The most depressingly beautiful airplane anime

Director Mamoru Oshii has pushed the envelope once again with his newest film, "The Sky Crawlers."

The movie is a complex, but stunning film about teenagers trapped in a world of aerial combat.

The movie opens up at a snail's pace, with isolated, depressed male pilots known as Kildren, with no other amusement other than eating at the meat pie diner and having sex in the mansion with other women.

In their planes, they fight enemy planes from a country known only as the Loutan. However, most of their existence is a boring world, in which they never grow old. All they know is that they are children, who could never possibly gain access into the adult world. The only threat to their existence is the unknown airplane above the clouds, known only as “The Teacher.”

Perhaps it’s a somewhat excessive visual representation of the life of Japanese otaku, young men who trap themselves in their home, fearful of the criticism from the adults in the faceless corporate world. The characters have the most depressing and nonchalant dialogue ever heard in an anime. However, director Mamoru Oshii makes it all work.

The film is a deadpan “Catch-22”-styled story, in which the main character, Yuichi, is trying to figure out exactly who he is. He's only heard rumors that his love interest, Suito Kusanagi, shot her previous boyfriend in the head. Although Yuichi has hardly any memory of his past, he offers his girlfriend a new hope for change in their depressing life as Kildren.

Admittedly, the aerial dogfight in the end of the film is an impossibly excessive and violent end. However, given that the concept of the film is out of this world in the first place, it all works beautifully. Although some anime fans might find the film boring at first, “The Sky Crawlers” has plenty of earth-shaking emotional sequences, in which Kusanagi desperately plays with a gun in her hand on a particularly depressing night out.

This is one of the best anime films I have ever seen, filled with some spectacular dogfights with surreal imagery. But although there is plenty of action, the dogfights pale in comparison to the heartbreaking emotions throughout the film. While American audiences may be easily turned off, this is a true masterpiece by Mamoru Oshii.

Image courtesy of larcho.files.wordpress.com

DVD Classics: Ghost in the Shell boots up for a 2nd Gig

"Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig" is long overdue for a re-release, but thankfully Bandai has set up an Anime Classics release of the entire box set in September.

GitS: SAC 2nd Gig is the excellent second season of the GitS: SAC, with a compelling political plot on terrorism and the oppression of refugees.

Although GitS: SAC has always been known for complicated dialogue and complex idological conversation, 2nd Gig makes for a far more dramatic season. The new enemy faction in this season, the Individual Eleven, attacks the Japanese embassy in the first episode of 2nd Gig and holds the emissaries there hostage. Although Section 9 returns to save the day, the Prime Minister reinstates them in a haphazard fashion, ordering them to save the hostages in only 15 minutes.

This is a much more violent and intense season, focusing more on the plight of Japanese refugees, impoverished in the aftermath of two more World Wars. The devastation of these military attacks has left some cities of Kyushu nearly devastated.

Out of these attacks, an independent militarist group of terrorists, named the Individual Eleven, have manipulated information networks within the government. They have managed to use Section 9 as a tool for their own purposes, even going so far as to transport illegal weaponry, such as nuclear fuel rods. They've already attempted to assassinate the new Prime Minister. At this rate, terrorism in Japan can only get worse.

Although GitS 2nd Gig almost gets a little too wrapped up in conspiracies and meandering plotlines, the second season is far better than the first. Certainly, we're not used to seeing Section 9 fail in their missions. As saddening and infuriating as it gets, anime fans will deeply sympathize more with this group as they try desperately to do the right thing, while the Individual Eleven finds more and more ways to cover their tracks. Despite what other people might think, there's nothing more beautiful than watching Section 9 fight military battles in an already devastated landscape, with sunken buildings and crumbling freeways. The music is incredibly chaotic, with fantastically dissonant string sections, all arranged by the female superstar composer Yoko Kanno.

Best of all, there's far more momentum in this second season. The first season had more of a fake egotistical coolness in all of Section 9's operations, especially in the stand-alone episodes. However, this season is filled with some of the most creative plotlines and twists. Episode two literally takes place in the mind of a military veteran, who confuses the audience with his own bizarre fantasies of killing his employers. Episode seven and eight are mind-bending episodes of Section 9's attempt to capture Kazundo Gouda, the shrewd head of the Cabinet Intelligence Service who always manages to stay one step ahead of them by dispersing misleading information to cover up his tracks.

Anyone who ever doubted that "Stand Alone Complex" would end up too complicated for its own good will be proved wrong with "GitS SAC: 2nd Gig." This is another must-have series, available in September.

