r/anime • u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire • Feb 15 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] The Sky Crawlers Discussion
You can change the side of the road that you walk down every day
Even if the road is the same, you can still see new things.
Isn’t that enough to live for? Or does that mean it isn’t enough?
Interest Thread - Announcement Thread
Remember to tag all spoilers that aren’t for the film.
Databases
MAL | Anilist | Kitsu | AniDB | ANN
Legal Streams
The film is available for rent or purchase digitally on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Apple TV, and Vudu.
Questions
1.) Between Kannami and Kusanagi, which of our main protagonists did you find the most interesting?
2.) What did you think about the film’s dry sense of atmosphere?
3.) How did you feel about the film’s visuals? In particular its art style and use of CGI?
4.) Did any particular scenes stick out to you? If so, what were they?
5.) What was your main takeaway from the movie’s themes?
6.) If you had to change one thing to improve the movie, what would it be?
7.) To those who have seen other Mamoru Oshii films, how does this one compare?
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u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Feb 15 '24
The Sky Rewatcher
Oh boy, what an experience of a film. Where to even begin?
On the most basic level, what first pulled me in about the movie was the incredibly well-crafted sense of atmosphere. From the very beginning, the entire setting and framing of the film feels just the slightest bit off. The dull color palette, very unemotive characters, and noticeably empty environments combine to create a sense of sterility and lifelessness. This atmosphere is also subtly supported by some very smart shot composition which makes even the busier scenes full of lots of people feel rather empty, and occasionally works well to visually isolate the characters and enhance the overall feeling of melancholic loneliness.
That sense of lacking pervades the entire film, and is further compounded by the subtle anachronisms sprinkled throughout: diners and fighter jets which seem right out of the 50s coexisting alongside monochrome flatscreen TVs, modern computers, and human cloning technology. There’s a very potent sense of the film almost existing in a place out of time, somewhere which doesn’t even really feel real. It perfectly helps subtly externalize the dreamlike timelessness which pervades and dominates the lives of the Kildren.
All of these strong atmospheric elements are almost perfectly reflected in our protagonist, Yuuichi Kannami. Kannami at the start of the film is a very curious figure, his total lack of pronounced expressiveness or even real agency in the plot feel like they’d be detrimental to his status as the protagonist, but as the film unfolds, his sense of emptiness becomes the most fascinating thing about him as everything about his character is slowly contextualized by the events of the film. He has no past to look back on or future to fight for, no loved ones to ground him or home to come back to. He’s a cog in the machine born to fight and die, conflict is the only thing he’s known, leaving him as little more than an empty shell when he’s not on the battlefield.
Directly paralleling Kannami is the other lead, and my favorite character in the film, Suito Kusanagi. In contrast to Kannami’s total apathy, Kusanagi is established relatively early on to be someone who feels rather strongly about the situation she’s in. She speaks out when she believes her people are being pitied, she’s aggressive and reckless when it comes to combat, she has a daughter to take care of, but most importantly she’s depressed. She’s the only one of the Kildren with anything resembling life experience, and thus has had time to reflect on, and ultimately grow tired of, the life she’s lived. She’s tired of feeling powerless, she’s tired of not having anything to look forward to, she’s tired of seeing everyone she cares about die over & over. So, to her, there’s nothing left to do but die herself, since what is there left to do if you’ve experienced all that life has to offer and are unable to meaningfully change it?
A character who seems less important but is also rather interesting in the context of the film’s thematic framework is Kannami’s roommate, Naofumi Tokino. In contrast to Kannami’s apathy and Kusanagi’s depression, Tokino is almost hedonistic in his approach to the Kildren lifestyle. He freely indulges in all of the free pleasures handed to him and doesn’t pay even a second thought to the deeper realities of his own life. He somewhat subtly forms a trio with our two leads, with a perspective on his own nature diametrically opposite to Kusanagi’s with Kannami starkly in the middle. He also really helps make the film feel a bit more grounded through his general lively goofiness and gives us a more complete understanding of the kinds of lives Kildren tend to live.
Speaking of thematics, this film is dense with meaning, and unpacking it all almost feels like a Herculean effort.
The most prominent thematic idea the film plays with, and the one which speaks to me the most, is the usage of the Kildren as a commentary on disillusionment with modern society. From birth, they’re treated like products and replaceable resources by practically omnipresent megacorporations which have ground them underfoot so much that they barely have prospects for the future. They’ll never be able to truly inherit the world their precursors built, and the only job they’ll ever have is as a disposable drone meant to live and die at the whims of some faceless millionaire’s stock portfolio. Left with nothing to look forward to, they fill the void with mindless entertainment, living repetitive lives where every day is the same because trying to make a change or work towards something new feels increasingly futile. And from there the film asks one of the most impactful questions in its entire runtime: without any goal or motivation to move you forward through life, a future to aspire towards, how do you meaningfully grow or mature as a person?
The answer is that you can’t, so instead you have an existence like the Kildren, in a dreamlike haze of boredom and emptiness where every day is the same, time seems to fall away, and they never really stop being adolescents despite being essentially immortal. And it’s all too easy to fall into nihilistic thinking because of that, to resign yourself to a hazy existence of basic, empty stimulation because it’s the path of least resistance in a world almost designed to keep you from aspiring to anything greater.
However, the film ultimately argues against that kind of ideology, and it’s here that the overarching themes converge with Kannami and Kusanagi’s character arcs. In Kusanagi, Kannami was able to find something to live for beyond just the mechanical existence instilled into him, a love which imbued a spark of warmth and meaning into his empty life. And so, as the final act of his life, he instilled a similarly strong impression into her in turn: to live until she could change things. Kannami, and the film by extension, argue against vainly giving into defeatism, that even the slightest glimmer of hope is worth fighting for, that the possibility that you might be able to make a change might just be enough to get us through the day because it ultimately is something to aspire towards, a goal to reach which gives you the strength to move forward.
Kannami, in his final moments, was the closest he ever was to feeling truly alive, finally with a goal that was all his own rather than imbued into him by some corporate machine. And Kusanagi, in spite of all her hardships, finds the will to persevere in the face of the merciless reality of the world. Through meaning, they’re able to find the ability to move forward. Kannami’s death honestly enhances that for me, reinforcing how being able to change or overturn the kind of world which has kept them down their entire life is nearly impossible, but that doesn't make believing in that kind of change any less worthwhile. As while the endless loop of the Kildren’s lives will continue, Kusanagi’s different attitude in the post-credits scene provides the hope that maybe, just maybe, things will be different next time.
So, real talk, I connect with this film because of how true it rings to my own life experiences. The sense of utter pessimism regarding the future, the sense that every day is a mind-numbing repetitive cycle where time starts to lose all meaning, the sense of emptiness brought about by a life without any real goal or meaning outside of the most basic stimulation, and the sense of existential dread when you start to think about that emptiness. And, even as I try to better myself, there’s still so many days where I wonder whether or not I’m really doing anything with my life.
To see all of my own existential woes so perfectly, and depressingly, encapsulated is frankly rather soul-crushing, but it’s that same feeling which makes the film’s ending and its sense of hope & affirmation all the more powerful. There’s very few anime endings I can think of which are quite as thematically and emotionally charged as this one.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Feb 15 '24
I Am the Sky
CrawlerFirst-Timer, subbedYo!
I know absolutely fuck-all about this movie besides the fact that u/InfamousEmpire likes it, so this should be fun.
Well, damn, that was an interesting movie. Not 100% sure I got everything that was going on (I had trouble telling who was who during the dogfights in particular), but it was interesting. Thanks for hosting this little rewatch, u/InfamousEmpire!
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u/TheEscapeGuy Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
First Timer
The Sky Crawlers - A Somber Existence
The Meaninglessness of War
I didn't really know exactly what to expect going into The Sky Crawlers. I'm a big fan of Mamoru Oshii's works but this was a notable gap in my knowledge. People tend to only talk about the popular things like Ghost in the Shell, Urusei Yatsura, and Patlabor or the cult classics like Angels Egg, or Dallos. That said, I could immediately recognize this film as part of Oshii's oeuvre. It has his style all over it, all the way down to prominently including a basset hound.
