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* WhamLine: [[spoiler: "I kill my father."]]
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* HeroicSacrifice: Pretty much every time they face The Teacher, for a given value of Heroic. But one pilot sacrificing him or herself so the other(s) can flee is usually the only way to prevent him from massacring them.
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* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have cars from TheSeventies and flatscreen monitors and televisions. Embodied particularly in the the aircraft, which are based on the ultimate generation of piston-engined fighters that died stillborn at the dawn of the jet age. Justified in that this air war is actually a form of glorified gladiatorial combat. Jets would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't make for spectacular dogfights.
to:
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have cars from TheSeventies and flatscreen monitors and televisions. Embodied particularly in the the aircraft, which are based on the ultimate generation of piston-engined fighters that died stillborn at the dawn of the jet age. Justified in that this air war is actually a form of glorified gladiatorial combat. Jets would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't make for spectacular dogfights. It's also possible that without the pressure of WWII no one ever got around to inventing them.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. Where she gets to send her men out to die [[spoiler: and experience the death of the man she loves]] over, and over, and over... They also let her keep her daughter Mizuki, though that's tinged with suck too, because she's growing up but her mother never will.
to:
* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. Where she gets to send her men out to die [[spoiler: and experience the death of the man she loves]] over, and over, and over... They also let her keep her daughter Mizuki, daughter, though that's tinged with suck too, because she's too; Mizuki's growing up but her mother never will.
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Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. [[spoiler: Where she gets to experience the death of the man she loves over, and over, and over...]] They also let her keep her daughter, though that's tinged with suck too, Mizuki is growing up but her mother never will.
to:
* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. [[spoiler: Where she gets to send her men out to die [[spoiler: and experience the death of the man she loves loves]] over, and over, and over...]] over... They also let her keep her daughter, daughter Mizuki, though that's tinged with suck too, Mizuki is because she's growing up but her mother never will.
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* TheNotSecret: Everyone seems to know the truth about Mizuki's origins despite Kusanagi's "little sister" cover story.
Deleted line(s) 73 (click to see context) :
* TheUnsecret: Everyone seems to know the truth about Mizuki's origins despite Kusanagi's "little sister" cover story.
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* ForeverWar: The war has no no beginning and no end in sight.
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* ForeverWar: The war has no no beginning and no end in sight.
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* CreditsGag: A very subtle blink-and-you'll-miss-it one at the end of the opening credits: the final credit casts a shadow just as an airplane would as the POV approaches the ground.
to:
* CreditsGag: A very subtle blink-and-you'll-miss-it one at the end of the opening credits: the final credit casts a shadow just as an airplane would as the POV approaches the ground.runway.
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* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically an adolescent herself. Mizuki tells Yuuichi that Kusanagi is her CoolBigSis, implying she doesn't know the truth.
to:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically an adolescent herself. Mizuki tells Yuuichi that Kusanagi is her CoolBigSis, implying she doesn't know the truth.truth herself.
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* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the heroes use dog breeds for their callsigns.
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* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, panther, and the heroes use dog breeds for their callsigns.
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Changed line(s) 12 (click to see context) from:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically an adolescent herself.
to:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically an adolescent herself. Mizuki tells Yuuichi that Kusanagi is her CoolBigSis, implying she doesn't know the truth.
* GrowingUpSucks / NotGrowingUpSucks: Played both ways. Perpetual adolescences is great when it helps you stay sane and alive in a ForeverWar, if only because you lack the perspective to doubt yourself or truly understand your mortality. It's not so great when it causes people to view you as little more than tragically romantic CannonFodder, or denies you the chance to be a proper mother to your child. It's even implied that maturity is what gives The Teacher his insuperable advantage.
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* UnitedEurope: The European Confederation, mentioned a few times in the passing, where the film takes place - Ireland and Poland, to be exact.
to:
* UnitedEurope: The European Confederation, mentioned a few times in the passing, where the film takes place - Ireland and Poland, to be exact.exact.
