That's right, Iceman! I AM still silly….

Then Airbats does the best thing possible, I feel, and becomes a farce. We also get to find about the background characters, like Captain Konishi, who is my favourite commanding officer. He is constantly jumping from crying aloud when the girls do something insane, plotting with them to gain money at the racetrack, getting one over on the base commander, or just surviving the day. His right-hand person is Sakura Saginomiya, a pilot in her own right who is also a shark at gambling and revels in manipulating the squad when it suits her. She doesn’t do it to be bad but still never sees the pain the squad gets put through as something to worry about. I want to talk about the youngest member of the squad, Yoko Shimorenjaku, but I will save it for later.

The series spends its time showing off dogfights and aerial combat maneuvers, and absurd comedy fills any downtime. Not the “oh, no! He touched my breast! I will now punch him” style of comedy that anime invented in the 70’s and 80’s and perfected in the 90’s, but the far side of bawdy comedy that will get giggles but not eye rolling. The animation and character designs are by one Yuji Moriyama, who worked on Macross Plus, Wings Of Honneamise and, most importantly, my favourite 1980’s anime movie: Project A-Ko. Moriyama just loves the female form and he also likes planes, so really, we know how this show should pan out. The action won’t be up to Top Gun’s level but it takes a decent stab at it. Moriyama does an excellent job at directing, blending the aerial combat sequences with a nice mix of the serious and the casual on the ground. I mean serious in the sense of the crossroads the characters find themselves in, which get resolved too easily for my liking and thereby negates their point, and casual in the sense that nothing is off limits. Threatening to derail the cheesecake and fan service angles is the recurring idea that women in Japan, especially in the military, face a constant glass ceiling. It also touches off the idea that ordinary Japanese people don’t like it when their own act worse than the guests. 

My favourite episodes are the hot springs episode which sets a new record for the most flesh seen outside of an Ikki-Tousen broadcast and the episode where the American combat stunt team comes to compete against the 801st. The amount of casual racism in that one impresses me every time I think about it. From the pidgin English to the all-out insults directed at our amazing Japanese team, it’s a marvel. If the series had less comedy and more serious drama, then I would say it was the airplane version of Patlabor. As it is, Airbats is a curio, and as such, it probably cannot be exploited for more than a great evening or rainy afternoon (although the Ramen episode is excellent enough to be a viewing experience on its own).

Some things I must address about the ADV release from 2002: first of all, ADV must have known having the word TTS in the title would lead to double takes. The original title in Japanese translates as The Blue Sky Girls Squad, so I refuse to believe Matt Greenfield and John Ledford didn’t know what they doing there. Secondly: the dub. Oh My God. This is the most amazing dub I have heard ADV do. On one side, we have Sascha Biesi as Haneda and Stacey Sperling as Mitaka just playing it straight and getting on with it. On the other side, David Arnsberger as Captain Konishi sounds like an East Coast surfer version of Patrick Warburton. He is the highlight of the dub and only equalled by Norio Wakamoto in the Japanese track. Then we have Maxine O as Yoko Shimorenjaku. If it’s possible to find a Texan version of Mister Hanky, they found her. Maxine O’s voice is so shrill and grating that by the end of the series you’ve become numb to the pain. Rewatching it in Japanese, I still hear Maxine O’s version. Amazing, simply amazing. I actually prefer the English dub over the Japanese one. I never thought I would like it that much.

The series is one that I’ve had my eye on for ages. It was actually the first one I imagined would be a perfect fit for this column. Happily, I can say that I was correct. This is a series that was probably popular for five minutes when it was released and then forgotten. It deserves to be found again and maybe even rescued by someone like Discotek or maybe even Sentai. In the end, Airbats should have lead to more material; it’s a shame that it didn’t and that this is all we enjoy. As it is, Airbats can be find on Amazon Marketplace (though I wouldn’t say one price of $159 is worth it) or eBay.com for small-ish prices. Have a gander, it’s on day release from the Trap Door.