The Sky Crawlers (2008) Review/Diary Entry - 2026 March, 09

The Sky Crawlers is a 2008 film by Production IG and director Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Angel's Egg, Ghost in the Shell), based on a series of Light Novels by author Hiroshi Mori.

The film follows Yuichi Kannami, a young pilot who flies and fights for the fictional Rostock Corporation in what is, for the most part, a fantasy alternate-history of 1940's Europe (barring some anachronistic tech, like desktop computers, digital cameras, and LCD screens). The Rostock Corporation is pitted against the Lautern Corporation in a seemingly never-ending war.
The locations of the film are based on Ireland and Poland, and although a map of Europe is used in the background of a certain scene the regions are never given names. The whole movie is hazy and light on certain kinds of detail, in a way that is intentional.

I'll be up front. I am giving this movie 4 out of 4 stars. The Sky Crawlers has become my favorite movie. Full stop. Including live action films. It is largely my impetus to start this review blog, the reasons for which I will touch on at the end of the review. I'll also be clear: I believe this is a movie that will appeal only to certain people. For the average viewer, this is possibly a 2 out of 4 star experience. Maybe even a 1 star film if you are particularly impatient or can't connect with it. If, while reading this review, you believe you would not find the movie compelling, then steer clear. There is no shame in that. It's not for you. If it does sound interesting, perhaps you may see what I see.

The movie opens with a flashy and well choreographed air battle between fictional prop-engine aircraft, designed with a sense of realism, and vaguely resembling real fighters used in WW2. The battle is depicted with CGI planes, which look excellent. As a fan of anime, I am generally resistant to the use of CGI combined with traditional 2D animation, it tends to create a jarring effect when the two styles are used in the same frame, but in The Sky Crawlers the CGI elements are seamlessly blended. Part of this is likely due to the simplicity of fighter planes. Unlike mecha or character animation with CGI, the prop-engine fighters can be static models with few moving parts. The impression of motion comes from reflections on shiny metal, glass cockpits, smoke, contrails, and the scene choreography. In short, it looks great, and is one of the best uses of CGI I've encountered in an anime production. This is something to attribute to Mamoru Oshii's directorial eye, as he seems to have a penchant for drawing a sense of artistry out of computer generated imagery.

The second thing you'll notice is the sound. The film has excellent sound design, both during its air battles, when you get rich beds of whirring engines, propellers and wings whistling as they slice through the air, machine gun fire, and bullets tearing metal; and during it's quiet moments, when all you'll hear are the humming of a distant radar dish or the striking of a match. In an interview with Tom Myers, a senior Sound Editor of Skywalker Sound, which handled sound design on The Sky Crawlers, he speaks fondly about his time working on the film, and meeting Oshii's desire for silence in certain scenes: requests that would be unusual in Western film productions. While the film sounds incredible, it also knows when to be quiet. It makes for both a gentle and exciting listening and viewing experience.

Unlike it's opening scene, and with the exception of its few air battles, the rest of The Sky Crawlers is deliberately slow paced. Seeing it for the first time in 2025, I found it immensely refreshing. It's a movie that creates space for stillness, silence, and visual storytelling, in a way that was certainly rare for anime in 2008, but feels almost impossible for me to find in the current year. Impatient viewers might call the movie boring, maybe even agonizingly slow, but this is a movie where the deliberate pace will be compelling for those who understand and crave that style. It's difficult to overstate how understated this movie is.

