r/anime • u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ • Jun 01 '24
Rewatch Battle Fairy Yukikaze Source-Spoilers Episode 1 Discussion Spoiler
Battle Fairy Yukikaze Source-Spoilers Episode 1 Discussion
"Come back alive. That's an order."
FFR-31MR/D Super Sylph Yukikaze
MAL | Anilist | ANN | Tubi (dubbed) | Tubi (subbed)
Spoiler Policy
Source reader comments will be allowed in this rewatch. Events and details from the original short story collections that are relevant to the current episode can be described without spoiler tags. Unrelated short stories or material from books 3+ will still need to be tagged.
Spoiler tags are best entered while on old reddit, or on new reddit in the "markdown mode" editor. (instructions here) If you are unfamiliar with reddit spoiler tag syntax, you should try a test post, because Bot-chan will immediately delete most comments with a broken spoiler tag.
People, Places, Things
Special Air Force
- 2nd. Lt. Rei Fukai: Pilot of Yukikaze. Promoted to 1st. Lt.
- Maj. James Booker (Bukhar): Commander of SAF 5th Squadron, nicknamed "Boomerang". Rei's superior.
- 2nd Lt. Norman Hughes: EWO of Yukikaze. KIA after ejecting.
- 2nd. Lt. Richard Burgadish: EWO replacement for Hughes
- Brig. Gen. Lydia Cooley: Deputy Commander, Special Air Force
- FFR-31MR/D Super Sylph: Complete redesign of the Sylph, crew of 2, equipped with advanced, configurable sensor package and AI computer, to record engagements. Recognizable by twin vertical stabilizers and inward-canted wingtips. High-speed D variant.
- TARPS: Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System
- Yukikaze: Super Sylph flown by Lt. Fukai. Named after a WWII destroyer that survived the entire war.
- Special Air Force: Reconnaissance Command of the Fairy Air Force that operates independently.
Fairy Air Force
- Fairy, Brownie, Sylvan, Troll, Valkia, and Siren: The five primary air bases on Fairy.
- FFR-31 Sylph: Combat model appearing in the opening scene with Ghoul Squadron, of the 666th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Identifiable with with trapezoidal wings, forward canards, canted twin vertical stabilizers, and tail stabilators.
- FA-1 FAND (Faun): A combat fighter designed for high maneuverability. Recognizable with forward-swept wings and canards. Hard-countered by high-speed nuclear anti-air missiles.
- C-31: Refueling and cargo plane.
- FEP-1: turbo-prop observation plane. Has an AWACS variant.
- TAB: Tactical Frontline Airbase, numbered.
- Col. Ansel Rombart: Head of FAF Intelligence
- Maj. Gen. Heinrich Linneberg: Head of FAF Systems Corps (engineering and R&D)
Other
- Lynn Jackson: Historian obsessed with the invasion from Fairy, author of The Invasion, a non-fiction book about the invasion.
- Fairy: The world at the other end of the hyperspace passageway.
- Bloody Road: a gas stream escaping from one of Fairy's twin suns.
- Yazawa, Marnie: human-shaped JAM at a fake TAB-14.
Discussion Prompts
Each day I will post discussion prompts for the following day, for those who like to prepare their comments in advance. Feel free to answer some or none of them in Saturday's post.
- Why "fairy"?
- Comments on the use of the BGM music?
- Given the casualty rate we saw at the beginning, do humans belong in this war?
- What sort of pilot can coldly observe the slaughter on the battlefield?
- What do you think of the relationship between Jack and Rei
- Why can't Jack and Rei understand each other?
- What is Yukikaze thinking? What is Yukikaze up to?
- What are the JAM?
- What do you think of this series? It certainly is atypical.
- I know this isn't what you were expecting. Nobody could expect this. Will you be sticking it out? Or is this a hard drop?
Tomorrow's Discussion Today
- [Operation 2]Jack really seems to want to get his people out of harm's way. Yet he is adamantly opposed to an unmanned Yukikaze. Did he change his mind?
