Review of Girly Air Force

I came to watch "Girly Air Force" because of... "Shirobako". During the second half of that show, the cast made an anime of girls flying fighter planes called "Third Aerial Girls Squad". Both the theoretical show made by Musashino Animation (the fictional anime studio where "Shirobako" takes place) and this one have the same premise. However coming into this show I found out instead that GAF tries to create a unique recipe from ordinary ingredients -- a determined but slightly dull MC, cute girls with pastel hairs, military hardware, an imouto figure to boot (voiced by my favorite Lynn-sama), and an unknown alien-like enemy -- tosomehow lackluster results. As with the characters, they're somehow run off the mill using typical character traits: you've got MC Kei, genki girl Eagle, two-faced Phantom, and imouto figure Gripen-chan. Don't forget the Rhino and Viper Zero too. As with the Anima, their character styles do somehow remind me of GochiUsa though...

Story-wise, it starts slow (ironic when the first scene is actually of an attack) and pacing is jumpy, but after the introductions everything settles and the pacing becomes normal. As with the story theme, it's nothing really much out of the ordinary: boy meets girl in the heat of battle, girl becomes attached to boy and becomes her inspiration, girl is a special unit alongside other individuals, boy is asked to support girl in every way possible, they are tasked to defend humanity... Welp. That theme and story and characters profile remind me so much of Darling in the FranXX, but with planes instead of FranXX units and (slightly) less innuendo.

Music-wise, it's catchy and full of energy, but the soundtrack is not that memorable. They do suit the battle scenes though, and I think the ED is a better earworm better than the OP, probably because of the cutesy vocals and 2000s techno.

In the end "Girly Air Force" is a cute girls + slice of life show with a military twist in it. Sadly it's a show that has an appeal that comes and flies away just as fast as the Daughters and Anima do, and one can't seriously invest too much in this show except if cute girls doing military things is your cup of tea, or in the case of Gripen, your yoghurt bottle.

For now "Girly Air Force" is probably the closest I could get from a complete one-cour broadcast of "Third Aerial Girls Squad", and that isn't bad either.