Area 88 Ep. 5: An Unyielding Spirit in Lipstick

An anime original character loosely based on one from the source manga makes her debut in this action filled episode. With their top ace grounded, the mercenaries at Area 88 receive a large surprise when a fighter sweep goes wrong. Forcefully inserting herself into the all male base, a brash newcomer finds her abundant self confidence tested in the lethal skies.

The greatest strength of Area 88 lies not in its action sequences, but in its character development. A third of the way into the series and it had already introduced a good number of unique individuals, but lacked a strong female. Wanting to rectify that, the writer and director of the show decided to bring in a new pilot. It’s a well timed introduction given Shin is grounded while waiting for his new fighter.

Before the opening credits roll, a tense situation is depicted with the commander of the base, Saki, listening to the combat chatter while watching the radar screen. One of the flights has gotten into a furball and used all their ammunition up. Kim, the young boy flying the Sea Harrier FRS.1, is in trouble and unable to shake the MiG-21 on his tail.

Post credits, things look worse as a warning of a bogey entering the area is immediately followed by a radar warning receiver going off. That indicates a fighter radar has gone into padlock mode to lock a target for a guided missile. Kim prepares to die as the missile streaks in from the unfamiliar plane.

Area 88 Ep. 4: The Treacherous Sky

It may start with a bang, but this episode is more about revealing Shin’s mysterious past than aerial combat. When a mission goes wrong, the Japanese mercenary pilot finds himself alone in the desert. As he struggles to survive he is forced to remember how he ended up in a civil war far from his home.

Area 88 is at its best during slower moving episodes rather than the flashy dogfights. That’s rather ironic since I suspect most people who watched the series were attracted by the action. With the fourth episode, the main story begins in earnest. The questions of who is Shin and why is he here are finally answered.

An ominous tone is set early on when Shin Kazama lands his aging F-8E Crusader to refuel. Pickings have been slim in the skies lately and this causes the resident ace to press his luck. His mechanic Gustav warns him he’s being reckless, but the dollars associated with each kill matter more.

Makoto photographs all this as usual despite feeling something is wrong. Gustav, on the other hand, actually knows something is wrong. He can hear a malfunction within the Crusader’s turbojet engine.

Piracy and Anime

Being the type to delve into how industries operate when I’m interested in their products, I’ve been watching the problems with the anime industry – especially in the United States. Boom and bust cycles are fascinating to observe and the anime here in the States managed to do that in in the space of one decade. So an interview with the former Bandai Entertainment USA director of marketing gives a rare insight to how things actually work. Be warned, there is profanity in the podcast.

As I’m listening to it, the brief mention of how online piracy damaged sales caught my attention. It got me thinking on how a niche industry can be devastated by people stealing the product and never paying for it. Disclaimer: It isn’t right to steal from the big industries like Hollywood or music too. Also, I won’t get into the manga side of things.

Many are the mistakes that have caused companies to fold or retreat from the anime market in the U.S., but the explosion in file sharing coincided with rise and fall in my eyes. Once broadband saturated the country around the middle of the 2000’s, piracy of videos increased. That was also when anime imploded.

Anime Worth Watching: An Opinion

A comment from Hanny has me thinking about which anime I like and how to go about recommending them. The problem is the style and content varies so much that they are hard to compare to each other. If I were an otaku it would be so much easier because I would like every new piece of trash that comes down the pike. But since I am just an entertainment lover and anime is just a minor subset of what I watch, my likes are very different.

Then there is the problem of trying to rank TV series against theatrical movies, which causes my brain to melt down. But hey, I like tilting at windmills, so here goes. My top three TV series are tied at number uno, so things get messy right off the bat:

1. Fractale, Area 88, Kimi ni Todoke
2. Spirited Away
3. Summer Wars
4. Only Yesterday
5. Squid Girl
6. Princess Mononoke
7. Howl’s Moving Castle
8. Porco Rosso
9. Castle in the Sky
10. C: Control
11. Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth
12. Space Brothers
13. Bleach
14. Kiki’s Delivery Service
15. Tiger and Bunny
16. Whisper of the Heart
17. Bubblegum Crisis Toyko 2040
18. The Cat Returns
19. Denpa Onna
20. FLCL
21. Akira
22. My Neighbor Totoro
23. Nausicaa Valley of the Wind
24. Hellsing

Area 88 Ep. 3: Viewfinder in the Blue Sky

A hunt for treasure inflames the greed of the mercenary pilots, yet that only serves as a backdrop  for the main story. With Makoto’s stalking of him getting to Shin, he decides to take action to find out why he is a target. But a close call rattles the young Japanese pilot as the mystery around him deepens.

It is time to get back to writing reviews to sharpen my skills of observation and writing. At this point in the series, the base and the desert are almost becoming characters unto themselves, lurking constantly in the background and adding atmosphere to all the proceedings. That was my thought after watching the opening to this tense episode. Neither location is a comfortable one and if there is one word to describe the mood evoked by this installment it would have to be the word uneasy.

Area 88 Ep. 2: The Setting Sun as Grave Marker

aka Boris

Any doubts about the seriousness of the anime series are dispelled by this grim episode that follows a pilot nicknamed “the Angel of Death.” Thrilling action scenes punctuate a slower moving story about survivor’s guilt and the tremendous toll war takes on those who fight it. While photojournalist Makoto Shinjo learns more about life on the base, the real star of the episode is attack pilot Boris. The ghosts of the Vietnam War are beginning to haunt the stories of Area 88.

There is a poetic quality to both the visual and verbal imagery of this series that sets it apart from most anime. The thoughtful and meditative scripts are matched by the art and directing, making for stories that are not easily forgotten. This particularly strong episode sets the tone for the entire series very early on.

After hearing a rumor about a pilot called “the Angel of Death,” Makoto becomes intrigued. Ominously wondering if he is Shin Kazama’s personal angel of death, the photographer sets out to find out about the enigmatic pilot named Boris. A master of ground attack missions, he is reputed as getting all his wingmen killed -- so nobody wants to fly with him.

Area 88 (2004) Target: 01 Treacherous Skies, Ep. 1: Sky Blue

Adapted from one of the first manga’s to be imported into the United States, this somber and contemplative anime about mercenary pilots fighting in a civil war is not your usual cartoon. While filled with many action sequences, character development dominates the story when a mysterious photo journalist comes to airbase Area 88 within the war torn country of Aslan. Dogfights and death rule the sky while men’s souls are broken under a pitiless sun.

Years ago, Netlix suggested this series to me when I was investigating anime in an attempt to understand some of the teens at my church. It looked silly, but I thought “Hey, why not?” and added it to my queue. When it arrived, I cannot say I was eager to watch it, but there was nothing else to watch so into the DVD player it went.

Opening sequences and themes usually set the mood for an anime series (or live action for that matter) and the techno remix of a Bach fugue that opens this promised a lot of action and excitement. Mission (Fuga) by angels is the name of it and it is pretty good for that kind of thing. Pieces of action flew by in rapid succession and so I expected a Top Gun style series without much depth. Boy was I wrong about that. Very wrong.