A meditative immersion in dull routine and mannerisms, The Sky Crawlers is (while not immediately apparent) existential and optimistic. The world is at war, and modified, eternal youths called Kildren are used as pilots. Ace pilot Kannami (Ryo Kase) is among these and stationed at a new airbase where he is struck by a sense of familiarity with the place. He is also perplexed as to why he was not given opportunity to meet the previous owner of his assigned plane as that is proper procedure of things. He assumes they must have died and takes his query up to his now boss Kusanagi (Rinko Kikuchi), who avoids the subject and neither confirms nor denies the living status of the previous pilot. From there we meet a handful of characters with their own identifiable idiosyncrasies. One neatly folds their newspaper a particular way, another places their hands on their hips, Kannami himself always snaps his matches after lighting a cigarette. These occurrences repeat, as does life on the airbase. Always flying up, dog-fighting, circling back home. Kannami has lived this way so long he can’t remember a time when he hasn’t. Yesterday fades into today into tomorrow. Kusanagi wants to be free of this patterned life. She can say with confidence what someone will do and who will die and who she expects to replace them. Iterations of previous pilots come and go, come and go, she’s seen it all on loop. Kannami is not exempt as a reincarnation of sorts, living the same life as the Kildren before him. His replacement will undoubtedly snap matches. It’s a troubling revelation for him and Kusanagi believes the only escape is death. But Kannami thinks otherwise,

You can change the side of the road that you walk down every day. Even if the road is the same, you can still see new things. Isn’t that enough to live for?

Kildren remain young, child-like even, and it is that disposition which enables Kannami to have fresh eyes for the familiar world around him. Though he may age he physically remains unchanged, Kildren may be old, but they are perpetually youthful. Escape is not the goal of life, it is to see it anew every morning as the rising sun gives birth to it. Any day he could die in the sky, so shouldn’t he enjoy the time he has? Many pilots have been down this same road he has, but his way of seeing it is new. It is his. After escaping death for a day and being gifted the privilege of another day of life, wouldn’t you also see the world in a new light? The Sky Crawlers is life-affirming in its perspective of viewing repetitious mundanity as life-giving, and prompts us to live as though we have escaped death, rather than race toward it.

Part of my ranking of Mamoru Oshii.