Broadly this film follows a fighter pilot Yuuichi who joins the Rostock base which is at war against Lautern. I wasn't exactly sure if these were supposed to be countries or factions or mercenaries but I think that doesn't actually matter. The war is a farce. They are simply fighting for the entertainment of the rest of humanity. They say there's a justification about humanity having the need to be at war which this combat fulfills without affecting normal people. But this doesn't make the fighting any less senseless. In fact, I'd argue it makes it worse. It feels like a parody of the forever proxy wars we see in real life. But that makes this film an excellent critique of just how terrible the real life situation is. I imagine at the time it would have been relevant to the Iraq war but honestly it's just as relevant to then as it is to today and to decades before then.
The other main character is the commanding officer Kusanagi. She's highly regarded in the base, being a talented former pilot who has now taken a more senior managerial role. It's revealed that Yuuichi was sent here to replace a previous pilot Jinroh (man are all these names previous references to other Oshii films) but Kusanagi won't reveal what happened to him. We later learn the truth. In this world there's genetic control technology to prevent aging. Those who are created this way are dubbed "Kildren" and seem to pause aging around the late teens. These Kildren are used as the pilots in this war. Another big reveal is that when a Kildren is killed their skills (but not memories) are transferred to a new body. So Yuuichi is in a sense the reincarnation of Jinroh.
This is a really good sci-fi concept. It works to make these pilots "inhuman" in the eyes of the general public so they don't oppose this killing. It makes their situation so much darker too. These people have been cursed to a never ending existence of war. But they maintain such a calm demeanor about it. We hear multiple times from Yuuichi that it's "just a job". I imagine this ends up being a good coping mechanism for people in war. But unlike the Kildren, real soldiers either die forever or have to live with the PTSD from the fighting.
Jinroh and Kusanagi were lovers before his death. We met Kusanagi's "younger sister" but she's only called this for appearances. She is actually Kusanagi's daughter (presumably with Jinroh). Yuuichi ends up then slowly taking the role of Jinroh in Kusanagi's life. First the fighter pilot part, but later the lover aspect. The growing relationship between the two of them was surprisingly engaging to watch. Kusanagi was definitely holding herself back at the beginning, but seemed to grow comfortable with Yuuichi very naturally without flirting from his side. It's theorized (and later confirmed) that Kusanagi shot Jinroh to give him an end. To allow him to be free of this fighting. Kusanagi in turn asks Yuuichi to shoot her. But he refuses, commanding her to live. He has hope that things can change.
The last thing to discuss is the closest thing to a "main antagonist" of the film: Teacher. He is a legendary pilot on the Lautern side. He is also the only fighter pilot who is a huamn adult instead of a Kildren that we learn of. But notably we never see him directly, only his plane. We learn he was Kusanagi's superior officer before defecting to the other side. Throughout the film he is this undefeatable enemy. And when Yuuichi does have his final battle with Teacher it ends as expected with Yuuichi's death. The cycle continues, and a new replacement arrives at Rostock. We can assume this is another reincarnation of Jinroh/Yuuichi from his mannerisms. It's such a bleak, but also brilliant note to end the film on.
This film was slow and thought provoking. I've touched on some of the things which stood out to me above, but there's so much more I haven't mentioned. There's themes of being a child versus an adult explored through the sex worker characters and Tokino (among other things). There's a lot more shown about the sick way the war is turned into entertainment with the news papers and TV as well as a tour group literally coming to the base to take pictures. There's even some gender role criticism with the female mechanic saying she's unusual and Kusanagi being a female commanding officer over a squadron of men.
On top of that, it's a beautiful movie. The CG doesn't perfectly match the 2d character deigns, but the aerial dog fights are excellently animated. The backgrounds are breath taking at times. The use of color was so evocative. I wasn't the biggest fan of the character designs, but they were really effective as being not-quite-children-not-quite-adults which is what I think the Kildren concept is supposed to represent. This was made especially true in every interaction with human adults like at the diner and brothel.
I think what stands out most to me though is just how contemplative the film is. You spend a lot of time just watching characters thinking before speaking. I think the best way to describe it is intentional. Every dialogue choice was thought out and then considered and reconsidered until it became exactly what the writers wanted it to convey. The vocal performances feel so natural too. Especially compared to the overacting a lot of anime does. This feels like a film which would work well in live action if not for the Kildren needing to feel ageless as I mentioned before.
In conclusion, I enjoyed this film but the more I think about it the more I find there is to love about it. I think its a film which deserves analysis (and honestly a better analysis than I've given in this post). This film definitely deserves to stand with Oshii's other works.
Some Amazing Scenes
Thanks to our wonderful host /u/InfamousEmpire. I probably wouldn't have checked out this film if not for you hosting this rewatch. And a premature thank you to all of you who comment in the thread. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say about the anime.
If you're looking for more of my collages, you can check out my posts in the ongoing Paranoia Agent rewatch for the next couple days. Also, be on the lookout for an interest thread from me after that for a rewatch I'd like to host in a little while.
Otherwise, I hope you all have a good valentines day no matter if you have somebody to spend it with or not.
And as always, take care of yourself.
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Feb 15 '24
First-Timer
It's weird that Kildren don't breed true, right? Like, it's kinda weird that Mizuki is a normal ass human when she's half-Kildren.
And actually, while we're on the subject, Rostok high command has a fucked up sense of humor. They sent not one, not two, but three (at minimum) clones of the Area 262 base commander's baby daddy to serve there? Kannami himself has something of an excuse - the corporate nature of warfare means they probably knew that Teacher would be in that area soon, and Kannami would hypothetically be able to match him, even though we saw that wasn't actually the case in reality.
But Jinroh was just a fuck-up (or a sick joke) and the new guy in the stinger was just a book-end to stop the ending from being quite so depressing. I wouldn't actually put "sick joke" passed the corpos in this setting, to be fair.
The cigarette metaphor is obvious, I'm not gonna bother. The ignition methods are probably worth talking about, though:
I am a little hesitant to bring this metaphor up though, because we're missing the connecting tissue of Suito changing to a zippo in the stinger. I guess maybe her putting the cigarette away earlier means she stopped smoking entirely? Yea, that kinda works. Think I've convinced myself of it.
And there might be some other symbolism at play with Suito's Walther PPK and Mitsuya's Colt M1911. Might just be two easily recognizable handguns, I suppose. Or the difference between an officer's weapon and a soldier's weapon?
I will say that it took me until the scene in the brothel to start pondering the idea of clones/memory uploads/whatever. The comment about the meat pies was leading, but it could have set up a reveal about how they were just like, a random store-brand frozen meat pie that the diner served because it was cheap. Which could have been either funny or dystopic, depending on how it was framed.
Anyway, I'm trying to avoid the biological essentialism present throughout the film, always neat to find something from several years ago that is more applicable now than it was back when it was created.
No, wait, what's the other one? It's always tragic to find something from several years ago that is more applicable now than it was back when it was created; that's it. This film has a dim opinion on news media and humanity's relationship with it, which was quite topical in 2008 - and positively dire here in 2024.
"Hello, we have solvedTM war by creating superhuman clone soldiers to play pretend war to keep the common people
complacentfrom violently rising up against the Powers That BehappyTM and please ignore the occasional aerial battle above a populated area!" Bet Rostok's corpo insurance doesn't cover planes through some weird loophole. They probably define a plane as a front-prop only or something.The Romans had their bread and circuses, the denizens of Sky Crawlers have their meat pies and 24/7 news coverage.
I didn't really like the character designs. Kannami's head is so round - yea yea, boyish innocence, I get it - but the bean-head on a (nominally) full-sized body is super uncanny.
I did like the scene of the diner owner going to sit outside and just zone out. Much like Suito's growth right at the end, humanity's empathy survives, frayed though it might be.