* TheUnsecret: Everyone seems to know the truth about Mizuki's origins despite Kusanagi's "little sister" cover story.
* TheUnsecret: Everyone seems to know the truth about Mizuki's origins despite Kusanagi's "little sister" cover story.
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Changed line(s) 55 (click to see context) from:
** The crew actually travelled to Ireland and Poland to get a good visual feel of the place, and toured the local airforce bases and hangars for reference. In the DVD bonus features they are actually shown photographing some house radiators and electric sockets so that they look accurate for the region the movie is supposed to be set in.
to:
** The crew actually travelled traveled to Ireland and Poland to get a good visual feel of the place, and toured the local airforce air force bases and hangars for reference. In the DVD bonus features they are actually shown photographing some house radiators and electric sockets so that they look accurate for the region the movie is supposed to be set in.
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Changed line(s) 30 (click to see context) from:
* DefrostingIceQueen: Despite her statements about needing to "kill that child" before she grows up, Suito defrosts a little whenever Mizuki's around, as Yuuichi realizes when he notices her surreptitiously giving Mizuki's hand an affectionate squeeze when she thinks no one is looking.
to:
* DefrostingIceQueen: Despite her statements about needing to "kill that child" before she grows up, Suito defrosts a little whenever Mizuki's around, as Yuuichi realizes when he notices her surreptitiously giving Mizuki's hand an affectionate squeeze when she thinks no one is looking.can see it.
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Changed line(s) 28 (click to see context) from:
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have cars from TheSeventies and flatscreen monitors and televisions. Embodied particularly in the the aircraft, which are all based on the ultimate generation of piston fighters that died stillborn at the dawn of the jet age. Justified in that this air war is actually a form of glorified gladiatorial combat. Jets would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't make for spectacular dogfights.
to:
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have cars from TheSeventies and flatscreen monitors and televisions. Embodied particularly in the the aircraft, which are all based on the ultimate generation of piston piston-engined fighters that died stillborn at the dawn of the jet age. Justified in that this air war is actually a form of glorified gladiatorial combat. Jets would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't make for spectacular dogfights.
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Deleted line(s) 29,30 (click to see context) :
* DefrostingIceQueen: Despite her statements about needing to "kill that child" before she grows up, Suito defrosts a little whenever Mizuki's around, as Yuuichi realizes when he notices her surreptitiously giving Mizuki's hand an affectionate squeeze.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
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* DefrostingIceQueen: Despite her statements about needing to "kill that child" before she grows up, Suito defrosts a little whenever Mizuki's around, as Yuuichi realizes when he notices her surreptitiously giving Mizuki's hand an affectionate squeeze when she thinks no one is looking.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
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** The weird looking oxygen masks are based on an actual Royal Airforce model.
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** The weird looking oxygen masks are based on an actual Royal Airforce model.Air Force model from the thirties.
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* OhCrap: Several verbal variations, both literal and figurative, whenever the Rostock pilots confront The Teacher. [[spoiler: And a purely visual one for Yuuichi when he realizes he's fallen for The Teacher's "snap stall/reversal" signature move.]]
to:
* OhCrap: Several verbal variations, both literal and figurative, whenever the Rostock pilots confront The Teacher. [[spoiler: And a purely visual one for Yuuichi when he realizes he's fallen for The Teacher's "snap stall/reversal" signature move.move and is about to die.]]
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* DefrostingIceQueen: Despite her statements about needing to "kill that child" before she grows up, Suito defrosts a little whenever Mizuki's around, as Yuuichi realizes when he notices her surreptitiously giving Mizuki's hand an affectionate squeeze.
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Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. [[spoiler: Where she gets to experience the death of the man she loves over, and over, and over...]] They also let her keep her daughter, though that's tinged with suck too, Mizuki is growing u but her mother never will.
to:
* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. [[spoiler: Where she gets to experience the death of the man she loves over, and over, and over...]] They also let her keep her daughter, though that's tinged with suck too, Mizuki is growing u up but her mother never will.