As a native English speaker, I've watched the film with both it's Japanese dub (subtitled in English), and English Dub. I am typically a hardline "Japanese Audio with English Subtitles" viewer, but The Sky Crawlers is one of the rare projects for which I make an exception. Both dubs are workmanlike, and, as usual, the Japanese voice actors turn out a performance that is a bit more in synch with the animation and the emotion the characters are supposed to display, but during dogfights and most aerial sequences, even in the Japanese dub the pilot characters speak to each other in English. In these sequences, the English dialogue spoken with a Japanese accent, combined with intentional sound mixing to muffle the voices with breathing masks and radio static: sometimes it could be difficult to parse, and it seems in most available versions, official subtitles opt not to subtitle the English dialogue in the Japanese dub. On the other hand in these scenes, the English dub is mixed for clarity over realism, and the English voice actors particularly Michael Sinterniklaas (voice of Yuichi Kannami), Stephanie Sheh (voice of Major Kusanagi Suito), and Chiaki Kuriyama (who voiced her character in both the Japanese and English dub, voice of Midori Mitsuya), turn out some surprisingly powerful performances, especially in later sequences. The seasoned anime and videogame English dub VA Troy Baker delivers a natural sounding performance as the affable pilot Naofumi Tokino. And this is a subjective and personal thing, but I must give special mention to Takuma Takewaka, English and Japanese voice of pilot Yuri Shinota, who only has a few lines, but which are delivered with such a natural deadpan frankness in the English dub that it caught me off gaurd in a way which I found particularly entertaining. I recognize this as a "me" thing, but it was a quirk unique to the English version which I enjoyed.

I will now proceed with description of some of the early events of the film. This next section will contain light spoilers, but is designed to give the reader a picture of what they're getting into. If you're interested enough, now is the point to stop reading and go into the film relatively blind. I'll conclude this section with a spoiler-free summary of why I give the film a 4 out of 4 star score, and then proceed with heavy spoilers and a review of themes; a spoiler section which will be clearly marked.

Following the opening battle, we see opening credits and titles, set to composer Kenji Kawai's gorgeous harp-centric score, and follow a landing-gear view of a plane touching down on the airstrip of a quiet airbase surrounded by green Irish (or Ireland-like) fields and blue skies. You might notice the pleasantly soft and slightly dulled colour palette; as if you're watching a faded old polaroid.

Enter pilot Yuichi Kannami, who steps out of his aircraft, introduces himself to "Mama", the base's stern chief mechanic, and we get a few choice shots displaying director Oshii's trademark love for basset hounds (featured in each of his films since Ghost in the Shell). He enters the office of the base's Commanding Officer, Major Kusanagi to introduce himself. As they talk he (perhaps awkwardly) quotes Camus' The Stranger: a quote which she recognizes. A line about the morning sun. Besides tipping us off to the film's intentions, it says something worth noting to us about these characters, that they are both familiar with the quote. The fact of their natural familiarity with each other is just as important. Yuichi silently walks to his dorm, where he finds his luggage has been shipped in advance. He walks over to the dorm room window and throws it open, and rests on the window sill to feel a breeze on his face. He seems happy. The airbase (un-named throughout the movie) seems to be a comfortable place. He enters the base, then finds and introduces himself to his three fellow pilots in a meeting hall. Yuichi is noticeably calm, friendly, but perhaps a little oddly placid. It's hard to pinpoint, but there is something interestingly "off" about the entire scenario, and Yuichi's mannerisms. It could be said he behaves like an overgrown child, with a kind of immature frankness and understated beligerence.
Yuichi joins his fellow pilot, affable goof-off Naofumi Tokino on a scouting sortie to test his abilities. Afterwards they debrief in Major Kusanagi's office. Here, Yuichi asks her some interesting questions. His plane had a previous pilot before it was given to him, and he had expected to meet said plane's pilot. He wonders if the pilot is still alive. The Major is evasive on the issue. He then asks her another interesting question, "I was wondering ... are you a 'Kill-dren'?" To which, again, she is evasive (I'll explain the issue of the 'Kill-dren' within the next few paragraphs). He then remarks that he notices she is a smoker, saying that he doesn't trust superior officers who don't smoke. The Major seems amused by this. She had been putting out a cigarette as he said it, and after Yuichi leaves the room, she turns to her window and puts another cigarette in her mouth, but doesn't light it.

The film is full of these small and subtle actions. Details of character body language and behavior that are the sort of thing you don't get in many anime, and even many live action movies, which are poorly directed or poorly acted. Attention to human detail. She has complex feelings for Yuichi.

That night, Tokino takes Yuichi to a diner for a meat pie and a coffee (the film has a borderline Twin Peaksian reverence for coffee), and to meet some personable and elegantly dressed prostitutes. They take Yuichi and Tokino to a mansion. In the course of things, odd emphasis is placed on how familiar it all seems. The meat pie, the owl-shaped tattoo on one Ms. Fouko's chest, a painting in the mansion... It all seems familiar to Yuichi.
Fouko even comments that Yuichi reminds her of a previous client. In the course of their conversation, at one point he calls her "lady", apparently meant with all politeness, to which she jokingly remarks that he's talking to her like he's a kid. He replies, unsettlingly "That's probably because I am."