Image courtesy of espvisuals.blogspot.com

DVD Review - The City Gets Darker

Volume three of "Darker Than Black" provides two fascinating episodes taking a look inside the gigantic wall and two exciting and dramatic episodes about Yin's past.

The first two episodes cover parts one and two of "Within the Wall, When You Recover Something Lost...", in which Li Shengshun (a.k.a. Hei) undertakes an investigation inside the Pandora agency, which is scientifically studying the phenomena of Hell's Gate, whatever that is. He's searching for the Meteor fragment, a large lens with mysterious power. He befriends Nick Hillman, a scientist who has a telescope which could see the stars through the fake night sky. But he also has other secrets.

The other two episodes cover both parts of "On a Silver Night, the Heart Does Not Sway On the Water's Surface." In these episodes, someone from a rival syndicate steals the observer spirit of Yin, the silver haired girl who has the power to spy on people wherever there is water. We learn that she is actually a lifeless doll who was once a pianist in Finland. Her piano instructor visits her, ready to take her back.

This anime has a great storyline which looks further and further into the disaster which led to the creation of Hell's Gate and the Contractors. Hei's infiltration into Pandora as a janitor is one of the more perplexing stories, involving Nick and his mysterious sister, who is a spy for Hei's syndicate. Certainly the Meteor fragment had made Nick's own wish come true, as shown at the end of episode 12, but at the expense of his life in the real world.

More fascinating, though, are Hei's memories of the aftermath of the creation of Hell's Gate, which obliterated the entire city within the wall. Scientific examinations in Hei's mind also introduces a mysterious girl with green hair in a flashback. Could this girl be Hei's sister, the girl shown briefly in the introduction of episode 12?

Probably the most emotional episodes were 13 and 14, which circle around Yin, the silver haired girl in Hei's syndicate. As the syndicate's field supervisor, Hei keeps Yin merely as a doll with an observer spirit, to spy on the city. However, when a Russian Intelligence contractor steals Yin's spirit, Yin wanders aimlessly around the city, recalling her life as a piano player and her dark memories of her parents.

Although this part of the series almost too much storyline in two episodes, it still manages to remain surprisingly emotional. Huang is all too eager to kill Yin for exposing herself to other syndicates, until he discovers that Yin has emotions.

However, we still don't know exactly what PANDORA is, or what the hell Hell's gate is. Hopefully the series ties up these mysteries soon.

Image courtesy of bj0rn.animeblogger.net

DVD Review - Action in the dark

The action in "Darker Than Black" heats up in volume two, with probably some of the best dialogue I've ever heard in an anime.

It's still hard for me to explain why "Darker Than Black" is one of my favorite series of 2009. The series features the best music from Yoko Kanno to date, with lonely acoustic guitars interspersed with some hard rock fight music. The characters don't follow a formulaic dialogue either--they simply wander about with their conversations, leading to emotional revelations of their pasts.

Volume two continues the smooth pacing, with nothing forced or excessively overplayed out. Episode five continues the story of "The Red Dream of a Calamity Disappears in Eastern Europe," in which Li Shengshung interrogates Havoc to find the location of his little sister. However, Havoc cannot remember a thing unless she moves closer to Hell's Gate.

Other episodes include "The Gardenia Gives Off Fragrance in the Early Summer Rain" parts one and two, which switches from the perspective of Li's syndicate to two crime detectives, named Guy and Kiko. Guy is a tall man who sometimes smokes cigarettes, and Kiko is...ahem...an energetic pink-haired otaku girl who loves anime and cosplay. The cute duo work on the greatest crime investigation in their career--searching for a woman's missing cat.

The final two episodes, parts one and two of "The Pure White Dress is Stained By the Girl's Dreams and Blood," is a dramatic and violent story in which policewoman Misaki is searching for the elusive VI952, the mass murderer contractor in the Qing Long Tang Chinese mafia.

This anime features both the funniest string of episodes and the most violent string of episodes. Guy and Kiko make for a hilarious mismatched duo. Guy would love to call himself a great private investigator, at least until little Kiko annoys him for not being able to pay the bills. And the battles between Li and VI952 are the most exciting yet, with VI952 destroying an entire rooftop, and brutally blowing off body parts with the snap of his fingers.

"Darker Than Black" is one of the most exciting anime series, with a dark metropolitan feel to it. The story, action, music, comedy and drama of "Darker Than Black" is making me even more hungry to watch more episodes. There in no action anime that's hotter than "Darker Than Black" right now.