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* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the heroes' use breeds of dogs for their callsigns.
to:
* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the heroes' heroes use dog breeds of dogs for their callsigns.
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* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically a child herself.
to:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically a child an adolescent herself.
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* CreditsGag: A very subtle blink-and-you'll-miss-it one at the end of the opening credits: the final credit casts a shadow just as an airplane would as the POV approaches the ground.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Kusanagi's reward for being one of the few Kildren to survive aerial combat? Promotion to squadron commander. [[spoiler: Where she gets to experience the death of the man she loves over, and over, and over...]] They also let her keep her daughter, though that's tinged with suck too, Mizuki is growing u but her mother never will.
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* DrivesLikeCrazy: Kusanagi, apparently. No big deal is made out of it, but she drives extremely fast on narrow roads built on cliffside.
to:
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Kusanagi, apparently. No big deal is made out of it, but she drives very fast on a narrow twisty road built on a cliff side. (American viewers will think she drives extremely fast on narrow roads built on cliffside. fast, astute American viewers will realize it's a metric speedometer.)
Changed line(s) 44,45 (click to see context) from:
* MildlyMilitary
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, it's implied that The Teacher was once Kusanagi's lover and is the father of her daughter.]]
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, it's implied that The Teacher was once Kusanagi's lover and is the father of her daughter.]]
to:
* MildlyMilitary
MildlyMilitary: They do wear uniforms, but they use names or job titles instead of ranks and they aren't big on "mickey mouse" or saluting.
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonistis realizes he's a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, it's implied that The Teacher was once Kusanagi's lover and is the father of her daughter.]] ]]
* OhCrap: Several verbal variations, both literal and figurative, whenever the Rostock pilots confront The Teacher. [[spoiler: And a purely visual one for Yuuichi when he realizes he's fallen for The Teacher's "snap stall/reversal" signature move.]]
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist
* OhCrap: Several verbal variations, both literal and figurative, whenever the Rostock pilots confront The Teacher. [[spoiler: And a purely visual one for Yuuichi when he realizes he's fallen for The Teacher's "snap stall/reversal" signature move.]]
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* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: So golden you might not realize they're hookers until it's said so well into the movie.
to:
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: So golden you might not realize they're hookers until it's said so made explicit well into the movie.movie.
* MildlyMilitary
* MildlyMilitary
** The weird looking oxygen masks are based on an actual Royal Airforce model.
Changed line(s) 58 (click to see context) from:
** Unfortunately due to the muffling gas masks along with the howling wind and machine gun sounds, it's still barely comprehensible. Some subtitles would have been nice, no matter how good the language technically is.
to:
** Unfortunately due to the muffling gas oxygen masks along with the howling wind and machine gun sounds, it's still barely comprehensible. Some subtitles would have been nice, no matter how good the language technically is.
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* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the hero's callsigns are all breeds of dogs.
to:
* AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the hero's callsigns are all heroes' use breeds of dogs.dogs for their callsigns.
Deleted line(s) 27 (click to see context) :
** The air
Changed line(s) 45 (click to see context) from:
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, The Teacher was once the lover of Kusanagi and is the father of her daughter.]]
to:
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, it's implied that The Teacher was once the Kusanagi's lover of Kusanagi and is the father of her daughter.]]
** English actually is the international standard language for aviation.
Changed line(s) 59 (click to see context) from:
*** Later releases do subtitle the English conversations as well.
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*** Later releases do subtitle the English conversations as well.
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* SacrificialLion: All of them. It's their job. But as Kusanagi observes, sacrifices have to be genuine or they lose their power. Unfortunately for them Kildren just happen to make ideal sacrificial lion material.
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** The flying scenes are aerodynamically plausible and never resort to ArtMajorPhysics.
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* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: It's not established in what year the movie is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk.
to:
* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: It's not established in what year the movie is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk.risk.
*AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the hero's callsigns are all breeds of dogs.
*AnimalMotifs: The Teacher flies a plane marked with a black jaguar, and the hero's callsigns are all breeds of dogs.
