Turn the right corner in Yanagihara City you can find anything. Like any other city in the world Yanagihara is populated by individuals of all walks of life... But here the connections shared between them carry an extra dose of fate. This is especially true for three young men each living an unremarkable life in the most remarkable way possible. Haneda Takashi is a student living with his younger sister as he attends high school while guarding a mortal secret That he is actually a holy knight from another world. Chiitose Shusuke is a broke parttimer who both works and drinks at the bar Alexander. Narita Hayato is a night owl hardened by a succession of dirty jobs wandering the red light district at a time when all the neer do wells come out to play. Each of these young men is a charismatic enigma unto himself drawing in the people around them while simultaneously keeping them at arms length... But the one connection they cant avoid is the one they share with each other and as the lines blur between reality and fantasy the clock ticks down to an eventual reunion that will change their lives forever. Its been a long time since I talked about Studio Nomad... In fact the last time I did so was in my Rozen Maiden review way back when I still believed my blog had a future... And while Rozen was a bit lacking in the visual department as their first ever title Im happy to say Wings looks a lot better. It is of course yet another anime with a lacking budget that made up for it through sharp direction... Ive been reviewing a lot of anime like that lately and Wings is largely more of the same. On screen motion is limited but still smooth where it needs to be. The backgrounds are intricately detailed and distinctive to the point that I was never confused about where we were in the story regardless of how often the narrative switched between the three protagonists. The only real issue I had with the visuals was the character designs and while Im sure this probably wasnt an issue in the hentai game where your path through the story was likely limited to three separate paths where characters COULD resemble each other without complicating things having every single character active at the same time did the product no favors. The character designs are somewhat generic and repetitive which is a shame because most of them are fairly visually appealing and the color scheme would have been attractive in its own right if it wasnt so played out. Thanks to the nature of the adaptation there are dozens of named characters or at least it feels that way and there are several groups of characters that look bafflingly like each other. On the other hand this IS an ecchi show and while the actual ecchi scenes are limited the characters look pretty damn good naked. Dont get me wrong theres really only a couple of sequences of uncensored fanservice namely in the coldopen of one episode and the final OVA episode but in a world of conveniently placed hair steam and barbie doll bodies Wings proves loudly and proudly that it has the goods and theyre worth waiting for. Those moments are by far the slowest as the animators were able to linger on fanservice keyframes for a few seconds at a time but the artwork in this show shines brighter than the animation anyway so thats not a big deal. The English dub was a Funimation effort which is probably a good thing for a show with such a massive cast. The ensemble is made up of a generous blend of classic talents and actors who started with the company in the 2010s and while quite a few of the female actors decided to use false names in the credits... I will not expose any of them if I can help it... More recognizable names like Brittany Karbowski Felecia Angelle and Lara Woodhull didnt even bother. Out of the three male leads all three were very well cast at least for the time. Joel McDonald brought a soft cadence and a demure delivery to Takashi the quietest and most unassuming of the three. He comes off as both gentle and just distant enough that you can kind of believe his backstory. Ricco Fajardo is fun goofy and lighthearted as Shusuke and for Narita... Well theres a bit of a problem. I dont doubt Scott Freeman felt like the right man for the job at the time especially given his experience in harem anime before but in retrospect its a little creepy to hear a character whos almost immediately surrounded by thirsty underage girls played by a dude who... Well if you know you know. Not Funimations fault at the time but damn can hindsight be a bitch. Anyway its a strong dub overall. There are plenty of different sources an anime can be adapted from and while manga and light novel adaptations are usually pretty straightforward anime based on dating games and visual novels are kind of a genre unto themselves. In game the protagonist has multiple different paths he can follow and when adapting that format to a single linear narrative the writers have to get creative in order to find ways to represent as much of the story as possible. For some like Clannad and the rest of the Key trilogy this means building a new narrative out of all the available segments so each issue can be dealt with before the main character seals the deal with his main love interest. Some shows like Steins Gate can take a more creative approach and ultimately thats what We Without Wings did. I havent played the visual novel myself so I dont know for certain how its structured... I imagine you can play all three protagonists stories separately switching or not switching at my own discretion... But for the anime they took an admittedly ambitious approach. When the story begins we have three perspectives. We start with the high school boy followed by the barhopper followed by the night owl and we follow them throughout their days stepping into each characters shoes as they explore their designated habitats each with his own eccentric stable of acquaintances and issues as they subtly begin to drop hints that not everything is as it seems and as much as Id love to continue from here on without spoilers thats going to be really difficult considering just how little there is to grab onto in this show outside of the unraveling mystery. Theres no real plot theres no real driving force to the narrative there are no stakes... Hell I dont even think theres an inciting incident in this entire damn show. Each of the three stories just moves at its own pace while the mystery unfolds around them and the mystery just unfolds on its own as you watch the show. We get clues and hints and we get reveals that correspond to them but theres no real sense of timing or payoff to almost any of it. Now this is just my opinion of course... You have every right to disagree with me if you feel so inclined... But there are certain anime out there however rare they may be that I honestly think youre better off going into spoiled than blind. I gave this nod to School Days late last year on the grounds that it offered a unique experience that was perfect in its own way but that you would have to be in the mood for in order to enjoy it. For We Without Wings there is so little to grab you in the early episodesaside from uncensored nudity which I appreciated that the only way to appreciate the framework of the narrative on the level it deserves is to know what the ultimate reveal is going to be. Going in blind this is an anime that does not make a lick of fucking sense until your second time through and even then only barely. Because of this I am going to spoil at least one of the few big reveals purely for the sake of clarity. I understand completely if