History Anime / TheSkyCrawlers

* CentralTheme: War never changes, and presented in a more exaggerated way than ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''. Not only do the causes and brutality never change, but in ''The Sky Crawlers'' war quite literally never changes. It keeps happening in the same skies, fought with the same planes, in spite of the same protests, and thanks to Kildren, even the people literally remain the same.

* TheStinger: [[spoiler:The movie ends with another pilot arriving -- basically Yuuchi with a new name and memories).]]

* 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 herself.

* AlternateHistory / AlternateUniverse: It's not established in what year the story is set in (the 1980s-2000s presumably), but it features oldschool-looking airplanes side by side with ''monochrome'' 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.

* BrokenBird: Suito Kusanagi.
* CloningBlues: [[spoiler: It must be pretty tough working out you're a clone, but even tougher watching dozens of clones succeed each other, unaware.]]

* DeathIsDramatic: Pitilessly averted.

* DieselPunk
* DoABarrelRoll: Of course.

* {{Engrish}}: The quality of English dialogue in the Japanese version of the film ranges from "SurprisinglyGoodEnglish" to "passable but thickly accented" to "[[{{Narm}} LAWL]]".

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: All the cockpit chatter is done in decently understandable English, though with a couple grammatical errors.
** Unfortunately due to the muffling 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.
*** Later releases subtitle the English conversations as well.

* WeaponOfChoice:

* BerserkButton: Belittling Yamasaki pisses off Kaida to no end. As a result, Kaida does ''not'' get along with Ukumori, as the latter has a habit of speaking ill of Yamasaki and the other initial wingmen as "weak" for getting shot down, even though Yamasaki died saving Ukumori's life.

** Yamasaki, Kaida, Orishina, and Ukumori fly specially modified versions of their aircraft, generally [[FragileSpeedster tuned for maneuverability and speed at the cost of stability and defense]]. After Orishina defects to Lautern, her Sanka Mk II is further customized with Luatern technology as the Sanka Mk II C. All of these can be acquired and further customized with tuning parts.

* AnyoneCanDie: ''Innocent Aces'' has a staggering body count to the point that it's easier to list who ''doesn't'' die - Cheetah, the very last two Kildren to join your ranks, your first commanding officer, and your second commanding officer's liason.

* SomeDexterityRequired: Being a daring Wii game that capitalizes on the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to put together a remarkable air combat game like no other, ''Innocent Aces''' default and unorthodox control scheme is not easy to get used to and can lead to some pretty easily fatal mission-ending crashes early on.

* SomeDexterityRequired: Being a daring Wii game that capitalizes on the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to put together a remarkable air combat game like no other, ''Innocent Aces'''s default and unorthodox control scheme is not easy to get used to and can lead to some pretty easily fatal mission-ending crashes early on.

* BookEnds: The opening and closing cutscenes are nearly shot-for-shot recreations of each other, with Orishina/Kusanagi narrating "There are those who need war, and those who supply it" in the exact same voice, and with various Kildren filling in for the human members of the squadron in the ending cutscene.

* BattleshipRaid: In the penultimate mission, Cheetah and his two remaining wingmen are tasked with shooting down Wolfram, the colossal war-airship they had previously defended when their commanding officer pulls as FaceHeelTurn and attempts to steal it. The fight has to be done in three phases, each of which has a large number of anti-air guns trying to shoot you down, and the hull of the airship is too heavily armored to do direct damage it. In the first phase, the four massive searchlight-directed cannons on its tailfins must be silenced. In the second, Cheetah must brave the intense winds created by the colossal drive fans on Wolfram's envelope, evade its aerial mines, and shoot its exhaust ports to destroy its engines so it can't flee. In the final phase, Wolfram reveals another, faster firing and more accurate searchlight-directed cannon in its nose and Lautern aircraft arrive to defend it. Once this cannon is destroyed, Wolfram finally goes down.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Mozume is a slimy figure, promoting the use of expendable Kildren, antagonizing Kaida and Orishina, seemingly trying to drive conflict within the squadron, and seeking to draw out the ongoing WarForFunAndProfit, rather than allow one side to become dominant. He, along with Ukumori eventually attempt to defect to Lautern to even out the conflict after Cheetah has put Rostock at a decisive advantage.