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* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have flatscreen televisions.
** If you take into consideration that jet fighters and missiles are very expensive and that modern aerial battles are not as spectacular as those in 40s because jets are much faster and thus hard to dogfight in, it's much cheaper to use slow old propeller planes with cheap machine guns that allow fancy dogfights.
** If you take into consideration that jet fighters and missiles are very expensive and that modern aerial battles are not as spectacular as those in 40s because jets are much faster and thus hard to dogfight in, it's much cheaper to use slow old propeller planes with cheap machine guns that allow fancy dogfights.
to:
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have cars from TheSeventies and flatscreen televisions.
** If you take into consideration that jetmonitors and televisions. Embodied particularly in the the aircraft, which are all based on the ultimate generation of piston fighters and missiles are very that died stillborn at the dawn of the jet age. Justified in that this air war is actually a form of glorified gladiatorial combat. Jets would be prohibitively expensive and that modern aerial battles are not as wouldn't make for spectacular as those in 40s because jets are much faster and thus hard to dogfight in, it's much cheaper to use slow old propeller planes with cheap machine guns that allow fancy dogfights.dogfights.
** The air
** If you take into consideration that jet
** The air
Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* EverybodySmokes: It's not like they need to worry about lung cancer at later age.
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* EverybodySmokes: It's not like they need to worry about lung cancer at a later age.
Changed line(s) 38 (click to see context) from:
** Also, most of the planes (at least in the game) are expies of real, WorldWar2-era airplanes. For instance, the main "hero" plane, the Sanka Mk. II, is based on the Kyushu J7W Shinden.
to:
** Also, most of the planes (at least in the game) are expies of real, WorldWar2-era airplanes. For instance, the main "hero" plane, the Sanka Mk. II, is based on the Kyushu J7W Shinden.
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***Later releases do subtitle the English conversations as well.
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[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SkyCrawlers_3445.jpg]]
''The Sky Crawlers'' is a 2008 Japanese anime film, directed by MamoruOshii and an adaptation of Hiroshi Mori's novel of the same name. It is a melancholy take on war and those who fight it, but with several significant twists. For one, the world is at peace; it's companies doing the fighting, in order to sate the people's taste for war so that actual conflict does not take place. To fight their endless battles they use {{Artificial Human}}s called Kildren that are stuck in a perpetual adolescence of forgotten memories.
The film follows the pilot Yuuichi as he joins a new squadron of Kildren, and becomes intrigued by his cold, enigmatic and possibly insane commander, Kusanagi, who seems to know a lot more about the reality of the war than anybody else on the base. The story is as much about the pilots' downtime and their search for meaning as it is about the stunning aerial combat scenes.
If that doesn't sound appealing, keep in mind that this film is absolutely gorgeous. Broad pans and lingering shots are used just about any time combat isn't going on, which is most of the time.
A VideoGame was released in 2008 in Japan by the AceCombat team. It was released 2010 outside Japan with the title Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, which came as a surprise for fans as it seemed a prime candidate for NoExportForYou. Plotwise, it's a prequel.
----
!!The film provides examples of:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically a child herself.
* AcePilot: Five of them are noted, though two are the same person.
* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: It's not established in what year the movie is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk.
* AnyoneCanDie: And a few weeks later they'll rejoin your squadron with the same twitches, tics and habits (folding a paper, breaking a match), but new memories.
* {{Bifauxnen}}: The hooker who sleeps with Yuuchi. Has a ToplessnessFromTheBack shot too.
* BookEnds: After the beginning sequence and credits,the movie starts with Yuuichi landing in the base and reporting to Kusanagi. [[spoiler: It ends the same way (in TheStinger post-credits) with Yuuichi under yet another new name and set of memories. The only difference is that this time Kusanagi responds positively to his arrival.]]
* BrandX: Examples abound. For example, Pops-Cola and Treasure soft drinks (with logos that resemble Coca Cola and Pepsi), Green Label beer and Leopard cars.
