The Pilot's Love Song First Impressions--Anime Flying School

I'm a little concerned that the kids flying planes in a show about planes are surprised that they can fly. Didn't someone teach them how to do this?

I completely missed covering this one in my season preview because I saw the words "Toaru" and "franchise" and assumed that this was an Index title. That's why you don't skim preview charts, folks!

 
Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of this show from just the first episode. A steampunk romance story sounded really awesome, but the episode itself was underwhelming. The setup covered some interesting stuff, but not a lot actually happened to get me invested aside from the cool setting. This episode proves that a bland presentation can take a lot of fun out of even the most interesting premise. I mean, we've got Final Fantasy airships, steampunk airplanes, and a giant floating island that houses people who are looking for something called The End of the Sky, how could this not be cool?

...Except that our main character will apparently be going to Anime School while living on the giant floating island, alongside lovable stereotypes such as Energetic Sister Who is Not Really His Sister and Guy Who Leans Against Trees And Looks Angry. I am normally perfectly fine with school setups, but after the opening threw the doors wide open to a fascinating original world it was more than a little disappointing for it to go straight back to anime cliche land.

You don't get to act like the cool stoic character after you land your plane like a dumbass, that's not how this works

It also doesn't help that the characters are painted with the broadest of brushes, like I stated above. The show doesn't bother to distinguish them outside of their archetypes, and judging by the number of characters that didn't show up in this episode but are in the OP, I'm wondering if they ever will. Even the main character gets the broad treatment; he's clearly mad at the girl in white, but the show doesn't tell us why. I'll eat my hat if it isn't part of a tragic backstory reveal.

Sometimes the animation and backgrounds look incredible

And other times it looks like...well...

The animation doesn't really help the show either. The CG in this show does deserve praise though, since it's some of the best I've seen in a TV anime. However, it's clear that it ate the rest of the budget. The characters suffer from sameface syndrome, and a lot of time is spent off-model. And not for just a couple of seconds or only at a distance, which happens with most productions; there's weird hair, off-center facial features, and odd limbs all over the place in this production, even in the OP and ED, which is typically has the best animation. As a result, the voice acting and music seems to be far more into the show than the animation is. There's a scene where the voice actress for a female character puts a ton of excitement into a line, but the character's facial expression is deadpan. There's another shot where the camera pans across the crowd for a few seconds, yet they look horrible.


Because of all of this, I'd pretty much checked out mentally by the time the big romantic moment showed up. I have no opinion on them either at the moment, even though marketing and the ED have made it clear where their relationship will go. Even with all the problems in the first episode, The Pilot's Love Song still shows a lot of potential as far as the world and mythology go. The earlier parts of the episode reminded me a lot of Last Exile, which is a good thing in my book as far as anime steampunk goes. I feel that it'll succeed or fail based on how much it develops the original parts of its world and premise versus how much it relies on stock tropes. And after seeing those airships, I really hope that it does the former.

Images from Crunchyroll.com. This post is also available at OASG.