Area 88 Volume 1: Treacherous Skies (DVD) - Anime Reviews


	Number of Episodes: 3 Language Options: English/Japanese/English Subtitles Released by: ADV Films Extras: - Production Sketches - Character & Aircraft Specs - Clean Opening/Closing Animation
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Area 88 Volume 1: Treacherous Skies (DVD)

Shin Kazama is a gifted pilot with a bright future, a beautiful fiancée, and a job with a prestigious airline until a treacherous act of betrayal rips his world apart and sends him into the barren desert of the war-torn Kingdom of Aslan. With escape only meaning death, he must now use his superior skills to become a cold-blooded aerial killer; and with every kill, he paints a trail of blood in the sky back to the life that was stolen from him.

Area 88 pushes the boundaries of animation to the limits with a visual beauty that is rarely accomplished. You can almost feel the jet wash on the desert wind.

This is Area 88. In the desert the souls of man are either consumed by the fire or reborn from the ashes.

Area 88 is one of those franchises that we sort of know about in North America. Most of us through one of the greatest games that was ever imported over from Japan. But I’ll quickly bring you up to speed: Shin Kazama is an excellent pilot who was tricked into joining the Air Force equivalent of the Foreign Legion. Every pilot earns money for missions successes and kills, but must pay for their own fuel, ordinance, and repairs. Even worse, you are signed on for a 3-year tour of duty and the breach of contract cost is $1.5 Million. So Shin flies with intent all the time, and is forever trying to make enough money to be able to leave Area 88 and return home to his waiting fiancée.

Episode 01: Wings of the Desert

Makoto Shinjou is an ace photographer who has been sent into Area 88 for one reason: to take the picture of the face of Shin Kazama after he dies, but for the time being, he’s going to take as many pictures of the action as is possible. He quickly meets most of the regulars, Mickey the usual wingman for Shin, Kim the young boy who is forever in money trouble, and McCoy the quartermaster and general equipment expert – if you’ve got money, he can supply any equipment or information that you might need. Makoto’s presence on base isn’t exactly wanted by the pilots, especially when he rushes into a gruesome scene to take some photos of a downed pilot.

That evening, the Commander tells the pilots of a mission to attack an AA manufacturing facility (that is surprisingly well defended…) and that the entire squadron is going to be deployed for the sortie. Shin surprises everyone by opting out of the mission as does Mickey, but Shin has a plan. While the deck has been cleared of fighters, the rebels launch a counter-attack against the base and so while the squadron is away, he can make more money wiping out the incoming attackers.

Episode 02: Setting Sun as a Grave Marker

One of the better pilots in the squadron is Boris. He’s an accomplished ground attack expert who has the accurate nickname “Angel of Death” but not for his proficiency in the cockpit. He is called “Angel of Death” because his wingmen never come back alive. Boris is continually

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tortured by the faces and voices of all of the pilots that he has lost over the years on missions and cannot even sleep with the light in his bunk off. His talent at flying is legendary, and he has brought back aircraft that most would consider unflyable. Makoto does his job and does his best to get pictures of every person on staff, including the obviously disturbed Boris.

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When a series of wings have been not returning, the Commander offers a bounty for an operation that must be completed. But because of the number of dead pilots, he instead asks for volunteers and the money attracts a lot of interest including Boris. Once Boris is in, most pilots don’t want to take the chance and bow out, but not Shin. He throws his hat into the ring, and Kim joins him (he’s in such desperate need for money that he can’t afford to take a mission off). With Shin on, three other pilots join in and round out the mission. The three other pilots lead the way, while Kim, Boris, and Shin hold the rear and as they near the target – the rebel’s secret weapon springs into action: a high speed barricade that raises and slams into oncoming air traffic. The three leaders aren’t so lucky, but Kim enters hover mode while Boris and Shin pass by the trap and begin their bombing runs. Although the bombing was successful, their escape was not as Boris’ luck finally runs out and is shot down by AA – as a last wish, he asks Shin to turn the lights out in his room before finally crashing into the desert.

Episode 03: Viewfinder in the Blue Sky

While on patrol, Shin and Kim come across an interesting enemy flight: a large cargo plane being escorted by 4 fighters. The commander orders them into battle, and the pair jump in. The attack is moderately successful, with 3 fighters downed and a hit on the cargo plane (although it does escape). On a patrol, one of the squadron’s pilots comes across a rebel rescue operation that appears to be looking for the downed cargo plane. While listening in on the radio chatter – he apparently hears a fragment about gold. Once the possibility of a gold strike hits the ears of all the squadron pilots, all are spending as much money as possible searching for the downed plane and potential riches. After an entire day is lost to fruitless searching, the commander is forced to scrap any potential operations for that evening as all the planes are stressed and pilots tired. All of the squadron manages to return except one, and the next morning S&R manage to find him and return him to base. Now the most popular person, he recants finding the plane but instead of finding gold, he found the corpse of an officer. Instead of gold, the cargo was none other than J.C. Gold, the tactical commander for the rebel forces. Unfortunately, the pilot had lost his ‘kit when he bailed and so to stay warm, he burned all paperwork on the plane. So, the potential for a massive break on enemy plans has been lost. As an aside, Shin takes Makoto up for a flight in a 2-seater Phantom and he uses it as a good chance to interrogate the photographer as to why he’s been following him. While the questioning was starting to get fruitful, the enemy attack and so the questions will have to wait. Back at the base, we finally learn who hired Makoto to get the picture of Shin: none other than Kanzaki – the man who betrayed Shin and got him into Area 88.

Slight technical discussion here: Shin flies a Crusader, Mickey flies a F-14 Tomcat, Kim flies a Sea Harrier, and the rest fly F-4 Phantoms and their opponents fly MiG-14s. Where in the hell did the Aslan rebels find all the Korean War era Soviet fighters? I’m done bitching for now. Unlike other flying series such as Macross or Gundam, the combat is well restricted by the equipment and so the actual dog-fighting is positional movement not ordinance tossing. No clusters of 80 missiles, usually one shot – one kill. On the ground, the animation is rather slow and lets the characters develop slowly and stew in their own juices. I’m torn over the series, I like the action but I find the main character tedious and dislike most of the “down-time” in the show; it’s a tad too melodramatic for me.

- Tazman

(September 5, 2005)

"Drumsticks can also be chicken *squeek*"

- Tardy the Turtle (Greg the Bunny)