my worth. Among them there is no high or low level. The only thing that matters is who we are!

4 / 23 Rewatch

[miyayuki5]

Kazetsuyo Week

Day 6: Favorite expression

Haiji’s precious smile

[xiemon-kazetsuyo]

Aotake Guys