Over 30 years ago, an alien race, the JAM, attacked the earth. They created a portal over Antarctica from where they launched their invasion. The United Forces of Earth fought back with high tech fighter planes. One of those planes, the Yukikaze, is a very fast high altitude jet piloted by Rei Fukai. Rei's job is to monitor and photograph aerial battles, but not to take part in them. The tapes he makes are presumably used to analyze the enemy's tactics. While returning from a mission, Rei encounters an unidentified plane that is exactly like his. He can not make radio contact. Something strange happens to Yukikaze's on board computer, as if someone was trying to hack into it. The radar display identifies the unknown plane as a hostile, and Rei, following Yukikaze's advice rather than the evidence of his eyes, shoots it down. No wreckage is found.

Since the plane was never identified, Rei is grounded while an investigation is carried out. This causes him to brood and become depressed. He talks about how Yukikaze is the only one he can trust, and how much the plane means to him. Soon he's flying again, and the plane seems to share a bond with Rei. It gives him advice during fights and control keeps flipping back between the computer and Rei. But when the Yukikaze is fitted with a system that allows it to fly without a pilot, Rei goes almost catatonic, and Yukikaze, in a break from its programming, fires upon some United Forces planes that it has identifies as the JAM. Have the JAM succeeded in infiltrating the Earth forces, or has the plane gone rouge?

Visually, there's a lot to like about this show. The attention to detail is amazing with even the smallest items being accurately rendered. From the air rippling in the heat of a jet's exhaust to a missile's vapor trail, every detail has been carefully animated. The CGI effects are meshed perfectly with the traditional animation to create an amazing world. Not only that, but the futuristic plane designs are dazzling as are the battle scenes.

The downside is the plot and characterization. I never really connected with any of the people in the show, and it's even hard to identify with Rei, the series' lead. You know it's bad when you connect with the plane more than the pilot. Seeing this series for the second time (I originally watched it when it was released on SD) the plot does make more sense and it flow much better than the way it was originally released: over a period of a couple of years. Being able to sit through these five episodes (which run about 3 hours altogether) in one session is much better than waiting years between shows like anime fans originally had to do. Having said, the story that this show is trying to tell is not impressive or overly interesting. Filled with SF clichés and a lot of brooding, the creators tried to make it seem more engaging by making it convoluted and hard to understand. This was more of an irritant than anything else however. When all is said and done there isn't much that anime fans will be able to bring away from this pedestrian plot.

Video:

Since this show was originally rendered in 480p (and with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio which is preserved here), I was very interested to see how this 1080i up-conversion compared to the standard DVDs being up-converted. These AVC encoded discs were created from the original materials and the additional space for information that BDs have means that any imperfections that crept in squeezing the show onto a significantly smaller DVD are gone. Don't get me wrong, I thought the SD releases looked great (for SD DVDs) and these look a little better. The posterizing that is visible in some sky shots in much smoother and less noticeable and details are slightly more visible in dark areas. There are a lot of fast moving action in this show, with planes zipping across the camera's field in fractions of a second, and these are a bit smoother looking too when compared to the up-converted SD DVD.

Overall the show doesn't look as impressive as many Blu-ray discs. The image isn't as tight and sharp as I was expecting. The show is filled with straight lines from the various planes and these are soft at times. Some of the character renderings aren't as tight as they could be either. While this does look better than its SD counterpart, these shows are not the best that Blu-ray has to offer.

Audio:

The audio was impressive however. Viewers can listen to this show in the original Japanese, or with an English dub. Both languages come with a Dolby Digital True HD mix that is excellent. I viewed the show with the Japanese track and spot checked the DD mix and English dub. Both of the tracks sounded phenomenal with excellent placement of sounds. Missiles launch from behind the viewer and zoom to the front of the room. Planes swoosh from left to right engulfing the room in sound. But the best part is that the audio doesn't collapse to a mono or stereo track when there is not a lot of action going on. The full soundstage is used throughout the show. This is a very impressive mix that is reference quality and a great disc to show off your sound system. There are English subtitles.

Extras:

With the third disc devoted to extras, I was hoping for a bit more. The first thing that is offered is a trailer: Yukikaze Experimental Movie, a conceptual piece that they used, presumably, to sell the show. This runs about 5 minutes. Then there's a half hour interview with a former fighter pilot who discusses how the show compares with really flying faster than the speed of sound and how some of the aspects of the show would work in real life. It's a nice piece that was pretty interesting.

Final Thoughts:

This is a case of style over substance. The show is flashy and dynamic with some stunning visuals that will keep you eyes glued to the screen. Unfortunately the story isn't nearly as impressive. Another strike against this disc is that the show was created with a 480p resolution and up-converted for this disc. While a direct comparison with the SD version of the show up-converted to 1080p still leaves this new set looking better, there is a very subtle difference that doesn't jump out at you. While the image is a bit soft and not impressive from a HD standpoint, the TrueHD audio is amazing and a significant improvement. Overall, I'd say this would be a good rental, but nothing more.

Note: The images in this review are not from the Blu-ray disc and do not necessarily represent the image quality on the disc.