#245: Yukikaze (2002-5)

 

Includes a review of Fighting Fairy Girl Rescue Me Mave-chan (2005)

Studio: Gonzo

Director: Masahiko Ōkura

Screenplay: Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Ikuto Yamashita, Masahiko Ōkura, Masashi Sogo, Seiji Kio and Yumi Tada

Based on the novel series by Chōhei Kambayashi

Voice Cast: Jōji Nakata as James "Jack" Bukhar; Masato Sakai as Rei Fukai; Masako Ikeda as Lynn Jackson; Miho Yamada as Edith Foss; Youko Asagami as Rydia Cooley

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

You want me to psychoanalyze a fighter plane?

Thirty three years before this straight-to-video anime begins, the “JAM”, an alien race, invaded Earth through a wormhole from their planet to ours via the Antarctica. Now, based on the series of novels by Chōhei Kambayashi, the human race pushed them back through the passage, back to their planet “Fairy”, and keeps guard on that side. Yukikaze’s author, Chōhei Kambayashi, is a prolific author in science fiction, with this series one of his most known. It is neither the only one to have had an anime adaptation, as an obscure OVA series The Enemy's The Pirates! (1989) is based on another of his works, imagining a space cop duo where one of them in an alien talking cat.

Yukikaze is a considerably more somber premise, but to factor in as well, this was a ten year anniversary for the animation studio GONZO, which could seem odd as they were founded in 2000 as the studio most known them for. This ten year anniversary is because, whilst the animation studio most will known was founded in the year 2000, the original company Gonzo K.K. began in 1992, working with other companies and on video game cut scenes. Whilst they still exist, financial problems between 2008 and 2009 eventually led to the company being merged with Gonzo K.K., taking them out as a prominent animation company even if they still work to this day. GONZO before them, between 2000 to 2005 at least, were a prominent company for me as I got into anime at that time, as the late ADV Films released so many of their productions over in Britain, nostalgic to think of but with a sensibility to know their flaws. They had shows like Chrono Crusade (2003) I loved, but hesitate to return to, and others like Hellsing (2001-2) were works with were divisive to viewers. One of their biggest issues which was obvious even back in my barely developed years of taste, and is found with Yukikaze, is that they were a company cursed by the journey it took to keep a long form production consistent in narrative and quality, even in terms of pure sod’s law as both of the titles mentioned, for example, were cases where the source manga were unfinished and they had to create new endings within only a handful of episodes. They were once a high profile name, even to the point that arguably one of their most successful and highest profile productions was not a series but a Linkin Park music video, Breaking the Habit, which with the nu metal band was something non-anime fans would have seen at a time when anime and other pop culture crossed over multiple times.

Yukikaze however is an example of the problems with organizing and pacing their projects. For years my only knowledge of the show came from one of the longest lasting and running anime podcasts since 2005, Anime World Order, where the five part straight-to-video production was buried as a sci-fi story which absolutely failed. The build up over a decade plus means that I actually found material in Yukikaze of virtue, and what was once jokes on that podcast¹ have by accident been more salient as this presents one of the most  (accidental and at times intentional) and compelling psychodramas one could have wished was in a better managed project. Truthfully the bar was set so low I found so much to enjoy here, something compelling but an undeniable mess that, could have actually succeeded. Even in terms of the unexpected content, the fact that the central relationship between its male leads, James "Jack" Bukhar and Rei Fukai, has moments beyond platonic friendship but potential romantic readings is something you are likely to find in a lot of anime. Sometimes it is deliberately placed in shows even if with its own moral questions, as this can be done in anime as a way to appeal to certain female audiences attracted to “yaoi” and subtext of possible relationships between male characters, something with its own questions as that means it is not necessarily for a gay viewer’s benefit first in characterization. What is unexpected, and was merely presumed a joke in that podcast I listened to many times, is how even if unintentional, this platonic relationship ends up being a triangle between these two men, struggling through this battle against an alien menace.. and a sentient fighter plane.

It feels less like a joke either to say that, as there are two sides to the Yukikaze project in terms of the production, and one of them (the most compelling) falls further into this even if an exaggeration of the actual content seen. One side, despite its sci-fi setting, is realistic aerial dog fight scenes which made this an expensive project, using what was cutting edge CGI animation for the sequences, and the other is a drama. The latter’s character dynamics became, even if by mistake, in certain dramatic choices more psychologically idiosyncratic and deeper than intended. Rei Fukai, our lead, is clearly written in script and in depiction as psychologically disconnect from the world, close to the point of becoming a savant who would not be able to function in the ordinary society back on Earth, but found harmony helming the Yukikaze, a fighter plane which has such advanced A.I. It and Rei have developed a bond, strong enough that he follows its advice to even shot what it consider an enemy without question.

