Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu

Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (イリヤの空、UFOの夏)is a 6 episode sci-fi romance OAV series based on the light novel of the same name by Akiyama Mizuhito.  The series was released between 2001 and 2003.

 

 

    On the last night of summer vacation Asaba sneaks into the school to take a dip in the pool before going home. There at the edge of the pool is a mysterious girl, Iriya, timidly staring into the water. Asaba ends up frightening her and she falls in. Seeing that she can't swim he jump into the save her. After saving her he notices smooth metallic spheres embedded in her wrists. She shows them to him asking if he wants to lick them… saying they taste like electricity. Then the military arrive at the school and a mysterious man is on the roof. He tells Iriya to come with him, Asaba try's to stop her but the man tells him that he is her brother. The man, named Enomoto, takes Iriya away with the military and returns to the air force base on the outskirts of town. The next day in school Iriya shows up as a transfer student, wearing wristbands to hide her implants.

    Asaba is a member of the schools press club along with the chairman Kunihiro Suizenji and his classmate Akiho Sudou. Akiho only joined the club due to her one-sided love of Asaba. The chairman, Suizenji, is more a conspiracy freak than a news paper reporter, he and Asaba spent the entire summer trying to get into the 'secret' part of the towns air force base. The base is surrounded with rumors of UFOs and experimental government aircraft. Discovering that Iriya lives on base the chairman tries as hard as he can to get her to join the press club in order to glean insider info.

There are just a couple of problems with Iriya. She is prone to debilitating nose bleeds (and not the usual comedic ones), she is often absent from school, or leaves early (always after being called to the office for a phone call). Iriya is also of weak constitution…she is frail and soft spoken. In the first episode during a planned air raid drill, Iriya is making a phone call at the time and Asaba follows her. When the siren goes off Iriya reacts adversely, running into the hallway to see all the students 'ducking and covering' she tells Asaba that they are all dead. She drags him out side and into the large bomb shelter nearby. There she inputs command codes, locking the door and unleashing a weapon supply case. She hands Asaba a P90 and tells him to use it because they might get inside of the bunker. She tells him that there has been a war going on since 1947, between earth and aliens and that she is a pilot that fights against them at which point she has a seizure and passes out. Asaba picks up the emergency phone on the wall, Enomoto answers, Asaba tells him what is happening and how to save her. He has the epinephrine syringe ready to go and her shirt open when the blast doors open up and the military, headed by the new school nurse, arrive  to retrieve them. Asaba learns the truth that she is a pilot for the military using an experimental plane. Flying the plane is killing her and he wants to do what ever he can to save her. Now it is a flight from the military as war has finally come again to Japan, and Iriya's body and mind is being ravaged by her work in the air force.

 

    This series is good, the only really complaint I have with it is it's length. I feel is should have been a little longer. There were times when it felt rushed and the plot was becoming a little confusing. There were things that should have been understood but were never gone over. One example is during the 3rd episode. At one point pagers start going off on most of the festivals patrons, soldiers and what not, telling them something. I still am not sure why that happened or what it was supposed to mean, I feel it should have been explained. Another thing that I felt was lacking due to the length was empathy towards the characters. The ending would have been more emotional if you were able to spend more time becoming attached to the main players, 6 episodes just didn't provide that time. Hell by the end of it I was just starting to like Asaba, although I was rooting for him to hook up with Iriya through out it all.

    Being an OAV the artwork is above average quality, for the time it was produced. The character design is nothing new; some of the characters reminded me of designs from Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The story was quite interesting, ff only they would have developed it more.  There were characters that were barely mentioned that could have played larger roles, like some of the military personnel and the chairman of the press club, but they may have had more time in the source material. No word, that I know of yet, on this series being licensed for western audiences, I thought it might have been able to get picked up when Innocent Venus came out, ride in that wave of slick, mature moody sci-fi dramas, but it never panned out. I don’t think Innocent Venus really took much hold as it was in the marketplace. I really enjoyed the series, I just wish there would have been a couple more episodes to draw the story out a little better.

UPDATE: As of October 2013 no one has licensed or released this series outside of Japan. 

 

UPDATE: As of September 2023 this series has yet to be licensed outside of Japan, given its age it will probably never see further releases.