We Without Wings - Under the Innocent Sky [Anime Review]

Character count: 4 so far.

This might be one of the most difficult anime to ever review without giving away the whole story at once. That not withstanding, I watched it, you get to read about it.

Too many damn characters.

I've had very mixed feelings about this anime. There are parts that I rather liked, and parts that were just too weird / convoluted / telegraphed to enjoy. That being said, I think I'll give my rating.
 

2.5 Stars

He's found the plot.

This is not a very long anime. This was also unwatchable with subtitles unless you wear out your pause button in the first few episodes. I have watched enough anime to be able to read subtitle, and super titles in one scene. However when you add in half a dozen text boxes, even my eyes wear out. That's just complaint one.

Struggling between plot and subplot.

The plot was trying to escape. They tied her up.

There are a total of thirteen episodes, one an omake / fan service episode. Over the course of this one single season you will encounter over twenty some odd characters, and while they are artistically distinct, trying to keep track of the constant barrage is near impossible. Over twenty characters is fine for a series like Bleach or Naruto that run over 200 episodes, you can dribble in the characters and provide plenty of story for them to be involved in... this cannot be done adequately in 13. A new character even appears around episode eight or nine, maybe even ten! The only easy part is that a good chunk of the characters have alternate names that are birds, like Eagle, Hawk, etc... in fact the bird imagery is pretty heavy throughout the whole series. Even the two gangs have bird imagery names 'R-Wing' and 'Yanagihara Flame Birds.'

Bunny bunny bunny...

And here's the final kicker. The first three episodes out of thirteen are all introductory episodes. Three different characters, three episodes, then the series actually really starts up. In the mean time we've already been bombarded with 90% of the characters in the series.

However if you do watch the series, I must echo a sentiment spoken by Condor (a character that is only represented by a radio) - do not read up on this series in Wikipedia or anyplace else. Avoid the plot spoilers like I'm attempting to do. The big surprise at the end of the third episode (start of fourth) will be totally spoiled.

Note: This is not the way to introduce yourself.

So, for the love of anime, do not read anything about this series plot or characters beyond what I've really covered here.

Ok. What then are the redeeming features of this anime?

Well the first is the animation quality. It is very well animated, every character is distinct (a necessity), and all the scenes are quite beautifully composed. I've watched enough anime to say that this is above average quality, which is a good thing. Effort goes into making higher quality animation, while things like the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion are cheap to do...  (do not get me wrong, I actually really like the final episodes of NGE. It's all philosophy.)

The next is humor. There are some pretty solid instances of humor, although quite a number are risque. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, just an honest observation. I did quite a few chuckles, and several full guffaws during the series.

And last but not least, the risque elements, the fan-service scenes were in all truth one of the better qualities of the series. In many ways it was a substitute for the plot. In all actuality I think it actually has a plot element, representing the libido of a certain character (but I can't go any further into that). Still, there is quite a lot of it, and it is most often used in humor scenes. The thirteenth episode is essentially a fan service episode, and the teaser trailer highlights the fan-service as well. It is a selling point.

Oretachi ni tsubasa wa nai (俺たちに翼はない) is certainly not going to be an anime classic, it may even end up in the land of forgotten anime. It is very middle of the road. I imagine that there will be some hardcore fans, and some hardcore detractors. At least in the end, the title is cool.

I'll leave you with this final image, which really is from We Without Wings.

Wait what?