Considering dreams Rei has include depicting him in a jail cell and Yukikaze itself, which means “snow wind”, depicted as a female fairy creature on the other side of the bar he yearns for, the production may have accidentally loaded so much more meaning to his bond to the plane, especially as the tension with his senior officer James Bukar reads too closely to a crush between them even if it was just meant to be a close friendship in dialogue. Even if pure accident, this is the material which is the strongest of all of Yukikaze because it is at least memorable, and aspects that are clear in dialogue suggest even Chōhei Kambayashi’s source writings had an unconventional characterization for Rei himself. One of the odder details is how the two met, James meeting Rei in a canteen mashing peaches and peas together in a meal, a bizarre touch showing Rei’s unsociable form, and there is a lot to Yukikaze which I would not be surprised is from the books and in a fully fleshed out form would have more eccentric but compelling to witness. Even if meant to be platonic friendship between the two, their drama is still interesting even if the result in this anime makes Yukikaze extremely weird. That would clearly be the idea of James being the one person who cared to help Rei, finding friendship with him, and the constant fear for his safety as Rei is attached to the Yukikaze more to ordinary life. It is obviously a metaphor for the dehumanization of war, where Rei only feels alive in the peril of danger and aerial combat, but when a female superior, Rydia Cooley, tells James he is losing Fukai to Yukikaze, you get one of the multiple moments where the show may have unintentionally made Yukikaze more compelling as a story by making that plane a rival for Rei’s heart and mind. The plane, thought it downloads its consciousness into another machine, even has a sad send off in Episode 1 to emphasis their place as the third main character of this material even over human characters.

The project without this idiosyncratic melodrama has a compelling premise which could have breathed into something truly engaging. It is a well worn one, an invading forced known as the JAM which are totally unlike human beings, but only seen as horrifying sentient goo, the plot also brings in an enticing twist in terms of a Body Snatchers concern, that the JAM are replacing members with copies to infiltrate their higher ranks. Even without the central relationship with James and Rei, the psychodrama of a plane’s A.I. being able to understand Rei more, this could have been an anime that could have knocked it out of the park as an intense sci-fi drama, set with some realism, where the war in the alien world has a greater paranoia as more members are said to be “taken”.  The anime can also be batshit with some ideas. I can just mention the character who has a plutonium powered atomic heart which prevents him from entering certain countries, never mentioned again after his episode, but the kind of idea out-of-nowhere that wins me over as well in terms of how imaginative this could have been.

The issue with Yukikaze is that it is neither fish nor fowl. The post digital animation look of the time, a muted realistic one of grays, is a contentious aesthetic touch to consider in itself, but the show also lacks energy, crossing over from a mood piece with an unintentional level of what you can read into it, with James’ fears for Rei in safety and psychologically the one thing keeping this for me from becoming sluggish. The aerial battles themselves are also the weakest segments of the entire production. Aging is less than issue with them but that, expensive to produce, they are not interesting and there are times where you will struggle with whom is who in the alien skies without combing through the scenes, not telling the plot visually well. Flaws creep in more and more into the script, and it is clear the show, with episodes two to four being thirty minutes long each, that the span of time was a bad sign to how it was moving along, only being fully released between 2002 to 2005 rather than taking a lot quicker to complete.

Basic explanation of the premise is not done, such that whilst it is explained at the beginning this is set on an alien planet, you forget in the seemingly normal desert this is set in an alien world, and a lot of characters are left with not enough given time to stand out. Rydia the female chief or Edith the psychologist (who is also her niece) are two examples, but more jarring is a figure who gets a lot of time for herself back on Earth, Lynn Jackson the journalist and acclaimed novelist who we get the back-story of. She is the face of the normal person who witnessed the JAM invasion as a child, by the news on Christmas with her parents, and devoted herself to researching the events when an adult. She has become the figure now standing out as someone who devoted her life to documenting the JAM invasion which many are wary in believing in nowadays, an enticing concept in how human beings do not learn from the past and become complacent. Her story is closed abruptly on Episode 4, when the story returns to Earth fully, and how her tale is a candle randomly snuffed out shows the problems this project had, considering how much time was devoted to her with one or two prominent scenes by herself. It shows one of GONZO’s biggest flaws as mentioned, not being able to finish a work without struggles in the plotting and pace.