* BrokenBird: Suito Kusanagi.
* CelebrityVoiceActor: Suito Kusanagi is voiced by live-action actress Rinko Kikuchi, who was the mute schoolgirl Chieko in the film ''Film/{{Babel}}'' and actually won an Oscar for it.
* CloningBlues: [[spoiler: It must be pretty tough working out you're a clone, but even tougher watching dozens of clones succeed each other, unaware.]]
* ConspicuousCG: The planes look almost photorealistic, while the humans are drawn traditionally.
* ContemplateOurNavels: Much of the film, leading to its LoveItOrHateIt status among viewers.
* CoolPlane: Lots of them.
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have flatscreen televisions.
** If you take into consideration that jet fighters and missiles are very expensive and that modern aerial battles are not as spectacular as those in 40s because jets are much faster and thus hard to dogfight in, it's much cheaper to use slow old propeller planes with cheap machine guns that allow fancy dogfights.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
* DeathIsDramatic: Pitilessly averted.
* DieselPunk
* DoABarrelRoll: Of course.
* DodgeByBraking: Yuichi's signature move, which wins him several dogfights. [[spoiler: Also the signature move of The Teacher, which turns out to be a plot point.]]
* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: The protagonist is ultimately unable to defeat his "father" / original clone, The Teacher, so the cycle continues.]]
* TheDreaded: ''"Oh shit! It's the Teacher!"''
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Kusanagi, apparently. No big deal is made out of it, but she drives extremely fast on narrow roads built on cliffside.
* {{Engrish}}: The quality of English dialogue in the Japanese version of the film ranges from "SurprisinglyGoodEnglish" to "passable but thickly accented" to "[[{{Narm}} LAWL]]".
* EverybodySmokes: It's not like they need to worry about lung cancer at later age.
* {{Expy}}: Kusanagi IS Major Kusanagi of ''GhostInTheShell'', even having the same last name and looking almost exactly the same. Except that she's a teenager. And completely nuts.
** Also, most of the planes (at least in the game) are expies of real, WorldWar2-era airplanes. For instance, the main "hero" plane, the Sanka Mk. II, is based on the Kyushu J7W Shinden.
* ForeverWar: The war has no no beginning and no end in sight.
* GhostCity: Krakow looks like this, with empty streets and no streetlights in sight, though some windows are lighted. It's purely for stylistic reasons, however.
* GoingByTheMatchBook:
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Kusanagi did this a long time ago.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: So golden you might not realize they're hookers until it's said so well into the movie.
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, The Teacher was once the lover of Kusanagi and is the father of her daughter.]]
* OminousMusicBoxTune: Kusanagi has a big music box in her office that plays the film's main tune, possibly as a ShoutOut to the director's previous work, ''GhostInTheShell: Innocence''. It becomes ominous when it plays during Yûichi's realization that something is thoroughly wrong with his existence.
* SceneryPorn: Most of the movie.
* [[spoiler:ShootTheShaggyDog: See DownerEnding above]]
* ShownTheirWork: Among other things, the signs in Krakow are in accurate Polish.
** The crew actually travelled to Ireland and Poland to get a good visual feel of the place, and toured the local airforce bases and hangars for reference. In the DVD bonus features they are actually shown photographing some house radiators and electric sockets so that they look accurate for the region the movie is supposed to be set in.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The story is on the cynical end; it has been directed by MamoruOshii, anyway, and the original author intended it to be like this, too.
* TheStinger: [[spoiler:The movie ends with another pilot arriving -- basically Yuuchi with a new name and memories).]]
* TheStoic: Kannami. Pretty much nothing can faze him, and whatever emotions he has, he keeps unseen.
* SuicidePact: [[spoiler:It turns out that Kusanagi killed Yuuchi's predecessor; she suggests to Yuuchi that he kill her this time. He doesn't go for it.]]
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: All the cockpit chatter is done in decently understandable English, though with a couple grammatical errors.