* DevelopersForesight: There is a quite substantial amount of dialog in mission 13 for if you stick around and try to fight Orishina in the Senryu SS, a task which has absolutely nothing to do with your mission and for the Senryu SS is supremely ill-suited. Orishina figures out Cheetah is piloting the Senryu and the Lautern pilots express their humiliation at being unable to shoot down a lone recon plane. In the intended gameplay, this shouldn't ever come up, as the objective is simply to fly across the windy map as fast as you can without being shot down and trying to dogfight enemies is counterproductive to this goal.

* HeroicSacrifice: Yamasaki goes down shielding Ukumori from enemy gunfire. Ukumori, being an UngratefulBastard, mocks him for it.

* UndyingLoyalty: Kaida was deeply loyal to Captain Yamasaki and continues to call Yamasaki his captain, even after Cheetah becomes captain of the squadron. After Ukumori belittles Yamasaki and the now-dead (normal) human members of the squadron one too many times, Kaida takes a shot at Ukumori and Mozume orders Cheetah to shoot Kaida down.

* UpgradeVsPrototypeFight: While not a mandatory part of the game, it can certainly be arranged by bringing the Sanka Mk II to the final battle and facing off against Orishina's Sanka Mk II C, an upgraded custom version of the Sanka Mk II. Alternatively, the roles can by reversed by bringing the Sanka Mk B, a later model of Sanka fighter, to go against Orishina's improved older model.
* VillainousBreakdown: When Cheetah shoots down the aerial warship Wolfram, Mozume loses it and starts ranting about how, even if no one alive can beat Cheetah, time will eventually claim him.

* WhamLine: If all the {{Foreshadowing}} went over your head, the ending cutscene has Orishina's replacement, Kusanagi, greet Cheetah/Lynx, in front of a Suiga with their signature livery, as follows: "Please accept my regards '''Teacher'''", removing any ambiguity that the player character is the antagonist of the film.
* WorthyAdversary: Orishina considers Cheetah one after their mock battle. Trouble is, this means that she also considers everyone else to be ''un''worthy and she becomes increasingly disinterested in her actual job and bitter towards her squadmates, as she wants absolutely nothing other than to fight Cheetah again.

* {{Irony}}: Cheetah shoots down multiple other pilots in his squadron [[spoiler: for attempting to defect to Lauturn]]. Between the game and the movie, he himself [[spoiler: defects to Lauturn]].

* DevelopersForesight: There is a quite substantial amount of dialog in mission 12 for if you stick around and try to fight Orishina in the Senryu SS, a task which has absolutely nothing to do with your mission and for the Senryu SS is supremely ill-suited. Orishina figures out Cheetah is piloting the Senryu and the Lautern pilots express their humiliation at being unable to shoot down a lone recon plane. In the intended gameplay, this shouldn't ever come up, as the objective is simply to fly across the windy map as fast as you can without being shot down and trying to dogfight enemies is counterproductive to this goal.

* GreenEyedMonster: In the showdown with Ukumori, Ukumori makes it quite clear that he's jealous of Cheetah's accomplishments and the credit Cheetah's received and believes that it should instead be his, and attempts to prove it by trying to shoot down Cheetah.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: For all of his abrasiveness and general unpleasantness, Ukumori applies his social Darwinist principles to himself as well and once he's shot down, accepts that he deserves his fate.

* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Orishina decides that she ''must'' fight Cheetah again after how much she enjoyed their mock battle when they tested the Sanka Mk II and refuses to let anyone else take him down. Even after she defects to Lautern in hopes of getting another round with Cheetah, she shoots her own forces when they get in the way of their duel.

* TheSocialDarwinist: Ukumori believes that the strong live and the weak get killed by the strong. This goes as far as belittling Yamasaki, who saved his life, because Yamasaki died in the process. Naturally, he also believes that he is part of "the strong", though he does eventually accept that he wasn't as strong as he thought when Cheetah shoots him down.

