Girly Air Force (Series rating: 9/10)

Humanity is attacked by a mysterious force called the Xi. They attack with high-speed aerial force that is completely beyond humanities best fighters. Not only can they perform impossible quick turns they also jam any electronic device in their vicinity making tracking them impossible. While regular missiles do destroy them, it’s next to impossible because they cannot be locked on to. This all changes with the creation of Animas. An Anima is the humanoid “core” of an enhanced plane. This core gives the place abilities that can surpass the Xi. There are numerous limitations though: the correct process for creating an Anima is not really knows and only one Anima can exist for a type of plane.

During an evacuation from China, who fell to Xi forces, Narutani Kei si separated from his parents and attacked by the Xi. He is saved by a strange machine that destroys the Xi, but then crashes itself in the ocean. Desperate to save the pilot that had saved him, Kei rushes to the plane only to find a beautiful girl inside that kisses him before passing out. Later, while trying to find out who that girl and the plane is, Kei is “recurited” in the army and made the partner of Gripen, the first Anima of Japan.

OK, here’s a premise that on paper made this anime out to be crap. But I checked it out anyway because Gripen was cute. I am very glad I did. This was the one show of the season that I watched the second it downloaded because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. They managed to take a used idea (girls as avatars on ships/planes/etc) and make it entertaining by modifying the formula just a bit. Gripen is not an ace pilot/avatar with OP abilities. She’s actually… pretty stupid. And before Kei came along she was pretty useless as well. And she’s slow. But she’s also really sweet. Her interactions with Kei were diabetes inducing. Eagle and Phantom are pretty nice too, though Eagle’s immature behavior and Phantom’s smugness do get irritating at times. Rhyno was also really interesting, but her backstory was… dark.
This anime is basically a spiritual successor of Air Combat, the video games. And the air battles are pretty damn cool. But what really impressed me was the final arc. The series doesn’t end with an epic battle, though there is a battle. Instead we get a very Silent Hill-like final episodes that were genuinely creepy that end with a look inside the head of the Xi, and it’s not pretty. Subs by Horrible-Subs.
https://anidb.net/anime/14113