transientem

Wack machines be stepping to our crew

Conspiracy side plot: underwhelming. Last battle: underwhelming. Sky Girls just seems too bright for shadows and danger.

As far as final bosses go, the series had a – what else? – underwhelming one in the form of an island with large cave flies, organic torpedoes, and a giant tortoise. Best not taken seriously, even when it sounds or looks like half the Sonic Diver team is going to die, because at this point no character that we see in person is going to die.

Even the Vic Viper team from a few episodes before survives despite two of three being shot down. Anonymous cannon fodder is still anonymous cannon fodder, though.

The last episode was not the battle, but rather an ordinary conclusion to an ordinary series. Sky Girls excelled at that. Usually mecha series attempt to be great. It’s a strange case that attempts to be ordinary, and there’s not much to say when it ends up being exactly that.

I like the soundtrack a lot, which is also extraordinary at evoking the ordinary. Calm guitar, cool laid back funk, pensive piano, a fanfare march, a sombre yet uplifting piece lifted out of a WWII movie score, and more.

It’s a bit of a stretch to compare Sky Girls to something like Saving Private Ryan, but when I hear Deep Orange that’s the first thing that comes to mind. That’s the kind of ordinary I mean: ordinary heroes.

Maybe this is an ordinary show for ordinary heroes. That’s the impression I get, despite the circumstances the Sonic Diver team finds themselves in. All around, I see characters just doing their jobs without the usual histrionics that lock them into stereotypes, with the jostling saved for down time.

The series set up actually shines here. None of the main characters are deserving of a bright brassy theme that sets them apart, because nothing puts one above another. What sets them apart from the rest of the population only gets their foot in the door, and the right to fly is otherwise earned through hours of hard work. They’re a team, literally in the same boat.

So is the rest of the crew. No matter how talented characters were, it was a specialized kind of talent. The interdependence required to prep for and complete a mission was all there, laid out to appreciate.

How else can I use the word “ordinary” in this entry? Oh yes, refreshingly ordinary. That’s what Sky Girls was.