The following morning, Yuichi meets a schoolgirl who has come to the base with a chaperone, who introduces herself as Mizuki Kusanagi, the Major's little sister. In a bit of deft scene writing, Yuichi must explain a central premise of the story (one which is described on the back of the DVD box) to this young girl. He must explain that he's not exactly human, in terms a child would understand. He's a "Killdren" soldier (not "children", "kill"-dren, get it?) genetically designed to be indefinitely youthful. Never exactly reaching maturity, and who will likely only die in battle. An expendable resource in the corporate war.
"You can't become adults! At least that's what I heard somewhere..." says Mizuki, to which Yuichi replies "It's not that we can't ... it's just that we don't. For example, do you want to become an adult?" he says, preparing to light a cigarette.

This will conclude my light-spoiler summary of a first portion of the film. What you're in for with this is a thematically dark, meditative story that examines war, issues of reality and memory, despair, harsh societal truths, and old philosophical questions through allegory.
"...for those of us whose lives might end tomorrow, do you think it's really necessary for [us] to grow up?" Yuichi asks an adult authority, who had complained to him about the immaturity of another Killdren in a certain scene. The adult meet's Yuichi's query with a disturbed frown.
Contrasting the uncomfortable themes, the film explores its remarkably realized pseudo-European setting with attention to small detail. It remains a warm and inviting sensory experience throughout its runtime, and the juxtaposition between dark themes and the inviting sense and feel is compelling.

I give it 4 out of 4 stars.
Spoiler heavy discussion of themes and subtext will follow.

!!! Spoilers Ahead !!!

I generally believe a good story cannot truly be spoiled. It's my personal bias that, if a story can be "spoiled" by having it explained, it is usually deficient in its telling. I believe The Sky Crawlers is such a story with integrity in its artistry that it cannot be "spoiled". However, If you would like to experience what the film accomplishes for yourself, and without my commentary on crucial themes that you may wish to digest for yourself, I strongly recommended that you view the film before reading any further.

The first half of the film is centered around the airbase, and getting to know the people who live and work there. We follow the pilots on a few scouting sorties and there is an attack by Lautern Corporation bombers, but besides this there is little action in the first half. In a thematically interesting scene, an allied Rostock fighter from a neighboring theater of battle drifts into their airspace and crash lands near the base. As firefighters pull the dead Killdren pilot out of the wreckage, a crowd of people gather around the wreck, and a woman begins weeping for the dead pilot. Major Kusanagi snaps at the woman, chastising her for her "Meaningless pity" saying "He's by no means a poor boy" and "How dare you insult him." Evidently, Major Kusanagi, also a Killdren, seems to believe dying in battle is some kind of honor for her kind. It's also revealed slowly in the first half of the film that she had killed the pilot who Yuichi had replaced herself, the one whose plane he inherited and was unable to meet, with a pistol she keeps on her person at all times. The circumstances for this murder are not explained, and no one seems to care all that much.

Around the midway point of the film, we are introduced to a main antagonist. An unnamed and unseen Lautern ace pilot known as "The Teacher" who is unique in that he is an adult pilot. This reveals it is unusual for non-Killdren to take part in the conflicts. The Teacher is talked up as a frightening unkillable ace, with a black Jaguar painted on the nose of his fighter. It is revealed that he had previously been an employee with Rostock and had had a special relationship with Major Kusanagi, apparently as some sort of mentor to her. The pilots of our heroes' airbase are flown to a base in a neighboring battle theater to participate in a large scale combat action against Lautern. At this point in the film we enter a city based on locations in Poland, and soon our pilots take to the skies.
After the large scale aerial battle, the owner of the Diner Yuichi frequents steps outside of his establishment, apparently to get away from the TV news coverage of the battle and have a smoke. This could be read as a moment of clarity.
In a critical scene after the conflict, Yuichi and Major Kusanagi, who have become romantically involved with each other, go drinking together in the city. It's here that Major Kusanagi explains her view that the conflict between Rostock and Lautern is staged, to give meaning to civilian's lives. It's an endless organized conflict, designed so average people can compare their comfortable lives with the realities of war, and fully savor the peace they enjoy. The conflict is staged, but the battles are real, and they must be real, so that people don't lose understanding of the value of their peace. Killdren are essentially expendable slaves, sacrificed endlessly in the indefinite conflict. The film doesn't overtly point it out, but (if the genetically engineered "Killdren" are comparable to real children) it's a world society organized around endless child sacrifice on an industrial scale. Fortunately we know this sort of thing is fiction.

