A boy arrives from nowhere. He plays with the village kids until one windy day he's gone, and everyone agrees he was never really human at all. Rintaro paints this in watercolor stillness and long, aching silences, letting you sit in the exact moment childhood realizes something magical just walked away. The animation doesn't move much because it doesn't need to. A single frame holds more feeling than most shows manage in ten. This is a bedtime story that understands why those matter, they let you mourn something beautiful without ever having to say goodbye.

A foreign transfer student from the city arrives one day in a small Japanese country town and joins the local school. Drawn in by his mysterious manner, his classmates nickname him Matasaburou the Wind Imp, after a figure from local legend. In time the children become his friends, and they spend many days playing together out in the countryside. Then, on a windy day, Matasaburou goes back to the city, and the classmates he leaves behind wonder whether he truly was the Wind Imp, carried off on the wind. The OVA adapts a story by Miyazawa Kenji and is directed by Rin Taro in a bright, storybook visual style.