6. Yomigaeru Sora - Rescue Wings
Believe it or not, following high school, I was looking forward to a career as an officer in the United States Air Force. It’s not that I had a burning desire to serve my country or anything. Rather, the Air Force was offering me a full scholarship for college and an officer’s commission upon graduation. There was no way in hell I was passing up a full ride and a guaranteed job.
But, various things happened that year, and before I knew it, my scholarship was no more. A month from starting classes at an expensive university and with no way to pay for it, I scrambled to find an alternative. In the end, I landed at a university close to home, where the tuition was cheaper and I could bide my time until another scholarship became available.
Except, as is often the case in life, things worked out a bit differently than planned. I fell in love with my new school, found new interests, made new friends… might as well stay put, eh? And so I did. Ten years on, and I don’t regret that decision, for things worked out in their own weird way. But, in all honesty, I sometimes wonder: what if I hadn’t lost that scholarship? Would everything have worked out? Would I have been happy in the military?
Probably.
Perhaps that’s why I find Yomigaeru Sora - Rescue Wings such a compelling show. In some ways, I envy Kazuhiro, the protagonist, for the challenges he faces. I envy him for the responsibility that rests on his shoulders. I envy him for being in a position to help people when they most need it. I envy him for having such a damn cool job, I guess. It’s the sort of job I would have been good at, I think. An environment in which I would have thrived. I have to admit: when watching Rescue Wings, I wanted to be Kazuhiro so much it hurt.
And you know what? I think that was the point.
Hmm. I expected you to touch upon the show setup and/or plotting being contrieved. I marked the show as something to check out after reading about it at Pilgrimage, but did not have an opportunity so far.
Tangentially, I think it’s hard to be happy in a military. If you’re lucky and it’s not a hideously brutal machine like the Chinese or Russian one, it still is belonging, comradiere, but not happiness. There’s also duty and esprit du corps. Still not very fuzzy…
I never finished this one. I just found it to be very slow, and not in a good way. The subbing schedule didn’t help things either…
That short time I was in the military it wasn’t too happy, but maybe I simply didn’t fit to that place with my nature. Though my life got better after that decision so it’s not like I would do otherwise now.
I just left the military!
In any case, this show is probably the best of 2006. Have you seen Umizaru? It’s just as good.
I liked it. Not the kind of series that there’s a whole lot to talk about, but it’s a solid pice for what it is. Also, the series gained hooge bonus points from me on a personal level because Uchida & Co don’t save the day on each and every ocassion they set out on a mission. But I guess that’s just in accordation with the series theme of Life goes on?
And, it had teh Mamiko in a somewhat refreshingly different role from her usual. Actually, the one thing I sort of missed from the series was a bit more interplay in the Uchida-Megumi relationship - Sure, one of the points of the thing is the two of them each having their own distance-separated respective careers, but I thought it’d been neat if they’d had the two play off each other directly in person more than just once in the series.
Then again, perhaps there really just wasn’t a need for that.
Your story is similar to Kazuhito’s in some ways. Wasn’t he suppose to be a fighter pilot but eventually end up in the rescue squad and settled there?
Who wouldn’t want his job… cool indeed! Heck, I would be a diver or mechanic there if I could.
It was goooood. I watched half of it in Matroska files with screwed-up VLC subtitles, I loved it so much. The two-part story about Hongo’s colleague and the sea rescue, bookended with the theme from Hyokkori Hyotan-Jima, had me half in tears.
Or actually, it’s not so much that it was good in itself - it just had qualities lacking in anime from the last season or two. Calm. Complexity. Some aimlessness. A show requiring some thought and some patience. Okay, and a cheesily heroic image of public service, but I’m willing to overlook that.
And (sorry, Muey) another reason I liked it is that they didn’t save the day on each and every mission. People died on them, frequently, and there was a randomness to the outciomes that gave the show some grit and suspense.
Oops.
There’s obviously a negative missing up there in my previous post, in case it’s unclear to anyone :).
Fixed it for you, Muey. I had actually fixed the formatting before (you had forgotten to close an italic tag), and thought the sentence seemed weird. I meant to ask you about it.
Haven’t seen this series yet but I do have it, it sounds like something I will enjoy, definitely have to watch this soon. Now I just have to find it in the massive backlogs OTL
Just started watching this series. :D Oh my goodness! I’m loving it so much! It has so many elements that I happen to like.
Slice of Life, manly scenes that makes the inner man in you weep manly tears, FANTASTIC character development, dramatic poignancy, etc…
I can’t believe I was such an idiot to not pick this up sooner.