Image from randomc.animeblogger.net

Anime Classics: Vision of Escaflowne

Escaflowne is certainly one of the most memorable anime around, for its emotional characters and its epic story with robots and warfare.

While the TV series, "Vision of Escaflowne," can tend to go overboard with emotional angst, there's a pretty good reason for this. The main character, Hitomi, is a girl with a pendant that can change the fate of an entire world, depending on her mood.

Of course, we can't possibly know how this pendant could work from the beginning. After all, in the beginning Hitomi is an ordinary high school girl who runs on the track team, likes to use tarot cards and has a crush on some guy named Amano.

Then some teenage guy appears out of an interdimensional portal, swordfighting a dragon. After a short chase sequence, Hitomi discovers that her pendant allows her to read the future. Hitomi ends up saving the guy, whose name is Van.

They then transport from Earth to Gaea, Van's home planet. He's given a warm greeting, for Van is now the new king of Fanelia, Van's hometown. However, the visit is cut short when the evil Zaibach army of Guymelef robots destroys the city. Van vows for revenge against the Zaibach.

To say the least, Hitomi's powers are the key to the fate of Gaea. Her pendant allows her to read the future, but whenever Hitomi is afraid, something awful is bound to happen. Of course, with powers like that, Hitomi ends up expressing a high range of emotions, resulting for some chaotic changes in the storyline itself.

However, no matter what, I can always sympathize with Hitomi, who has trouble expressing all her emotions in the first place. She would like to figure out the future, but when the future is altered by all the emotions she conceals inside her, she has to confess her feelings. She wants to love someone, but she's so afraid that someone else is going to get hurt in the process.

And while no one can really know what happens in the future, they have to learn to express their feelings honestly and truthfully. Ironically, this makes Escaflowne one of the best romance shonen anime. If anyone thinks that a romance film and an action film cannot possibly mix together, Escaflowne easily proves them wrong.

Image courtesy of http://www.theroseking.net/

DVD Review: Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex

This is old news by now, but the complete collection of "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Season One" was rereleased in a cheaper box set in October of last year. Unlike the previous DVD of merely the Laughing Man story arc, this set features all the complete episodes.

And if anyone hasn't seen "Ghost in the Shell" before, it's a dizzy spectacle of robot military action, deep philosophizing and complex dialogue.

The main character, Motoko Kusanagi, is the operations leader of the secret special ops group named Section 9. They specialize in policing all forms of heavy-duty cyber crime, such as drug and organ smuggling.

However, this is very dangerous work. Some of these groups deal in heavy-duty machine guns, and some of them possess cybernetic body parts. Thus, almost all the members of Section 9 have complete cyborg bodies. Well, all of them except for the former police investigator, Togusa. He's flesh and blood, but he possesses cybernetic gizmos in his body.

The cyborg bodies allow all the Section 9 members the ability to communicate wirelessly without moving their lips. Their eyes are equipped with night vision. And they all can read bar code data for information. They also have spider tanks called Tachikomas.

Although the machinery and cyber-punk technology alone makes this one of the coolest anime series, there is also a much more complex storyline which starts in episode four. Togusa gets a tip from a former coworker at the police department about Interceptors, optical implants which allow hackers to see video through other people's eyes. Togusa discovers his first shocking conspiracy--that police are illegally installing Interceptors in all their officers to find the Laughing Man, a professional hacker.

However, the hacker is also a professional muckraker. Although he doesn't show his face too often, the Laughing Man is also trying to lead Section 9 to uncover a hideous plot involving corporate blackmailing on the scale of billions of yen.

It's a complex anime to say the least. "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" is an epic masterpiece, involving government conspiracies and military warfare. It almost suffers from too much fancy shmancy dialogue about hacking, Internet communications and existential conversations. However it all holds together to make an awesome first season that is hard to beat.

The series is now available for $40 in stores. If anyone hasn't seen any "Ghost in the Shell" anime, they have to check out the movie. "Ghost in the Shell" is deservedly one of the best action anime around, even if Motoko tends to show a little too much skin.

Images courtesy of grumpfactory.wordpress.com

DVD Review - Vexille brings technological apocalypse to Japan

Although one computer-generated robot film was already released this year, "Vexille" is more thoughtful and exciting than "Appleseed: Ex Machina." Despite the slow pace of the film, I loved watching this new prediction of an apocalyptic future of Japan.