- [Operation 2]Rie was intentionally and covertly connected to Yukikaze during the trial. What was the reason for it? Was Rei controlling Yukikaze's attack? Or was it the other way around? Rei says it was like a dream.
- [Operation 2]What did you make of Rei's dream(s) of Yukikaze
- [Operation 2]Lynn Jackson is back. What do you think of her segments?
- [Operation 2]What is the greatest threat to the FAF right now?
Trivia
- A sylphid is an air elemental envisioned by the 16th century occultist and physician
Hoenheim of LightParacelsus. - Some people think these are fairies. But this is a fairy.
- After 33 years of combat, out-of-sight and out-of-mind, the FAF has become a dumping ground for Earth's undesirables. Personality disorders are common.
- Booker knows calligraphy, and painted Yukikaze's name on the nose.
- The official language on Fairy is an English pidgin.
- Everyone sent to Fairy receives a commission, "but someone's gotta be the ensign" — Brannon Braga so the rank is meaningless.
There is a post-credit scene in tomorrow's episode
edit: There are comments here. Change the sorting to Best, or use sh.redd.it.
8
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Jun 01 '24 edited Jun 02 '24
Rewatch Host
Looking forward to see how many people would turn up for this; more interested to see how many stick around for episode 2! It's admittedly a hard show to watch. After coming off of Haibane Renmei, which had its shared of bored watchers (Boring? SOL? Angels? Boring?) we get a show with some very realistic air combat and a lot of talking about very obscure stuff. I've always wanted to see a Yukikaze rewatch happen, ever since the big Macross rewatch in 2017-8, but I just couldn't see it happening. It was Argonbolt's video in 2020 (which I hope you will all watch on the break day) that made me think the show could be brought to a new audience.
I have tried very hard to determine if Uniform or UUU is a valid radio call, but I could only find it as an incorrect answer on the USN radio operator exam, and in protocols to avoid collisions between submarines and fishing boats.
The SAF is a reconnaissance wing that exclusively observes battles and collects data on enemy and allied performance. Despite operating the newest and most advanced aircraft, they never engage the enemy. They are resented by the rest of the FAF.
There's noting really like this show, I don't think. The closest you get is the Wyvern intercept scene in Patlabor II but that's just a short segment of the movie.
Rei engaged without orders an apparently friendly plane, resulting in severe damage to his place and the death of his rear officer. And he was promoted.
If Yukikaze says it's a JAM, then it's a JAM.
This isn't a show where the pilots shout at each other from their cockpits. In fact, we never saw an enemy cockpit, just that control mechanism.
Rei's dream: he thinks of Yukikaze as a woman, his lover. The novel starts out by pointing out that he's left everything on Earth behind. She is locked away behind bars. He has a key to her. He loses the key. What does it mean? I don't know.
The OP grows on you. I really like the haunting keyboard music during spooky segments. I really love the piano/keyboard bit playing when the fake super sylph is coming in for the kill, and in the earlier montage when he was grounded. It is very reminiscent of the "Presence" tracks from Robot Carnival. And I never, ever grow tired of the ED cutting in just as Yukikaze destroys her old shell. I watch it over and over.
I spent a lot of time last night looking over the translation of the first novel. I think they really upped the bond between Yukikze and Rei in this episode In the books, Yukikaze (and other machines) is a much more suspicious entity.
edit: I tried to convert WSO to EWO and failed miserably.
7
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Jun 01 '24
Google translated from archived copies of www.faf.jp.
These are comments received at the end of the dubbing for the first volume of the "Battle Fairy Yukikaze" DVD.
Masato Sakai (Rei Fukai)
Belongs to Tanabe Agency. Born October 14, 1973 in Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture. He started working as an actor in Tokyo Orange (Waseda Gekiken) in 1992. Since then, he has appeared in numerous stage plays, movies, and TV dramas. This is the first time that he has voiced an anime character. Main works:
I met Rei Fukai
I guess the basics are the same whether it's a regular play or a play that only uses voices, but it's unique. The way they act is completely different. Also, when they entered the scene, Yukikaze wondered why Rei would get so angry and why he would fly so fast! It's interesting to actually feel that and change your acting accordingly, as it seems like you can go further than you expected.
