I'd like to tell you there's nothing special about Kaze no Yojimbo. It's the old "outsider comes to town and stirs things up" formula. Move along. Nothing to see, here. It's also a low-budget production. The theme songs are of average quality, and there isn't much music at all, for that matter. The animation isn't too heavy on the reuse, but well, there isn't much in the way of motion. There is something good, however, in how it all comes together. It borrows its premise from the classic Kurosawa comedy, Youjinbou, and mixes in a bit of retro murder mystery for flavor. This mix worked much better than I expected.

George Kodama's ostensible purpose in visiting the quiet town of Kimujuku is to locate a man named Genzo Araki, in order to "ask him something." The local cop directs him to an old restaurant, whose owner has been in the town a long time. The owner first expresses discomfort at the inquiry, then denies having known Araki. Then George learns about the two feuding gangs in town: Ginzame Industries, led by a man named Samekichi Shirogane, and the Tanokura gang, led by City Councilman Shuusaku Tanokura. George announces that he's staying in town a while, to "enjoy the field day." He then proceeds to use the gang rivalry to his advantage, as a catalyst to obtain the information he wants.

George's story really begins fifteen years before the present time. He says good-bye to his brother, a soldier, who received orders to protect precious cargo on a train. He never saw his brother again, and the only name he's managed to dig up in relation to his brother's disappearance is the locomotive engineer, Genzo Araki, who happens to be from Kimujuku. The fact that George isn't a mere drifter with an interest in the town's affairs is a significant departure from the Kurosawa film; also, George isn't the only one in town with an interest in what happened to that train. This is where the mystery part fits in — the audience gets its snippets of knowledge about the same time as George. And, of course, once enough answers bubble to the surface, heads roll.

The mystery aspect of the story is well played. While it's a bit of an annoyance that George doesn't share his side of the story until late in the series, it's refreshing to have come across an intrigue tale in anime where the audience is not the only clueless party. (Perhaps I'm elated because I've seen too many shows that confuse intrigue with nonsensical babble. I'm looking at you, Evangelion. You too, RahXephon.) I won't claim to have figured out who the bad guy is before the end — I'm pretty inept at deciphering this kind of plot — but the show does throw plenty of bones for the attentive.

The major tenet of the outsider-comes-to-town formula is eradication of the community's disease, often by violent means. The protagonists in these stories are rarely driven by a desire to do good. George comes to Kimujuku with an agenda, figuring that his answers will come faster if he stirs the pot. In a sense, George is unable to care about who he might hurt, because he suffers from an ailment too. It can be said of him that he doesn't needlessly hurt people, though. When he finds a man whom he suspects is Genzo Araki's son, he has no problem throwing him to the wolves (Ginzame) as bait for Tanokura; however, he takes time to coach the man about what not to say when Ginzame interrogates him. The conflict between protagonist and town might be destructive, but it ultimately places both at harmony with themselves.

Unfortunately, no conflict is without collateral damage. In order for Kimujuku to come clean, and for George to have his peace of mind, young Miyuki Tanokura (the Councilman's only daughter) will lose everything she holds dear. I think that on some level, George knows this. Whether to protect her innocence, or assuage his guilt, George treats her well throughout the show, and keeps her out of trouble. Unfortunately, when Sanjuro tried to protect the innocent in Youjinbou, the gun-wielding Unosuke caught him in the act and visited some pain on the ronin. George's Unosuke is Rin Shirogane, Samekichi's insane, gun-wielding younger brother. When George lowers his guard out of concern for Miyuki, he falls right into Rin's hands.

Despite the terrible losses that result from the outsider's intervention, it's difficult to argue that the town would have been better off without him. That's not to say that this story has ambiguous morals; rather that morals are secondary to needs, here. George needs to know what came of his brother, and the town needs rescue from its Faustian bargain. George could have kept his hands clean by not involving himself in the town's affairs, but the destruction that follows is inevitable, notwithstanding George's involvement.

What I like most about this story is its realistic treatment of motive. Each character is easy to identify with and understand. The figures involved in the fifteen-year-old incident George is investigating certainly did not know what they were getting into, and their circumstances evoke sympathy. This, I think, is the reason why the mystery flavor works so well — the fact that George is dealing with mostly-honest people who made some bad mistakes in the past. They would've gotten away with it, too, if not for those pesky kids and their dog.