** Unfortunately due to the muffling gas masks along with the howling wind and machine gun sounds, it's still barely comprehensible. Some subtitles would have been nice, no matter how good the language technically is.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The Teacher is introduced by shooting up an ejected pilot. [[spoiler: This is also how the Teacher finishes the final battle. The fact that he didn't do this to Kusanagi is a plot point.]]
* ThisLoserIsYou: According to some interpretations, it is saying that the audience (i.e. apathetic Japanese Otaku) are Kildren, and this is the message.
** Alternatively, the audience are the shallow, dull tourists who express vague pity over the dead Kildren even as they take amusement in their meaningless battles. At least this is something that the director himself vaguely hinted at.
* TranslationConvention: Averted, if a bit strangely. The main cast speaks Japanese for most of the time, but speak English while in the air, and with tourists, and the few locals seen in Krakow speak passable, if accented Polish. The odd thing is that the whole movie is set in Europe, yet it's never questioned why there are so many Japanese military contractors around.
** The English dub averts this trope entirely by, of course, having the main cast speak in English all the time and re-dubbing the more {{Engrish}}-y lines with native English speakers.
* UnitedEurope: The European Confederation, mentioned a few times in the passing, where the film takes place - Ireland and Poland, to be exact.
* TheUnSmile: Yûichi gives one to a nosy tourist videotaping him.
* WarForFunAndProfit: The only kind of war that happens anymore.
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!!The videogame contains examples of:
* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: Like in the movie, it's not established in what year the game is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk. Also, it's obviously set in Earth, but the places the game have oriental-sounding names instead of European ones, like [[spoiler:the final mission, which is set on Normandy and is instead called "Karasu Bay"]].
* ChargeMeter: In the form of the Tactical Manuver Command system (or TMCs). Since the game has no missiles to speak off, a special guage fills up when you stick close to an enemy. When executed, it plays a small cutscene and positions your craft just right behind your enemy. However, just like missiles, there is the chance that your attacks can still be dodged despite this.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: Look at the nose art of the player character's plane...]]
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler: Your character eventually becomes The Teacher from the movie.]]
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Orishina
* RedBaron: The player character. Starts out as "Lynx", gets promoted to "Cheetah" and finally attains legendary status when the enemy fighters nickname him "Black Cat" for his black panther head design in his plane's tail [[spoiler:which he still keeps in the movie, only with a full body version on the side]].
* TemptingFate: In the first mission, Ban muses on the short lifespan of fighter pilots. Three missions later, guess who gets shot down?
* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy: [[SmugSnake Ukumori]].
----
''The Sky Crawlers'' is a 2008 Japanese anime film, directed by MamoruOshii and an adaptation of Hiroshi Mori's novel of the same name. It is a melancholy take on war and those who fight it, but with several significant twists. For one, the world is at peace; it's companies doing the fighting, in order to sate the people's taste for war so that actual conflict does not take place. To fight their endless battles they use {{Artificial Human}}s called Kildren that are stuck in a perpetual adolescence of forgotten memories.
The film follows the pilot Yuuichi as he joins a new squadron of Kildren, and becomes intrigued by his cold, enigmatic and possibly insane commander, Kusanagi, who seems to know a lot more about the reality of the war than anybody else on the base. The story is as much about the pilots' downtime and their search for meaning as it is about the stunning aerial combat scenes.
If that doesn't sound appealing, keep in mind that this film is absolutely gorgeous. Broad pans and lingering shots are used just about any time combat isn't going on, which is most of the time.
A VideoGame was released in 2008 in Japan by the AceCombat team. It was released 2010 outside Japan with the title Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, which came as a surprise for fans as it seemed a prime candidate for NoExportForYou. Plotwise, it's a prequel.
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!!The film provides examples of:
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: Kusanagi has an 8 year old daughter, but is still physically a child herself.
* AcePilot: Five of them are noted, though two are the same person.
* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: It's not established in what year the movie is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk.
