Re: CX anime reviews
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 4:58 pm
Yukikaze
(5 episode OVA)
This is one of the better shows I've watched. While it's superficially about humans fighting it out with aliens and flying cool airplanes that aren't very aerodynamic, it also touches on a few other things that are actually somewhat contemporary.
The most obvious one is how this conflict is treated on the home front. Initially, when a mysterious portal forms in Antarctica and some aliens (eventually called the JAM) randomly attack an Antarctic research base, people all over the world are shocked and the world rises up to respond against this new threat. The UN manages to pull together and coordinate a military response that successfully pushes the alien invaders back through their portal. A special military force is then assembled to take the fight to the other side of the portal, in order to keep the aliens from ever making it back to Earth, or so the story goes (and yeah, it's obvious where they were going with that, too). But after the war moves to the other side of the portal and is no longer obviously visible, people start pretending that the war never even existed, to the point that when an author writes a book about the ongoing war, it's popular and sells a lot of copies, because everyone says it's a well thought out science fiction novel. When some pilots from the other side of the portal briefly reappear on Earth, they're treated somewhat coldly by the naval force gathered to keep an eye on the portal, even though these pilots just saved a lot of their asses. In other words no one wants the conflict to be there anymore, so much so that they pretend it doesn't exist, and they shun any reminders that it does. Fortunately at least some of them manage to pull their heads out of their asses, but by then the JAM are stepping things up.
The other contemporary issue touched on is the introduction of AI controlled combat aircraft. Not everyone is sold on the idea, and in fact the weaknesses of AI-controlled aircraft are shown quite often. However, the series focuses on the idea of a pilot and an AI developing a kind of bond that makes the both of them together practically unbeatable. The suggestion seems to be that we shouldn't be afraid of technology, but rather than make it do everything itself, we should develop a kind of symbiotic relationship with it.
For me, though, the interesting part was the conflict with the JAM. They were tough to beat as it was, but during the part of the conflict that the OVA covers, they've developed some new strategies which made things a bit more interesting. Basically this involved the same old cliché of "conquered from within", because as we find out, the JAM have figured out how to imitate humans and their aircraft. This is also the point where things tend to get a bit confusing, because not only is it hard to find out who may have been replaced with an alien, but the show seems to skip around a bit and it almost feels like I missed something at a few points. In one instance it appears that the main character, Lt. Fukai, his friend, Maj. Bukhar, and the fighter they're flying in (Yukikaze) have been replaced by copies, since they are attacked and it appears beaten ... except they weren't, apparently.
There's plenty of action, and it's all quite visually interesting. They even managed not to go completely overboard with things like having impossible missile barrages ... at least until the end. The mad dash back to the portal so all the remaining humans can escape and close the portal behind them is naturally the biggest battle, but this is also where things tend to go way over the top, at least as far as the attacking JAM forces. Mostly this comes from the fact that the writers have essentially set the JAM up so that they are impossible to beat, because they have millions of these tiny aircraft that can literally swarm the human aircraft and rip them to shreds. Yet somehow the humans win, spontaneously developing some new laser weapons, just because, apparently. I'd say the ending is somewhat unsatisfying because of that, and because the short epilogue doesn't really do justice to the massive battle, it just sort of ends and wraps everything up quickly without telling us much.
As for the characters, none of them really stood out that much. Lt. Fukai and his plane, Yukikaze, are both stereotypically "mysterious". At points both of them come out a little, the plane even admitting to being afraid a couple of times, but for the most part they are stoic, pragmatic, and do pretty much whatever they want while getting away with all of it because they are just so awesome at killing aliens. Hell, they even figure out that the JAM are replacing humans for everyone so the plan we see come into fruition at the end of the OVA can be developed. Major Bukhar is supposed to be a kind of buddy commander to Fukai, I think, but they tend to go over the top with him. At one point he's actually pretty pathetic. It was just hard to like him at all because he tended to either be a whiny loser or a prick. Pretty much all the other characters were just kind of weird and until the end kind of hard to figure out.
Probably the most interesting "character" was the JAM. Their nature and purpose was always shrouded in mystery, and while the human characters made some guesses about them, the JAM are simply left as being the mysterious creatures (or creature) that they (or it) are. The idea that the entire planet and all of the JAM were in fact one single entity was especially intriguing to me, as was the idea that the war was just its way of studying humanity and testing itself.