At first, the film seems to go in the same direction as "Appleseed: Ex Machina," with intense robot battles and fast action. However, this movie decides to take a much different approach--this time, the robot force is investigating the use of cyborg technology in Japan.

According to the film, Japan isolated itself from the world in the year 2067. The entire island was secluded, and no foreigners could come in or out of the area. In fact, the movie shows that there is a flashing electronic security network called R.A.C.E. between Japan and the rest of the world.

The film centers around Vexille, a member of S.W.O.R.D., which is a military group that specializes in fighting in robot suits. Ten years later, her husband, Leon, found a messenger in San Pedro, California, who said that Maria needed him, and that Daiwa Industries is meeting at Mt. Fila on Christmas Day to discuss admission of their cyborg technology. Saito of Daiwa Industries escaped on an airplane. Although Vexille hung on to his leg, Saito chopped the leg off!

Later, some scientists explained that this was actually a cyborg leg, which is illegal under the United Nations restrictions. Eventually, the head of S.W.O.R.D. operations decides to act without United States authorization to investigate the nation of Japan.

Unfortunately, the mission doesn't go well. Leon's robot suit gets hit by a rocket, and Vexille's other members are killed. Vexille wakes up in a shocking new world of Japan. Tokyo has turned into a shantytown.

Vexille also meets Maria, who was Leon's ex-girlfriend in Japan. Maria was a U.N. investigator in Japan, but after regulations by Daiwa, Maria could not move out of Japan. Leon left for the United States, but Maria explains that Daiwa also did something else to Japan--they turned all the people into cyborgs.

According to Maria, after Daiwa Industries took governmental control over Japan, they gave all the people vaccinations. Unfortunately, these vaccinations were special chemicals that turned all their genes into robotic parts. While they are all human, when their eyes turn black, they will all turn into empty cyborgs who are forced to work for Daiwa.

And Japan is a wasteland. That's right, after Daiwa took over, they used up its natural resources. Now it has no mountains or rivers or greenery--it is all flat. This is sure one heck of a message to convert to environment-friendly energy sources, but it works very well. The depiction is incredible--I really loved the desolate world of Japan, with desert expanses and huge robotic worms made of scrap metal.

Vexille is a brilliant film from start to finish. The Japanese voices are incredibly compelling, and the computer-generated graphics are just as awesome. I saw many complaints that the graphics are not as good as, say, "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." However, the director chose a style that used more cell-shaded graphics, to make it somewhat more cartoony. The images were probably rendered in this way to offer a sense of comic relief from the dark apocalyptic story.

But it's clear that "Vexille" offers excellent images and a brilliant story that paints a desolate future for Japan. Let's just hope that Japan doesn't get this messed up 60 or 70 years from now.

Images courtesy of seaslugteam.com

DVD Review - Ex-Machina Excitement

Unless they've been living under a rock, nearly every anime fan has heard of the "Appleseed" movies. Based on the "Appleseed" manga by Masamune Shirow, the movies are pretty exciting shows of gunfights and cyberpunk mythology, even if they aren't that original.

"Appleseed: Ex-Machina", the third movie in the franchise, is probably the best of the Appleseed films so far. Produced by gunfight movie specialist John Woo, "Appleseed: Ex-Machina" features even flashier gunfights and a complex plot involving brainwashing.

For people unaquainted with the Appleseed franchise, the series focuses on a pair of tough E.S.W.A.T. soldiers, Deunan and Briareos (buraireiosu). While they are the best soldiers in the team, they are also a romantic wife/husband team until Briareos loses his body in an explosion. Fortunately, Briareos' body is restored in robot form. Together, they are the unstoppable duo, protecting the city-nation of Olympus from terrorists.

In "Appleseed: Ex-Machina", however, Briareos almost dies trying to save Deunan from a bomb inside one of the terrorist cyborgs. Although Deunan is grateful that Briareos only took minor damage, she isn't pleased when E.S.W.A.T. assigns her with a genetic human clone of Briareos, named Tereus. Of course, romantic tension ensues when Briareos returns to the E.S.W.A.T. team to meet his human clone. Deunan likes both of them of course, but Briareos came to her first.

With that aside, there is actually a big action plot involving a scientist named Dr. Kestner. Kestner took over a Project HALCON, a scientific project to help brain-damaged veterans with an advanced artificial intelligence system. But then the project turned the veterans insane and the project leader, Dr. Zander, was killed by veterans. Kestner vowed to get his revenge through implants into popular devices called connexus. Now the devices are transmitters which turn humans and robots insane.

