I'm surprised by Mr Bates's dismissive appraisal of this show. While I certainly enjoyed the aerial combat in Yukikaze (easily a match for Macross Plus, the previous high tide mark), the areas he considered the shows weaknesses, I consider among its strengths.

This show does not spoon-feed you. We are explicitly told little about characters, their histories and the world the story takes place in. However, what the slow pacing of these episodes does is allow the viewer to infer much. The likes of Texhnolyze try (and fail) to create meaning with an obsfucating, frustratingly drawn out pace. However, in Yukikaze there is depth to the characters and their emotions, but it is sealed away from plain sight. Instead we much infer what we can from details, reactions and adjacent scenes.

This may seem an odd and pretentious way for the script to go about its business (and in a way, it is), but is has a purpose. Central to everything in Yukikaze is a sense of dislocation. Some scenes linger without apparent need. Others cut off too soon, making you wonder if you understood what the real point was. The aliens that the human characters are fighting are not only unknown, but perhaps unknowable. And the humans have been forced to live and fight on the home territory of these aliens for years. They no longer seem to know how to relate to each other. The main character Rei seems to have more affinity for his plane and the alien JAM than for his collegues. The lack of communicable human emotion is precisely the point of the show.

If you're coming to Yukikaze just looking for gee whiz dogfights, it's easy for what's happening in the rest of the show to fly straight over your head. Ultimately, you will derive from Yukikaze as much as you are willing to think about. Come in looking for eye candy, and that's all you'll get. Come in willing to experience an eerily atmospheric story that charts the dehumanising effects of fighting an inexplicable enemy in an isolated environment, and you'll come away with more for your money. In the case of this show, what the viewer brings to the table is just as important as what's on the screen. You may watch it and draw completely different conclusions to me, or think I'm talking a load of crap and there's nothing to read into it, but I personally don't see anything shallow about Yukikaze.

Many fail to realise the show's hidden complexity that lurks in the background but will gradually emerge as the series progresses through all 5 episodes.

With out a doubt the best show released in 2006 for the UK.