Griff Murphey
03-14-2015, 06:39
Not a war movie per se, but I think there are enough airplane geeks on this forum to justify me writing a review. It is an animated film in classic japanese anime style, beginning with Jiro as a boy and his fascination with airplanes through reading western aviation magazines. He's a geek with glasses and dream sequences focus on his fascination with Italian Count Caproni's huge aircraft.
As a young designer with Mitsubishi (the aircraft company name is changed for the movie) he participates in the design of an early fighter that fails, later, on what I think is IJN KAGA he and a boss survive a crash landing. The depression is rough, but the Japanese government wants weapons. Jiro and his designer buddy are sent to Germany to study the Junkers factory. The Japanese even buy a license to build the gigantic Junkers G-38 as the Ki-20. There is concern that the G3M Nell twin engined bomber (which sank the PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE, though that is not in this movie) is too flammable. Therefore a better fighter is needed to escort it.
Jiro has moments of worrying about where all of this is headed. He asks his designer buddy what Japan is going to use all these planes for. His buddy replies they will be bombing China, Britain, and America. There is another dream sequence where he imagines a Ki-20/G-38 exploding and showering wreckage that nearly kills him.
There is a love story and he marries his tubercular wife. This is a good time to mention that a fair amount of the movie is somewhat imaginative, and in fact, his wife did not have tuberculosis. It's no documentary.
The A5M Claude is a great success and Jiro is poised to design the zero. He survives earthquakes and B-29 raids. At the end his career hits a brick wall: VJ Day.
The movie is very much from the Japanese point of view. Anime is not for everyone, but it's not a children's movie which I thought it was at the beginning. I highly recommend it for broad minded airplane geeks especially those with an interest in Japanese history and aircraft.
As a young designer with Mitsubishi (the aircraft company name is changed for the movie) he participates in the design of an early fighter that fails, later, on what I think is IJN KAGA he and a boss survive a crash landing. The depression is rough, but the Japanese government wants weapons. Jiro and his designer buddy are sent to Germany to study the Junkers factory. The Japanese even buy a license to build the gigantic Junkers G-38 as the Ki-20. There is concern that the G3M Nell twin engined bomber (which sank the PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE, though that is not in this movie) is too flammable. Therefore a better fighter is needed to escort it.
Jiro has moments of worrying about where all of this is headed. He asks his designer buddy what Japan is going to use all these planes for. His buddy replies they will be bombing China, Britain, and America. There is another dream sequence where he imagines a Ki-20/G-38 exploding and showering wreckage that nearly kills him.
There is a love story and he marries his tubercular wife. This is a good time to mention that a fair amount of the movie is somewhat imaginative, and in fact, his wife did not have tuberculosis. It's no documentary.
The A5M Claude is a great success and Jiro is poised to design the zero. He survives earthquakes and B-29 raids. At the end his career hits a brick wall: VJ Day.
The movie is very much from the Japanese point of view. Anime is not for everyone, but it's not a children's movie which I thought it was at the beginning. I highly recommend it for broad minded airplane geeks especially those with an interest in Japanese history and aircraft.