During this scene, Major Kusanagi becomes quite drunk. Clearly teetering on the edge of a bottled despair. As Yuichi walks with her back to the base on which they are temporarily staying, a shoulder for the Major to lean on, she pulls a gun on him and offers him a mercy killing. Then, drunkenly, she asks if he wouldn't kill her instead.

Yuichi is able to talk her down, and in the next part of the film, they return to their airbase, along with some transfer pilots who had taken part in the joint operation: including one young woman named Midori Mitsuya. Mitsuya is unsure whether or not she is a Killdren and shares her existential crisis with Yuichi. She reveals that she has memories of early childhood, but the rest of her life is a hazy blur that feels the same, day in and day out. Like some kind of neverending dream. Yuichi concedes that he feels the same way, and that it's always been like that for him. Indeed, the movie itself has this quality, like it's hazy and out of focus dream. Mitsuya had been talking to others at the base, and reveals to Yuichi that she believes Major Kusanagi and the pilot Yuichi had replaced, a Jinroh Kurita, had been lovers, and that she had mercy killed him so he wouldn't have to continue living as a Killdren slave. Then Mitsuya explains her belief that Yuichi is, somehow, the reincarnation of Jinroh. Brought back to life by Rostock, with wiped memories, but retaining the skills Jinroh had developed as pilot. Yuichi seems to find this compelling. It would certainly explain his familiarity with life on the airbase and the attraction he and the Major share.

That night, Mitsuya has a breakdown and attempts to murder the Major in her office, but she's stopped when Yuichi arrives on the scene (by his asserting that he will kill the Major instead). Mitsuya storms out of the office, and the Major asks Yuichi to shoot her. He hesitates, and she puts her own pistol to her neck, ready to pull the trigger, but a shot rings out: Yuichi fires past her through the window, startling her out of her stupor. Then he runs up to embrace her, and admonishes her to choose to live, to keep on living unitl they can figure out how to end the madness.
Yuichi has a moment of realization, that "The Teacher" is the original source from which he was cloned, and resolves to kill his "father". Yuichi is then brutally killed in a final dogfight.

Before he is killed, as he flies in the direction of his final battle with The Teacher, Yuichi has an interesting internal monologue. "You can change which side of the road that you choose to walk down every single day. Even if the road is the same, you can discover new things. Isn't that enough to live for? Or is this really not enough?"

After the movie's credits have rolled, a new pilot arrives at the base, who looks just like Yuichi. He lights his cigarette in the same way. He heads to Major Kusanagi's office and introduces himself as Isamu Hiragi. She is pleased, and says she'd been expecting him. He's the reincarnation of Yuichi.

There is a non-verbal motif repeated in the film: what appears to be a kind of free-standing Polyphon Disc music box, in Major Kusanagi's office. There are ambiguous shots of the music machine throughout the film, the spinning disc, and the accompanying music it produces.
Those versed in symbolism might recognize this as a possible metaphor for the Wheel of Time, or the Wheel of History, Kalachakra of Buddhism, or Eternal Recurrence in Nietzsche's words. The wheel spins round and round.

This is an interesting film. The story is not a perfect time loop, but there is enough of a sense that time is looping. Throughout the movie it is hammered home the idea that "this has happened before". It's not really Europe, but it's not really fantasy either. It's not really World War 2. It's a fantasy based on the past, but not so fully that there are not elements of the present, like a digital videocamera used in one scene to take a picture of Yuichi's awkward smile.