you believe thats an unethical way to write a review but my only other option would be to keep things vague and do a shortform review which just feels wrong for a full length series. To rip the bandaid right off all three protagonists are the same person. They are all one young man dealing with sort of a multiple personalities situation. This isnt really a huge spoiler as I think most viewers would figure it out pretty early on... The fact that they all have slightly different hairstyles and are all active at different times of the day is kind of a dead giveaway... And the show does drop some other clues if you know where youre looking. These personalities are aware of each other and they refer to the body theyre inhabiting as both a vessel and a cockpit depending on the situation. Now right at first glance this seems like a promising concept and potentially a really clever way to subvert slice of life anime tropes... And I really wish I could say youre right but like I said before the story overall is really poorly executed. The clues to whats really going on should be really jarring and unsettling and the payoff to each one should be earth shattering. Instead each one is either confusing poorly timed or just kind of limp. For example theres a pretty overthetop gang fight in one night time scene where a rival gang leader gets shot in the shoulder. Later a recurring character from the Alexander segments who kind of looks like the gang leader takes a second to rub his hurt shoulder. Okay so maybe theyre the same person? Well okay sure but there are a ton of characters in this show several of whom are lazilly written to the point that they COULD conceivably be the same character so you start to think who else doesnt actually exist? But then in another random throwaway moment later on you see the night owl hanging out with a bunch of cosplay otaku and it suddenly hits you Wait a minute that gang war wasnt real? How much was Narita imagining? Was the one dude punched in the shoulder instead of shot? Moments like this should have been structured to give you chills but all they result in is raised eyebrows. I dont know maybe Im asking for too much but Ive seen anime that played fast and loose with reality before and I know what a gutwrenching twist is supposed to feel like. Shows like From the New World and Battle Athletes Victory had reveals that would take the fucking wind right out of you and in comparison Wings just kinda falls flat. The mystery unfolds over the course of the series but theres no inciting incident to kick it off no stakes to give it tension and no plot to drive it forward. It unravels purely because its being observed. The only clue that I did find a little striking... Aside from one random sex scene that came out of nowhere was never addressed again and added nothing to anything... Is the moment when Takashi who were supposed to believe is the main personality wakes up in his home to find his little sister lying nearby completely naked covered only in a blanket. He reacts with displeasure at this as a brother should but his lack of interest isnt enough to excuse the implication that one of his alternate personalities just used his body to sleep with his sister... Like the one lone out of place sex scene this is never brought up again but it does add a new somewhat disturbing layer to the fact that his sister is very obviously aware of his multiple personalities to the point that she makes him multiple different meals depending on whos in charge and what his tastes are. This is all compounded even further by a late revelation that when the two of them were little their mother was abusive and accused them of incest because of how clingy they were with each other. Okay well I feel bad for them and all but having prior knowledge that the mother wasnt exactly wrong does take some of the sting out of it. Look Ive made my feeling clear on incest in the past. Im not a fan. Still if youre trying to shock the audience in an edgy series and you dont care about the moral integrity of you story then dropping an incest bomb IS a surefire way to add some shock value to the material... And Wings couldnt even do that right Im sorry but if you already had me going Ummmmmmmm... Several episodes prior and then you wait until the end to kind of hint at something Ive already picked up on that takes a baffling level of incompetence. Even Big Order the cringey little brother of Future Diary knew how to use this twist effectively. There is one genuinely effective twist near the end... I wont spoil it Ill let you experience it on your own... But then the fallout from that twist which is genuinely the only potentially tense moment in the series is resolved pretty quickly and easily. From then on all thats left is an entire OVA episode of fanservice and hot springs nudity because as much as this anime pretends to have a layer or two of depth or even a smart mystery with a rewarding solution this is just a pretentious fanservice show with a twist thats dead on arrival. The sad thing is that even when you break it down to its lowest point of value I legitimately cant think of a single person whom I would recommend this to. Sure if youre a fan of anime nudity and youre sick of all the nonipple cop outs from supposedly adult ecchi anime like Chivalry of a Failed Knight and A Sisters All You Need you might be willing to give any show thats full of actual nudity a shot but even from that perspective you could do so much better. Check out Highschool DXD youll actually find an awesome story. Check out Strike Witches youll find a much more likeable and distinctive cast of characters. If you check out This Ugly Yet Beautiful World youll find a much more interestingand better looking pretentious failure. If you check out Nakaimo youll find a fellow ecchi that tried to use an engaging mystery to rise above the sum of its parts but at least this one has the fucking decency to be coherent. With no plot no stakes too many characters and no real glue to tie all the necessary story beats together We Without Wings just doesnt know how to do anything right leaving it not only without wings but without a leg to stand on. We Without Wings is available from Funimation with a bonus OVA episode included. The original game has not been released stateside nor has a hentai free version that was created later for general audiences. Several manga adaptations have also yet to cross the ocean. We Without Wings had an intriguing and surprisingly original concept but all the potential in the world cant make up for incompetent writing and execution. The direction it tried to take its visual novel adaptation was certainly inspired but it created problems that the writers just didnt have the right answers for... With literally dozens of named characters even the most interesting among them was never fleshed out enough and Ill give you a free cookie if you could remember at least five names off the top of your head after your first viewing. Shows like this should be willing to get dark and they should do so specifically for the purpose of making the audience give a shit... Well the darkest it ever gets is the occasional implication of incest and there is not a single thing in this show thats worth giving a shit about I appreciate its lack of censorship but even that doesnt amount to much. High quality visuals and English dub aside its a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying series that could have been great if it stopped meandering enough to work on its presentation but alas here we are. I give We Without Wings a 4/10.