Warning: there are some spoilers in the third paragraph after first sentence. Rescue Wings delivers exactly what it promises and does it well. Most of the series is focused on showing and exploring various difficulties that arise when it comes to rescuing people in risky situations. That means techniques used by rescue force, training that operators undergo and mental challenges one must face when choosing a profession where there are lives on the line. Lives here are very much at stake by the way as Rescue Wings is fairly grounded and it also is not afraid of showing parts of rescue operations that are anything butoptimistic and glorious. On a less related note this show credits Japan Air Self-Defense Force as special thanks so I assume a lot of research went into trying to carefully depict the topic.

All this is seen from the eyes of the main character who undergoes a lot of pressure that forces him to change over the course of the show. In this lies one of the good and one of the bad parts of the show. Good one is that characters here are anything but blank slates or typical anime archetypes, not everyone gets a spotlight but generally even the less important characters have something to them that makes them believable which is an important feature of the show. The bad one is that by the end I feel like too much time was dedicated to main character in his girlfriend but despite that it doesn't really pay off in the end, the Megumi's subplot in final 3 episodes in particular is so useless I have no idea why they put it there, maybe the show got rushed? That's about all I have to say when it comes to story.

Music is just about average and most of the time sits in the background but I did notice two cases that stood out one bad and one very good. From here on out this paragraph is gonna be all spoilers for two of the more emotional events in the anime. The good case was during a scene where father came to see his son's dead body and there's no music, barely any sounds at all aside from rare dialogue and the very noticeable sound of the ticking watch that's still going after the owner is dead. The bad case was during a tense rescue missions where main character was stuck on a gondola lift, just when it came to actually rescuing people a cheesy ass rock song started playing, killing all tension. It was hardly necessary since song was interrupted not long after because threat level increased and old method of rescue became unreliable.

And that's it for the spoilers. Art was similarly average. Designs are very bland and even though I didn't have this problem it's not hard for faces to start blending together. Doesn't help that art itself is very inconsistent, at times it looks really good but other times it looks like one of the very early digital shows where animators didn't quite know how to handle the new technology. Shots that rely on good grasp of proportions and perspective tend to be particularly bad. Animation is not impressive either but what it lacks in sakuga the show compensates with good presentation and directing thank to which I stayed engrossed in the show as 20 something minute episodes flew by.

Overall despite all the flaws I think it's a very interesting show and if you're even remotely interested in the premise you should see it.