Yukikaze, Revisited.

NOTE: This article is a revised and expanded version of the my three-part Yukikaze analysis from last year. It has been updated to include more recent information, and can now be read in full.

A franchise is a fickle thing. Not every piece of standalone media can become a franchise, and not every franchise can become successful – depending on what your measure of success is, of course – and when it comes to Japanese-produced media, this measure of success is no more apparent when comparing how well it is received in its home country and in overseas territories. To me, no other franchise encapsulates this sort of dichotomy better than Yukikaze, a multi-media series that started out as monthly chapters published in a science-fiction magazine in the late 70s and has since branched out into several different adaptations – none of which have really been all that well-received outside of its home country and all of which have problems that hinder whatever possible success they might’ve had.

Sentou Yousei Yukikaze (tl. Battle Fairy Yukikaze or simply Yukikaze) is a series of novels written by the incredibly prolific and well-respected author Chohei Kambayashi, who’s now won the Seiun Award (think of this as the Japanese equivalent to a Hugo Award) no less than eight times. It originally began life as a series of short chapters published in S-F Magazine from 1979 to 1983, and these chapters were eventually compiled into the first novel in 1984. After the release of the first novel, sequel chapters started publishing in the magazine again in 1992 and were also compiled into the sequel, Good Luck Yukikaze, in 1999. After a seven-year break, the now-trilogy continued in 2006 and in 2009 was published in book format as Unbroken Arrow. Believe it or not, it doesn’t end there. After a no less than 10-year break, it resumed publication in December 2019, and April 2022 brought the long-awaited release of the fourth novel, Aggressors. The fact that this story has been able to stay in the public consciousness for so long really cements its place as one of the most groundbreaking pieces of science-fiction in Japan, akin to what Starship Troopers or any of Philip K. Dick’s novels did for the genre in the United States. 

Unlike its update schedule, the actual plot of these novels is a little easier to describe. The story centres around ace pilot Rei Fukai and his plane, nicknamed ‘Yukikaze’, a state-of-the-art tactical reconnaissance aircraft equipped with a near sentient AI system. The main story follows Rei as both he and his plane observe the actions of the mysterious and unpredictable alien beings known as the JAM, who have been ‘at war’ with mankind for 33 years and counting. Given how long these novels have been going for, the story has focused on several different themes, mainly concerning the use of technology, the effects of war on soldiers, and how the relationship between humans and AI can be equally as beneficial as it is damaging. Though its themes and in-world tech may be considered outdated by today’s standards – drones and artificial intelligence are definitely a less novel concept than they were three decades ago – it is a nonetheless fascinating insight into how our use of artificial systems can have both individual and far-reaching consequences, as Rei’s relationship with Yukikaze (more specifically, Yukikaze’s AI) is the series’ most engaging focal point.

Despite all these positive aspects, this series never properly made a profit in the Western market. Of course, a lot of this can be chalked up to the simple fact that “people don’t like to read” – as much as I personally dislike this statement, it’s somewhat understandable, especially when it comes to a series as lore-heavy and tech jargon-heavy as Yukikaze. However, this isn’t really what I consider the reason as to why the books aren’t well-known. Actually, the main reason as to why these novels never really took off has little to nothing to do with an unwillingness to read. Rather than this being a case of fans not wanting to read them, it’s a case of fans not being able to even access them in the first place. 

For a very long time, the novels were practically inaccessible outside of Japan, translated or not. The first novel was not released in English until 2010, and the sequel followed suit in 2011. For those not doing the maths, it took almost 30 years for the first book to ever be seen abroad in a language other than Japanese. Now, I’m not trying to bash the company or those who worked on translating the two novels. Credit where credit is due, both have surprisingly serviceable translations, and it’s clear to me that a lot of time and effort was spent making it as polished as it could be. Translating a novel that requires an entire fact sheet and a section for all the military terms used is certainly no easy feat. The two that have been translated are enjoyable, and even if you only read the first one you’d still get something out of it, since the first novel feels more like a short story collection set in the same universe each time than the second, which has a more concise and overarching plot fitting of a sci-fi epic.