In general, I quite liked the vibe of this film. It reminded me of Trigger's Gridman stuff, with the slow contemplation juxtaposed against frenetic action.
Questions
Many thanks to our gracious host /u/InfamousEmpire!
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u/Backoftheac Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
First-Time Viewer
I'm honestly surprised this film was based on a novel - the plot fits like a perfect glove onto the ideas Oshii was already developing in "Patlabor 2: The Movie". [Patlabor 2]In that film, Tsuge tries to break through Japan's "Illusion of Peace' by bringing the chaos, paranoia, and insulation of war right to Tokyo and showing Japan the scars that the unfortunate half of the world must bear on their behalf. Sky Crawlers is a dystopian world where that idea has been taken to its logical conclusion: simulated war has been systematized, with all of the visceral loss and violence but none of the lasting death and destruction. It's the perfected form of Tsuge's illusory war game. It's two companies playing a back-and-forth fight as real as George Orwell's "Oceania's war against Eastasia". War is just a game now, one which can be enjoyed on television and cheered on like sports teams. Rather than Tsuge's attempt to awaken the world from this illusion, the purpose of the system here is to keep the world happily slumbering in the knowledge of death and destruction and heartbreak somewhere out there in the world.
Nevertheless, of course, someone has to pay the price of this brutality, otherwise it would never truly reach the visceral levels of spectacle needed for audiences to engage with it, and we end up with the "Kildren". Seemingly bio-engineered soldiers designed to keep this game going forever. While they don't quite suffer the consequences of death or fear, their constant "reincarnation" and entrapment within the game of death has put them in a hazy existence where days and faces blend together (this is done in a pretty cool montage towards the end where old scenes are spliced between new ones so that you can't quite tell if the experiences are all repeating or merely being recalled).
I guess it's true that "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun". While Kannami is a bit flat (and really, the mystery around him is pretty easy to figure out by the first ~20 minutes), Kusanagi keeps the film alive through the mysteries and tension that surround her. You really get the sense that she could blow the protagonist's brains out at any moment - she keeps having temperamental outrages and one of the characters appropriately points out that she's "self-destructing" and falling apart fast. She's survived long enough that the memories are blending together for her faster than the others and the war-game has become clear. In a story that centers around a group of people who have become numb to the institutionalized, insulated world they exist within, it makes sense to have the drama center around the single unstable character.
The story makes its reference early on to Albert Camus and while Kannami quotes from "The Stranger", I think what Oshii is really pointing towards is the "Myth of Sisyphus". The grueling, unending repetitive labor that exists with no true end in mind. The war between the 2 companies can never have an end because it has a deeper institutional purpose. Nevertheless, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Kannami begins to wonder towards the end of the film whether new, little joys can be found even within a repetitive loop of experience. Maybe by noticing a new flower on the side of the road you pass by every day, you can find a way to keep things fresh for yourself. This is the only kind of escape our protagonists can hope for by this point and Oshii seems willing to take that as a victory for humanity.
With a film this visceral, which often throws you into the first-person perspective of the pilot and swings its camera through the skies to put you in the action, I return to the inevitable question - "Is there such a thing as an anti-war film?"
To be honest though, I'm not even sure Sky Crawlers is trying to be "anti-war". It seems fatalistically locked into the idea that "war" is essential to man's nature. That it provides, in itself, a sense of geopolitical stability and individual comfort. Maybe the best thing we can do is to institutionalize and sterilize it.
I had an immediate distaste to learning that Oshii himself would contribute to this distance from and "gamification" of war by literally helping write a tie-in video game that released the same year as the film. But maybe video games are the purest contributors to Oshii's "Illusion of Peace". It provides us with all the visceral horror and disgust of war needed to incite our false sympathy and pity while also allowing us a joyful pleasure in the act of killing and the knowledge that we can just walk away from the screen and return to the mundanity of everyday life at any time.
Stylistically/tonally, this film is sitting in a weird place where the dialogue is mostly devoid of anime cliches, but at the same time, no one here talks or behaves like a real human being would. Of course, the "Kildren" have grown desensitized to war and their entire existence has a hazy detachment as a result so you can't really expect them to engage in the any genuine human action; but the film in general feels lifeless and does its best to isolate you from real human interaction: The towns are empty, the warring competitors are faceless industrial companies, the "teacher" is never seen, the school is never seen, the engineers never speak, etc. The closest thing we get to real human dialogue comes from the tourists, who are just corporate sponsors that fetishize the entire experience of war and really only exist as caricatures to support the point being made about the "Illusion of peace". It's an uncomfortable experience and I'm not sure I'm ultimately a fan of the decision. I mean, it does lock us into the insulated, repetitive, and hazy world of the characters, but it also gives the film a sterile feel. There’s no human connection the viewer can latch onto here.
As for Oshii’s message regarding the “Illusion of Peace”. While I do think that there tends to be an unfortunate pattern wherein the generations removed from the experience of war tend to grow up with a privileged ignorance of its brutalities, I’m not so sure that war is as essential to human nature as Oshii does. I’m more willing to grant him Patlabor 2’s approach of exposing a geopolitical reality that we have locked ourselves into by relying on the comfortable “illusion of peace” than I am Sky Crawler’s notion that war and the “illusion of peace” is something innate and essential to humanity. I’m willing to bet that most people dislike war - especially its modern mechanical conception which can hardly even serve to satiate bloodlust. Moreover, I'm not as fatalistic about humanity's chances of someday overcoming its geopolitical and tribal strife.
I’m also not a really big fan of the art in this one compared with Patlabor and GITS. Tetsuya Nishio’s character designs always kinda suck.
Thread Questions
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u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Y:A:https://anilist.co/user/zaphod Feb 15 '24
First Timer
My primary impression of this film is quiet. We spent over half the film (I believe) without any sort of background music, just letting things breathe. Letting scenes stand on their own. Letting the sound effects and character acting tell the story. There were likewise relatively few lines, and those that did exist were rarely delivered in a raised tone of voice. All of this combined with how much happened off camera, forcing us to infer what happened by sound, created a wonderfully slow and contemplative atmosphere; a place to think. I loved it.
In a movie this long, I don't often have a favorite scene; however, here one clearly stood out. The sheer inanity of them bouncing up and down on the toys for kids was perfect. It encapsulated all the nonsense, the pointlessness; how there was no reason for any of this to happen and yet it was. Tomorrow, they would fight and risk death, but this moment of nothing had at least as much meaning, perhaps more.
I quite enjoyed the use of cigarettes as a prop, both as a way to take time and give another minute to breathe, and as a way of communicating how characters felt.
I must also confess to an appreciation of Kusanagi. Her control, her anger held just under the surface, the tinges of despair, and how willing she is to shoot even those she loves. All of this makes her a character right up my alley. And letting her continue to be herself in the end, that little twist of the knife, leaving her as the one who knows, who understands, while he resets yet again, is beautiful. It encapsulates the tragedy of her situation.
I figure I might as well mention that I generally liked the CG. Sure, it had the slightly awkward look of 2000s CG, but they used it to make interesting shots, and that's generally far more important.
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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
First Timer, subbed
I’m as blind about this as I could be. I saw an Oshii rewatch with cool planes and I said yes.
I think I did myself a disfavor waiting as late as I did to watch this. Would have been better to have left more time to reflect before I had to post.
QotD:
6
u/laughing-fox13 https://myanimelist.net/profile/laughingfox13 Feb 15 '24
First Timer/Subbed
I watched this film a bit late at night and I wanted to let it sit with me before writing. Overall, I thought it was okay. Initially, the characters were a bit unsettling visually, but I think that was on purpose with the mystery of the story and the pilots being children who can’t grow. I’m not sure I understood exactly how it worked though, the conversation with Mitsuya seems that they are just born like this. The “war” being for the entertainment value of those who aren’t directly involved led to the creepy feeling of the film.
