Area 88: Vol.2 - A Lonely Crossing Of Paths

Introduction

There's something ineffably cool about fighter planes, especially to a young teenaged male. That's despite the fact that the closest we'll ever get to such machinery is probably in the Imperial War Museum, and the chance of us being anywhere near a working fighter are either slim or fat. It didn't stop me from borrowing coffee table books from the library, perusing through Jane's Guide to Fighter Jets, playing computer games, swapping top trumps cards, and indulging in movies like Wings of the Apache and Top Gun. It's why I will still watch Firefox despite it being the worst movie that Clint Eastwood ever made. But fighter planes in animation are another matter. There is little satisfaction to be had in Dastardly and Muttley; it may be entertaining but it won't appeal to the plane-spotter in all of us, and it's hard to envisage a cartoon coming up with the level of detail, consistency, accuracy and sense of speed that a decent depiction requires. It's jet porn basically, but two things make it feasible. One is the adult outlook of anime, where attention to detail and accuracy are commonplace, and the other is CGI. When you have realistic aircraft, modelled with digital accuracy, it makes a show like Area 88 possible.


The Kingdom of Aslan is embroiled in a bitter civil war, but rather than recruit and train its own standing air force, it has instead opted for a mercenary squadron operating from its Area 88 base, flying sorties against insurrectionist forces, fighting one of the most bitter conflicts in the Middle East. The pilots who fly from Area 88 sign up to tough contracts. There are only three ways to leave, serve the full 3-year tour, amass $1.5 million and buy your way out, or in a body bag. Earning the money would seem easy, when you're making tens of thousands of dollars for each target, but pilots also have to pay for maintenance, spare parts, repairs, armaments, ammunition, and even the food they eat and the roof over their heads, and if they get shot down, their coffins. It's fine if you sign up for it, but for the base's sole Japanese pilot, Shin Kazama, it's a deal he never made. He was on the fast track to success as a commercial airline pilot, he'd just passed his final tests, and was engaged to be married to a girl named Ryoko, when his ex-best friend Kanzaki signed him up for Aslan's merc pilots. He needs to buy his way out of the contract so he can get back to his fiancé, and that means flying, fighting and killing as many enemy targets as quickly as possible.

The next three episodes are presented on this volume 2 of Area 88 courtesy of ADV.

4. Desert - The Treacherous Sky
The hottest ace in Area 88, Shin Kazama is drawing a blank. The enemy have new hardware that is outflying his battered old Crusader and when the enemy attack en masse, the inevitable happens. Shin is shot down. Stranded in the desert, a sandstorm blowing in, Shin has plenty of time to contemplate his best friend Satoru Kanzaki's betrayal, and the events that led him to Area 88.


5. Lip Stick - An Unyielding Spirit in Lipstick
Shin is waiting for a new plane, but there is a new pilot keeping the skies clear of enemy fighters. Kitri Parvaneh is a young Mirage pilot who's turning male heads as soon as she signs on. It turns out that she's related to the base commander, but rather than relying on nepotism, she has a stubborn headstrong streak that leads her right into trouble. And typically, on a base full of lonely single men who are salivating at her presence, she is drawn to the one guy who is spoken for, Shin Kazama.

6. Cross Over - A Lonely Crossing of Paths
Shin has his new plane at last, a light and agile F5A Tiger II. The first thing he has to do is take it on a shakedown flight, but as so often happens, he's interrupted with orders for an S&R mission. Meanwhile, Satoru Kanzaki is at the controls of a commercial 747 flight on the way to Tokyo via Tel Aviv. He's getting one step closer to his goals, and is looking for promotion to Captain. Unbeknownst to them both, their planes are on a collision course.

Picture

A recent anime gets a nice 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. Aside from the NTSC-PAL conversion issues prevalent with every other anime show available in the UK, the only real annoyance is a degree of moiré on fine detail, and almost imperceptible aliasing. It's not a deal breaker, but is a disappointment in such a visual show. The character designs are pleasant enough if a little old-fashioned, reflecting their mid-eighties origins. The real joy is in the hardware. The planes here are depicted with a degree of accuracy and attention to detail that is unprecedented for an animation. That anime budget does show though, although oddly enough it's in slower moments of animation. When you see a jet taxiing or during take-off or landing, something doesn't feel quite right, as if the plane lacks weight. But when the action heats up, during a dogfight or while performing aerobatic sequences, the visuals are amazing. It's almost as if they've taken sequences from Top Gun and just cel-shaded them.

Sound

You have a choice between DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, along with optional translated subtitles and signs. I was happy enough with the original language as always, and the stereo provides some nice whooshy plane noises when required. But for the full jet porn aficionado, the 5.1 Surround will be the audio track of choice, and while it isn't as full-blown as a multi-million dollar effects movie, it does throw some planes, missiles, cannon and AA fire around your speakers. It's enough to put a grin on your face during the action scenes. Unfortunately when they start talking, that grin will ebb, as the English language dub is decidedly average. It's a show that desperately needs a 5.1 Japanese track.

