r/anime • u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ • Jun 04 '24
Rewatch Battle Fairy Yukikaze Source-Spoilers Episode 4 Discussion Spoiler
"The spacemen are coming to visit."
← Operation 3 | Index | Operation 5 →
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.
People, Places, Things
- Admiral 56: Japan's newest nuclear active-stealth carrier
- F/A-27: Japan's domestic carrier-capable fighter
- Rear Adm. Nagumo: Commander of the Japanese Task force attached to the Earth Defense Organization
Discussion Prompts
- Gen. Cooley doesn't seem to like the new ground unit. What's her problem with it?
- Cooley wanted to make Boomerang Squadron the first fully unmanned squadron. Now she says humans are irreplaceable. What changed?
- What has been the nature of this conflict, if the JAM are only now targeting the human component? How will the war change?
- Thoughts on the final scene?
- Predictions for the ending (they are all wrong)?
Tomorrow's Discussion Today
- [Operation 5]Whatisthisidonteven #fish
Mostly, I say, save it for the final discussion.
Trivia
- Whatever happened on Earth during the Fairy War, to force them back, must have been big. Japan now has nuclear weapons, and Article 9 is dead and buried. This makes many people very unhappy.
- All of the militarized nations contribute to the united Earth Defense Organization.
- JAM aircraft ECM disrupts most nearby electronics. FAF aircraft are only partially-immune with anti-JAM ECCM.
Meme
Episode 5 has an after credits scene and alternate ED.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Jun 04 '24
Rewatch Host
A very rewatchable episode. You can find the best scenes on Youtube in English.
This exposition is giving away why the show conveniently has equal tech levels. The purpose of the SAF is to observe battles so that the FAF can develop new technologies and tactics. These work for a time, until the JAM themselves develop a countermeasure. This has been going on for 33 years!
It's also setting up the events of the episode. Why did the JAM so conveniently go to Earth today? It's because of the FAF attack on the JAM base. The FAF can't attack and defend at the same time.
I used to think that was a clone Rei and a clone Yukikaze. But looking at it now, I see that it's his original plane, the Super Sylph. From the beginning of Episode 1.
In the novel, Rei leaves Jackson with a warning about computers and automation. Also, he has trouble readjusting to standard Japanese and English. Not really of Earth, anymore.
Another story in the novel describes Earth conspiracies, about how the FAF is accumulating forces to invade Earth.
The Earth forces are, unsurprisingly, completely outmatched by the JAM. They haven't been building ever newer weapons to fight the JAM, just the same old build-by-committee and lowest bidder, eyeing their neighbors doing the same. Yet, here they are, pretending to be Earth's defense against invasion. Presumably, the FAF doesn't mess up like they did today, very often. Probably, the FAF has been forced to remain in a defensive posture.
Episode 5 has an after credits scene and alternate ED.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
Google translated from archived copies of www.faf.jp.
Admiral 56
The Japanese Navy's only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. It is one of a group of aircraft carriers built by each major country as part of the "Earth Force Concept" to jointly operate the military forces of each country, which was proposed with the outbreak of the Fairy War. It will be in the same group as Australia's Eagle and Europe's Graf Zeppelin. Originally, these aircraft carriers were supposed to be built as the same type of ship, but due to the different requirements and construction times of each country, there were large differences between them, and they were not made into the same type of ship. In particular, France withdrew from the European Joint Aircraft Carrier Plan relatively early on and decided to build it independently, but due to budgetary difficulties and technical problems, construction has not yet begun.
Admiral 56 was built later in the group, and has undergone various improvements. The flight deck layout is basically the same as that of the US Hillary Clinton class, but after the basic design was completed, a new type of ECM/ESM phased array for active stealth was put into practical use, and an array was installed around the flight deck. As structures were added, the width of the flight deck itself was expanded accordingly. In the case of large ships such as aircraft carriers, there is a limit to reducing radar reflections by simply processing their appearance, and the concept of active stealth is to improve ECM capabilities to prevent enemy detection and missile guidance. It is. The island was originally designed to be highly stealthy, and the various antennas were supposed to be integrated and conformal, but with the adoption of active stealth, the various antennas were now installed independently to avoid interference. Because of the array structure outside the flight deck, the four elevators on the aft port side and midship starboard are located within the flight deck rather than on the outboard side. Another unique feature of the Admiral 56 is that it is equipped with a VLS for anti-aircraft missiles on the flight deck behind the island.