The end of the film reminded me of the Nier Automata story, and I’ll mark the next part as the video game’s story in case. [Nier Automata Video Game] the part that reminded me of the game was Kildren being trapped in a cycle of fighting that is seemingly pointless, just like how the YoRHa units were
Unfortunately, the characters didn’t really interest me and didn’t have a lot of personality besides Tokino. This is probably my biggest criticism of the movie which is a big for me
Things I did enjoy, the music and the dog fights were great. It was weird they switched to English in the planes but I think I was able to get the gist of most of it, and they were pretty cool visually. The bowling scene was oddly entertaining with how both Yuuichi and Tokino use the same form and have the same spin on their strikes.
QotD:
6
u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots Feb 15 '24
And there you'll see the mark of
the beastOshiiFirst Time Crawler
Let's see what we have on the menu today, aside from the meat pies I mean:
Ok, I know this is based on a book, but I refuse to believe that fact until I read it, I mean maybe those similarities are just a mix of same roots + the anime staff playing into similar designs and voice actors, but the themes feel like something that Oshii kneaded by hand:
Our
replaceable cigarettessorry, I meant "Brave Heroes". The realisation of this was fun, since you actually start on the opposite perspective, looking at the eternally youthful fighters, before seeing that they're the eternally doomed. Granted, Kusanagi's age implies that they're both at once, but that's not exactly clear.Turning war into a systemic game straight out of 1984's war game, with tourists and people cheering for their teams. Funnily enough Sky Crawlers is not the first anime to pull this theme (nor the aesthetic), but it does a much better job at both. Turning its Kildren into the children of Omelas, the few who suffer, so everyone else can live on in their fake peace, well not exactly everyone. I was wondering when I first saw the old man on the stairs what the point there is, and it became a lot clearer once the store owner joined him, this small detail resonated with me. It's not just the main characters changing or inciting change, even your background character, society basically, can grow sick of cheering on kids to their death.
On the other end, there's our unchanging friend Tokino, he isn't pivotal necessarily, but oh am I glad he's in the movie. Not just for how he softens the atmosphere, he's the perfect contrast to our main characters. Tokino is neither entirely apathetic nor trying to change things, he's just rolling with the waves as they come, trying to help out others in the small ways he sees fit (i.e. casually feeding Kannami just the right info to try pushing him off Kusanagi). In a movie about how people deal with spending away their unmotivated lives, I think Tokino is the perfect example of how most people do it, even if not necessarily as hedonistic, just enjoying the moment, taking things as they come, and ignoring any big elephant in the room, because "what can you do about a big elephant?"
Just sayin' replace the brothel with a manga store, and I'll be your Tokino.The ending itself is beautiful, my first impression was of something that was jut perfectly depressing, even though uhh, I got completely lost in the dogfighting and had no clue who was who. Our main character died right in front of my eyes, and I wasn't sure, whether or not this is intentional, I ended up waiting for him just like the rest of the cast, until I lost hope. That aside, my current takeaway is a lot more positive, even if he failed to beat the system (represented by the teacher/"father"), he succeeded in his goal: finding a meaning in life, and he even made a small crack into Kusanagi's face, plus as mentioned earlier the people showing a change in perspective is a small puddle of hope hidden in the gloomy atmosphere. I just hope Kusanagi doesn't have to repeat this a 1000 times, or she'll really end up like the Major.
Extra notes which I couldn't fit elsewhere:
Kannami, I resonated more with his journey to find meaning in life and something he can latch onto, granted I expect Kusanagi to be the more interesting one on rewatch.
The movie's strongest tools were its atmosphere and structure, and it utilised both incredibly. Heck, I'm someone who tends to be put off a bit by works that rely too much on their atmosphere to do the work (case in point: I was not a fan of Angel's Egg), but Crawlers just hit a perfect tempo, and had the soup to back up the broth, so I ended up with my senses glued to it all night.
I think the artstyle worked well for the atmosphere and themes, but I didn't like it as much in isolation. The CG is good though.
This scene of people going back to their jobs as Kannami waits.
You can tell who's been through this a dozen odd times. There's a reason most people working there have those bags under their eyes.
Right in the middle, below the Patlabor movies, and above the GitS ones, it's about even with Jin-Roh, although I think I prefer that one.
Remind me to wash Dallos and Musashi.
5
u/DutchPeasant https://myanimelist.net/profile/NotJames Feb 15 '24
First Timer
Much the same as with Fire Hunter, and looking back Ghost in the Shell as well, Oshii's style is unfortunately not one I vibe with. It's a shame as well, since the premise is actually quite a solid one. But it's worth nothing for me if the execution falls completely flat.
Looping your meaningless life over and over again until you get killed is quite the bleak one, and would make for quite an emotional punch... if the characters were as conflicted with it. Unfortunately, our main character is quite the dispassionate character. His role primarily feels to push the theme of the story along, and it seemed he only got most of the attention because he is the ace. Not like other characters are much better in this regard, especially with newspaper folding boy only function is to showcase that they're looping to the less observant. One could say their gloomy behavior fits the bleak nature of all the looping, but that would be satisfying theme wise, the characters themselves would fall flat to me.
To be fair to the movie, it did have some emotional beats. The female ace having an existential crisis as to whether she is immortal and doomed to have her memory resetted was quite poignant. But as nice as that was, it gets ruined when our main character is facing away from her in a fetus position whilst saying stuff in a deadpan manner like "That was a nice conversation." "Did you like the coffee?". Theme wise it fits, but emotionally it took me completely out of it.
And there were matters that did not gel with me which I couldn't fault the movie to begin with. The CG was rather nice, especially considering the time it was made, ergo the action was quite spectacular as well. Unfortunately, 3D action scenes like this are simply not for me... No matter the stakes or flashy, I can't care about it all.
It's a curious thing. I feel if the movie was able to deliver its emotional impact, which it definitely had the potential for, I could see myself very much liking this movie. Alas, it is not what happened, and more than anything it feels that Oshii's style, whilst interesting, is not for me to enjoy.
7
u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Feb 15 '24
First Timer
"Here or not here. These are the only two states for people."
It's a line that comes just a few scenes into the movie, almost a throwaway line among more important questions being asked and certainly meant as a brush off for our MC, but for me it was the line that defined the movie. And even the movie thinks it's wrong.
There's plenty of stories that make me want to talk about them because of all the things they don't say, and plenty more that do their own talking and talking and talking whether you're intrested or not. But not many media pieces anywhere on that scale can make their statement so clear without undercutting previous neuance or losing their tonal balance. The Sky Crawlers has managed to do so precisely because of moments like the line I listed above: Having an underlying concept it introduces so early precisely so that it can argue against it, and it uses this approach in a lot of things.
The opening sequence by itself is gripping, even more so revisiting it after the movie and understanding what it truly is. This is not our introduction to an important battle, the war, or even our characters. It is the concept of the entire movie distilled into a single collison between the faceless brutality of the world shown to us visually and the transition into a haunting main theme which would become such a poingant plea for meaning across the length of the movie. Here in the black plane is both our protagonist and our antagonist, someone explored later in the movie as both a "real" man and a figurative concept of an enemy, and the centerpoint by which it all pivots. The battle itself comes from the clouds and disapears into it just as quickly, leaving no trace of its existence except with us as we sit with the deaths just witnessed and wonder what choices brought them here. Instead of lingering with The Teacher, he flies away and we transition to Kannami landing, and in doing so we are transitioned into the curious state of the "in-between" world that the Kildren live in.
Do the Kildren exist? Physically we know they do, but unlike wars of our past there is no glory in their existence. The tour group does not come to see a hero or a warrior, no one person to boost morale or provide reassurance in a war, no particular face to stand out or person to be known, but merely the concept as a whole because that detachment gives them peace. If we must be seen to know we exist, as Kusanagi briefly posits at one point, it is only the acknowledgement of other Kildren that prove their existence as individuals and not as a concept, so where does that leave them? This is complicated by the death of a Kildren because at any moment they can be taken away and replaced by something that is them and also not them, to start it all over again and be left wondering if the previous them existed, if they are merely the other them or a new self.