The issue of reincarnation is overtly raised: Mitsuya tells Yuichi she believes him to be the reincarnation of Jinroh. She seems to mean in the sense of the product of genetic engineering, but there is a sense, paired with Yuichi's traditional Kamikaze death poetry, its lines about choosing to see new things as you walk down the same road, that this film is an exploration of Eternal Return: the Nietzschean hypothetical.
In Nietzsche's classic thought experiment on "the demon of eternal return", he proposes a "Formula for greatness". That if a man should be approached by a demon who curses him to live the same life over and over again for all eternity, instead of weeping and cursing his fate, if such a man wished to be a great man, he would exclaim "Yes!" and live the rest of his life as if he knew he would live that same life over and over again, forever. Seeking the highest possible heights of his self actualization and glory that he could hope to reach: knowing he would experience the joy of the glory he achieves in his life again and again.

In a disturbing way, the movie, despite its thematic darkness, depicts, from this metaphysical angle (the issue of it being a reincarnation story - incidentally it's a movie that compels me to rewatch it), it depicts the fantasy of a life that would be in many ways very pleasurable to live on repeat. The life of eternally young heroes, fated to die in battle. A fated love affair. A life that ends with the gnostic resolution to escape the trap of reincarnation and defeat its demiurge. A kind of romanticized world of the 1940's, the only period in history where aerial dogfighting was truly possible, before the advent of advance air-to-air missiles which eliminated the possibility of dance. A horrible romanticism.
From one angle it's a horrific scenario. From another it's a total wish fulfillment fantasy. The kind of nightmare some wouldn't want to wake up from. Again, this movie is probably not for everyone.

At the end of the film, after Yuichi's death, and before the roll of the credits, Major Kusanagi puts a cigarette in her mouth while watching the empty sky from which Yuichi will not return, considers lighting it, but takes it out of her mouth and walks away.

4 out of 4 stars.
As of writing, it is my favorite film. Hands down.

A bit of commentary on what this means.
Relatively speaking, I watch a lot of films. I don't know if I'd even call myself a "film head", but If you can imagine a list of the "usual suspects" of what a college student who claims to be a film head might say they've seen, I've probably seen it. I've seen art house movies from around the world, weird 70's Californian occult art projects unseen to many, obscure European romance films, Russian Soviet era classics, my share of Jodorowsky, Philip Glass operas, and so on, and so on. I've seen my share of pop culture movies. Watched every James Bond film, seen my share of supehero flicks, grew up with Star Wars. I've watched most Disney animations, many Hollywood pop culture classics: everything from Die Hard to Jim Carrey comedies, Silence of the Lambs, Being John Malkovich, The Terminator, and so on, and so on, and so on. The list goes on and on and on and on and on. I've watched quite a lot of anime: mainstream stuff like Naruto, Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, and Death Note, and so on, and so on, and so on. I've watched lesser known shows, like Infinite Stratos, Hamatora, Karneval, Gargantia: on the Verdous Planet, Magi and the Labyrinth of Magic, and so on. I've watched classics like the original Dororo, Astro Boy, Gundam (not just the 1970's show, but the entirety of Director Yoshiyuki Tomino's contribution to the series, and most of his output in general). I've watched anime with artistic ambitions: everything from well known stuff like the films of Studio Ghibli, to the movies of Kon Satoshi, to Texhnolyze, and so forth. Have you ever noticed how prolific is the Japanese animation industry? I am barely scratching the surface of what's out there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly biased towards Japanese media, but I am interested in art, and the Japanese simply might be the most prolific producers of media on the planet.