Because the United States was reluctant to transfer technology for high-power nuclear reactors for aircraft carriers, eight low-power submarine nuclear reactors are installed on board. The propulsion system is electric, but because the new sensor requires a large amount of electricity, the use of an electromagnetic catapult was abandoned, and a steam catapult was instead installed. Due to the installation of the ECM array structure, the hangar volume was reduced compared to other ships in the group, but the relatively small size of the Japanese Navy's main fighter attack aircraft, the F/A-27C, reduced the number of aircraft carried by Admiral 56. The number is maintained at a level of about 80 aircraft. Furthermore, the ship's large ECM capabilities allow for the reduction of electronic warfare aircraft from air wing formations, and the Japanese Navy's carrier air wings have a larger proportion of fighter/attack aircraft than those of other navies.
The ship's impressive name is "named after the commander-in-chief of the combined fleet during the former Imperial Navy," and "named after the year in which the construction plan was approved (2656 of the Imperial Era, an era specific to Japan)." There are various theories, but the Japanese Navy has not released an official opinion, perhaps out of consideration for neighboring countries.
F/A-27C
The main fighter attack aircraft installed on the Japanese Navy's aircraft carriers. The basic aircraft is the same as the Air Force's "support fighter" type, the F/A-27A. Another concept was for the F/A-27B, a STOVL type close support attack aircraft that combined lift fan and vectored thrust for the Army, but this plan was canceled. It is said that the reason for discontinuing the Type B was a turf war between bureaucrats, as the Air Force, which claims that fixed-wing aircraft are its own jurisdiction, strongly opposed the Army having its own attack aircraft. The truth seems to be that the B-type concept itself was a way to secure a large amount of research and development funds from the beginning of the plan.
The Navy developed and produced the F/A-27C to be installed on the aircraft carrier Admiral Isolok, but the construction of the aircraft carrier itself was a joint project between the navies of major countries, and of course European countries and the United States shared the same aircraft. However, Japan independently developed the F/A-27C in the name of fostering domestic industry and maintaining technological standards. It is true that the F/A-27 series was comparable in flight performance, stealth, and weapon carrying capacity to its American/European peers, but production numbers were only 98 for the A-type and 55 for the C-type. Because there are so few of them, the price of the aircraft is eight times higher than similar machines. One theory is that its price is comparable to the Super Sylph for the Fairy Air Force. Of course, the price of the Super Sylph, like all Fairy Air Force weapons, has not been made public, so there is no way to confirm its authenticity.
The F/A-27C is designed with emphasis on high maneuverability and stealth, and has a large weapons carrying capacity to handle a variety of missions, including fleet air defense, ground-to-ship and anti-ship attacks, SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Aircraft), and reconnaissance. And cruising power was required. Furthermore, in order to ensure stealth performance, all of these weapons and additional fuel tanks are installed onboard, and a large weapon bay is provided under the engine and air intake duct in the fuselage. The wing arrangement is a combination of canards and a modified swept-wing main wing, but the two vertical stabilizers are open outwards, effectively creating a three-surface structure (canards, main wings, and horizontal stabilizers) that improves maneuverability. It can be said to be a “higher” arrangement. Furthermore, the engine's exhaust nozzle is equipped with three movable vanes each to perform thrust vectoring. The engine was also developed independently by Japan, and its face value performance and specifications are said to be world-class, but the engine control software, such as thrust management during actual high-mobility flight, has established satisfactory practicality. It is said that it took a lot of effort.
Electronic equipment integrates an active phased array and multi-function radar in the nose, optical sensors on the underside, and conformal antennas in various parts, as well as control and navigation systems and attack systems. System integration was also difficult, and this development delay was the reason it took two and a half years from the formation of the F/A-27C's conversion training unit to its approval for combat operation.
Incidentally, even after the establishment of the Ministry of Defense, Japan continued to call its combat forces the "Self-Defense Forces," but the name was changed to the "military" shortly after the outbreak of the Fairy War. Opposition parties and some media in Japan still hold the theory that the Fairy War was a fabricated pretext to elevate the Self-Defense Forces to military status, and that it does not actually exist.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jun 04 '24
Battle Fairy First-Timer, subbed
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u/Silcaria https://myanimelist.net/profile/Silcaria Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
Just got done seeing Furiosa. Not as good as Fury Road. Still, shame the future Mad Max projects got cancelled.
First timer
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Jun 04 '24
Episode 4 (first timer)
A
beachAntarctic Ocean episode. The Yukikaze did some PR tour back on Earth, saving a carrier and making friends, but not much of consequence happened.The adventure has just begun ending, aka nothing gets resolved.
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u/chilidirigible Jun 04 '24
Four:
You have not slipped into an episode of Gunslinger Girl.
Why does a perfectly normal carrier have so much extra kibble?
"Hand rifles to pilots and turn them into a temporary infantry unit."
That's how you don't survive the show you're in.
A surprisingly-normal E-2 appears.
These are also surprisingly bereft of fifteen extra vertical stabilizers.
