I had already watched some Airbats before.  I had acquired the second and third tapes but didn’t stumble on the first until I started scavenging the Rasputin’s in Sacramento.  I already knew it involved lady pilots and a love triangle with a generic pathetic harem lead.  But the tape I watched consisted of a hot springs episode and a flashback episode, and I refused to watch the other tape (acquired later) because I wanted to watch it from the beginning.  Lucky for me, I can finally start it up again.

The first episode starts off with our alleged hero, Takuya Isurugi, being assigned to the Airbats.  I… don’t really know in what capacity, exactly.  If it sounds like the beginning of Sakura Wars, that’s quite possibly on purpose.  This is pretty much Sakura Wars with airplanes instead of mysticism and mecha… and no enemies… and a more useless main character.  Wait, it predates Sakura Wars?  What the hay… Damn, what am I going to do with all these Sakura Wars riffs?

Predictably, the Airbats dorm is a dump.  Now stop me if you’ve heard this one, but thanks to an unexpected bat attack, Isurugi stumbles, grabs some hanging panties, and runs into a room where a girl is in the middle of changing.

He promptly flees into another room where another girl is bathing.

Sgt. Haneda you’ve already been introduced to, and she’s incredibly boring.  Literally every defining trait she has is reactionary to Mitaka.  She’s so boring that one might just be fooled into thinking she’s the main heroine.  The dark-skinned one is Sgt. Mitaka, the third side of the triangle and clearly the only interesting character in the entire cast.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by Captain Konishi, a loud-mouthed hulk that always wears sunglasses even indoors and at night.  Oh, and Sakura, the mild-mannered woman that always wins at gambling (and gambles often).

It turns out that the Airbats are an all-woman acrobatic flight team… so, kinda like the Blue Angels plus Charlie’s Angels times the Dirty Pair. I’m still not sure what Isurugi’s role is.  It thankfully isn’t as pilot.  Maintenance, maybe?  Seriously, it’s paper-thin, this plot.  I guess we just aren’t supposed to sweat the details in our mad dash to establish the cast and setting.

So, we learn that Isurugi is a bit of an otaku…

Okay, a lot of an otaku.  His only redeeming characteristic is that he’s nice to the girls.  Oh, and he’s the only guy in the squad their age, so naturally he’s eventually forgiven and the two main girls (who have an established rivalry with each other) go after him… just because.

The 801 isn’t a combat squad; they’ve been treated like a dumping ground and basically funded just to look pretty.  And Col. Yumioka wants to get them shut down because he’s an old douchebag like that.  To prevent getting shut down and keep getting government funding, the 801 has to pull off a flight exercise and show off their skills.

Haneda and Mitaka nearly screw it up because of their mid-flight bickering resulting in a botched maneuver scraping Mitaka’s wing, rendering her unable to land.  Isurugi comes up with an idea and radios Haneda, guiding her to save Mitaka.

I was going to make a joke about Mitaka’s G-Diffuser, but the perfect screencap didn’t present itself.

So, since Mitaka is grateful and Isurugi compliments Mitaka on her skills, that’s enough to set Mitaka on the course toward falling in love with him because… just because.  And the episode ends right around here, having established a flimsy love triangle and the overall setting and conflict of the series.

In the second episode, Isurugi makes a big deal about it being his birthday tomorrow.  Although he seems to annoy Mitaka with his behavior, she decides later to indulge him and take him out on a date.  Those plans are dashed when the timing on her decision is conveniently off and she sees Haneda inviting him to a date and he accepts.

In a strange B-story, Yoko wants to go out and have fun, so Sakura decides to invite her to the horse tracks.  Konishi says he’s busy and doesn’t want to join in, but he secretly goes anyway and brags about his great horse picks.  This can only end well for him.

Mitaka decides to go all emo about Isurugi and Haneda going on that date.  After all, the weather was perfect, what with it starting to rain at just the right time so you can’t tell if those waterdrops on the ground are her tears or not.  Turns out that wasn’t a particularly smart move, however, as she gets a fever out of it.

About to leave on his date, Isurugi passes by Mitaka’s room and hears her coughing, so he decides to stay at Mitaka’s side and tend to her.

Isurugi ends up ditching his date to help Mitaka, who takes advantage of the situation to feverishly confess to him.  She then laughs at him for falling for her ploy, pretending to be sick just to keep him away from Haneda.

The next day, Haneda chews Mitaka out for her cruel joke, but then Isurugi collapses from a fever, predictably showing that Mitaka really was sick.

Oh, by the way, the B story ends with Konishi and Yoko losing all their money and Sakura counting her winnings.

Third episode, the 801 has to prove their worth with another flight exercise.  The two douchebag officers come up with a plan to get rid of the 801 for good: they recommend ace pilot Mitaka to be transferred to a combat squad.  Although she accepts, her lingering attachment to the 801 keeps her from committing completely.

