Yomigaeru Sora: Rescue Wings

Do you believe in the saying that truth is stranger than fiction? Do you crave for realistic anime where characters face with life and death situations and must make hard decisions? Do you prefer anime that gives you an uncut view of the harsh realities of life? Then this is an anime you absolutely cannot miss out.

This anime is about the operations of the JSDF air rescue force. Our protagonist, Kazuhiro Uchida wanted to be a fighter pilot (a pretty common childhood dream, isn't it?). But he couldn't make it and had to settle for a helicopter pilot in the rescue force. He joined there ... unhappily at first, but soon his impression about his job duties changes bit by bit. He experiences first hand on the extremely hard decision making about human lives in the balance and grows as a responsible human being.

The artwork, sound, and animation are all done well enough to do justice to the amazing story. CG has been used to create the air-crafts, but the quality is very good.

This anime is a nice example of how good a slice of life anime can be. So go ahead and give this relatively short anime a try.

Story: 10
Art: 9
Sound: 9
Character: 10
Enjoyment: 10
Overall: 10

Warning: there are some spoilers in the third paragraph after first sentence.

Rescue Wings delivers exactly what it promises and does it well. Most of the series is focused on showing and exploring various difficulties that arise when it comes to rescuing people in risky situations. That means techniques used by rescue force, training that operators undergo and mental challenges one must face when choosing a profession where there are lives on the line. Lives here are very much at stake by the way as Rescue Wings is fairly grounded and it also is not afraid of showing parts of rescue operations that are anything but ... optimistic and glorious. On a less related note this show credits Japan Air Self-Defense Force as special thanks so I assume a lot of research went into trying to carefully depict the topic.

All this is seen from the eyes of the main character who undergoes a lot of pressure that forces him to change over the course of the show. In this lies one of the good and one of the bad parts of the show. Good one is that characters here are anything but blank slates or typical anime archetypes, not everyone gets a spotlight but generally even the less important characters have something to them that makes them believable which is an important feature of the show. The bad one is that by the end I feel like too much time was dedicated to main character in his girlfriend but despite that it doesn't really pay off in the end, the Megumi's subplot in final 3 episodes in particular is so useless I have no idea why they put it there, maybe the show got rushed? That's about all I have to say when it comes to story.

Music is just about average and most of the time sits in the background but I did notice two cases that stood out one bad and one very good. From here on out this paragraph is gonna be all spoilers for two of the more emotional events in the anime. The good case was during a scene where father came to see his son's dead body and there's no music, barely any sounds at all aside from rare dialogue and the very noticeable sound of the ticking watch that's still going after the owner is dead. The bad case was during a tense rescue missions where main character was stuck on a gondola lift, just when it came to actually rescuing people a cheesy ass rock song started playing, killing all tension. It was hardly necessary since song was interrupted not long after because threat level increased and old method of rescue became unreliable.

And that's it for the spoilers. Art was similarly average. Designs are very bland and even though I didn't have this problem it's not hard for faces to start blending together. Doesn't help that art itself is very inconsistent, at times it looks really good but other times it looks like one of the very early digital shows where animators didn't quite know how to handle the new technology. Shots that rely on good grasp of proportions and perspective tend to be particularly bad. Animation is not impressive either but what it lacks in sakuga the show compensates with good presentation and directing thank to which I stayed engrossed in the show as 20 something minute episodes flew by.

Overall despite all the flaws I think it's a very interesting show and if you're even remotely interested in the premise you should see it.

Yomigaeru Sora: Rescue Wings" is a brilliant depiction of the life, emotions, and actions of rescue pilots not only from Japan but from around the world. However, this anime is tainted by one quite strange plot point: the main character's romantic relationship.

With what I am going to be mentioning further down in this review, I am unsure if it will count as spoilers or will be vague enough to not be. But I will still mark this review as containing spoilers.

The animation of this anime is wonderful. When there is not actual animation but CG, it fits. It's not strangely out of place. There was ... not a moment when watching this anime that I thought to myself, "Oh, that looks strange" or "That was out of place." Everything fits as it should and how it would.

Sound design is sub-par, more so relating to the music. Actual environmental sound effects were amazing; they fit the scenes well and again, as they should and how they would. But the music just was not the same. It seems odd in some places, or even places where you'd think there would be some sort of background track, there was none. However, looking back onto it, I believe this was done on purpose. In real life situations, there is no background music. Its just the sounds and sights going on around you. And for that, I believe it was done in a great way.

Something that this anime does that I believe to be amazing is that it is not afraid to show actual failure. The first three episodes of this anime are a great representation of this. It sets you up to believe that 2LT K. Uchida is going to save that young girl, but no. She unfortunately loses the fight with her injuries and passes away. I believe this is the point in the anime where you can see 2LT Uchida's attitude change about being in the Komatsu Rescue Squad. It's not just a low-tier, bottom-of-the-barrel position; it's a position that truly matters and has actual life-or-death consequences.

Now let's speak about what I mentioned in the first paragraph. 2LT Uchida has a girlfriend, M. Hasegawa. Okay, that's fine on all, but this is a show about search and rescue. The way that 2LT Uchida's relationship is "interwoven" into the story seems to be bashful and out of place. Almost as if when the anime was first previewed by the producers, they said it needed something more personal, and that is what J.C.Staff came up with. For me, that is what brings the overall rating down.

Recently having watched The Great Passage, I believe it fair to compare the two as they are similar in genre. Both are workplace animes with romantic side stories. However, The Great Passage is able to keep the romance as a side story. It is not given any more time than it should have. It was well integrated into the story. Where as stated previously, the romance in this anime seems almost bashful in its integration.

If you're like me and enjoy watching realistic animes, this is a very good show that is quite heart-wrenching. My recommendation would be to just skip all the romantic plot points; they do not really add anything to the story.