Review of Girly Air Force

Girly Air Force was not a "must watch" anime but a decent one for those who like air fights, jets and colorful haired girls. At first, let's cover the negative points that contributed to GAF's low popularity. Hum, the thema itself was quite basic, with aliens named Zai coming on Earth with their very high technology which totally outmatched humanity's current one. Forced to fight, every national armies & research (at least Japanese, American & Russian as we know) managed to create their own weapons, based on alien's jets they somehow destroyed. These researches lead to the creation of Animas, aka girls with very colorful & non-conventionalhairs (a shiny blue, pink, a shiny green, purple and a shiny yellow : you could not miss them in the street). They actually are the only ones able to pilot "Daughters", aka modern fight jets which are efficient against Zai. However, one Anima is unable to pilot alone, until she discovers a human named Kei with whom she suddenly became able to. Yes, the plot totally looks like Darling in the Franxx, before you ask.

However, contrary to DitF, GAF had in my opinion a huge lack of background, everything seemed blank or empty behind the main characters and the airport. You could think that they gave every part of their budget in huge and spectacular air battles but... not really. In fact, there were not many battles, I think 3 that were decently noticeable. Quite sad for an anime that has no real or strong plot and a small number of characters (count ... 9 characters who are named in the show, plus other unnamed extras).

I think this point was the one which displeased most viewers. Indeed, if you don't really like planes in anime or if you don't really feel attracted by these colorful girls, then you couldn't appreciate Girly Air Force.

To be honest, I appreciated these girls who all aren't humans and have a different vision of humanity. They are fighters in their "blood" (or should I say in their components ?) with a programmed personality. The whole anime is basically telling the story of Gripen, a curious, childly, naive and cute Anima who discovers human nature and human mores with Kei. Ah talking about this guy... saying he is a bit dumb and quite irritating sometimes seems right.

Instead of presenting a Michael Bay's vision of aliens vs cute girls piloting jets, Girly Air Force showed a semi-romance semi-drama anime with a pinch of battle, a bunch of attractive girls you'd desire to meet (not gonna say why you'd desire such thing) and a fund of technology. It wasn't very popular this season and probably won't become later. It's either you appreciate it or either you hate it, since the background / plot is very weak and most battles aren't memorable.

The worst point of this anime was enlightened by Kei himself during last episode. Who are Zai & why do you they fight ? I hereby present you the main question that remains unsolved yet. During 12 episodes we learned how Zai was powerful and it conquered many parts of the world : appearently it was THE enemy for humanity. But as we noticed, this enemy, despite its destructive technology, wasn't such a threat since it left national armies finding a way to counter its plans (if it ever had some). Kei himself wonders why it fought for all this time.