* UnusualEuphemism: At one point, Kaida tells Ukumori to "go strum a guitar," meaning something to the effect of "go screw yourself."

* DwindlingParty: Over the course of the game, your initial wingmen die off one by one, and by the end, all your wingmen are Kildren, eventually none of whom are even the initial Kildren who joined Cougar Team back in the second mission. However, when a Kildren is lost, they're usually replaced by a clone within a few missions, so you never completely run out of wingmen.

* {{Checkpoint}}: Available in multi-part missions. If you fail in such mission after clearing the first part, you are given the opportunity to try the current part instead of restarting the entire mission.

* DuelBoss: Three times throughout the game, you're required to shoot down former wingmen in single combat.

* FaceHeelTurn: For given values of "Face" and "Heel", several characters defect from Rostock to Lautern over the course of the game. Cheetah shoots down everyone who tries. Between the game and the film, Cheetah himself defects to Lautern.
** Ukumori and Mozume defect to Lautern to try to restore balance to the war after Cheetah's tipped the scales too far in Rostock's favor, and a pair of other kildren go along with Ukumori, one because he looks up to Ukumori, and the other because Ukumori threatened him. Mozume and Ukumori are shot down before they can link up with other Lautern forces, while the other two kildren can be optionally shot down or spared.
** Orishina defects to Lautern not out of any concern with the state of the war, but solely so she can fight Cheetah again.

* TreacherousQuestGiver: [[spoiler:Deputy Chieft of Intelligence Tochika Mozume when he assumes command of Hariyu Base for missions 6 through 14]]. He gives bad or incomplete intelligence which at least Kaida believes to be deliberate, favors the use of disposable Kildren over normal pilots, and deliberately drives interpersonal conflict in Cheetah Squadron. [[spoiler: And ultimately, he captures the Wolfram and tries to turn it over to Lauturn because his mission was never to ''win'' the [[WarForFunAndProfit corporate war]], but to [[ForeverWar keep the war going indefinitely]], which Cheetah Squadron's success was threatening, as the such continued success might mean Rostock would actually win.]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: In nearly every respect, save for the title and lack of jet aircraft and guided missiles, ''Innocent Aces'' is an ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' game, made by the same developers and published by the same company and using basically the same tropes. Furthermore, many aspects of the game would cross back to the parent series.
** Many later ''Ace Combat'' games would feature piston-engined fighters with similar flight models to those used in ''Innocent Aces'', and when used in ''VideoGame/AceCombatInfinity'', the game would adopt a HUD very similar to that used by ''Innocent Aces''.
** The game introduced the 100 enemy BrutalBonusLevel "Ace of Aces" that would later be seen in parent series games like ''VideoGame/AceCombatJointAssault'' and ''VideoGame/AceCombatAssaultHorizonLegacy''.
** The Tactical Maneuver Command system would return to the parent series in ''VideoGame/AceCombatAssaultHorizonLegacy''. However, the maneuvers that can be performed using this system would first make their appearance as counter-maneuvers in ''VideoGame/AceCombatAssaultHorizon'''s much-maligned Dogfight Mode.
** The "Explosive Bullets" (EPB) subweapon is essentially an unguided predecessor to the "Short-range Aerial Suppression Missile" (SASM) and the "Rapid Guns" (RPG) subweapon is a predecessor to the "(Machine) Gun Pods" (GPD or MGP) seen in most ''Ace Combat'' titles since ''Innocent Aces''[='=]s release in 2008.
** The [[GeoEffects wind and cloud mechanics]] Project Aces experimented with in ''Innocent Aces'' would be greatly expanded upon for their return in ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown''.

** The Tulip, Shougu, and Itsuha are fast and extremely agile, but have poor defenses. The Itsuha takes it the furthest, having the greatest base maneuverability of any plane in the game, but trading off stability in addition to defense.

** Your character (Lynx/Cheetah to his allies, the Black Cat to his enemies) eventually becomes The Teacher from the movie.