I suppose, to temper this flex, I would still assert that "I'm not a film buff". There is so much one could watch, and there is still a lot I haven't seen.
As far as my tastes go, I believe there is something to the "wisdom of the crowd". It's good to watch obscure experiments, and hidden gems lost to the memory of the zeitgeist, but I don't consider myself pretentious (laugh now), and I believe there is something worthwhile in paying attention to what the crowd likes.
For a long time, for most of my life, I would have rated Star Wars, the 1977 original, as one of, if not my favorite film.
Disney's Sequel trilogy made it very clear to me that that 1977 original was my favorite of that series, and it became what I would have called my "Number 1 favorite". As a work of "film" or "cinema" it has a stamp of raw artistry: coming fresh from George Lucas' obsession with films of all genres and varieties, but especially his interest in "pure cinema" non-verbal experiments, and powerful political propaganda. Star Wars, much to many people's dismay, is indeed a powerful work of art. From George Lucas' foundation of technical skill and talent as an artist, he created an art movie that pierced mainstream consciousness, and, for better and for worse, all but literally established our current tradition of pop culture (especially the trend towards childish special effects heavy superhero fantasy movies, since the 80's all the way into the 2020's).
It was my favorite film because it is consistently a joy to watch, and moved the world.
In the late 2010's, two Gundam movies, "Turn-A Gundam: Earth Light" and "Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack" supplanted Star Wars for me, bumping it down to my third favorite film (perhaps I will review those films on this blog). Gundam is, in many ways, one of Japan's (and probably Japan's best) answer to Star Wars. If Star Wars is a simple "Good vs. Evil" story with a World War 2 subtext, Char's Counterattack is a Japanese assertion of their perspective: they, often framed by the west as part of "the bad side". Thus, it's a tragedy, and it's a film which examines and humanizes both sides of the conflict, instead of demonizing a "villain" and painting the side that used nukes as morally in the right.  

What Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack does is not shocking or new. There are plenty of movies, even from Hollywood (despite its tendency to stir people's primal emotions with "good vs. evil" paradigms biased towards the Hollywood worldview), that humanize both sides of dark stories, but Char's Counterattack manages to look the reality of nuclear weapons in the eye, and assert optimism in spite of it them. This particular matter is not unique to Japanese media either. The robotic hero "Astro Boy" is powered by an atomic heart, for example. So why did Char's Counterattack become my second favorite film, under Turn-A Gundam?
If Star Wars asserts the Force as an optimistic and vitalistic paradigm, Char's Counterattack illustrates a working theory magick. Any more I have to say on that should be saved for an eventual review. As a final note on it, I'll add that I believe, if the world doesn't tear itself apart in the next 50 years, if civilization survives, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack will come to be looked on as a classic of the 20th century.

Unlike Star Wars, Char's Counterattack is tragic and downbeat. Star Wars wins out with its transmission of optimism to the viewer.
Turn-A Gundam: Earth Light accomplishes much of what Char's Counterattack does and more, while simultaneously being as spiritually positive and joyful as the original Star Wars: it has the same sense of fairy tale gaiety and lightness of feet, along with Char's Counterattack's comparative depth.
Turn-A Gundam: Earth Light will likely not be seen as such a classic. It's obscure, and was likely not meant to pierce its zeitgeist, as much as it was meant to be a positive work of art for its own sake in its own time, for its own small audience. I would probably love it if the world knew it, but I doubt it will happen.

And so, we reach the part where I describe why Sky Crawlers has bumped Star Wars 1977 all the way down to my number 4 favorite film.
I see in it foundations from which to create.
Footholds from which world culture might climb out of its state of arrested development. Its obsession with childish superhero banalities beloved by Reddit.
Fertile ground, from which might grow the new.
The people will not give up their superheroes so easily, but The Sky Crawlers may serve us a framework from which they can be contextualized into maturity.


!!! Magickal Diary !!!

Now this is the reason why I have decided to start this review blog. In short, a magickal diary is used to record one's work and experience with the supernatural.
I'm not going to truly claim any supernatural knowledge or experience or workings, everything I write here will fall within the purvey of a mundane view of reality.
I've been writing a novel for the past several years.
There are moments when it feels as though I stumble across "answers" to my work. As if what I am working on poses a problem, and the architects of Life provide a solution. Or in more mundane language, "I accidentally come across something that's better than what I've been writing".
I've been writing a Sci-Fi Horror novel. Perhaps a reader might care to avoid spoilers from my novel if one finds my style of writing interesting, so here is an opportunity to stop reading and click away if you'd like to eventually read my novel without foreknowledge of its intended themes and content.