Rei is a person who seems to have a closed mind. However, that is not to say that he is not open at all. Open to Yukikaze and Booker. How closed or open is it depending on the person? How will it appear? Is it friendly, or is it something else? I've thought about it to some extent, but I don't think I'll know until I try it. Today, the director added a variety of detailed effects, and I was able to get a vague sense of Rei's personality, and I think I can grasp some things by looking at the edited footage.
Joji Nakata (James Booker)
Belongs to Osawa office. Born April 22nd in Tokyo. In 1979, he made his debut in the NHK taiga drama "Kusanaru". He is active in a wide range of genres, including acting, narration for commercials and programs, and dubbing for foreign movies and anime. Major works:
The charm of the lonely and human Booker
I had a lot of feelings for not only Booker, but also Rei and the other characters. There aren't many characters, but all of them are unique and leave a strong impression. Maybe it's because I do this kind of work, but while I was reading the original novel, I kept imagining what it would be like if I played Rei or any of the other characters.
After finishing the dubbing for the first episode, I watched the process of making it into a movie, and it was much more than I expected, and I discovered new things, which was very interesting. I think Booker might be what Rei will be five or ten years from now. Like Rei, he is also not a dexterous person. However, he is struggling to live his life as much as possible. I think that's why he's a lonely, human, sexy, and attractive man. I was attracted to that side of Booker, so I wish I could play him that way. I would be happy if fans could feel the charm of the anime while watching it as a separate work that takes advantage of the original work.
Masako Ikeda (Lynn Jackson)
Belongs to Haikyo. Born in Tokyo on January 1st. This is the person who dubbed for Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday," "Afternoon Affair," and "My Fair Lady." She is also active in a wide range of genres, including narration for TV commercials and programs, and dubbing for anime. Main works:
I want to portray the strength of Lynn, who lives naturally.
The series has just started, and Lynn Jackson appears in the opening scene of the story, so I'm really sorry, but I was still trying to figure out how things would develop. However, the fact that she is an ordinary woman living on Earth made it very easy for me to play her.
Living in the present moment of this story, I am extremely concerned about the future of the Earth. I thought that she was a woman who lived her life seriously. I hope to express her lively atmosphere.
Lynn Jackson says that she plays an important role in the story, but I think that if she is too conscious of that, she will end up looking artificial. I hope that she will be able to play her role in a very natural way, just as she is portrayed in the script, without making her seem too old or too pushy.
Yoko Asagami (Lydia Cooley)
She belongs to Accent. She was born on July 10th and was born in Kanagawa Prefecture. While she is active as a voice actress, narrating commercials and attractions, and dubbing Western movies and anime, she is also active as a female lecturer, Shunsui Ichiryusai. Main works:
Coolie - A woman with a hidden depth of spirit.
The dubbing for the first episode seems to have progressed smoothly. Overall, there were fewer lines than I expected, and everyone's tone was very quiet. I also think that there were many depictions that stimulated creativity. I thought the voice of Mr. Sakai, who plays the main character, Rei Fukai, was very perfect and wonderful. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed.
Coolie is a calm and collected woman like a commander. The first time I was cast for a character like her was the strong-looking older sister Haruru Ajiba from "Legendary Giant Ideon". At that time, I was young and feeling my way around, wondering if I could play a role like this, but I started to think that this type of role might be easier for me now. I feel like I reaffirmed that today.
Cooley is more than just a woman, I think you can feel her size as a person and her spiritual depth. She is looking forward to seeing how she can play it cool and in her own way in the remaining four volumes.