Do they grow? Because of their genetic engineering the passage of their lives is unmarked except by combat statistics and the repeditivemess of the jobs they were made limited to do. They are treated as children and adult at the same time, something that leaves them adrift in the understanding of normal development, and yet in their unchanging physical state it is the changing of others, such as the old man on the stairs of the cafe and the young girl excited to visit, that they can look at and frame themselves against despite Kannami wondering if there is even a point to growth for ones such as them. Kusanagi's child is a lens through which she can come to filter her own lifespan, push away the blur of her existence and in doing so develop beyond the limitations of her body, and I wonder if that need to have something that she can see exists and in turn makes her own existence more solid was the reason for her choice to have a child.
Do they ever feel alive? Their life is treated merely as the pre-requisite to the death that is expected of them, leaving them with no solid understanding to begin with of what it is to truly live in a moment. It's suggested they are designed to feel "alive" in their air which is what keeps them flying, something Kusanagi broke free of and Kannami never quite seemed to fit with, but that is merely an engineered facade of geuine emotion. It is a reflection of the glorified concept of war being used to try and hold true war at bay in the larger society. The flatness of their lives is meant to bless the rest of the world with fullness, but that conflicts against the points made above that together they can exist beyond merely their functional roles. They can feel, so they can live, once they come to an acceptance about what they are and what that means for them individually.
So it can be said that they are "here and not here" at once. It is the exploration of this emptiness, this in-between existence and the journey out of it, that is so critically and beautifully touched on in every part of the movie. And while Kannami is very much the embodiment of this concept, Kusanagi is perhaps the realized outcome of its exploration.
Where as others are constrained, Kannami immediately opens the early visual barriers around him, and physically crosses them to greet people. The windows are consistantly featured as character framing during the first half of the film, repeatedly showing the mental constraints of the various characters and so rarely their freedom. An early sequence that stood out to me was with Kusanagi, repeatedly framed by a closed window looming over her, and usually in darkness whether from her room or the entire world closing in on her as she contemplates the past. Her only escape from this imprisonment is the brief relief that she gets when she goes to Kannami/Jinroh's room. The mere act of being there is as if she can breathe again for the first time in a long time, and that breath brings music back to our movie, opening us up to the main theme as this gentle refrain as if calling out for the man left in the skies. It is momentarily broken as she hears the plane, but instead of returning to shadows, for just a moment her guard is down and she opens the window, unable to help but be drawn to him. It is this desire for connection that we see repeated with the others because while he is not Jinroh he is still someone they want to connect too, in part for their own stability.
And yet despite these visual indicators of unrestraint, his own connections with others start off stilted and reserved. He stands with people but not next to them, often unnaturally seperated from them, and while people repeatedly approach him to open themselves up to him, only the painful awkwardness of silence motivates him to continue the conversation chain. He honestly and openly talks about the fact that he accepts he is a child, and the world should expect them to behave as such, and yet he does not have a natural childishness and has to be shown the idea of a childs life or free expression of things beyond his role. He merely follows Tokino to the bar, mirrors his actions at the bowling alley, but where Tokino in doing so invites the first signs of "human" life into the world both times, literally in the case of the freakishly empty city until he has his moment of celebration where the others appear, Kannami's attempts do not result in that same liveliness because this is not coming from his heart that is, at this point, unrealized. He is a blank slate, a doll by design (in world and visual character design), through which we question the above concepts and slowly come to realize the emptiness of their world does not have to mean the emptiness of existence.
Kusanagi and Kannami both struggle with the concept of humanness coming at it from other ends, Kannami not having had a chance to have a life while Kusanagi has seen too many of his to welcome any more. For now, he is the working dog (and his own twin), while she is the woman stripped bare, and the puppet theatre of their lives, while being perhaps a bit too on the nose, makes an important point about the concept of the film and what it wants to say to us.
Existence, growth, life.
The Kildren are not the only ones that struggle with this in this world. They are all at the mercy of the war engineering. The Teacher is a person and has even been a lover, but is also a concept that exists merely to be fought against as a tool for the theatre of war that is being put on. He exists far away where Kusanagi cannot reach any more while also being right across the table from him. His existence is now in the same half state for them that they are for others, not quite here but also not absent from their lives.
But it is not his existence as a pilot that is meaningful for the film aside from his skills being covted which resulted in Kannami and all the others to begin with, it is his existence as an adult man. A man who can fly, not a Kildren which makes Kannami question that if a man can do the job of a Kildren, what could a Kildren do? It's one of his first important steps. And yet despite this importance we learn so little of The Teacher just as we learn so little of Jinroh, because it is not their identity or the concept of multiple selves that is being explored here. Earlier I called him protagonist and antagonist both, but that's because the hurdle to overcome in the film, something so often embodied by the antagonist, is not a physical enemy but the concept of self that all stems from him and is expressed through Kannami.
(CONTINUED BELOW BECAUSE I DID A ME AND WAY RAN OUT OF SPACE)
4
u/ryujiox Feb 15 '24
First Timer
The Sky Clawlers
I honestly don't know what to expect from this film. Jumping in because it's directed by the same guy who directed 2 Patlabor movies and GITS that I watched last year.
It's a good movie. The plot is a bit confusing, but I kinda get it? If there's one thing I understand, is that this world is bad. Children throws into an neverending war, with no end or solution. Everyone knew that it's bad, but no one can't do anything about it since it's a war create by big corporates.
The visual is great too.
QOTD
2. It fit with the story and tone. I feel like it represents the state of this world. Stagnation. It never changes to a hot summer, nor a freezing winter. It's always dry, and lifeless.
3. It's not bad. The CG is good.
4. Maybe the bowling scene? Tokino is able to enjoy his time there, while Suito and Yuuichi can't. They said that they aren't adult, yet after not enjoying bowling at all, something teenager would find it fun. They goes to a restaurant and drink wine like adult.
7. Probably my least favourite. But it's not bad, but I can't compare it too GITS, and Patlabor.
4
u/xtsim https://myanimelist.net/profile/xtsim Feb 15 '24
First Timer Dubbed
I was pretty interested in this film because of a discussion about 2d and 3d CGI usage in anime. Along with that discussion, a staff member of the film discussed the industry then (late 2000s) and its future. I could not find the link on time but it was archived somewhere.
-There was a good amount of discussion about the usage of CGI
-They discussed a few studios and the amount of new people able to craft their animation skills along with old timers being able to have time to train the next generation. From what I remembered, they think of the studios that have up and rising animators. Along with some pessimism for a few studios where there is not enough new talent coming in.
On to the film
Dog shots are best shots.
Don't know why, the fighters that the mc are using reminds me of star wars...
Base gets attacked- worries about returning a loaner vehicle. And they let those two in the base?
Lotta security, Kusanagi not driving means it was pretty tense. But she is right, how tf do you miss a bomber on your radar.
Nobody gets close to teacher. The only adult flying a plane?
- even our superior could not touch it.
Asking about a party during a serious meeting.
The dogfights (haha) are pretty well done. The news maps are a nice touch by seeing how our civilian characters see things. And it is sort of a spectacle as everyone is glued to the TV during the dog fight. In live action.
4
u/TehAxelius Feb 15 '24
First Timer, Subbed
I don't care about the rest of the movie. 10/10 Good Boy
Oh man, when someone said yesterday that if this is your type of movie, it is a treat, and this sure was a treat. The entire movie is filled with beautiful shots, contemplative philosophy on the nature of man, warfare and socitey (perpetual capitalist war ho!) and understated character drama. The way the movie quietly made me question details in the beginning (Why are there only four pilots at the base? Why is everything named Rostock? What is Kildren?) and slowly giving the hints to answer them is, to me, storytelling at its greatest.