* AnyoneCanDie: And a few weeks later they'll rejoin your squadron with the same twitches, tics and habits (folding a paper, breaking a match), but new memories.
* {{Bifauxnen}}: The hooker who sleeps with Yuuchi. Has a ToplessnessFromTheBack shot too.
* BookEnds: After the beginning sequence and credits,the movie starts with Yuuichi landing in the base and reporting to Kusanagi. [[spoiler: It ends the same way (in TheStinger post-credits) with Yuuichi under yet another new name and set of memories. The only difference is that this time Kusanagi responds positively to his arrival.]]
* BrandX: Examples abound. For example, Pops-Cola and Treasure soft drinks (with logos that resemble Coca Cola and Pepsi), Green Label beer and Leopard cars.
* BrokenBird: Suito Kusanagi.
* CelebrityVoiceActor: Suito Kusanagi is voiced by live-action actress Rinko Kikuchi, who was the mute schoolgirl Chieko in the film ''Film/{{Babel}}'' and actually won an Oscar for it.
* CloningBlues: [[spoiler: It must be pretty tough working out you're a clone, but even tougher watching dozens of clones succeed each other, unaware.]]
* ConspicuousCG: The planes look almost photorealistic, while the humans are drawn traditionally.
* ContemplateOurNavels: Much of the film, leading to its LoveItOrHateIt status among viewers.
* CoolPlane: Lots of them.
* DaysOfFuturePast: Aesthetically and technologically (for the most part) the setting resembles the 1940s, with piston-powered planes and machine guns... but then you have flatscreen televisions.
** If you take into consideration that jet fighters and missiles are very expensive and that modern aerial battles are not as spectacular as those in 40s because jets are much faster and thus hard to dogfight in, it's much cheaper to use slow old propeller planes with cheap machine guns that allow fancy dogfights.
* [[DidTheyOrDidntThey Did They Or Didn't They]]: There are two scenes where Yûichi and Kusanagi are together that may or may not have ended in sex, but the camera always fades to black before any kind of confirmation, let alone acknowledgement afterwards.
* DeathIsDramatic: Pitilessly averted.
* DieselPunk
* DoABarrelRoll: Of course.
* DodgeByBraking: Yuichi's signature move, which wins him several dogfights. [[spoiler: Also the signature move of The Teacher, which turns out to be a plot point.]]
* [[spoiler: DownerEnding: The protagonist is ultimately unable to defeat his "father" / original clone, The Teacher, so the cycle continues.]]
* TheDreaded: ''"Oh shit! It's the Teacher!"''
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Kusanagi, apparently. No big deal is made out of it, but she drives extremely fast on narrow roads built on cliffside.
* {{Engrish}}: The quality of English dialogue in the Japanese version of the film ranges from "SurprisinglyGoodEnglish" to "passable but thickly accented" to "[[{{Narm}} LAWL]]".
* EverybodySmokes: It's not like they need to worry about lung cancer at later age.
* {{Expy}}: Kusanagi IS Major Kusanagi of ''GhostInTheShell'', even having the same last name and looking almost exactly the same. Except that she's a teenager. And completely nuts.
** Also, most of the planes (at least in the game) are expies of real, WorldWar2-era airplanes. For instance, the main "hero" plane, the Sanka Mk. II, is based on the Kyushu J7W Shinden.
* ForeverWar: The war has no no beginning and no end in sight.
* GhostCity: Krakow looks like this, with empty streets and no streetlights in sight, though some windows are lighted. It's purely for stylistic reasons, however.
* GoingByTheMatchBook:
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Kusanagi did this a long time ago.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: So golden you might not realize they're hookers until it's said so well into the movie.
* [[spoiler: LukeIAmYourFather: "I kill my father", an abrupt revelation that the protagonist is a clone of The Teacher, and that he just kinda figured it out somehow. Also, The Teacher was once the lover of Kusanagi and is the father of her daughter.]]