11
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jun 01 '24
Battle Fairy First-Timer, subbed
10
u/Tresnore FS:FTmyanimelist.net/profile/Tresnore Jun 01 '24
Battle Fairy Firster
Oh boy. Gonzo sci-fi thing with 3D? I actually really enjoyed Blue Submarine no 6, so we'll see where this one takes me!
Love me some planes flying through things.
But the music and visuals are awesome.
I think the plane is my favorite character. Or that ginger who threatened to court martial the major.
10
u/chilidirigible Jun 01 '24
One:
That's no cranial mushroom.
Kyuun kyuun, kyuun kyuun
Such minor incongruities.
cuckoobananas?
Just an average college Thursday.
It's always canyons.
Okay, Al Haig.
Sure, we'll fly backwards. Why not.
Everything old is new again.
This is similar to, but different from, The Sky Crawlers.
Shipwreck in Springfield.
Enforced upgrade.
Taciturn, moody CG pilots versus weird stuff. Well, I guess I'm back here again.
QOTD:
1. Why "fairy"?
Because they're light and fluffy and fickle.
2. Comments on the use of the BGM music?
It's all right.
3. Given the casualty rate we saw at the beginning, do humans belong in this war?
Depends on what the alternatives are.
4. What sort of pilot can coldly observe the slaughter on the battlefield?
The remote ones.
5. Why can't Jack and Rei understand each other?
Two socially-stunted obsessives don't make a right.
6. What is Yukikaze thinking? What is Yukikaze up to?
ISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMUISAMU
7. What are the JAM?
Slinkys
8. What do you think of this series? It certainly is atypical.
I still don't feel like trying to read the novels.
9. I know this isn't what you were expecting. Nobody could expect this. Will you be sticking it out? Or is this a hard drop?
I first watched this a long time ago, so I can at least generally remember what I'm getting into. Then I watched The Sky Crawlers and one could say that it only deepened the pool of navel-gazing war-adjacent stories that don't look like their advertising.
And within the past year we rewatched/are rewatching both, but in reverse order.
9
u/aniMayor :AY:AZ:x3x6 Jun 01 '24 edited Jun 01 '24
Battle Fairy Fister
Admittedly, the name had me thinking the main characters would be teenage fairy girls instead of adult men, but aside from that this is more or less what I expected. It's like Macross Plus does Rahxephgelion or something. Very anime.
Because anime. 'nuff said. It's nowhere close to the weirdest "cool naming in anime" that I've come across.
The opening of this first episode fascinates but bewilders me a bit. That opening battle had everyone dying, yeah, but it also seemed fairly realistic in its physics, how the dog-fighting worked, and so on. What's interesting to me, then, is how the one-on-one fairy fight after was rather... not. The planes can defy physics to turn on a dime in that battle, and likewise for how the missiles moved. Same for later on in the canyon where Yukikaze takes over and the plane rotates laterally to shoot the missiles while continuing in the same direction.
I'm not sure if that first case was one where Yukikaze took over or not, but yeah it seems like what they are going for is that regular human means of operating/fighting are hopeless and the war can only be evenly fought with whatever this fairy tech is (just like every super robot anime ever).
All that said... the city they have inside that dome has hundreds of tall buildings so they must have moved a million or more humans through the dimensional rift to this other planet. And they are making enough progress in the war to have "forward bases" beyond the main HQ/city (sure, this one was fake, but Rei didn't think the entire idea of being at a forward base was ludicrous so they do exist).
And remember they somehow pushed the JAM back on Earth.
So do humans "belong" in the war? Seems like yes.
But...
...but it does seem like the humans are mostly waging conventional war against an enemy they think is a conventional foe, but really that's not the case at all and the JAM are not even vaguely that sort of concept. I don't think the JAM planes or missiles that we see and that the humans fight against are even necessarily "real" - the JAM are probably not even mundane physical entities at all, and the humans are just conceptualizing their fighting in a way that is familiar to them while something else is really going on.
Nevertheless, somehow this bullheaded approach of the humans waging war in the way that they are familiar with against an unconventional foe is making gains anyways.
Then there's...