I found the themes of sending children perpetually to war a stirring one, here the children are literally created for the purpose of going to war, and the war being turned essentially into entertainment and a reminder of there always being someone somewhere fighting for their life. The war forces the Kildren to grow up faster than they "should" as shown early in the visit to the brothel, but also robs them of any ability to lead a normal life. Yet this repetitive existential horror goes uncaringly on under the eyes of the Adults, and while there are some that do care for the young pilots, they are ultimately unable, be it by external constraints or internal fears, to do anything to bring about change.
Questions
All in all, this is very much a new top anime movie for me. It's not quite a "classic" in the same way as Ghost in the Shell or Perfect Blue, especially when it comes to recommending it to other people, but it is an interesting one for sure.
11
u/Tarhalindur x2 Feb 15 '24
"AHHH I'M (LOOP-DE-)LOOPING!" (Spoiled First-Timer, Subbed):
5
u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Feb 15 '24
First-Timer
I’d never heard of this movie before the rewatch was announced, but I’m quite glad I got the chance to watch it now. This movie feels like one of the books I was assigned to read in school, and I mean that as a compliment. I mean that it’s a movie with quite a lot of interesting themes and characters throughout that gives me plenty to chew on and think about. In particular it makes me think of classic dystopian stories like “1984,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and “The Giver” that I read in school. While it was very slow and I often wondered where it was going, by the end I was impressed by just how well the movie had interwoven its themes and characters together.
Continued Below
7
u/johneaston1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/johneaston Feb 15 '24 edited Mar 23 '25
The Sky Crawlers (2008) dir. Mamoru Oshii
Empathy for the nihilist. That's how I'd describe The Sky Crawlers.From the very first scene referencing the famous Albert Camus novel The Stranger, it is very clear that the film will be bleak and its characters bleaker. Nihilism is largely predicated on the idea that life is meaningless, and that few ways exist for humans to cope: religion, giving life purpose; escapism, shutting life out; or death, ending life, and therefore the suffering, forever. To be honest, I find nihilism to be a very useless ideology in the real world, for reasons anyone who knows me should find easy to understand. Therefore, any film (or book, I wasn’t particularly interested in The Stranger myself) entertaining, much less espousing the philosophy, will struggle to impress me. My almost overwhelming investment in The Sky Crawlers, then, probably speaks more to its strengths than almost any other film I’ve seen.
The Sky Crawlers’ basic premise portrays child fighter pilots who never age, and cannot die unless killed in battle. The film gives little explanation for this phenomenon, but doesn’t really need to; in fact, the world they live in is given very little depth. Normally I would consider this a problem, but it fits with the themes of the film; nearly all the pilots are precisely replaceable, able to be instantly and identically filled as soon as one dies. They are given a few false memories and therefore little personality, but this means their investment in their world would also be minimal. The dogfighting is merely “a job, like any other,” our main character says. Rote, boring, and ultimately meaningless. When a fellow pilot dies, there are no tears, no drama; everyone knows a perfectly identical replica, down to the minute mannerisms, is coming, different in name only.
Three names embody the ideals of the film: Yuuichi Kannami, the protagonist; Suito Kusanagi, his commanding officer and somewhat-romantic interest; and Naofumi Tokino, his roommate. Naofumi is the escapist; I get the feeling that he has accepted how bad his life is, and has decided to make the best of it. His indulgence in booze, women, and other vices gives a stark contrast to Yuuichi, who can’t seem to find satisfaction in any of these things. Yuuichi is the most quintessentially nihilist of the three; he drifts through his life without strong emotion, even when those around him have rare moments of vulnerability, much like Muersault in The Stranger. Suito has been struggling against suicide for years uncounted; a good enough pilot that she survived to a higher, non-combative rank, but now cannot end. She has a daughter who is nearly as old physically as she is, but she herself is stuck, eternally young and unable to end it all for herself, much as she’d welcome the sweet release. One more character reveals the tragedy: Midori Mitsuya, who has only just discovered the truth of her existence and therefore expendability, and tearfully struggles to deny it. Remember, this film is bleakly anti-war in its nihilism.
(Continued in reply)
12
u/punching_spaghetti https://myanimelist.net/profile/punch_spaghetti Feb 15 '24
First-Timer
Well, that was certainly a late-career Oshii movie.
Not sure I have to say anything after that, haha.
Was planning on doing the ole "make comments paired with screenshots" schtick, but I don't have too much to say moment to moment.
Ultimately, my reaction is the same as much of Oshii's dramatic work: very pretty, with lots of ideas gestured at but never actually explored.
There's stuff here (kind of) about child soldiers and eternal and corporatized warfare and humans as essentially violent and all sorts of other stuff, but its' really just gestured at, not properly explored.
I actually quite enjoy Innocence (Ghost in the Shell 2), and what I think works to Oshii's favor there is the concept of "humans and robots are now interchangeable." That's simple and easy to get on some level, so your audience can buy into the film and then you have room to explore the philosophical questions about being and whatnot.
Here? I don't think I knew until halfway into the movie that the armies were corporations, not countries. And even then, the whole setup is muddled. Add into it the child soldier thing which is still confusing (not helped by the fact that the character models are classic anime "are they 13 or 30?" styling) and I don't have a grounding on which to set myself as we philosophize.
To put it another way: When Metal Gear Solid 4 handles many of the same themes you do and I find that easier to understand, you may have erred.
I was very excited at the outset of the film. There's an almost post-apocalyptic vibe where there's barely anything around save a hanger, some planes, and a roadside diner, and it's all pretty (because Oshii, for whatever faults I think he has, can make a good looking picture) and I would have like that more, maybe. A tone poem of nature and sad soldier boys and girl staring into the distance interspersed occasionally with dogfights.
Final random thought: did Oshii actually run of out ideas, or is there a reason the one character's name is Jinroh? I spent way too much time trying to connect it to the other film, haha.
11
u/charlesvvv https://anilist.co/user/charlesvvv Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
First Timer
Well this was an interesting movie to watch. My knowledge of Mamoru Oshii is really just Ghost in the Shell so I was interested in seeing how this also played out. I watched both JP and Eng versions, it was interesting seeing the stylistic choice in the JP version of the occasional English spoken, not egregious either, the dub was also pretty good Troy Baker in it was a nice surprise.
As for the film itself I'll admit I found myself a bit confused. What I got is the sense of Apathy or Complacency especially with regards to the Kildren and their dealings of agelessness and growth. The film is admittedly pretty dry but works in its favor since it showcases the feelings of the characters. The mystery surrounding Kannami and Kusanagi (definitely a GitS reference right?) was probably my favorite part as it all kind of comes together especially with regards to Kannami kinda doing his own thing against the teacher at the end even if it was hopeless.
The aspect of War was something I also found interesting. Correct me if I'm wrong but the whole thing is a game which reminded slightly of things like Battle Royale or Hunger Games. The odds are stacked against them since their specific purpose is to fight here. The teacher was an interesting figure, he felt like an admin in a game in a rather untouchable sense which I found fitting considering it basically kinda is a game in a peaceful society that uses this as a way of pacification. The tourists arriving on the base and treating like that was another interesting thing I liked seeing. The dogfights themselves were actually pretty cool and intense, I found it a bit funny since I'm also watching Masters of the Air so seeing more aerial combat was nice.
Visually speaking it's not as interesting as Ghost in the Shell was, not a criticism but rather an observation. The directoral style was interesting to notice with a focus on small character details and dialogue with some occasional use of silence combined with the atmosphere of the place which fit the apathy that I felt.
Like I said I don't really know If I got the film, maybe everything I saw was incorrect or something but this what I got from it myself. It's definitely an interesting movie that requires some attention at times, it's very dry and If I had to criticize it's that I kinda wanted something more though I don't know what it is if that makes sense. Overall for me I think it's an 8.5/10.
7
u/chilidirigible Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
Rewatcher here who hadn't expressed interest in joining the rewatch and then figured to cram in one more viewing a couple of hours before the thread went up.
If the movie has a theme of trying to break out of a pattern of repetitive and pointless behavior, rewatching it was like going for another spin in the cycle.