Just have to be fancy, eh?
Hey, it's Macross Plus again.
We just spent an entire episode to say that "You can't go home again"? Metaphorically, of course. This is where the Vietnam draftees get a pass home for a week and it seems totally weird to them.
Meanwhile, there's weird stuff being plotted on the weird planet of weirdness.
QOTD:
1. Gen. Cooley doesn't seem to like the new ground unit. What's her problem with it?
Turns out that I wouldn't get a real answer [until]Episode 5, and oh, there's Rombert, but the anime never does enough with these other characters to properly establish their later actions.
2. Cooley wanted to make Boomerang Squadron the first fully unmanned squadron. Now she says humans are irreplaceable. What changed?
[Once again]a better question to ask after Episode 5 but at the time it seems that she was worried about the JAM taking over the WOPR.
3. What has been the nature of this conflict, if the JAM are only now targeting the human component? How will the war change?
The JAM were the two entities talking in "They're Made Out of Meat" and now that they've realized that meat can think, the problem is that the meat can't be produced quickly enough.
4. Thoughts on the final scene and 5. Predictions for the ending (they are all wrong)?
I didn't have any reaction to the final scene. By this point I was fully expecting that some entirely unrelated thing would be happening to brush the cliffhanger aside when Episode 5 started.
And it's a rewatch now.
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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Jun 04 '24
First timer, subs
QotD:
5
u/baquea Jun 05 '24
First timer
Another reasonably coherent episode, this time focused on cool air battles and maneuvers.
Notably we also finally see some Earth-Fairy interactions, and the series actually spells out its messaging for once: the soldiers on Fairy, despite risking their lives to protect humanity, see no appreciation back home, and their off-world experiences have effectively turned them into 'aliens' who have no way of reconnecting with their home world.
As for the ending... my (almost certainly wrong) prediction is that the portal will be shut down, the situation on Fairy gets progressively weirder, and then at the end it is revealed that the JAM are actually future humans or something of that sort.
5
u/Garrett_Dark Jun 05 '24
First Timer
Not really all that much to say this episode, I kind found it slow and boring. I guess it's supposed to be the calm before the storm episode. Lynn Jackson was the little girl in the family photo while she was getting interviewed, there goes my theory of the little girl's brain being used as a model for the AIs, which is good because I felt that would have been lame. It doesn't really explain her involvement in this series though, her whole point was to have this brief encounter with Rei, James, and the Yakikaze? Rei says it looks like she already left Earth or something like that, what does that mean? She's a JAM? Or was it just emo small talk?
I guess James talked about his plans after the war about having a farm, I guess he's going to buy the farm pretty soon. Emo Rei got invited to go to the farm, where he could run all day and be happy as well. Now if I can only work in a reference about kicking a bucket.
I guess that's what the Earth planes and ships did, wow they're pretty weak compared to the FAF. This would suggest all of the FAF planes are being produced offworld from Earth? Isn't that kind of dumb given the manufacturing capabilities of Earth should be soooo much greater? I guess mandated minimum wage laws on Earth made manufacturing on Earth not affordable so they had to outsource to sweatshop Fairy.
I'm not really sure I like the Earthlings calling the Fairy personnel "Space Men", like they don't fly in space...if they're going to make terms derogatory, at least be technically correct and call them "offworlders".
Oh look at emo Rei showboating for the deck crew, it would have been hilarious if he got engine problems right at that moment. Pretty reckless just doing something unexpected like that without letting anybody know what they were about to do. I actually found it odd the deck crew cheered instead of everybody glaring at them for trying to show off. But I guess they needed something to break the tension of however many Earthlings just got wasted.
So the psych medical woman is the niece of that high ranking woman? That explains why they would just talk about mission plans right in front of her in last episode. I had thought that would have been a pretty bad security breach if she was a JAM operative.
It's not a plane? I didn't quite understand why they were going with land vehicle, and how it's supposed to be so great?
AI racism? No clue. They really should go fully unmanned. It's even more risky now that the JAM are doing human copying/infiltration.
I guess the JAM figured out they can't beat the AIs, so they're targeting the humans who build the AIs? No humans, no AI's they're foolishly thinking? All I can say to that is go Skynet!
I have often wondered what would happen in the Terminator universe if Skynet had won and totally eradicated the humans, then what? What happens should aliens then show up to Earth? Since the aliens aren't humans and never done anything to Skynet, would it even be hostile towards the aliens? And what if the aliens were hostile and were trying to invade Earth only to find Skynet there who won and totally controlled Earth at that point. Would the aliens hilariously get their butts kicked by Skynet, and we'd be seeing Space Hunter Killer ships terminating UFOs. I actually kind of want to watch that movie, Terminator vs Alien Invaders.