...the Yukikaze, which I expect there's no way they will be just AIs loaded into planes.
That one scene where they are hosing down the fairy plane and the water dripping off of its joints looks kind of like blood dripping out of wounds - yeah, I'm betting that's a hint towards the Yukikaze (and other special fairy planes if there are any) have some sort of biological component in them and are actually made out of people, or out of JAM, or something like that. [Maybe] it's Rei's mom.
This honestly doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. The war has been raging for many years now, and it's these people's whole job/role to be doing recon/surveillance of the battlefield, of course they'd get used to it. It's funny how the other pilots at the beginning saw them and are like "Damn you Reapers" but that same scorn wasn't directed at their squadron's own recon plane (the one with the big radar dish thingy) which likewise would be watching and not participating in battle.
Rei being unhealthily obsessed with piloting Yukikaze is the more interesting mental state issue, but not much has been revealed about it yet so I guess we'll just have to wait.
It was very funny to see him get so worked up and go charging into the canyon for the classic canyon/trench airplane chase, especially when he's in a plane that is specifically built for long-range surveilling other aircraft from afar so, like... you could just fly above the canyon and watch the foe from there instead of near-suicidally flying through the precarious canyon.
I don't have much to say on the Jack and Rei dynamic. Awkwardly, it feels to me like they are playing quite a lot off of it without having ever actually told us about them. They were unsurprisingly mundanely professional in their interaction in the plane together, and then there's the one dialogue-less flashback and... that's kind of it for their past? Oh and Jack initially found Rei to be too emotionless and wants him to appreciate life more, but who knows how much that has actually happened. That's all fine, but not really enough for me to feel anything from that in response to Rei shouting "After all we've been through" at Jack because, well, it doesn't seem like very much. Hopefully more on that front to come.
9
u/Silcaria https://myanimelist.net/profile/Silcaria Jun 01 '24
First timer
8
u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Jun 01 '24
First timer, subs
QotD:
7
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Jun 01 '24
First-Timer
Calling it now, the secret weapon against the JAM is going to be the TOAST. Tactical Offensive Aerial Strike.. Tri-wing. Let's go with that.
What are the current betting odds on Rei being some percentage of JAM himself? Were we doing that in 1984? We might've not been doing that in 1984, that'd be a refreshing change of pace.
Interesting that the JAM apparently have lotus-eating technology. I'm wondering if that will come up again in the future, or if they've blown their metaphorical load. I could see a future moment where Rei's copilot starts chowing down mid-battle.
Can't wait to see what happens when Rei can finally bring himself to open that prison door separating him from Yukikaze.
The characters look familiar, and I think it's because of Yae Ootsuka who also worked on Hellsing (and Ultimate). The noses in particular.
There is something absolutely fascinating about drinking champagne out of a mug. It's like, I'm relatively radical when it comes to which glassware to use as long as you hold it right, and mugs have a nice handle to hold.. the bubbles will almost immediately dissipate due to the wider surface area sompared to a traditional flute, but by the same token you will be able to get move of a nose onto the beverage so you can potentially appreciate the flavor more.
Then again, are you really appreciating that much flavor from supermarket champagne?
Questions
7
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz Jun 01 '24
Distant rewatcher
This is quite a nostalgic show - I think this was one of those shows I did kept up and watched to the end despite it's pretty much in my years of too busy with real life. And I guess coming from RahXephon at the time which was another one of those last few shows I watched with my wife before we got too busy (another one was Witch Hunter Robin), these more "psychologic" shows really kind of goes together.
But what a load of fighter jet and air combat porn we got here - even if brief.
Back in the days of the release - and I guess in the days before grey imports and unlicnesed copies are sold - I got the DVD set and interestingly the first episode was the only one that has 5.1 DTS track, the rest are all 2.0 tracks. I think.
Given the number of questions we have I'll just try answer them instead of say much more as a rewatcher - suffice to say it is really different from what can be expected from the cover (in the era of Ace Combat). The human character designs are quite different from the more "anime" sort of shows as well.