However, you may have noticed that I’ve said “the two novels”, even though there are four that are out right now, and that’s because the rest have still not been translated – and, sadly, there is a slim chance that they ever will be. This is because HaikaSoru, the publishing house that released the first two overseas, ceased activities after completing their releases of all 10 Legend of the Galactic Hero novels. Moreover, they had previously hinted that they might commission a translation should sales of the first two books pick up, but sadly this fell through. This is compounded by the fact that HaikaSoru, from what I could find, doesn’t appear to have done much publicity for either of the two novels while they were still in business; however, one should also take note of the marketing landscape at the time, as the technique of advertising a book via social media was still in its infancy. 

This lateness in bringing over any original source material hurts the potential reputation of any series or franchise. When a source material takes this long to be seen outside of its home country, the only choice both fans and newcomers have is adaptations, which, more often than not, do not offer a fully-realised and complete portrayal of said source material. Sure, an adaptation might get more fans interested in seeing its origin point (as you’ve probably seen with talking points like “the book was better”), but in cases like these, the lack of easy accessibility from the get-go does not bode well for a franchise in the long-term. Thus, in the time that it took for the first Yukikaze novel to be published overseas, a 5-episode OVA, a spin-off OAV, a 6-chapter manga, and a video game were released, all with varying levels of quality. 

Right off the bat, I will say that the five-episode OVA is the most earnest attempt to adapt Yukikaze by a long shot. It was made by Studio GONZO in collaboration with Bandai Visual from 2002 to 2005, and funnily enough, was (seemingly) only created to commemorate the latter’s 20th anniversary, so perhaps fans should consider themselves lucky that it even exists. This is an OVA, a type of anime series that is released in straight-to-video format rather than being shown on television, which comes with more added benefits than you may think. For one, most OVAs are longer and have higher quality animation than their TV counterparts, which is why the gap between one episode and the next may sometimes be up to a year long. And this makes sense: Animators and producers need time to produce a better product for their audiences, and in the case of Yukikaze, fans and newcomers were definitely rewarded for their patience.

The amount of effort and dedication that the staff put into getting the look and feel of a series mainly based around cool-looking visuals of planes and dogfights needs to be commended. I’ll leave this video here for the time being, but the fact that the crew went through the effort to better understand plane mechanics and other necessary military know-how to the extent that they did is very commendable, and certainly unique when it comes to anime production. One of the more praised aspects of this OVA is the animation, which surprisingly still holds up — perhaps not all that shocking, given that Studio GONZO also produced Last Exile and Blue Submarine No.6, two other series with a heavy emphasis on detailed machinery and CGI integration. 

As good as this all is, it’s ultimately just window dressing, and it’s in service of a rather convoluted story. Every Yukikaze adaptation has a serious problem: They seem to love having it make little sense to the average person. If you were to look at reviews of the OVA on MyAnimeList and other such sites, you’d find that the most common complaint from viewers is that they didn’t quite get it, and for good reason. This is where authorial intent comes into play: The OVA was clearly made for and appeals to fans of the novels, which were already very popular in Japan, and thus has a plot that could only make sense in its cultural context. The most glaringly obvious aspect of this is that the OVA attempts to combine two novels, the second with almost 1000 pages of content, into 5 episodes that usually average 45 minutes long — and that’s not even acknowledging that they created their own ending, which is a whole can of worms in and of itself. As a result, it attempts to shove in a lot of important details and characters while cutting a lot out. For example, certain characters only present from the second novel onwards are introduced and awkwardly shoved into episodes that centre a plot point from the first novel, which they clearly have no business being in. It’s evident that the staff couldn’t (or weren’t able to) decide which novel to adapt, so these attempts at trying to Frankenstein the unique stories from the first novel with the more dramatic plot from the second only create confusion amongst non-fans.