Okay, the storyline is a little simplistic. Ultimately, Briareos, Deunan and Tereus decide to take on HALCON, because if they destroy the HALCON base containing the virus, they can save Olympus from being destroyed. HALCON is actually huge floating cube over the ocean. Inside the cube are tons of virus robots. Of course, the three spend their time killing robots with long machine-gun fights, acrobatics and rocket flying. And admittedly, the last fight with the core of the HALCON really isn't that spectacular.

However, the gunfights are incredible. I've honestly never seen so much flipping and jumping in a gunfight movie. In the second fight alone, Deunan spends her time flipping on steel girders and jumping all over the place just to shut off the robot with the switch on its neck. And in the HALCON gunfight, Deunan kamikazes her flying robot into another robot, ejecting before the explosion.

Okay, maybe the gunfights are ridiculously unrealistic. However, they are impressive to watch. And I also liked the twist in John Woo's use of the doves. As every John Woo fan knows, every Woo film has to have flying doves. The "Appleseed" movie puts a twist in the dove formula, though--the doves have cyborg exoskeletons containing the viruses to make robots go insane.

Okay, maybe the doves were silly. However, the movie was flashy and exciting enough to receive my approval. Despite a simplistic plot and typical John Woo silliness, this is a great-looking film with amazing computer-generated animation. "Appleseed: Ex-Machina" isn't a film to write home about, but it is fun to watch, nonetheless.

Oh, and the interview with John Woo is a good special feature as well.

Image courtesy of clockworkmachina.com

DVD Review - Moonlight Mile: First astronaut anime sex-fest

I don't mind watching space films most of the time. Although most of them feature only men, the characters perform acts of courage and goodwill that few people could do themselves.

But this anime really shows off the masochism of space movies in its worst form. The series is so degrading for women that it's downright ridiculous.

First of all, this anime covers two daredevil mountain climbers, Saruwatari Garou and Lostman, who work hard to become astronauts in space. It sounds like a great dream. What isn't so inspiring is their ritual of having sex with women as a token of "good luck" before every mountain climb. It's true--just watch the "preparatory" sex scene in episode one before they climb a mountain.

Although I'd have to say that those guys are sure lucky to do such things while I'm still a virgin, it gets downright disturbing when these guys make an effort to have sex at the most illogical times. For example, while a secretary is taking a tour of a construction site, Garou is having sex with a waitress against the window of his heavy-duty crane. And before Lostman flies on a deadly mission in the Middle East, he has to get laid for good luck before his mission.

Good grief, these guys sure get a lot of sex. Also, how do they manage to convince their ladies to get it on? They must be really, really convincing, or disturbingly seductive.

There's also something just wrong about making almost all the men astronauts and all the women as cashiers or secretary. Although I figured that two thousand years in the future women would have the civil rights to become astronauts, apparently most of the astronauts (and most of the characters) are men, as portrayed in "Moonlight Mile".

Still, I had to admit that the animators thought of some ingenius Apollo 13-style situations. The third episode is especially engaging. Steve O'Brien, an African American who is transporting a crane in space, mysteriously loses the thrust in the rockets for his ship. To make matters worse, a meteorite hits his ship, causing him to spin slowly downward into the Earth's atmosphere. Garou saves him with a clever spaceship propelling trick--first O'brien boards the ball-shaped command module. Then the command module is released so that the spinning long end of the ship hits the command module like a bat, propelling it away from the atmosphere. My dad would probably say that this isn't physically possible, but still, I have to admit that the scene looked impressive from a visual standpoint.

Yet, I still can't help but think that this anime is pushing the limits of masochism a little too far. Although "Moonlight Mile" is visually impressive and suspenseful, it is also an unbelievable story. I was looking forward to a brave story about astronauts performing courageous feats. I wasn't expecting a sex-fest, which really became downright ridiculous. When compared to the awesome space anime series "Planetes", "Moonlight Mile" falls flat.

Image from doanimation.wordpress.com

DVD Review - The best homosexual anime you've never seen

Homosexuality is still a risque topic in America as well as Japan. Thus, the anime publishing company Media Blasters took a big risk in releasing "Simoun", a anime featuring homosexual girls, in America.

However, "Simoun" may very well be the best homosexual anime that you've never seen. No doubt, this is the sleeper hit of 2008. The anime looks so incredible and the scenes are so thought-provoking that anyone in the proper mindset will want to buy the rest of the series.