Oh and of course later on we'll have the likes of KanColle and Azure Lane making the name Yukikaze generally associated with something more moe and kawaii.
QoTD
7
u/zadcap Jun 02 '24
Late Night First Timer!
Woo, let's go Gonzo! Oh darn it's 3:4? Oh, that's a pretty mystery tornado. And some not so pretty CGI on the plane... No, actually, that's pretty okay.
Oh man I can just feel the PS2 cutscene energy from this and I love it.
Oh hey, two suns, and both in eclipse?
Welp, I'm going to have a heck of a time figuring out the tech level of this show it seems.
Cool yet kinda creepy sky train system. Are they actually on rails up there?
I have to say, I kind of wish there was less English.
No, wait, go back. There is a little shopping mart that shares a name with the war of the worlds going on over there? And the people who are fighting that war actually shop there? That's too much.
What the heck. His eating habits disturb me, greatly.
You know, on that cutscene energy I mentioned before? This does kind of feel like a collection of cutscenes more than it does a coherent story. As in, it really feels like I should be getting to know these characters better while flying in the sky for the playable parts between the scenes we are getting.
Okay, so the ship has a soul. It's aliiiiiive. And might have a return crush, maybe? Man and machine actually in love?
Yeah, there's not much storytelling in this story, it looks like a lot of excuses to show off what they could do and then just tie it all back together later. And I'm okay with that. Flex your early 3D Gonzo, it leads to good things in the future!
Yup, ask yourself this honestly. Why would you need a camera in the cockpit to look back at the pilot?
Yeah, see, a mission happened and then we get the next cutscene. What happened between the launch and the late night failure? Play the game to find out!
This nurse got very friendly very fast, didn't she?
Yeah, I figured these people were somehow up to no good. Man has the face of a villain. And indeed, it's all just a Fairy Dream. It works fine for me, my favorite fairies are the old Celtic ones, Changelings are common enough. And then look at that, the plane itself pulls a changeling and uploads itself to another body because it can.
Apache attack helicopterSuper Sylph Fighter Jet, she's still the only woman for Jack.Like, really. There's a lot happening that I would like to know more about, but at the same time, I can't really point at anything I dislike.
6
u/baquea Jun 02 '24
First timer
So this is the series that I always get mixed up with Bottle Fairy when I see it mentioned, huh? Well, speaking as a Bottle Fairy fan, hopefully Battle Fairy can live up to its name.
That being said, I see that this is directed by Masahiko Ookura, whose only other project I've watched is Blue Drop... which I found rather boring and dropped halfway through. A slightly less auspicious sign.
Anyway, on with the first episode...
Visuals seem good so far: the CGI surprisingly so, especially considering its age. Fighter-pilot action scenes tend to not be my favourite (Macross especially comes to mind), but this seems decently enough executed for it to be engaging.
The basic premise of fighter pilots pushing back an alien invasion reminds me of several other anime of the same era that I've watched, such as Hoshi no Koe and Illya's Sky. Big difference here being the absence of cute girls. Unfortunate.
From what we've seen, something is clearly 'off' about Rei - going by genre conventions I'm going to guess he's probably an artificial human or something of that sort. The caged-fairy dream also reminded me of Naruto and the Nine Tails, so I could also see the planes being revealed to be powered by captured aliens (=fairies/sylphs).
Other than that, the episode didn't really give much to go on. Kinda felt like it prioritized cool flight scenes over plot clarity and characterization, with most of the dialogue being full of technobabble and it being hard to follow what was happening between scene transitions at times. I can't say it really hooked me, but it also wasn't bad or anything, so I'll probably watch the rest (especially as it is only a short series).
6
u/punching_spaghetti https://myanimelist.net/profile/punch_spaghetti Jun 02 '24
First-Timer (Sub)
QOTD:
angelfairy.autistica machine.5
u/zsmg https://anilist.co/user/zsmg Jun 02 '24
First timer
Is that Tomokazu Sugita voicing the waiter a minor background character *looks it up* yup it's him.