Whether or not this leaving out of important plot points was intentional, it nonetheless led to the release of plenty of side materials that attempt to expand the story and characters. Around the same time that episodes of the OVA were coming out, a 6-chapter manga was published from 2002 to 2005 in SF Magazine, illustrated by the OVA’s character designer, Yumi Tada, who also co-wrote the first episode. As promising as this sounds, it’s not exactly an “adaptation” of its original source material — farthest from it, in fact. These manga chapters are merely a loose retelling of chapters one, four, and eight from the first novel (roughly corresponding to episodes one, three, and five of the OVA), in which at least half of any given chapter is dedicated to first exploring the tragic backstory of one of the few more important characters before abruptly transitioning back and forth between that and the present-day plot. As much as I can appreciate the effort taken to flesh out these characters, and as much as I think some of the story threads presented here are quite interesting (even if they are technically non-canon), the manga as a whole ultimately falls into a lot of Tada’s writing quirks — namely, her love for tragedy and melodrama. Although the novels and OVA certainly weren’t a walk in the park, some of Tada’s ideas here feel a little too over-the-top and heavy-handed for what is ultimately a tie-in that one could finish within half an hour. Again, this is one for fans and completionists, as I truly can’t imagine someone completely unfamiliar with this series understanding even a fraction of what’s going on.

Sometime in 2003, a video game adaptation was released for the XBOX console, its full title being Yukikaze: The Skies Where Fairies Dance – the title of the first chapter of the first novel. The game was re-released for Windows in 2004, but it wasn’t until 2018 when fans outside of Japan got to actually see the game in its entirety, all thanks to a fan who did a complete playthrough (all while providing on-the-fly translations) and uploaded it to Youtube. Having watched most of his video, the single thing one can confidently say that the game did right was showcase an accurate depiction of what Rei and Yukikaze actually do, as a few missions involve little to no combat, simply the player (as Rei) flying around and performing reconnaissance work. Other than that, everything else in the game is pretty subpar: The cutscenes are simply reused animation from the OVA, there’s little to no story, and the combat is rather easy even on the hardest difficulty. In short, it’s basically a poor man’s Ace Combat, and from little information I could find regarding its sales, it doesn’t seem to have been especially successful either critically or commercially.

The last of Yukikaze’s spin-offs came in the form of the bizarre “Sentou Yousei Shoujo ~ Tasukete, Mave-chan!”. During the OVA’s production, one of its mechanical designers, Ikuto Yamashita, randomly sketched an anthropomorphic design of the series titular plane. The staff posted Yamashita’s sketch onto the official website intended to promote the OVA, but it ended up causing such an unexpected fan reaction that in 2005, this 23-minute OAV was released. These days, giving an inanimate object ‘cute girl’ treatment is nothing new in Japan, but back in 2005, this must’ve been a somewhat novel concept — this was 8 years before the likes of the extremely popular Kantai Collection — which is really the only thing this short has going for it. The barebones narrative follows a Yukikaze fan named Rei (no relation to the other Rei at all), who, at an anime convention, somehow gets sucked through a portal and ends up in the world of his favourite series. Except, in true Japanese fashion, all the planes are now adorable girls. Mercifully, Rescue Me, Mave-chan! does not try to hide its intended audience at all, even including a scene where the girls outright state that their failure in fighting off the JAM is due to their otaku fans slowly forgetting about them. It’s notably quite short, consisting of only one episode that’s less than an half and hour long, and is relatively inoffensive aside from its weird premise and typical anime fanservice. Again, this is one for fans and completionists. 

To leave us off on a good note: When I first wrote the initial Yukikaze three-parter, I ended it on a note of speculation as to where this series was headed, and if a supposed fourth novel would ever be released. With it now being almost nine months since that fourth novel was published, the story resumed its still-ongoing continuation in SF magazine, and the 20th anniversary of the OVA’s first episode came and went with, sadly, no news of any new animated material or overseas releases in sight. Despite all these frustrating setbacks, I am conclusively glad to see that this series still remains a beloved property in its home nation, even if it never gets the chance to achieve that same legacy anywhere else.