よみがえる空 -Rescue Wings-

YOMIGAERU SORA: RESCUE WINGS

Drama

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
March 27, 2006
LENGTH
23 min

DESCRIPTION

Kazuhiro Uchida is transferred to a rescue centre located in a small town while training to become a fighter pilot. Initially, Kazuhiro thinks negatively about his new occupation, due to the difficult missions and the harsh discipline he receives from his seniors. However, over the course of his training, he begins to accept the job for what it is and becomes a true member of the rescue force.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Megumi Hasegawa
Mamiko Noto
Kazuhiro Uchida
Issei Miyazaki
Ryunosuke Murakami
Mitsuaki Hoshino
Ryoko Shaura
Ai Satou
Satoshi Yoshioka
Miyu Irino
Takayuki Tsunematsu
Daiki Nakamura
Daigo Nihonmatsu
Masaya Onosaka
Keiko Okada
Yumi Fukamizu
Shujiro Hongo
Unshou Ishizuka
Kubo
Tooru Furusawa
Takashi Kosaka
Tomoyuki Shimura

EPISODES

Dubbed

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Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO YOMIGAERU SORA: RESCUE WINGS

SPECIAL ActionYomigaeru Sora Pilot

Cover Art for Yomigaeru Sora: RESCUE WINGS - Saigo no Shigoto

SPECIAL DramaYomigaeru Sora: RESCUE WINGS - Saigo no Shigoto

REVIEWS

Rein2
65/100
An Authentic Look Inside Search & Rescue
Rarely is the world of Search & Rescue looked at and the last place I expected to see it done with some accuracy was in an anime. However, Yomigaeru Sora: Rescue Wings is, if nothing else, an authentic depiction of the hardships faced by military and/or SAR personnel.

Something Genuine

You get the sense that someone took the time to research the culture or was a part of it. The writer(s) either did their homework or received consultation.

While not perfect, it gets it mostly right about the military.

Importantly though, it treats its characters as people and professionals rather then archetypes. Individuals who simply understand when there is a job to be done, and just like the rest of us, go home at the end of the day.

The Realities of SAR

And that's where Rescue Wings reveals the the more difficult parts of the work:

__Those moments where your loved ones wait in anxious silence for you to come home.__

__The time when you blame yourself for an inevitable outcome. Only to lash out on the people you care about the most.__

__Or when you get a simple thank you and realize the gravity of what you did.__

__And the guilt of coming home to your own family, your own children, after knowing someone wasn’t able to do the same.__

With such a grasp on what it actually means to serve in this capacity, it's a shame that the setting and its themes are, in large part, squandered.

Paths Left Untravled

These potentially heart wrenching moments are just that, shown, not explored.
This is illustrated early when the main character’s girlfriend becomes the object of that frustration and blame for oneself. She asks, if they were to have sex, would she get the old him back.
So at the end of the episode he shares his trauma and they have sex.
One episode is all the viewer experiences and all it takes is one night for him to "get over it." Not that it was poorly done. He changes and matures after that, sure, but it’s abruptly.
That failure does manifest as a fuel to become better, to do better, and to go farther.
That’s all it becomes, however. It doesn’t slowly boil over, eat at him from within, until he realizes that you simply need to do the best you can which is not always going to be enough.

Apparently Rescue Wings experienced some division with It's lead staff in the type of story that should be told (light hearted vs authenticity/drama), something that you can see referenced by its proof of concept Yomigaeru Sora Pilot. It shows up in these critical moments. It's because of that division, I think, that Rescue Wings never really reaches its potential. What remains is a scratch of the surface. Still the project continues on to be an interesting peek into this seldom seen world.

If only it had a much more unified vision to examine the cost of the motto.
__That Others May Live__
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