Ranked #1244

Yukikaze

Yukikaze presents the viewer with incredibly animated airborne battles, yet its near stalemate story and characters drag it down completely.

Art/Animation --> 10/10
The best thing about Yukikaze - it's up there with the very best animation in anime. The use of CG animation mixes smoothly with the standard animation to create eye pleasure. Seriously, as soon as the battles started raging, I became fixated on the screen. The explosions are stunning, the 'camera' angles of the jets as they zoom through the air are all well thought out, and everything is fluent.

As for the character designs and overall artwork - well, the characters are quite unique based on what I've seen. Fairly realistic features with well proportioned faces fits in nicely with the militaristic theme of the show. Also the dark and gloomy colours really add to the atmosphere. Everything is detailed and well designed.

Sound --> 8/10
Overall the sound is very good. What stands out the most, however, is the background music and the sound effects; both were excellent. The background music gives out a futuristic feel to fit in with the show, plus most of it was enjoyable to listen to; even somewhat emotional at times. The sound effects were epic, and most notable during the airborne battles. The noises used for gunfire and explosions were loud, but not too loud, and they help drag you into the action.

The OP was...odd. It starts off feeling kind of psychedelic, with crazy piano and a fast drum beat. However it quickly turns into something that almost seems corny. That said, it doesn't exactly fit in with the actual show, except for maybe the psychological aspect. The ED takes you away from the atmosphere of the show completely, since it's a light-hearted, almost happy tune. However this does not detract from the sound, since the song itself is quite good, and it doesn't feel that out of place.

The voice acting for the English dub (which I watched) was mediocre. The main two characters were decent, however the rest of the cast were a let down. They suffered from being either uninspiring, bland, or over-dramatic.
I had a quick listen to the sub, which seemed slightly better, however the cast excluding the main two characters seemed to be similar to the dub.

Story --> 4/10
The worst part about Yukikaze. It was filled with plot holes and left you with no idea what was going on or why anything was happening. Because of this, I found myself losing interest completely as soon as dialogue that wasn't battle commands kicked in. You're thrown into the show during a war that has been taking place in the future between humans and an alien race known as the JAM. The main characters, as far as I could tell, were situated on the JAM's planet codenamed 'Fairy', which was accessible via some gateway over the Antarctic. This was the basic premise for the story, and the story centers around Rei Fukai who pilots a jet known as Yukikaze which holds a high artificial intelligence.

The problem with the story was that it tried too hard to be interesting and enthralling, and therefore resulted in being the opposite. So many complications surrounding Rei Fukai and Yukikaze were introduced, and yet most were never explained (or never properly explained).

The ending delivered closure, which I found surprisingly satisfying, even though it wasn't exactly a strong or amazing ending.

Character --> 5/10
The characters were uninteresting overall. Rei Fukai and James Bukhar were the main characters, both somehow linked through some past event which was never explained. These two characters demonstrated the most personality (as you'd expect) however generic. Rei maintained a somewhat emo attitude throughout the show, hardly ever talking or paying attention to anyone else, consistently focusing is thoughts on Yukikaze and the JAM. James, on the other hand, talked a lot and was easily excitable. Regardless the two weren't that interesting as characters. They didn't really develop or change, maintaining their same attitudes and outlooks on everything, even though both were constantly bombarded with chaos and what could be seen as life-changing experiences.

The side characters were all very bland and insipid. Their existence in the show served no great purpose, and some suffered from useless development. By this I mean there were attempts to develop them (such as briefly delving into their past) however this proved useless and added nothing to the story. This produced a lot of useless dialogue, subtracting from time that could have been devoted towards action, or explaining things.

Enjoyment --> 6/10
As you probably gathered, pretty much all of the enjoyment that I got from this show came from the stunningly animated battles between the JAM and the humans. The main problem was that more time was given towards boring dialogue which achieved nothing, and not that much time was devoted towards the action. I admit Yukikaze did pick up towards the end, however the middle three episodes were so bland that I couldn't really enjoy myself no matter how hard I tried.


Quick Rec - if you're all about the eye candy and not so much the plot, give this one a look.

Age Advisory: 17+
Very mature themes involving deep and complex emotions and characteristics. read more

The best part about Yukikaze is the animation -- the 3D CG animation of the planes combines fairly smoothly with the 2D animation. The characters are drawn in a more realistic style than typical for anime (i.e. eyes that aren't huge). That is about all I liked about Yuikaze. The story had potential, but I think there weren't enough episodes for the information they wanted to get across. Scenes would change to something completely different without any indication or explanation, and while the confusion was meant to create a mood, I had trouble following the plot as a result; I felt like I missed an episode in between every episode. While I like anime that don't spell everything out for you, like Lain, this did not leave me with enough information to actually CARE. The characters were not very well developed; I still don't understand why there is such a strong bond between Jack and Fei, or what motivates these characters to act in the way they do.

In short, I give it props for the animation and the potential for the story, but the execution wasn't very good at all. read more