One good barometer of many prolific anime directors of the 1980's and 90's is their Miyazawa Kenji adaptation. Sugii Gisaburou's Night on the Galactic Railroad, besides hearkening back to some of Tezuka Osamu's famous works by starring animals instead of humans, was a haunting portrait of silence, loneliness, and wonder, in many ways the perfect representation of Miyazawa's style. Another similarly perfect adaptation was Nakamura Ryuutarou's The Life of Guskou Budori as well as his addition to the Kenji's Trunk omnibus, a children's tale but calmingly filled with both physical and auditory space befitting the director of Serial Experiments Lain. Even experimental animator Okamoto Tadanari had one of many early 1990's adaptations of The Restaurant of Many Orders (certainly the creepiest), and so comparatively it seems odd that a more famous work like Matasaburo the Wind Boy would only have one adaptation, albeit by Madhouse founder and OVA fanatic Rintarou. Unfortunately it's also my least favorite of the bunch; considering Rintarou's tendancy to fly off the rails with his works back then perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, although here the problem seems to be that nothing noteworthy happens at all.
The story of a boy bearing resemblance to a young wind god integrating into a rural classroom is certainly the sort of story Kenji would think up, especially one where things are left with a bit of ambiguity. Kenji's tales are characterized not by plot but by setting, and less by characters themselves than by how the characters experience the world. So to focus on moving through the story from his transfer into the school to his transfer out doesn't seems like the right approach to capturing the joy of the story. There was an attempt to innovate in the art, a simple childish style that feels like a mix of construction paper and rough sketches; it wouldn't surprise me if Production IG's Windy Tales—also an abnormally styled work about kids who control the wind—drew direct inspiration from Matasaburo the Wind Boy. But especially with 30 minutes in total, a slight stylistic deviation isn't enough to bring the story to life.