Episode 5 is weird as suddenly the production trying to become The End of Evengelion (1997), where everything goes to hell, whilst everyone is having tea and cakes on the veranda as everything explodes. It is not this truthfully in a twist, which abruptly brings in fictional reality when never evoked before and makes this episode even messier in execution. It is by this point, whilst Yukikzae became entertaining for many reasons beforehand, why this production was forgotten, where even by this final episode there are key details it has to suddenly explain, the heavy burden also with the disappointment that this also includes tantalizing ideas it will now not be able to flesh out, such as that the portal would have been closed long before to the JAM if it was not for human greed, and the JAM’s ability to both tempt humanity with possible resources and to complete manipulate reality. It is a work which fascinates throughout its length but also left so much on the table. Even the unexpected sense of platonic love between your two male leads, arguably one of the few things that reaches a proper conclusion, could have been fleshed out even further then what we got.

Yukikaze got released through Bandai Visual, an ill-advised off-shot to Bandai Entertainment started in 2005 for the USA, and merged back into Bandai in 2008, which tried to bring Japanese pricing schemes to the West, which only Aniplex in the United States have managed to get away with, i.e. much more expensive cost for physical media like for Japanese anime fans. In Britain, Beez Entertainment, Bandai’s late European division, released the series. Sold by itself, despite being less than thirty minutes long, is a tie-in production called Fighting Fairy Girl Rescue Me Mave-chan which should be brought up too. This follows in a genre of anthropomorphizing non-sentient objects, like vehicles to even soda cans, into characters with a trend for cute girls if occasionally cute guys too. This is an early one, and it is a slight production, an ode to otaku promoting both Yukikaze and Stratos 4 (2003) to an audience who would have likely bought the DVDs in Japan beforehand.

A nervous teenage boy, braving himself to go to an anime convention, steps into a bathroom to calm a panic attack only to end up on Planet Fairy from Yukikaze, where the sentient planes are now young women who can fly and fight aliens. It is slight, though promises sequels and like Yukikaze, this has an abrupt aspect to it which is explicitly part of itself in script and meaning. This is not likely accidental thought, and is explicit in this case, as it has a very cynical idea that these characters know they are merely characters from an anime, brought to life by fans but knowing that when they are constantly under threat of obscurity. Once the fans are more interesting in a new show, they like other characters (like a blurred out parody of Lum from Urusei Yatsura) are to be forgotten and to disappear from existence into a literal void. It feels like Toy Story if you envision the toys discarded in the attic, and it is a bleak idea to centralize in a one-off episode, even if having a happy ending. Though it is clearly made to sell Yukikaze, even by cynically having a busty blue haired female character the most prominent even over the one (Mavi-chan) named after the show, you also cannot help but read into the creators through this premise. Made by GONZO too, it feels like a response to how for all the work into Yukikaze that took three years, a work to celebrate GONZO itself, it was going to disappear and be discarded by the new shiny animated production afterwards. It feels abruptly frank from the production team even if meant to be a cute tie-in.

It is even more ironic now as poor Mavi-chan is forgotten, whether the homicidal one who attack strangers with knives or the plane in a deep bond with its male pilot, a deeply flawed and messy production that was meant to celebrate an entire studio not one of the titles you bring up talking about GONZO. GONZO themselves, as mentioned, are still producing titles but are no longer upfront in their name being promoted alongside their anime productions, and it is perversely a review like this which talks of the deep flaws with Yukikaze which will also however nod to it out of respect too. There were ideas here which worked and some which probably hinted at a level of unconventionality it never likely intended. It managed to have the least expected psychodrama one would presume from this title, between two people in a bond and the combat plane which divides them, and I only wish that I could have said it managed to be this successfully. What could have been legitimately great in terms of its production and storytelling, if it had taken some radical steps to focus, is instead just a curiosity.

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1) Anime World Order Show # 81a – Rei Fukai, You Are Worse Than Michael Jordan, published on July 2^nd 2009. I will warn that aspects of the podcast from this time, in humour and tone, have dated badly or may offend, which the hosts, who have started from 2005 into the 2020s, have admitted to. They have become a significantly better podcast into the 2020s just in terms of the quality of the reviews, but if you can step beyond some of the humour, older episodes like this one are still rewarding and in this case are apt to refer to. Listening to this episode over years perfectly sums up the lowered expectations until I finally saw Yukikaze myself.