Meanwhile, the absence of Mitaka means disaster for the 801’s flight practice: they have to replace her with Yoko.  Which makes me wonder why the hell Yoko is even in the squad.

To be honest, I didn’t take too many screenshots of this episode, but it was overall pretty well handled and I don’t have a lot of jokes to make at its expense.  But it was a very Mitaka-centric episode, and it made me reconsider that Haneda isn’t the locked-in heroine I thought she would be.  Sure, there are four more episodes after this, but in the first three she’s had absolutely no time put into developing her, and I knew for a fact two more weren’t going to focus on her either.  Unlike what I went through Sacchin, however, I honestly didn’t give a damn.  Mitaka all the way.

Mitaka eventually decides to return to the 801, saving the squad and, thanks to befriending a general, gets the 801 turned into an official battle squad.

And not just that, but Isurugi is pressured into finally making a decision and resolving the love triangle.  After realizing that he needs to man up and make a choice, he thinks of the right words and proclaims over radio:

“One of you will be my girlfriend, and the other will be my mistress!”

And so, with the 801 getting the respect it worked so hard to achieve and the love triangle somewhat resolved, is this the end of the 801’s adventures?

Nope.  There was a “To Be Continued?” screen I considered capping, but that would’ve been overkill.  Just know that it was actually there.

Comedy: 4
It was genuinely hilarious in short bursts, but at the same time it was pretty much common fare for the era.  Of course, realizing that it predates Sakura Wars blew my mind completely.  At least I know it’s 2 years older than Tenchi Muyo! or that would’ve killed me completely.

Pleasure Rating: Damn Good Watch
It may not be anything special, but the cast is pretty solid, if underused in spots.  It was certainly pretty to look at, and even if it almost does nothing to really stand out, it was entertaining enough.

Rewatchability: 3
Like I said, it’s nothing special, but it’s fun enough and there’s the promise of Mitaka fanservice.

Music: Catchy Theme Song
Some of the background music is pretty decent for the scenes they’re in as well, but just like most anime of the era, the quality is pretty much localized around the opening and ending songs.

Marketability: 3
The cast is plenty quirky enough to stand on their own and seems kind of like a Patlabor lite.  But aside from fun character designs, there’s not much that stands out, especially since all the aircraft used in the series are real aircraft with no additional distinguishing features.  It’s an adaptation of a manga that I can’t find any additional info on, so I’m going to assume it’s lucky that it got successful enough to have an OVA twice the size of Ruin Explorers produced.

It’s easy for me to say 801 T.T.S. Airbats is standard OVA fare, but to be honest, I can’t tell if it’s better or worse than what I give it credit for.  It’s certainly nothing special in the grand scheme, but if I’ve learned nothing else from my years of hunting down and watching obscure anime, it’s that safe and average with a healthy dose of fanservice is not a bad thing at all.  In fact, so many titles fail to get that much right.  I can’t say it doesn’t live up to its potential either because it got a respectable enough run, and considering how cliche it is (even if it wasn’t as cliche as it is now), I don’t think it had all that much potential to begin with other than being a fun distraction.

If nothing else, I much prefer Airbats’ early 90’s charm to much of the stuff coming out recently.  Not that there aren’t a lot of gems to be found coming out now, because there are.  In any era there’s going to be a lot of follow-the-leader-ing going on, and it should be plainly obvious that Airbats wasn’t a leader.  But it was a product of a pretty charming era, and it could have been a lot worse.  If nothing else, it was comfortable in what it was, and it didn’t try to shake things up with a forced gimmick or try to one-up anything.  And so, I have no choice but to reward that sort of integrity by giving it the slightly-above-average rating it deserves.

Lastly, starting now I’m on my Spring Break and will be away from my good computer, so no Review Center next week.  Since I’ll be home, I can at least pick up my other two Airbats tapes and maybe share some sweet fanservice caps when I get back.  So, I guess I’ll leave on this random note: the Airbats tape had a preview for Ruin Explorers on it.  Most of the clips involved Lyle, and could give the false impression that he was the main character instead of Ihrie and Fam.  The opening to Ruin Explorers had Lyle in it for 3 seconds.  I’m glad ADV no longer has the rights to Ruin Explorers.  But while I’m on the topic, good news, everyone!  Ruin Explorers is getting a DVD re-release in July!  While I wish it were a BD release, I ain’t complaining.  Because this means no hunting for ADV’s DVD release of the remaster, and it also means putting money into the pockets of a company willing to license Ruin Explorers!  WHOOOO!  And then I find out they also licensed the Vampire Princess Miyu TV series?  Maiden Japan, you’re my new favorite company.  That makes good news for two series I’ve name-dropped in the last two reviews I’ve done.  Seeing as how I name-dropped Nazca in my Legend of Himiko review… I’m gonna start being on the lookout for Nazca news.