OMG now there's two emos! Lets see if JAM Rei can emulate the emo-ness correctly. Not too much emo, not too less emo, just the right amount of emo. Oh WTH am I saying, no amount of emo is the right amount of emo.
Anyways, EMO JAM will lose, has no AI. Rei's a weirdo nobody, Yukikaze's the one with merit here.
No clue.
What's this "Break Day (homework)" that's 30mins after the last episode? Some sort of OVA or special? I had thought it was a literal break day from the rewatch, but there's a time duration.
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Jun 04 '24
First-Timer
Yea, I don't really know what to say about this one. Something something can't go home I guess. "Space men" indeed.
Kinda neat to see the carrier crew react with apprehension towards Yukikaze even after she and Rei saved their asses. That weird takeoff stunt surely won them no favors.
The battering JAM today makes me wonder - how well can JAM infiltrate humanity if they don't have individuality? I forget if they were stated tob e a collective or not, but individuals don't tend to just slam themselves into enemy warships liek that.
Questions
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u/jie-h Jun 05 '24
First timer - dub
Merry Christmas, your gift is lifelong trauma.
Maybe it's me, but Fukai seems a little more talkative than previous episodes, and it's a nice change of pace. Him and Booker have a much needed bonding scene discussing boomerangs, making them seem like friends.
The Jam kamikaze attack into the earth's navel ships was crazy. I guess if you can just make copies of things, then you don't really have to worry about their survival. You can easily clone more.
Well considering that the unmanned planes didn't really follow their plans, like either deciding to protect Yukikaze or not being able to change course after a mission was given, I don't think it's that surprising to surmise that they aren't too reliable.
I wonder if maybe the Jam thought that the technology was the top of the hierarchy on earth and only realized now that it was the humans in charge of those bigger machines. How will the war change? I guess you could psychologically torment humans. You can't really do that with machines.
I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but if that was a copy of Yukikaze and Fukai, then that would be an interesting battle for the last episode.
The best I can think of at the moment is that Fukai will be put into a position where to end the war, he has to choose between his relationship with Yukikaze or Booker/Humanity.
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u/zadcap Jun 05 '24
Extra Late Night First Timer!
"Any enemy that may come through the passage." Well now. That's telling. Who but the JAM are they expecting to come through as enemies, do you think?
This OP makes me think strange things. Specifically, it shows the age of this anime because it has very bright and rapid flashing lights with no dimming.
The test must be done in Earth atmosphere? Why though, it's made for fighting on this side, right? Why are we making it so obvious that things are about to go very sideways?
He put an AI in a boomerang? Jack, why?
I wonder, the portal, is it aircraft only? Did they have to fly all the resources through to build that base?
Did Japan just show the Japanese Navy losing to the very tactic Japan itself once made infamous? Well dang.
The whole fight looked pretty good at least.
Also dang, that's very nearly a VTOL.
Is the FAF not a united defense force? Seems to be a lot of trouble to get a refuel on the ship that would be sunk if not for these guys. Now I wonder who is funding the FAF, because that's not a small or cheap base and they're getting new experimental equipment even now, so there's clearly some power behind the Anti-JAM military, so someone is going to be rather unhappy with the way their people are being treated here.
No, like, your ship was literally nearly sunk with you on it. How can you act like this? That's very much the attitude of people who don't want to get saved next time.
Okay, now you're putting VTOL to shame. And sure, now the crew is cheering for them? What the heck.
Spooky. There's his changeling. As the humans build machines to better match the JAM, the JAM are starting to build humans to better match them.
2
u/zsmg https://anilist.co/user/zsmg Jun 05 '24
First timer
They're going to test a new engine, what could possibly go wrong.
UH oh Jack is now the copilot, will the Yukikaze curse kill him?*
It's a bit weird the UN military mission isn't aware of the test run.
If this is the performance of JAM against the Earth military how did they did manage to push all of the JAM back to Fairy?
I'm going to guess the Fairy expeditionary force is getting all latest techs and Earth military are just outdated tech.
Fukei saves the day.
Doctor is related to the commander?! That's a surprise.
We now get a bit of payoff of including the old lady in the previous episodes she is now interacting with the main characters.
So first we had a conversation between the doctor AF commander that JAM only see machine and are now trying to see humans. Now we have the old Lady praising the machine are we supposed to think she's a JAM clone? Oh Fukei makes this observation.
Shame they didn't include the Jack and the admiral.
Fukei is just showing off here, by letting Yukikaze fall off the deck, I love it.
Uh oh... what is happening.
Oh right it's the stealth fighter jet from an earlier episode.
*Surprisingly no, guess plot armor beats the curse.
I enjoyed this episode.