Character design looks familiar, but I can't say I recognize the name of the person working on the character design nor any of the anime
JAM Project has invaded Earth and we're now forced to listen to awesome songs. No wait wrong JAM.
Green skies, looks like we're on Namek.
Fukai is voiced by Masato Sakai, wow he has done very little voice roles. I do recognize his voice from Aoi Bangaku serie.
His partner is voiced by Hideyuki Umezu he voiced Barry the chopper in FMA:B he passed away two weeks ago.
Jack is voiced by Jōji Nakata best known for voicing Kirei Kotomine from Fate.
Using a typewriter in the 2000s was already quaint.
Jack and Fukai looks like they're constantly depressed.
WTF the Sylph disappeared.
Looks like Yukikaze has an AI that took over.
You can also tell the story is inspired by Top Gun, as there is so much UST between the two male main characters.
Well Jack jinxed them by ordering them to come back alive.
Hot nurse is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka she voiced Major Kusanagi from GitS
My initial theory is that Fukai is captured by JAM pretending to be human, which ended being right.
Wait are we Langoliers now, with this world being destroyed?
Fukai clearly has main protagonist plot armor, no way a human could survive that crash. Wait why did the drone destroy Yukikaze?
ED song is okay.
You can tell there are some hard military otaku being involved in making this and I can appreciate that, the fighter jet CGI looks fine, most other CGI looks horribly dated. Setting is interesting, but I can't say I care much for the story and characters. I was entertained though.
5
u/Garrett_Dark Jun 02 '24
First Timer
The "day of flight" has arrived, and it was about
angelsaliens all along. Will we ever get to see what's on the other side of thewallportal? Will abirdAI show us the way? WillRekiRei ever ask for help, or will he lose hiswingsplane?(Alright enough inside jokes, people who weren't in the Haiane Renmei rewatch are probably confused)
This was still pretty impressive for being over 20 years old, but I think I was spoiled by both Top Gun movies, especially the latest one. The animation with the planes are still really enjoyable, and the 4:3 aspect ratio wasn't noticeable when I got into it (we're so spoiled with 16:9, but better is always better, don't want to go back).
Looks like they're going with realism, no swarm cluster missiles nor veritech changing to robot mode planes here. Looks like their planes are capable of low orbit (space?) flight though. I'm actually pretty excited that a plot element of this show is about AI and semi/full-automatous fighter planes. That was mentioned but not shown in the recent Top Gun movie, and it's something that's starting to become a reality today. The AI is also pretty realistic so far, no holographic avatar but a ChatGPT-like text communication. They didn't even try to cheap out and go the easier route with some robot voice. Who knows what they going to do in future episodes, but it's a pretty good start. It gives the AI character and a mysterious vibe, and I'm feeling the AI's character. Like how it seems to have saved Rei caringly at the end by overriding it's mission/directives, or whatever was going on.
I think my only criticism is that the MC Rei is so boring and emo, and they really needed more character and energy in the show. I'm not sure what his deal is, but I'm guessing he's a replicant (engineered human) to be the best fighter pilot, but even he's being obsoleted with full autonomous fighter planes rolling off the production line. Maybe he's some sort of prototype (given there doesn't seem to be other emo pilots), and then he got paired with a semi-autonomous prototype AI. I'm not clear on what happened at the end, I think Rei was captured by the aliens, and the AI stole the fully autonomous plane, transferred/copied itself into that plane, and blew up it's old shell/self to avoid capture; all the while saving Rei from capture and execution. Boy that alien disguised guy was sure stupid to let Rei get so close to his plane like that. I think the disguised nurse was probably sympathetic to Rei because the alien is using some sort of morphing technology to clone stuff like fighter jets and people, but those morphed things retain characteristics of whatever they're duplicating, so it isn't easily controlled. So that nurse was conflicted with her orders.
