| A desperate dogfight is underway and Kim has a pair of Mig-21s on his tail. Before Micky and Campbell can come to his aid, unexpected help arrives in the form of a strange Dassault Mirage, the pilot of which swiftly downs both Migs. Even more startling is the female voice that answers Micky's comments over the radio. Her name is Kitri Parveneh, a brash, fiery and beautiful pilot who soon finds herself the center of attention at the previously all-male Area 88. The only one who seems uninterested in her is Shin, which immediately causes her to become interested in him. She hears about his recent adventures, and teases him about what it feels like to get shot down. At a mission briefing a maximum effort mission is announced--the only pilots who will be excused are Shin, who hasn't recieved his new plane yet, and Kitri, who has yet to familiarize herself with the local landmarks. But while the others are gone, seven enemy planes are detected heading for Area 88. Kitri sorties in defiance of orders, and a plane is hurriedly found for Shin to back her up... |
| Kitri is another new character created entirely for this TV version of the Area 88 story. I think this was a good idea--since it would be virtually impossible to surpass the dramatic intensity of the excellent OVA series, instead why not add some new characters and adventures for the cast we've come to love? By the way, apparently ADV has bought up the 1985 OVA series as well, which suggests this TV series has been selling well. One thing I noticed in this episode was us getting a couple brief glimpses of the faces of enemy pilots--apparently they are not being intentionally left out, to portray combat as a "man vs. machine" sort of thing. This was a TV series after all, so that could have been used as a sort of censorship to minimize the violence. In the OVAs planes repeatedly got ripped to pieces, and their pilots clearly met horrible fates. The CG graphics are awesome in this incarnation of Area 88, but one thing that I found unrealistic was the way planes tended to fireball in midair; it was as if the entire plane was vaporized instantaneously, whereas I expected to see chunks of blazing wreckage tumbling forwards, carried by kinetic energy. At least once in this episode, however, they finally got it right. Most of the time when planes fly in formation it's portrayed realistically--i.e., no two planes are moving in exactly the same direction or at exactly the same speed. At least once, however, there was some corner cutting and six planes were flying together as if some invisible steel bars had locked them together. Finally, take a look at the bottom illustration--does something look wrong to you? Surely everybody knows that the F4 Phantom (the four planes at the left rear) is a bigass jet with two engines and twin seats, whereas the A4 Skyhawk (the two planes facing them) is an unusually small jet--it's like we've got a mix of 1/72 and 1/144 scale models here! I'm just nitpicking, of course. For the most part the animation is top notch and these mistakes become obvious largely because they are so rare--sort of a animation catch-22. |
