Windy Tales

Nao is one of only two members of the Digital Camera Club. She only takes photos of the sky and clouds. While she's looking through the finder the slowly drifting clouds, she witnesses a cat walking leisurely in the sky. Surprised, she stumbles and falls off from the rooftop, but miraculously escapes death, owing to a sudden gust of wind that saves her life. This accident immediately puts Nao in the center of attention. In order to avoid the fuss, Nao comes up to the rooftop again, and there she meets her classmate Ryoko.

Having discovered Mr. Taiki who saved her life, Nao takes her friends Miki and Jun, and heads out to a small town to visit Mr. Taiki's home. Nao and her friends meet an old man who calls himself "The Town's Greatest Wind Handler".

When the club moderator urges Nao, "Why don't you send in your photos to a contest or something once in a while?" she usually puts off the idea by telling herself that she would if she could come up with a good photo. One day, a job request is made to the digital camera club. It is a request to take photos for a journal of Atsuko running. She's in the track and field club at school, and is considered the favourite in the coming regional track and field meet.

On his way home from school, Jun rescues a flying squirrel fleeing from a flock of crows. Kept as a pet since it was a baby, the flying squirrel can't fly nor can it even find food for itself. Jun feels sorry and decides to keep it, naming it "Donguri" (Acorn).

Mr. Makino is a very popular teacher. He conducts a regular class for the first 30 minutes and then tells "really scary stories" for the last 15 minutes. The dean complains to him, "The other teachers are all doing their 45-minute lessons according to the rules. You should know better. You're an adult." But Mr. Makino has no intention of changing his style. He doesn't like the stuffy atmosphere of the staffroom, so he spends all his spare time in the nurse's office reading books. One day, Nao is resting in the nurse's office sick with the flu, and, through the curtain, hears Mr. Makino talk about his trip to Malaysia.

After attending their cram school, a group of elementary school kids go over a fence into a high-rise construction area to play "kick-the-can". Nao, who happens to be passing by, is shocked to see the kids taking to the air as if there was no gravity. "Are these kids... using the wind?" The next day, she goes back with Ryoko to investigate.

Looking up at the rapidly moving clouds, pushed along by the approaching typhoon, Nao is taking pictures with her digital camera. At the same time, Ryoko comes up to the rooftop. She notices there was no sign of the Windcat, which usually floats in the air. When a school announcement tells the students that it's time to go home, the students stream out of the school but Nao and Ryoko stay behind. They are desperately looking for the cat when Mr. Taiki, who is on night duty, comes around on one of his patrols.

While taking part in the clean up of the digital camera clubroom, Nao, Miki and Jun finds a cardboard box on the top shelf. There is an old album in the box filled only with photos of clouds. Nao grins when Miki says, "Here is your ancestor." But her smile disappears when she opens the next page. It was a photo of a female student holding a baby in one arm and pressing the shutter of a small camera with the other hand. In order to return the album to the owner, the threesome, forgetting that they were cleaning the room, start their search with a list of club members as their only clue and the date "September 9, 1991" marked on the back of the album.

Nao's father buys a motorcycle. A few days later, she is little nervous when her father lets her ride on the back. Afterwards it seems that her ability to use wind has become stronger. However later, she is told that her father has had an accident.

Nao’s dreams that she is walking across the surface of the Moon. Above her are endless stars, and then the Earth comes into view, beautiful and blue. As Nao gazes on the Earth a great wind arises, swirling around the planet. She wakes up, shivering from the cold winter’s air coming in through her bedroom window. Nao wonders what the dream could mean.

Nao and Miki photograph all their female classmates for use in a competition to find a new teen idol. Nao is persuaded to enter too, and to her surprise gets to the third round. She gets to know a classmate who is already working as a model, who tells her about the endless fruitless auditions, and how although she herself is attractive (and has appeared in TV commercials), no matter how cute you are there always seems to be someone cuter who gets picked instead.

As rain drizzles on the rooftop, Nao is taking digital photos of cherry blossoms in full bloom as if she did not want to accept the fact that the petals were falling. A soaking Nao visits the nurse's office. Nao thought this was a chance to create wind to push the rain cloud away, but Mr. Taiki said, "Let the petals fall. Leave them alone." and ignores her. The next day, Nao and Miki hear an old woman at a rice cake shop near their school tell an old story of a cherry blossom tree in front of the next train station when she was young. After many years, the tree is surrounded by dumped garbage. Nao and Miki wish to do something for the woman and decides to use the digital camera club's website for the purpose.