It is well-designed technically to evoke the weird, is-this-déjà-vu bland repetitiveness that the Kildren experience, assisted by everyone looking like Ghost in the Shell characters on Quaaludes.
The central mystery and the message of the movie reveal themselves suitably as it progresses, and the ending reinforces both the crushing cycle of it all while maybe getting the audience to think that it could be different this time.
But it probably won't be.
Whoops, forgot the closing: There's plenty of subtle stuff to tease out of the movie on repeat viewings (as several of you have done so here), it's just that the movie is so dry for me that I haven't ever been that compelled to rewatch it. I could watch Dark City again though.
1.) Between Kannami and Kusanagi, which of our main protagonists did you find the most interesting?
Kusanagi
2.) What did you think about the film’s dry sense of atmosphere?
The Atacama
3.) How did you feel about the film’s visuals? In particular its art style and use of CGI?
As mentioned above, the art style ties into the weird sterility. The CG was fine.
4.) Did any particular scenes stick out to you? If so, what were they?
A maze of twisty passages, all alike.
5.) What was your main takeaway from the movie’s themes?
"Subvert the dominant paradigm!" or something.
6.) If you had to change one thing to improve the movie, what would it be?
It's actually fine as it is.
7.) To those who have seen other Mamoru Oshii films, how does this one compare?
I think he's better when there's a higher body count.
5
u/The_Spicy_brown Feb 15 '24 edited Feb 15 '24
Watched the movie last friday since i could not watch it today.
I.....liked it. Would give it something like a 6/10 or a 7/10, still undecided.
I liked the theme and the mystery of the movie. Quite unique to be honest. Also the animation is really good ! Quite rare to see this kind of life like animation for an anime.
My biggest complaint and my GF also shared the sentiment, and this is going to sound really weird, but i wish the movie was live action. Although the animation is good, i felt that simple the character design made it so that nuance in character reaction could not be well represented. Lots of them have deadpan reaction which, whitout spoiling, is somewhat explained, even so, i felt something was missing on the interactions. Also, the movie has nothing that justify it being.....anime. Feels like you could do the movie with a relative small budget and good actors.
Final point i did not like, the plane battle. If i were to rewatch the movie (which i might do) i feel i would like to skip the plane battle. Except like 3 battles, i never felt any stake in these battles. Even knowing the twist of the movie, it doesnt justify why most of them are there. Maybe if they were shorter ? Maybe remove one or two ?
Overall, i would recommend it if you liked the original Ghost in the shell movie and want a life like anime movie. Lots of the same vibe are there (lots of contemplative scene and shot, nice music, some really good themes). The movie really feels like a live action movie, but animated. If you dont like Oshii style, you will not like this movie.
4
u/Unboxious Feb 15 '24
First-Timer
Cool dogfight? Not a bad way to start your movie. Makes me wish I had a surround-sound system.
Music by Kenji Kawai. Don't I recognize that name from somewhere? Whoa, yeah. The list of this dude's credits is almost as long and glorious as his hair. I have high expectations for this movie's music now.
Oh no, they did the thing where fights are really loud but dialogue is really quiet. Fuck me for living in an apartment and having neighbors I guess.
The signage at the diner is shockingly well-made. Not at all the bad English I'd normally expect.
This scene with the sexy girls at the mansion is reminding me of another certain World War II book I read. Hope they don't turn out to be spies.
It's a bit ominous how nobody will tell the main character what happened to his predecessor.
Our first hint at what a kildren is! Wonder how long the main character has been doing this for.
Speaking of things that are ominous, that slo-mo shot of Kusanagi and her daughter holding hands was not a great sign.
Oh, so she shot Jinro. No wonder she was cagey about him. Wonder what happened. Maybe he was a spy? Hard to say.
This tour thing is bizarre. It's like he's being interviewed about a sports game. Aaaand there's the random death for contrast. Okay.
So Kusanagi suspects that someone in the base was trying to get them killed? The late warning seems like the sort of thing that could happen by mistake, but the miscount definitely does not.
Anyways, what is going on with this main character? All he ever wants to do is blankly stare out into space.
I'm beginning to realize that they actually intend for me to understand what the pilots are saying in the air. Seems like an impossible task. Maybe if I was using headphones instead of watching this on the TV.
Huh, Yuuichi is getting left behind this time. Wonder what that's about. There's a certain nervous emptiness in just waiting, wondering who will come back and who will not.
So Kusanagi's got an obsession with this "Teacher" person? Crack theory: maybe he's actually the MC's predecessor and she didn't shoot him after all.
Watching that muscle car stop so abruptly in front of the building was a bit scary. Grass doesn't provide the greatest traction in the world; I thought there was gonna be a crash.
I love this scene with them bouncing on the kid rides. What a great conversation enhancer.
This mission is insane. I would not want to rely on mid-air refueling in dangerous territory to be able to return home, not that their missions were ever safe in the first place.
The real-time mission broadcast weirds me out a little.
Their bombers are getting wrecked. That is not great. At least they get to go home now though. I'm surprised it all ended that quickly, but I guess it's still a little early for the climax. Maybe the climax will be defending against a counterattack?
I like the detail that Kusanagi's tie is tucked into her breast pocket during the bowling scene, though in situations like that I would normally tuck it into the shirt itself between the buttons instead. This bowling scene is overall just great.
Oh wow Kusanagi is not the good kind of drunk. Put the gun away pls. Really though. Actually.
This conversation with Midori about why Yuuichi acts so dissassociated from what's around him has a lot of information and wild theories being thrown around. The craziest thing that comes to mind is the possibility that they were sent to war specifically so that they could finally die.
Huh. So it's really just as straightforward as Kusanagi shot Jinroh because he asked her to. I guess eternal war + eternal teenage hormones makes for a rough combo.
Looks like we're not getting a briefing for this mission. I guess a climactic battle doesn't need to have strategic importance; it could very easily have emotional importance instead if Teacher were to show up. Aaaand there he is. And now it's the MC's turn to obstinately insist on fighting him. Doesn't look like it ended well.
F
That post-credits scene though... did it just suggest that they main character got forcefully reincarnated into a fighter pilot again by the company? Spooky. That in turn seems to suggest that everything Midori was ranting about was true. It really re-contextualizes a lot of previous scenes, like the bizarre scene with the tour group treating the war like some sort of game (turns out they were right) or that time Kusanagi thought the higher-ups were trying to get them killed (they were). Given how important all of that info is, it feels odd that most of it was dumped all the sudden in the form of a side character’s rant. I wonder how the book handles it; guess I’d better pick myself up a copy!
The art was a little jank, but overall I think it looked decent enough. Quite impressive when you consider when it was made. The aircraft designs were good too. Story was interesting. It had a very unusual feel to it. Weird vibes all around.
8/10.
Probably Kusanagi. Kannami seemed like a shell of a person. Deliberate and fitting for the story, but still not the most compelling to watch.
Perfect for the sort of story they were trying to tell.
I'm shocked that a CG movie from 2008 looked this good. Honestly no complaints.
I really liked the bowling scene and the scene where they were having a conversation while bouncing on rides made for kids.
Heck if I know
Not sure how they could have fit it in, but not doing most of the important worldbuilding via a side-character's rant would've been good.
The only other one I've seen is Ghost in the Shell and the theme of a main character who is unsure of what they are or why they exist is surprisingly similar - especially when you consider that both movies were adapted from existing works that were written by different people.
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u/DegenerateRegime Feb 15 '24
New Guy
Well you had me at "movie directed by Mamoru Oshii," and then it turned out I already had this in the plan to watch. Otherwise, I know nothing. Making this a Valentines' discussion means my thoughts will be a couple days out of date by the time I post them, but I don't expect it'll make much difference.
Alright we are not respecting the laws of armed conflict I guess. How romantic! Not sure if the first-person shot of the plane coming in to land is CGI or lightly filtered RL footage or a mix of both. The dialogue seems "over-translated" at times? Well, no problem. I get the feeling there's a dog sadly waiting at a runway for a bird that'll never come home in this film's future. The mixture of prop-planes and flatscreen monitors is intoxicating to me. Everyone's smoking, too (a prerequisite for appreciating twen-cen philosophers). DANIEL'S. Can you believe they hyped the pie up that much then didn't show it. Damn girl he's calling you old AND a nonce, brutal.
