Uchida Kazuhiro, a recent graduate from the pilot academy of the Defence Forces is sent to the Komatsu base in Ishikawa Prefecture to become a helicopter pilot. He hails a taxi from the train station to go to his rented apartment where the driver remarks that he must be from the Defence Forces by looking at his good posture. With response to this, Uchida manages a weak smile as he feels uncomfortable about being seen through by others.Upon reaching his destination, Uchida looks around and notes that there are no restaurants and outlets in the vicinity. He proceeds to call on his landlady who guesses correctly that he's from the Aichi area (actually he's from Okayama) based on the gift he had chosen. After a long explanation on the things to take note, Uchida finally settles down to set up his phone and calls his girlfriend, Hasegawa Megumi who is working in Tokyo. However, as she is busy with work, Uchida can only leave a voice message to inform Megumi that he has reached Komatsu safely.
After setting up his bicycle, Uchida goes to the balcony to look at the surroundings. He then sees a little girl looking at him curiously from the neigbouring unit's balcony so he introduces himself. However, the girl gets panicky and runs into her apartment while screaming for her mother which leaves him rather helpless. Uchida rides his bicycle to the town centre to get the daily necessities. However, he fails to find a proper eating outlet and has to resort to buying sandwiches from the convenience store. After the shopping, Uchida asks for directions to the beach and cycles there despite it being quite far from the town centre. During the journey, Uchida imagines that he's flying a plane and this lifts his spirits a little bit. Actually, Uchida had intended to become a fighter jet plane pilot but was posted to be a helicopter pilot. As such, he was rather reluctant to accept this outcome and felt worse when his classmate Kosaka made it to where he couldn't get to.
The rain soon forces Uchida to return home from the beach. He is disappointed to hear Megumi's voice message as he was not around when she called. She reminded Uchida to bring his handphone so that she can send emails to him instead of relying on phone calls to his home.
When the phone rings, Uchida assumes that it is Megumi on the line but gets disappointed upon hearing his mother's voice. She reminds Uchida to return home when he has the time which he replies by telling her to take care while he's away. She also tells him that she bought some gifts for his colleagues since she knew he would be sloppy about this issue and not put in effort to buy something good. Uchida feels helpless as this is the third time within a day where his actions and thoughts have been seen through.Uchida soon realises that the blanket and mattress are missing from the luggage sent by courier and proceeds to call on his landlady for help. However, she has gone to a funeral and would not be back for the night. As such, Uchida can only use his thick curtains and sleep on the floor to battle the bitter cold.
The next day, Uchida goes to report at the air base which marks the beginning of his career as a pilot. He meets the leader of the rescue team, Murakami who is a lieutenant colonel and assigns the junior warrant officer Motomura to bring Uchida around. As the training for the day is just over, Motomura will introduce Uchida to the other pilots when they return to the office.Meanwhile, the servicing team members are discussing the newcomer pilot i.e. Uchida while munching on the snacks he had brought. Nihonmatsu Daigo grumbles about Uchida's lack of originality in choosing gifts while his colleagues Hirata Kazuhiko and Nishida Kazumi remark that it's more important for Uchida to know how to take care of the helicopters as compared to his ability in buying presents.
Uchida meets the third colonel, Hongo Shujiro who doesn't mince his words and points out bluntly that Uchida must be feeling sore about being sent to the rescue team instead of his ideal of being a fighter jet plane pilot. Uchida tries to deny this but Hongo doesn't believe his words and warns him not to take the rescue team as a stepping board to achieve his goal. In addition, Hongo calls Uchida a guy who has no perseverance which makes the latter extremely unhappy.
Uchida bumps into Kosaka at the cafeteria and is surprised to know that he's also in Komatsu. Upon hearing Kosaka talk about his experience as a fighter plane pilot, this makes Uchida more upset. Kosaka wants to warn Uchida about Hongo but the latter already had a bad first meeting with Hongo whose nickname is The Devil. After lunch, Uchida looks at the fighter planes which he would not be able to fly given his current situation.When Uchida returns home, he hears a message from Megumi that she will call him at 9pm. Suddenly, there is an earthquake of a relatively strong magnitude but Uchida doesn't seem too bothered about it since the tremors stopped after a while. The phone rings and Uchida rushes to pick it up, only to find that Murakami is on the line. Due to the earthquake, the rescue team members have to return to the airbase and be on standby. Although Uchida is still on training, he can come along to observe which he agrees to. Unknown to Uchida, Megumi calls up and remarks that they seem to be having a hard time trying to talk to each other. She reminds Uchida to bring his handphone so that it's easier to get hold of each other...
First of all, the familiar seiyuus to me in the lineup would be Noto Mamiko (Nina in Monster, Enma Ai in Jigoku Shoujo) and Onosaka Masaya (Momoshiro in Tenipuri). Well, I could identify Onosaka-san's voice immediately when Nihonmatsu grumbled about the snacks and it looks like he's probably going to be a pretty talkative character in this anime. As for Noto, she plays Megumi here but her character has not appeared yet. I just found her voice vaguely familiar and confirmed it in the ending credits. It was a refreshing change to hear her speak Okayama-ben.
The first episode sets the groundwork so there are no action scenes so as to speak. I believe when Uchida gets involved in the rescue operations, that would be very interesting to watch.Frankly speaking, I do pity Uchida in a sense since he got sent to an unit he wasn't interested in. To make things worse, his ex-classmate Kosaka's presence only serves to remind him of this fact. It must be tough seeing someone doing well in something which you wanted to do but wasn't given the opportunity to.
However, as what Hongo says, if Uchida keeps brooding over this issue, there is no way he can concentrate on rescue work. Maybe that's why Hongo decided to use the harsh approach on Uchida so that the latter can learn that rescue work is not as insignificant and simple as it seems. Well, flying a fighter plane may be a glorious profession to Uchida but there's value in everything so it may take time for him to realise the worth of the rescue team or should I say the helicopter used for such operations.
On a lighter note, Uchida seems to be a rather simple-minded guy where everyone can see through him easily. It was quite funny to see him getting exasperated at others knowing his thoughts which reinforces the impression that he's not someone who hides behind a facade.
It seems that the posting to Komatsu would be a big test to Uchida and Megumi's relationship. Despite being in the same country, the distance and the irregular working hours of Uchida will have an effect over time. It remains to be seen how they can cope with these challenges. By the way, Megumi keeps telling Uchida to bring his handphone but my guess as to why he didn't do so would be the ban on handphones within a millitary base. Maybe that's why Uchida didn't want to explain this to Megumi since this matter is not a issue of choice to him but rather something which he has no control over.
Overall, I like the quality of this anime and it looks like one which is going to have a strong storyline. The design of the characters may not be too refined though since I had a bit of a problem trying to distinguish some of them based on a fleeting glance. Maybe as the anime progresses, the distinct characteristics of these people will show up. Other than that, I don't have any major grouses over this new title.
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