I love it! I LOVE IT!
Whee!
ADD] Wondering if I should do an episode by episode write-up of this series? ^^;
Since this post it off the front page already, there’s no guarantee anyone will see your write-ups… except for me, that is. I see EVERYTHING.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the show, though. I’m thinking of rewatching it once work slows down.
Whoopee-whoopity-do-doop.
It has been a long, long time since an anime series has grabbed my attention so vividly to the point where I am left gasping for air at the end of the marathon session. Not since Futakoi Alternative have I been so immersed in an anime series that I am left with a lot of saddness over the fact that its’ season is over, and there will be no more new episodes.
Rescue Wings, how do I love thee?
Now, I am by no means an old geezer, and there are plenty of folks who have been watching anime while I was still rolling in my diapers, but I think I am a little justified in saying that I have been watching anime for quite some time now( more than a decade), and it takes a lot these days to really open my eyes and my ears.
Rescue Wings succeeds in that. While its’ underlying themes are standard, its’ presentation is pretty original. A story of a man who is coming of age and coming to terms with the dice roll that life has dealt him. A woman who fights against the odds. A veteran who overcame the demons in his past. Etc…
This is character development at its’ finest, folks. No punches are pulled. Sometimes life just sucks. And yet… and yet sometimes life is beautiful. The main characters we see in Ep01 will evolve by Ep12. Nothing drastic. Nothing over-dramatic. Just real. Real development that does not plead with you to suspend your disbelief. Real development that you can easily empathise with.
It is just fantastic!
Henceforth, I will be typing out spoilers. Be forewarned.
Random Thoughts on Rescue Wings
..) When the little girl died in the first mission, that was probably the main turning point of Rescue Wings. Life is seldom a bed of roses, and you just got to roll with the punches and make a comeback. The presentation of failure and mixed success is very much real, and how the characters deal with it is where a lot of the character drama comes from.
..) The last arc was particularly poignant in how the leader was the sole survivor. It really breaks your heart to just see the tragedy unfold before you, and you are just helpless to stop it.
..) One thing that really rocks my boat is that Rescue Wings makes full use of the early arcs even in the later arcs. The main examples would be Hongo talking about the little girl when he invited Kazuhiro over for dinner, and the teenager rescued from the cable car who announced to Kazuhiro that he was going to join the Rescue team as well( giving Kazuhiro more satisfaction in his job and meaning to it).
..) Due to the tight 12-episode season, a lot of coincidences had to happen in order for events to move on, but thanks to the compelling scripting and voice-acting, it seldom seem contrived.
..) I was a little unsure whether Noto Mamiko was voicing Megumi at first, and it felt to me that she was trying to avoid using her usual VA voice. As a result, Megumi’s voice wavered at times.
..) Megumi’s side-story was a nice parellel to how even people in desk jobs can perform ‘rescues’.
..) I also heart how her character pushes Kazuhiro forward. That mobile-phone dump on Kazuhiro was just too cute.
..) Ep13 was also a nice side-story to expand on the history of the side-characters. Fairly touching for one episode, especially the letter scene. It’s simply amazing how much emotion they can pack in one episode.
..) Rescue Wings reminds me why I both love and hate J.C. Staff(JCS). Here we have a company who is GODLIKE at animating drama, even better than KyoAni I dare say. Some examples would be in Karin and Asatte no Houkou. Their drama portions were so potent that it just made me frustrated when they spaz out and favour humour instead.
I’ll be blunt here. JCS’s sense of comic humour is about as good as that of a wet fish. Karin could have been stellar material if they had just chose to focus on the drama aspects of it and leave out the boob jokes. Le sigh. Another bomb would be Zero no Tsukaima(ZnT). Here we have a series of novels whose content consists of gripping drama of romance and war, and they chose to turn season one into a jokefest.
;_; The horror. ;_;
Imagine if Peter Jackson had turned LotR into a comedy. That’s more or less what JCS did to ZnT.
Please, JCS! Do more drama! It’s what you do best! Honey & Clover is probably your only series thus far that successfully blended drama and comedy( it helps that it is mostly drama, and damn was it good drama).
..) I’m so glad that they changed Rescue Angel into Rescue Wings instead. Female lead in a military vocation with mecha. Good grief.
..) Hongo is probably my favourite character in Rescue Wings.
Cheers.
Ah, one more point to add. I like how the victims in Rescue Wings are not just some ‘brainless idiots’ begging to die( popularly known as the ‘Too Dumb To Live‘ trope). Their actions are believable, and easy to imagine in real life.
Cheers.