Review: Area 88
Oct. 14th, 2007 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalSummary: In the early 80's during the height of the Cold War, Kazama Shin, up and coming airline pilot for Yamata Airlines, in a moment of drunken stupidity finds himself signed up as a mercenary combat pilot for the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Aslan. He's assigned to Area 88, a piece of "Hell on Earth" where you only leave by three ways: surviving three years of continuous combat, paying a $1.5 million penalty fee, or in a body bag.
Can Shin keep hold of his soul while he climbs a bloody ladder to become ace of the base? More importantly, will his dippy girlfriend Ryoko stay true, or will she fall for the charms of his sneering competitor Kanzaki, once his friend, but now the Judas who sold him Aslan solely to gain Ryoko's hand in marriage?
There's basically one reason for the Area 88 manga and subsequent OVA to exist: Boys love planes, especially fighter planes whose evey detail is lovingly rendered by the animators. By today's standards the animation is a bit rough, but for the time period it was made it was top notch. And we get to see a lot of planes in this OVA. Area 88 features a motly assortment of Western aircraft that the mercenaries use, from Viggens to Kfirs, F-4's, F-5's, and practically every other numeric designation the USAF had. Meanwhile on the side of the faceless bad guys we got tons o' MiGs, along with the occasional Harrier or other oddball plane. The dogfights are shown in a mostly realistic manner, though there are lunatic moments such as an insane nighttime canyon run to hit an enemy base, not to mention a sharpshooting contest where two fighter have to shoot off explosives from the wing roots of an airliner! Basically you are never going to see better air-to-air combat in any animated series out there (unless the new Area 88 series with CGI planes matches up)
On the other hand, the less said about the characters, the better. Shin whines about his fate while becoming a superb combat pilot, Ryoko is mostly a wet dishrag being batted about by the various males in her life, while Kanzaki does everything but twirl his moustache (if he had one) while he manuevers for Ryoko's hand in marriage while simultaneously stealing the airline out from under her father and selling it out by buying cheap, barely airworthy planes.
Oh, and don't get too attached to many of the Shin's fellow pilots. They're mostly one note characters, though McCoy, the base's civilian parts supplier comes across nicely as cynical with occasional notes of sentimentality (though you may wince at his physical stereotype as a hook-nosed Jewish merchant).
And as with most Japanese series, the less said about the ending, the better.
Verdict: Netflix it for the dogfights and other combat, but be sure to fast forward through anything that involves characters talking.
Can Shin keep hold of his soul while he climbs a bloody ladder to become ace of the base? More importantly, will his dippy girlfriend Ryoko stay true, or will she fall for the charms of his sneering competitor Kanzaki, once his friend, but now the Judas who sold him Aslan solely to gain Ryoko's hand in marriage?
There's basically one reason for the Area 88 manga and subsequent OVA to exist: Boys love planes, especially fighter planes whose evey detail is lovingly rendered by the animators. By today's standards the animation is a bit rough, but for the time period it was made it was top notch. And we get to see a lot of planes in this OVA. Area 88 features a motly assortment of Western aircraft that the mercenaries use, from Viggens to Kfirs, F-4's, F-5's, and practically every other numeric designation the USAF had. Meanwhile on the side of the faceless bad guys we got tons o' MiGs, along with the occasional Harrier or other oddball plane. The dogfights are shown in a mostly realistic manner, though there are lunatic moments such as an insane nighttime canyon run to hit an enemy base, not to mention a sharpshooting contest where two fighter have to shoot off explosives from the wing roots of an airliner! Basically you are never going to see better air-to-air combat in any animated series out there (unless the new Area 88 series with CGI planes matches up)
On the other hand, the less said about the characters, the better. Shin whines about his fate while becoming a superb combat pilot, Ryoko is mostly a wet dishrag being batted about by the various males in her life, while Kanzaki does everything but twirl his moustache (if he had one) while he manuevers for Ryoko's hand in marriage while simultaneously stealing the airline out from under her father and selling it out by buying cheap, barely airworthy planes.
Oh, and don't get too attached to many of the Shin's fellow pilots. They're mostly one note characters, though McCoy, the base's civilian parts supplier comes across nicely as cynical with occasional notes of sentimentality (though you may wince at his physical stereotype as a hook-nosed Jewish merchant).
And as with most Japanese series, the less said about the ending, the better.
Verdict: Netflix it for the dogfights and other combat, but be sure to fast forward through anything that involves characters talking.
