In another dimension or astral plane or something exists a world named Ijitsu that looks a lot like Australia mostly howling wilderness. It used to have an ocean but a wormhole of some sort opened up destroyed the oceans devastated the countryside and dumped a lot of military technology including every type of Japanese WWII fighter plus curry rice and pancakes onto them. This all happened courtesy of the Yufang who appear to be alternate timeline Japanese. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki13.png A town like Alice Now the people of Ijitsu live a hardscrabble existence in a scattering of tiny outback towns tied together with zeppelin flights and bepestered by air pirates. The six girls who are part of the Kotobuki Squadron fly escort off of one of the zeppelins fighting off the air pirates and making sure their cargo or passengers make it through safely. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki01.png Carrier based aircraft Unfortunately theres a shadowy organization the Brotherhood of Freedom Union led by Isao the mayor of the biggest city on Ijitsu a guy who can smile and joke while ordering the destruction of entire towns and who wants to exploit any new holes that appear and use that technology to take over the world. The Union employs dozens of fighter units and is systematically intimidating all the small towns to join up. The Kotobuki Girls are not really interested in this. As with Firefly they just want to find a job find a crew keep flying. Of course they get dragged in end up as part of the big final battle and are instrumental in destroying a newly opened hole and the death of the mayor. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki02.png Girls at war Got that? Good. Now ignore it. The heart of the anime is the flying and everything else is just an excuse. Every episode has a multiplane dogfight and every dogfight is of heartstopping intensity. Along the way we get to see all of these WWII fighters in action plus some machines that never made it into the sky on our timeline the Kyushu J7W1 Shiden of which only two were ever built and the Nakajima G10N Fugaku heavy bomber only ever seen on the cover of model airplane boxes. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kouyanokotobukihikoutai10large24.jpg The bomber that never was I suspect that Director Mizushima is doing what Miyazaki was unable to do in The Wind is Rising celebrate the warplanes of WWII without having to insert an extended apology for Japans role in the war. Even though he ended the film before the start of the war Miyazaki was still criticised for not saying enough about it. But if you have Japanese fighters shooting down Japanese fighters on an alternate world on an alternate timeline theres no way you can be guilty of glorifying the Pacific War right? 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kouyanokotobukihikoutai05large15.jpg George and Betty Meanwhile we have the Kotobuki Girls. Each of the six has her own personality and her own reason for flying. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki14.png Come as you are They are portrayed in 3DCG and are not quite ready for prime time their faces are stiff and their movements seem more like those of marionettes. Be that as it may they are all individuals and you find yourself rooting for them in all of their fights. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki08.png Fights on And the heart of the series is the dogfights. You see the action from all sides and from inside the cockpit. You hear the clang of bullets hitting metal and you hear the creak of that metal stressed to its limit. At the end of every episode I had a bad case of the leans from following the planes as they pulled gs. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki05.png Another kill for Kotobuki The ending is a magnificent swirling fight in and over the capital city and under the newest hole. Parts of it make you think of the trench run in the first Star Wars. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki11.png Turn right at the next intersection In the end Kotobuki sacrifices their zeppelin to close the hole 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki10.png Theyll never catch this dirigible the good guys win and fly off into the sunset. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki12.png Alls right with the world From a flying standpoint anime artists license excepted I have two complaints about the air battles. First its too hard to tell whats going on. All of the fights are big multiplane furballs presented as a series of vignettes featuring oneonone engagements sometimes with a saving intervention but theres nothing that gives a good view of the overall structure of the battle. In Garupan you always had the feeling that you knew where everyone was and that you knew how the fight was rolling out. Not so with Kotobuki. Now air battles are notoriously hard to follow. You dive in you engage an enemy and suddenly you are alone in the sky or an enemy jumps you you dive away from them and when you recover the fights move on. But usually theres some preliminary structure You draw off the fighters you go after the bombers even if it breaks down on contact. Which brings me to my second complaint about the flying. Theres no sign of any real teamwork. In WWII the US developed a number of leader/wingman concepts which gave us a significant advantage over the Japanese even though our fighters were outmatched by the Zero one on one. In Kotobuki everyone piles in on their own and if they see a chance to help a teammate they will. Thats good team spirit. Its not good team work. As a result The Kotobuki Girls are protected mostly by plot armor. 220https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/kotobuki15.png Preflight check From a drama standpoint if I have one complaint its that the action is all bloodless at least on the Kotobuki side. Josh Whedon once said that if you have a fight and nobody important dies people just say Oh look. Theyre shooting. Thats the way Kotobuki is. Despite that Id still call it magnificent. Kotobuki A Yufang word meaning good fortune congratulations or long life but we dont find out about that until the end.