Has anyone seen this anime movie?

[maxmwill]

I realize that for a lot of people, anime movies might be something of an acquired taste, as to most folks of certain generations, their first contact with anything anime might be along the lines of various childrens' shows with talkiing fantasy animals, impossible martial arts moves. and, sometimes, lots of spoken Japanese.

However, sometimes, there is an anime movie, or an animated movie with art work in anime style, which could be interesting.

One such movie was Skycrawlers: Innocent Aces.

I discovered this when I was doing a bit of research on the Kyushu J7W fighter, and in the google images pager on that, there was a picture of a J7W being flown as a fighter, with rear mounted contrarotating props. And the site it was from was about the Skycrawlers movie.

Incidentally, there is also a Wii game of this.

In the movie, as well as the game, the setting is in an unnamed country, and that instead of governments fighting air wars, it is done between competing corporations.
In addition to the fighters and attack aircraft in both the movie and the game, in the movie, there are also flying wing bombers, and an aerial tanker called the Whale. Here is the main battle scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f981Ud7VcDc

And, in my digging, I also found this version of the song, Dangerzone, which someone might find a bit more interesting that that recruiting poster titled Top Gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ptw7aXdg-c

[maxmwill]

If anyone is interested, there is a book that might be for sale on Skycrawlers aircraft. Here is the link:

http://www.hlj.com/product/chu03967

[rickshaw]

Yes, I've seen the movie.  Not bad.  A bit long-winded I felt and in some ways a bit too subtle.  My daughter couldn't figure out why the replacement fighter pilots looked like their predecessors until I told her they were obviously clones.

[Librarian]

Superb film, right up my alley. Have a watch of Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force), one of Anime's finest...check out app. 45 seconds into this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l3yEGblTj8

...and tell me that wasn't ripped by Skycrawlers .

[maxmwill]

Well, the pilots were called Killdren, and yes, they were cloned and lab grown.

I thought I'd share this with the view in mind of some possible whifs, including the J7W with contra props, which was called the Sanka, the fighter that ended the fight at the end of the Danger Zone video, was the Suiga, and I'm not sure what the name of the twin pusher attack plane is, as is the flying wing bomber.

Still, they might make for some intriguing model projects.

And the book in the link might be out of print, but I found a copy on eBay, and it can be had, for now, for around 30 bucks, and that's on sale, the normal price being around 75 bucks.

[Jesse220]

I saw that movie.

[maxmwill]

I have to confess that his looks very fascinating, and I wouldn't mind taking a crack at modelling this, if only because in addition to being a three engine flying boat, the engines are in the pusher configuration.



http://staticmass.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/dvd_sky.jpg

[maxmwill]

O, ok, after looking close at the pic, I see the faint prop arc on one wing.
And just looked at the battle video, as well, and yes, 5 engines.

Still, as a flying boat, it is intriguing.

And then there are the bombers.

One question I have about the flying wing bombers, while I think I can understand the location of the rudder, after and below the centerline, what is that spindle on top of the fin supposed to do?

I know that this is just a cartoon, a fictional story, but, like a lot of good hard core sci fi stories, the physical parts have to follow some sort of logic, as wings are supposed to provide lift, and propellers are supposed to provide thrust, and that contrarotating props are there so that there is enough blade area to absorb the horsepower of the engine while keeping the prop diameter reasonably small so there would be no need for stalky landing gear(or, the bird could have an inverted gull wing, as did the Corsair, which allowed a big enough prop while keeping the landing gear reasonably short and saving some weight).

And all those contraprop equipped aircraft.

[Weaver]

Yes, I've got the DVD: there was a lot of talk about it on here at the time that some models came out (Hasegawa?) so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Pretty good I thought. Surprisingly adult and downbeat story, although that made it rather depressing so I'm not inclined to re-watch it that often. The flying scenes were very well done: the animators must have watched hours of real air-to-air footage.

[pyro-manic]

Surprisingly adult and downbeat story

This is the thing people can't get past. Animated =/= for kids. Particularly not when it originates in Japan.

If you liked Sky Crawlers (which I found a bit lacking tbh), try Porco Rosso. Wonderful stuff! I would also highly recommend Macross Plus and Wings of Honneamise (as Librarian linked to above - though I'd never seen any of the English dub before. Yuck!), which are much more adult, though also very much fantastical rather than "realistic". In a similar vein, Super Sylph Yukikaze has some amazing aircraft designs, and a pretty good story to boot.

Hasegawa did kit the main aircraft from Skycrawlers. They've also done a whole heap of VFs from the Macross universe, which are generally super sexy.

[Librarian]

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,21630.0.html

I'm taking it as read that these kits sold badly as having put what I assume are large sums into producing these kits they then quickly discontinued them. No further releases...

[ChernayaAkula]

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,21630.0.html

I'm taking it as read that these kits sold badly as having put what I assume are large sums into producing these kits they then quickly discontinued them. No further releases...

That's the 1/48 kit. Bandai did 1/72 models of the Sanka Mk.B and the Skyly J2, of which I posted an in-box review >>HERE<< on whatifmodelers.

That they're currently discontinued doesn't mean they sold badly. For the moment, I guess the market is simply saturated. The hype around the film has died down and the kits produced have probably all been sold. Re-releasing it now, barely six years after the initial run, would undoubtedly please some people, but possibly not enough people. I'm sure they'll be re-released eventually (it would be madness not to, given that the moulds have been paid for), but only when the market situation warrants a full re-release with all the expenses that entails.

This is the thing people can't get past. Animated =/= for kids. Particularly not when it originates in Japan. <...>

Quoted for truth! 

[Zombolt]

I do have a few tidbits.

The Skycrawlers game was made by project Aces, Creators of the Ace Combat Games.

Yukikaze is based on a novel series, that only 2 books are avalable in English.

Said Books were picked up for Movie versions in the same deal as All you need is Kill, Witch became the Tom Cruise Movie Edge of Tomorrow.

[Librarian]

I might pop off an e-mail, see if there's any movement. The 1/48 Sanka is near impossible to locate. I tried my own take on the Skyly some time back:



Might try it again, but with N/M colours. Apologies for quality, its a photo of a photo.

[scooter]

This is the thing people can't get past. Animated =/= for kids. Particularly not when it originates in Japan. <...>

Quoted for truth! 

Agreed.  There's a clip from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross floating around the interwebs from an early episode, right after Hikaru Ichiygo arrived on the island, of he and Roy Focker eyeballing Lynn Minmei as she walks past. Something that didn't make it past the cutting room floor when Macross was turned into Robotech.

And for real world dogfighting and aircraft, I always recommend Area 88, both in original OVA and recent release.