Overall it's pretty fair to say that I was fairly impressed by this OVA. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it. 9/10
(5 episode OVA)
This is one of the better shows I've watched. While it's superficially about humans fighting it out with aliens and flying cool airplanes that aren't very aerodynamic, it also touches on a few other things that are actually somewhat contemporary.
The most obvious one is how this conflict is treated on the home front. Initially, when a mysterious portal forms in Antarctica and some aliens (eventually called the JAM) randomly attack an Antarctic research base, people all over the world are shocked and the world rises up to respond against this new threat. The UN manages to pull together and coordinate a military response that successfully pushes the alien invaders back through their portal. A special military force is then assembled to take the fight to the other side of the portal, in order to keep the aliens from ever making it back to Earth, or so the story goes (and yeah, it's obvious where they were going with that, too). But after the war moves to the other side of the portal and is no longer obviously visible, people start pretending that the war never even existed, to the point that when an author writes a book about the ongoing war, it's popular and sells a lot of copies, because everyone says it's a well thought out science fiction novel. When some pilots from the other side of the portal briefly reappear on Earth, they're treated somewhat coldly by the naval force gathered to keep an eye on the portal, even though these pilots just saved a lot of their asses. In other words no one wants the conflict to be there anymore, so much so that they pretend it doesn't exist, and they shun any reminders that it does. Fortunately at least some of them manage to pull their heads out of their asses, but by then the JAM are stepping things up.
The other contemporary issue touched on is the introduction of AI controlled combat aircraft. Not everyone is sold on the idea, and in fact the weaknesses of AI-controlled aircraft are shown quite often. However, the series focuses on the idea of a pilot and an AI developing a kind of bond that makes the both of them together practically unbeatable. The suggestion seems to be that we shouldn't be afraid of technology, but rather than make it do everything itself, we should develop a kind of symbiotic relationship with it.
For me, though, the interesting part was the conflict with the JAM. They were tough to beat as it was, but during the part of the conflict that the OVA covers, they've developed some new strategies which made things a bit more interesting. Basically this involved the same old cliché of "conquered from within", because as we find out, the JAM have figured out how to imitate humans and their aircraft. This is also the point where things tend to get a bit confusing, because not only is it hard to find out who may have been replaced with an alien, but the show seems to skip around a bit and it almost feels like I missed something at a few points. In one instance it appears that the main character, Lt. Fukai, his friend, Maj. Bukhar, and the fighter they're flying in (Yukikaze) have been replaced by copies, since they are attacked and it appears beaten ... except they weren't, apparently.
There's plenty of action, and it's all quite visually interesting. They even managed not to go completely overboard with things like having impossible missile barrages ... at least until the end. The mad dash back to the portal so all the remaining humans can escape and close the portal behind them is naturally the biggest battle, but this is also where things tend to go way over the top, at least as far as the attacking JAM forces. Mostly this comes from the fact that the writers have essentially set the JAM up so that they are impossible to beat, because they have millions of these tiny aircraft that can literally swarm the human aircraft and rip them to shreds. Yet somehow the humans win, spontaneously developing some new laser weapons, just because, apparently. I'd say the ending is somewhat unsatisfying because of that, and because the short epilogue doesn't really do justice to the massive battle, it just sort of ends and wraps everything up quickly without telling us much.
As for the characters, none of them really stood out that much. Lt. Fukai and his plane, Yukikaze, are both stereotypically "mysterious". At points both of them come out a little, the plane even admitting to being afraid a couple of times, but for the most part they are stoic, pragmatic, and do pretty much whatever they want while getting away with all of it because they are just so awesome at killing aliens. Hell, they even figure out that the JAM are replacing humans for everyone so the plan we see come into fruition at the end of the OVA can be developed. Major Bukhar is supposed to be a kind of buddy commander to Fukai, I think, but they tend to go over the top with him. At one point he's actually pretty pathetic. It was just hard to like him at all because he tended to either be a whiny loser or a prick. Pretty much all the other characters were just kind of weird and until the end kind of hard to figure out.
Probably the most interesting "character" was the JAM. Their nature and purpose was always shrouded in mystery, and while the human characters made some guesses about them, the JAM are simply left as being the mysterious creatures (or creature) that they (or it) are. The idea that the entire planet and all of the JAM were in fact one single entity was especially intriguing to me, as was the idea that the war was just its way of studying humanity and testing itself.
Overall it's pretty fair to say that I was fairly impressed by this OVA. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it. 9/10