"Simoun" is a yuri series, a series which focuses on female homosexual romance. Believe it or not, many gay love anime series become really popular in Japan. However, I still somewhat grimace at watching girls kiss each other, as they do in this series.

However, "Simoun" is challenging in many other ways. Its world focuses on the planet Daikuriku, inhabited by humonoids who are born only as girls. In the most powerful colony, Simulacrum, the humanoids can choose their own gender when they reach the age of 17. And even the girls who choose to change their gender still retain their feminine voice. Although this may seem like a disturbing violation of ethics involving faulty industrial genetic mutation, the process is actually connected to Simulacrom's religion. The girls can choose the gender they want, by entering a spring and praying. After a few years, their breasts flatten out, but they still retain their feminine voice. And the new guys created from the process don't seem to mind either.

"Simoun" also presents a world where the nation of women happened to discover the most advanced technology in the world, with clean burning fuel, advanced spaceships called Simouns, and, of course, genetic altering without problems. However, the other nearby country, Argentum, is fighting Simulacrum for this technology with their propeller-powered aircraft with machine guns. Argentum also suffers over extreme pollution and don't have the technology to change their own gender.

It sounds extremely far out, but "Simoun" provides a vision of what the world could be like if women ran the most powerful country in the world. I almost forgot the most risque part of the series--two female pilots of an aircraft have to kiss each other and then kiss a big jewel in-between their cockpits in order to activate the ship, known as a Simoun. This is probably as racy as the series ever gets, aside from a scene where one of the girls flirts with her senior. However, it also shows that this nation of Simulacrum permits homosexuality freely, without restrictions. The nature of the nation contrasts sharply with Argentum, which restricts people with industrial pollution and predestined gender roles.

As strange and far-out as the plot is, it leads to some excellent scenes. The first episode begins with top pilots Amuria and Neveril fighting with their fleet, the Chor Tempest, against an enormous Argentum fleet of airships. One Simulacrum ship is destroyed in the battle. Amuria and Neveril attempt to kill off all the Argentum by flying their ship through the air to create a huge Ri Majon, a laser trail shape in the sky that explodes. However, Neveril gets distracted when she sees the human eyes of an Argentum pilot. Because of the distraction, the Ri Majon explodes, killing her partner, Amuria. For much of the rest of the DVD, Neveril can't bear to pilot a Simoun ever again, because of the fatal battle.

Thus, Paraietta, the second leader-in-command, picks up three new recruits to replace the fallen fighters. Aeru, one of the newcomers, is the main heroine of the series. Young, brash and aggressive, she takes a liking to Neveril immediately, but Paraietta isn't so pleased. The other two recruits, Floe and Rimone, join the other Chor Tempest members, Alti, Floe, Kaimu, Mamiina, Morinas, Rodoreiamann and Yun.

The story centers mostly with Aeru, who constantly knocks on Neveril's door, because Neveril remains secluded in her room. Because Neveril isn't flying, the Chor Tempest hasn't been able to fly any really challenging missions. In episode 4, Aeru almost destroys her ship and gets reprimanded. In order to regain her stature in the Chor Tempest, she convinces Rimone to fly with her to find Argentum soldiers to destroy. They find one aircraft and plan on capturing the pilot after landing. Unfortunately, the pilot surprises them and they get captured. The pilot reveals that his country is heavily polluted and that his only choice is to capture a Simulacrum ship for his country to use. However, he cannot find another person to help him pilot it, his lungs were not able to handle the clean air of Simulacrum, and he turned to stone in the cockpit. In a bloody scene, Aeru shoos the young Rimone away so that she can cut his frozen hands off the joystick.

In the fifth episode, Rimone recovers from the shock of her bloody cockpit and learns to fight again with the help of Dominura, a veteran pilot transferred to the Chor Tempest. The sixth episode focuses on Paraietta and Neveril's former relationship. They were in love, until Neveril fell in love with Amuria. Paraietta sees herself as selfish for restricting Aeru from pairing with Neveril, and after a fencing match with Aeru, she lets Aeru become Neveril's new flying partner.

Although this series is a little risque, it is one of the most complex anime series featuring an all female vocal cast. As long as people are willing to accept the homosexual relationships, this series is one of the best anime series of 2008. The dogfights are stunningly amazing to watch and the plot was very well thought out. This series probably won't be the most popular series in America due to its content, but it is still a series to keep.

Images courtesy of stevegilham.blogspot.com and pinkubentobox.com