* OminousMusicBoxTune: Kusanagi has a big music box in her office that plays the film's main tune, possibly as a ShoutOut to the director's previous work, ''GhostInTheShell: Innocence''. It becomes ominous when it plays during Yûichi's realization that something is thoroughly wrong with his existence.
* SceneryPorn: Most of the movie.
* [[spoiler:ShootTheShaggyDog: See DownerEnding above]]
* ShownTheirWork: Among other things, the signs in Krakow are in accurate Polish.
** The crew actually travelled to Ireland and Poland to get a good visual feel of the place, and toured the local airforce bases and hangars for reference. In the DVD bonus features they are actually shown photographing some house radiators and electric sockets so that they look accurate for the region the movie is supposed to be set in.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The story is on the cynical end; it has been directed by MamoruOshii, anyway, and the original author intended it to be like this, too.
* TheStinger: [[spoiler:The movie ends with another pilot arriving -- basically Yuuchi with a new name and memories).]]
* TheStoic: Kannami. Pretty much nothing can faze him, and whatever emotions he has, he keeps unseen.
* SuicidePact: [[spoiler:It turns out that Kusanagi killed Yuuchi's predecessor; she suggests to Yuuchi that he kill her this time. He doesn't go for it.]]
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: All the cockpit chatter is done in decently understandable English, though with a couple grammatical errors.
** Unfortunately due to the muffling gas masks along with the howling wind and machine gun sounds, it's still barely comprehensible. Some subtitles would have been nice, no matter how good the language technically is.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The Teacher is introduced by shooting up an ejected pilot. [[spoiler: This is also how the Teacher finishes the final battle. The fact that he didn't do this to Kusanagi is a plot point.]]
* ThisLoserIsYou: According to some interpretations, it is saying that the audience (i.e. apathetic Japanese Otaku) are Kildren, and this is the message.
** Alternatively, the audience are the shallow, dull tourists who express vague pity over the dead Kildren even as they take amusement in their meaningless battles. At least this is something that the director himself vaguely hinted at.
* TranslationConvention: Averted, if a bit strangely. The main cast speaks Japanese for most of the time, but speak English while in the air, and with tourists, and the few locals seen in Krakow speak passable, if accented Polish. The odd thing is that the whole movie is set in Europe, yet it's never questioned why there are so many Japanese military contractors around.
** The English dub averts this trope entirely by, of course, having the main cast speak in English all the time and re-dubbing the more {{Engrish}}-y lines with native English speakers.
* UnitedEurope: The European Confederation, mentioned a few times in the passing, where the film takes place - Ireland and Poland, to be exact.
* TheUnSmile: Yûichi gives one to a nosy tourist videotaping him.
* WarForFunAndProfit: The only kind of war that happens anymore.
----
!!The videogame contains examples of:
* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: Like in the movie, it's not established in what year the game is set in, but it features old school airplanes side by side with flat-screen [=TVs=], and apparently conventional war has been completely eliminated in favour of WarForFunAndProfit that doesn't put civilians, or governments for that matter, at risk. Also, it's obviously set in Earth, but the places the game have oriental-sounding names instead of European ones, like [[spoiler:the final mission, which is set on Normandy and is instead called "Karasu Bay"]].
* ChargeMeter: In the form of the Tactical Manuver Command system (or TMCs). Since the game has no missiles to speak off, a special guage fills up when you stick close to an enemy. When executed, it plays a small cutscene and positions your craft just right behind your enemy. However, just like missiles, there is the chance that your attacks can still be dodged despite this.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: Look at the nose art of the player character's plane...]]
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler: Your character eventually becomes The Teacher from the movie.]]
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Orishina
* RedBaron: The player character. Starts out as "Lynx", gets promoted to "Cheetah" and finally attains legendary status when the enemy fighters nickname him "Black Cat" for his black panther head design in his plane's tail [[spoiler:which he still keeps in the movie, only with a full body version on the side]].
* TemptingFate: In the first mission, Ban muses on the short lifespan of fighter pilots. Three missions later, guess who gets shot down?
* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy: [[SmugSnake Ukumori]].
----