Extras

There may be a low episode count on this disc, but the extras compensate.

The clear Amaray case has a reversible sleeve you can make use of, and the inside has character guides for Satoru Kanzaki and Mickey Simon, with interviews with their voice actors as well.

On the disc you'll find trailers for Yugo The Negotiator, Samurai Gun, Get Backers, Madlax and The Place Promised In Our Early Days. There is a 1-minute slideshow of production sketches, the clean credit sequences, aircraft specs for the A4F Skyhawk and the F14A Tomcat, and character bios for Satoru Kanzaki, McCoy, Greg Gates, Boris, and Mickey Simon (there's a bit of repetition in the last from the sleeve notes).


There are two interviews on this disc, with the first featuring director Isamu Imakake and character designer Hiroshi Koujina lasting 28 minutes. The two sit down at a table and have a good chat about the characters, updating the look from the manga, while keeping a period feel, as well as an examination of some of the new characters in the show.

The second interview sees supervising producer Kenjiro Kawando join Imakake. It's a 27-minute piece, in which they discuss making a 20-year-old story relevant today, the feedback from fans of the original, the use of CGI, the music, and the cast, as well as talking about some of the more notable episodes.

There is also a preview for volume 3.

Conclusion

Another dose of hi-octane aerial thrills takes us to the halfway point of Area 88, and it's as good as place as any to pause and take stock of this series. There are indeed plenty of dogfight antics to appreciate in this volume, with the faceless bad guys having taken ownership of the next generation of MIGs, and the good guys starting off on the back foot. It's where Shin's Crusader meets its demise, and while he's waiting for his new plane to be delivered, we meet the newest recruit to Area 88, who happens to fly a Mirage. Delta wing aerobatics put the veterans to shame, although sneaking your way into a fight does give you an advantage. Finally we get to see Shin's new steed, an F5A Tiger II, and the light and agile fighter is put through its paces in the final episode on the disc.


But, this volume was where I learnt that man cannot survive on jet porn alone, and needs a little sustenance and nourishment to go with the eye-candy. This is where I paid close attention to the story, and this is where my heart began to sink. Area 88 is a soap opera. It's a soap opera of the old school, shoulder-pads and big hair included, and just like Dallas, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest of old, it takes a high and fancy concept, populates it with ridiculous characterisations, and proceeds to lunge for the emotional jugular, not letting petty things like plot integrity and realism get in the way.


The first episode which sees Shin bail out over the hot baking desert, offers the perfect place for a flashback. He and best friend Kanzaki were both orphans, and both wound up at flight school together, although it was Shin who had the talent, and Shin who caught the eye of Yamato Airlines heir Ryoko. And so we see that Kanzaki was evil and machinating right from the start (you can see it in his soap opera villain eyebrows), and he started plotting his ascension to Yamato's highest level straight away, getting Shin drunk and signing his name on to Area 88, a veritable death sentence.


When next we see Kanzaki and Ryoko, it's the present day, and Kanzaki is consoling, read putting the moves on Ryoko, who is virtuously waiting for Shin to return from the dead. If that isn't enough, we also see Ryoko at the orphanage, volunteering her time with the nuns, and when presented with a piece of artwork from a five-year-old Shin, shedding some virtuous tears. Meanwhile back at Area 88, we meet Kitri Parvaneh, the new femme fatale on base. Every soap needs a rival for the hero's affections, and Kitri, despite interest from every other male on the base (except her cousin the commander), devotes her attention to Shin and Shin alone, the one guy who isn't interested. She's headstrong and uncontrollable, and keen with a joystick as proven when she makes her grand entrance, and she also isn't prone to following orders, resulting in her requiring rescue from Shin at one point. If you haven't gotten a handle on her personality, there is one scene, after talking to Shin, that she somersaults backwards into the driving seat of a jeep…


Yes, well… Back to the main story, and more soap opera fantasy impends in the final episode, when Shin shakes down his new plane, and Kanzaki prepares to become an airline Captain by flying a 747 manually all the way to Tokyo. He drifts off course around the Middle East and winds up on a collision course with Shin's Tiger. It's a near miss at 10000 feet and over 500 miles an hour, but here's the thing. Slow motion is applied, and the implication as the planes whiz past each other is that both Shin and Kanzaki manage to recognise each other while at the same time avoiding crashing into each other. Which is where the end credits roll.


Don't get me wrong, I love soap opera, I used to lap it up when I was a kid, but the thing about soaps like these are you don't take them seriously. They're cheesy and they are fun. You watch them for the Oil Barons Ball, and Alexis and Crystal fighting in the mud. You watch them to see what outrageous s*** the writers will come up with next. They're mental chewing gum, and Area 88 at the halfway point is just as disposable.