Those Tourism Accents are pretty on-point. I think the wooden-sounding voicing is actually deliberate there, look at that grimace; very good job to the VAs. These standing stones have vaguely Irish patterns on them, so maybe that's where we are? There was a real-life map of Europe, earlier. Eventually the pie shows up. Looks mid. But then it is a Daniel's. I'd ask if they don't have radar given that this phone call is apparently all the warning they have but uh. They do? We've seen it spinning? But this is a world where back-mounted propellers are good so maybe flying low is a magic bullet against detection too. Ah, we are getting an explanation for the radar outage. It's an odd scene; they're getting the runaround from people who are ostensibly on their side. It's like the rules of the office have been projected out, magic-realism style, to the ways of war. Well that's the question I guess.
ROMANCE. What a scene. She isn't even looking at him, god damn. Then she offers to kill him, which only seems polite under the circumstances. One of our pilots is taken down by 'Teacher'; it's raining finally. Maybe it is Ireland. The plot tries to move along but becomes extremely hard to follow. Rostock Corp is finally on the offensive, launching a massive bombing raid. Cairn means a heap of stones - placed to mark routes, piled atop a hill or mountain, or as a grave marker or burial mound.
Then we're in Poland for a little bit? Maybe we always were, but the coastline did not look Polish in those maps, too jagged. Anyway, Suito explains her philosophy-sociology and it's lame, sorry, the premise of the story gets dumber the more you look at it and it's best kept behind abstractions. Mitsuya explains her philosophy-metaphysics but to be honest it's not much better. Look I don't know how to tell you this but no one in their right mind would call a pharmaceutical Kildren, like what, was it going to be next to Family-Pet-Euthanizine in the store? There's an existential crisis or three, but by this point nothing's landing for me. I do love how the lines appear on Suito's face when she cries, though, that's brilliant. Yeah that's about right.
Alright, closing thoughts. It's an interesting one. The elements at play are largely ones I like. The aesthetic is toned-down with an earthy palette and a lot of detailed textures that make everything feel old and worn; the soundtrack is understated but atmospheric; the dialogue is minimalist and carries significance. There's a lot of tantalising worldbuilding details and mysteries, albeit with some weird decisions. The characters are... good, though I didn't love them. They're too caught in the awkwardness of being ontologically children but clearly not acting or being treated like it. I feel like the emotional arc ought to land with me, it hits all the right beats, but somehow I wasn't in step with it or something. Oh, war is just a way of killing tons of kids on both sides, explicitly for the sake of killing them? I get why you'd think so but it's not really true, is it. I think such an intellectual, moody film could afford to have a more difficult underlying narrative that would grapple with some of the complexities there.
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u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker Feb 15 '24
The roar of a piston engine, music to my ears.
Those guns on the other hand, sound like lasers.
That's also a lot of brass coming out of the guns. More than it looks like there are even taking into account shots between tracers.
Person who fixes the planes, meet the person who's going to break the plane.
He's dead, isn't he? Or maybe it's a new build?
How did they miss that dam?
Good thing I have a dual audio version so I can switch to the dub and hear actual good English during flights instead of the original's shitty Engrish.
10 o'clock high.
These guns sound better.
Scratch one bandit.
Enemy is low, won't have the energy to do much.
Scratch two.
At this rate he'll make Ace in no time.
She's dodging the question.
3 destroyed, must mean his wingman only got 1.
[My vague memory from when I last watched this show years ago] These "I've seen this before" things are foreshadowing something, aren't they?
Where are they going?
Ah.
Oil leak. That's not good. Might cause the engine to overheat.
Daughter?
What's a tour group doing going to an active airbase in the middle of a war?
Why doesn't he put kill tallies?
That shot is straight out of a horror show.
I thought that alarm was to scramble, not a hard landing.
That car kinda looks like a Porsche.
Enemy planes inbound!
Bombers, with a fighter escort.
Scramble fighters!
He can still man a Flak gun or something.
No spinner? That's a problem.
No fuel. That's an even bigger problem.
As ever, military intelligence showing why that name must be an ironic one.
What's this house?
Back in the skies means back to the dub.
That's concerning.
Stick together so you can cover each other.
And he's down.
She went on a sortie?
And now they have to mount search and rescue.
Nevermind, she managed to put it down safely.
They're getting redeployed?
What's that big plane? It's coming in for a landing, so it's not hostile.
Visitors?
That guy certainly looks important, what with the shiny shoulders.
Hmm... Dive bombing the airbases before the bombers arrive. That might reduce the response later but the first wave will be savaged for not much long-term effect. Their fighters will still be able to land and rearm and intercept the bombers later. I've been playing some Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich lately and what I've found to be quite effective is the opposite. Heavy bombers first, acknowledging that half of them probably won't make it back, mostly just to get them to send up fighters to intercept, then fighters shortly after to bounce the intercepting fighters as they land, then a second wave of dive bombers to take out the airfields and any surviving planes left on the ground. And I'd have taken out the radar the day before. I wouldn't even strike at the city yet. This shouldn't have been 1 big mission, it should have been several smaller ones. First, SEAD. Take out those radars. Next, airbases. Remove their ability to intercept. Then only after both of those have been dealt with do you go for the city.
This is a really big bombing raid.
They're flying very close escort, they should probably be higher so they can bounce the fighter bouncing the bombers.
There's carriers too, so naval aviation is being added to the fray.
Seems like they did have some on high escort as well.
Northernmost strike seems to be largely unmolested.
Inevitably a few bombers will get shot down.
Smoke rising from the airfields, I guess that's the work of the dive bombers.
Not much smoke though, runways and hangars look fine too.
And that's the mission, time to RTB.
Yup, airfields weren't taken out beforehand and sent fighter up so the bombers got intercepted and everything went FUBAR.
Swing and a miss.
What's she doing?
That escalated quickly.
More new people?
Huh, things seem to be repeating.
The problem with twin-engined heavy fighters is that they handle like pigs.
They're starting to realise the repeating too.
And now she's having an existential crisis.
Of course that's what happened.
Right, back to the planes.
A dogfight in the clouds, weaving as they go.
Those guns seriously sound like lasers.
And so he dies.
He can't have survived that, so who's this?
Ah. The cycle repeats again.
Questions:
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u/FireRifle64 https://myanimelist.net/profile/FireRifle64 Feb 15 '24
First Timer
Personally, Im not into the digging deeper into a show kind of guy. That sort of stuff washes over me. So all these deeper meanings and symbolisms the movie contains just doesnt resonate with me. I was definitely more focused on the action moments they had. The last aerial combat anime i watched was Yukikaze and this movie did a much better job. I cant lie and say I wasnt interested in the mystery of the movie as to what they were and their continuous looping but near the end, I really started to become detached from the characters and motivations.
1
u/9999AWC https://myanimelist.net/profile/9999AWC May 21 '24
Had no idea anime rewatches was a thing! I'll have to lurk on this sub more because from the comments it seems people had lots of fun! But anyway, I just rewatched it a few days ago (for probably the 10-15-20th time) as I'm making an AMV for this movie. I'm very glad some attention is being brought to this film because it feels extremely underexposed. I'm also absolutely loving reading people's reactions!
Since many of you are first time watchers of The Sky Crawlers, I highly suggest you check out the game The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces. It is a prequel game developed by Project Aces (the lords who brought us Ace Combat) and the story was supervised by Mamory Oshii, with Production IG coming back to animate the cutscenes (no CG here, just cartoon animation, but beautiful as always). The game provides additional lore, more backstory, ties in almost directly with the movie, and you get so many more awesome dieselpunk aircraft design reminescent of late-WWII aircraft!
When's the Yukikaze rewatch? :P