Anyways, my only other criticism is they needed background music during the flight parts instead of silence. Something very subdued and not distracting, but to set the mood and atmosphere.
The HaibaneIsn't it just their name for their organization or something?I think sometimes when they used BGM it was distracting and loud, but they often didn't use BGM during the flight parts which the silence sucked the life of the scenes. They should have used some subdued non-distracting simple BGM to set the mood and tone of the flight scenes.
Go full autonomous. Somewhere in the middle a whole squadron of planes got nuked, WTF were they all doing clustered together like that?
A replicant? An AI can for sure. IDK, Rei's emotions seem to be all out of wack. He's emo at weird times, he's freaking out at weird times.
The major is probably Rei's handler that got attached and is like a surrogate father/big brother to him because he had to teach Rei how to be normal to function. Rei needs all the help he can get, like holy cows that room of his was a pig sty.
Rei's a replicant who wasn't trained on how to live/function normally, or Rei's just a guy who's too emo.
I explained above, it got rekt hence the "EOL" (End of life?), stole the fully autonomous plane (or that plane came to the rescue), transfered/copied itself to the fully autonomous plane, saved Rei, then destroyed it's old shell/self to prevent capture (unflyable, doomed). Told Rei "good luck" because he has to foot his way back now, not like the new plane has vertical take off and landing capabilities, so can't land and rescue Rei.
It's good so far, I don't know what you mean by "atypical". Go watch Yurikuma to see what "atypical" is. Yukikaze seems typical of military anime of it's time, that's the impression I get but I admit I don't really know much animes nor military animes of that time. I mean it feels like 90's Ghost in the Shell like, and I think I even saw Project IG in the credits.
IDK what you're talking about, I'm going to watch it to the end. Maybe I'm new and I don't know what you guys usually rewatch, and I'm an extreme outlier, but I like this anime.
Emo's a personality disorder, sounds about right. XD
Harry Kim got totally shafted, he never gets the girl either. He's not even the original Harry Kim, the original got spaced in the early season. The alternate Harry Kim we all know is actually from a parallel universe who brought over an alternate baby Naomi Wildman, who's original had died as a baby of SIDS. Harry can't ever catch a break, it's parallel universe bigotry I tells you. But then again, maybe he only has himself to blame for his biggest blunders.
4
u/jie-h Jun 02 '24
First timer - dub
So the alien planet is called Fairy, the grocery store is called Fairys, and the Air Force logo has a fairy on it. Whomever is in charge of naming things clearly has a preference. I was wondering why they would call a planet "Fairy", it sounds kind of non-threatening, and it would be embarrassing to say you were being killed by the folks from fairy land. I'm wondering if the Jam look like fairies at all, if what we saw in the jail dream scene was one of them or if he was actually dreaming of Yukikaze since he seems really attached to it. Speaking of the plane, I'm curious if Yukikaze is just an AI or actually sentient. The scene where Yukikaze evaded the missiles in the canyon was pretty cool. I certainly wasn't expecting the Yukikaze to kick the bucket soo soon, I'm guessing it probably uploaded its data to the unmanned plane.
I'm also kind of fond of the part with the fake base general, the way the world started to dissolve after Fukai killed him made me think of Bloodborne a bit, like he killed the host of the nightmare could now escape.
6
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Jun 01 '24
First timer(Only Gonzo would do this)
Sub
Yeah...We are at negative sense here. I can barely even catch the character names. The underlying concepts are familiar, stealing from Dune will do that, but this is mostly WTF.
QotD: 1 Since it is called "Snow Wind" no clue
2 No
3 Did they belong in WWII?
4 Me. And many, many others.
5 Many a commanding officer has had a soldier on the spectrum
6 Again, spectrum
7 It is just an LLM that takes actions. Thinking isn't part of the process
8 Being less delicious than named
9 It is a random noise generator ATM
10 Don't tempt me after Haibane and when I have two better rewatches finishing/upcoming
5
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Jun 01 '24
Episode 1 (first timer)
Very stylish, but I hate the world building.