In the world of The Sky Crawlers, there is a painful romance between two immortal beings. Used as tools and weapons, they are experiments used by their government to fight an endless war. Even if they die they’ll be cloned back to life and lose that life’s memory. At the center is the longest survivor who feels she has lived for too long.

They don’t know how many times they’ve died and been brought back, though once they realize what’s happening some lose meaning in their lives. How many have they killed? How many times have they died? Their miserable state is subconsciously reflected on their drones like, apathetic personalities. Some reach such a dreadful mental state, they start asking to be killed by the other Kildred. Some look for a better way.

And the cycle of reincarnation continues.

Tokino is the only one that makes the best of it and who tries to enjoy life. The tragic reality is that he is, who knows what number clone of himself and the reality just hasn’t sinked in yet. All his friends are going to die in the war eventually, and so is this version of him. I’m sure he knew by the end if not the beginning.

Midori is the one who realized what is happening and who finds horror in it all. Her struggle for the truth made her feel worthless, as she tries to help make sense of it all with the rest. Her eternal fate as a tool of war to live and die endlessly broke her down as she tried to share this with the others and struggle to cope.

And the cycle of reincarnation continues.

(This will be a political analysis from here.)

The Sky Crawlers is a film that at most important, tells you what you need to know with brutal honesty, that war and humans are inseparable. The rest is up to interpretation as a lot of what is happening is mysterious, and not directly answered to the viewers. What is the importance, necessity, and horror of war? To what, to those that just see it as their job to become hired killers. Ironically, politicians use war to give the illusion of peace. The people start to believe that if other countries are in a disastrously violent state, and if they can be fooled enough to believe that they have it better where they are. As a result, they will be made to believe there is peace where they are. Their governments believe more so, however, that as long as there is war, there can be profit, not peace. War is a profitable business where the dollar has more value to them than a person. Because in their eyes, war must always happen, they must prop up an undefeatable enemy. To do this, they must train people on the other side, and use the media to maybe parade them at first, but then to vilify them and turn them into powerful enemies, which justifies the invasion.

It is true that war has brought about heroes and change for mankind. Some say it gives meaning and life to some, though really, it’s misery and destruction for most. Take a look at my rotten country called America where politicians like to point fingers at other countries to make people think it’s peaceful and great here when there’s yet another mass shooting that results from the degenerate, and trigger-happy culture that has tainted the minds of the young. It’s because of these morality twisting institutions of media, education, and others. Everything is backwards; most of what we’ve come to believe is a lie.

As The Sky Crawlers play out it’s beautiul and intense aerial combats and Kusanagi’s analysis of warfare, The viewers can see that war is the most devastating form of violence. When this world ends it won’t be ended by muggers in the street. It will be ended by highly educated people using weapons developed by highly educated people, law-abiding people, people with little fair-haired kids, house on the corner, professors in colleges. Because these are the people who do what? Make the bombs, make the weapons, make the missiles, and all of these kinds of things. And yet we will not study these people as perhaps possessing some genes for violence. Is there a gene for psyche violence? The kind of violence you do to a people’s mind when you destroy their culture, their history, destroy their self-esteem, and the other kinds of things?

I think what is even more interesting is the fact that the most devastating violence is perpetrated by your average law-abiding citizen. By our good Christian citizens. What does the army want to recruit? Nice American people. Christian boys. Law-abiding boys. High school graduates. People with clean records. Because they are the most conducive to making into killers. They make the best killers. Why? They’ve been trained to submit to authority only without thinking. They’ve shown by their clean records that they’re not rebels, so if the officer says “Take that hill,” off they will go, it doesn’t matter what the point is. They’re used to bowing to authority and following authority unthinkingly. They have been trained into conformity. They’ve been trained to respond to patriotic music, so you play the music and beat the drums and off they march to war; it doesn’t matter what it is for.

They have been trained to believe that as Americans or whatever nationality, they are morally superior to their enemies, and that their enemies are less human than they. And therefore you can use their very religion as the key to getting them to kill by designating the other people as pagans; nonbelievers. It is under the banner of religion and patriotism that most of the killing and death in the world has occurred.

The Sky Crawlers explores war, but Mamuro Oshii also offers hope. Don’t escape or run away from a miserable existence, live and find a way to change things. See reality for what it is, not what you want it to be. Dare to struggle and dare to win. If you don’t dare struggle, you don’t deserve to win. Theory without practice is irrelevant. The situation can improve you are willing to fight for it. Though you go down the same road in life, look carefully and you’ll see things you never saw before. The scenery doesn’t stay the same.