My novel involves an assassin (named "Thel", the Greek word for "Will") who was genetically engineered. "Born" with the physiology of a 20 year old olympian athlete, gifted with false memories and psychic conditioning to stabilize his sense of self, but, by the time of the events of the novel, he is practically speaking only 4 years old. The issue of his being an hyper lethal killing machine, technically speaking an adult, but with the emotional maturity of a very young child, barely stabilized by brainwashing and conditioning, was critical to the story.
As the story progresses, this assassin is faced with the choice to kill someone who he cares about deeply, a natural child several years older than him, a prince, and the son of his creator, an Emperor (an "Evil" emperor, if you like). The choice to kill this prince is not his mission, it comes to him through the realization that he will be better off dead. The assassin has the opportunity to play the grim reaper to spare this boy, the only person who sees him as human and who could reasonably be called his friend, from a torturous fate.
Of course, this is mirrored in The Sky Crawlers in the relationship between Yuichi and Major Kusanagi. The Major murdered her lover Jinroh, who reincarnates as Yuichi.
My novel also dealt with issues of time, eternal return, and, overtly, the issue of this grim reaper assassin recovering (what may or may not be) the soul of the prince he murders (via Sci-Fi conventions), escaping with it from the nightmare of their circumstances, and finding a way to incarnate the Prince's soul again in a better place, so he can go on to live a better life.

I am compelled to quote some relevant passages from Aleister Crowley's "The LAW is for ALL: The Authorized Popular Commentary on Liber AL vel Legis subfigura CCXX" on these matters.
From page 101: "The “lords of the earth” are those who are doing their Will. It does not necessarily mean people with coronets and automobiles; there are plenty of such people who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole test of one’s lordship is to know what one’s true Will is, and to do it."
And:
"The highest are those who have mastered and transcended accidental environment. They rejoice, because they do their Will; and if any man sorrow, it is clear evidence of something wrong with him. When machinery creaks and growls, the engineer knows that it is not fulfilling its function, doing its Will, with ease and joy"
In the novel Thel is, in a sense, the Prince's half-brother and servant. So you could say he's the "Will of the Throne". The Empire falls to a revolution, and taking pages from history, Nobles tend not to be treated well in Revolutionary hands: and so it is in my novel. So the Prince ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Thel is not only is capable of freeing him in the exoteric sense by his work as an assassin, he is (by sci-fi conventions) able to help the Prince "transcend his accidental environment" and escape the clutches of vicious revolutionaries, but also to escape his position as heir to an "Empire of Evil", and incarnate again in peace and freedom. You may notice I am being quite sympathetic to the idea of aristocracy and nobility: this is informed by Nietzsche's view on the role and work of aristocrats to create the noble arts, philosophy, and culture which gives meaning to the lives of the masses, and the implication in his writing that the masses have a real capability of slaughtering art and meaning in their ignorance (plenty of revolutionary regimes in history to point to). This is a period which is difficult for artists. Truly, when has it ever not been?

These issues of incarnation and reincarnation were all overt plot level stuff.
What was less overt was the issue of my intentions for the story to be that kind of "nightmare you don't want to wake from", where the story is overtly horrifying, but magnetically compelling.
To quote Jesus Christ on the matter "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
Luke 17:21 in the English of King James.
Heaven can be here now, if you can accept the horror.

Again, this is something I feel The Sky Crawlers accomplishes. The movie achieves two of my main goals for my own novel project.
This is frustrating, because I had been feeling a sense of accomplishment in creating the "nightmare" part of the "nightmare you don't want to wake up from", but had been having difficulty making it pleasant enough, even to myself, to want to work on or read.
This isn't due to intentions or even really any desire to be "edgy" on my part, horror isn't actually my thing (although I believe I can be quite good at writing it - for better and/or worse I have ended up mirroring Lovecraft's life of agoraphobic existential horror), but I do have a desire to confront horrible truths about life. Taboo truths people don't to want to face. It's actually out of a motivation to temper life's realities in a way people can stomach, from which my style of horror arises: metaphor which the reader senses but cannot rightly place is frightening and satisfying to write.

The Sky Crawlers accomplishes much of what I have been trying to do. Especially the sense of pleasantness, despite the horrors the characters experience in the mental and existential sense. When I found the movie, it was as if some force under reality tapped me on the shoulder to say, "hey, here's an example of how to do what you've been trying to do".
Unfortunately this is also creatively demotivating. Being given a cool and functional example of what I've been working hard to accomplish, there is a bit of a sense of "why bother continuing to try"? Especially when it feels, in some ways, like I just "manifested" this obscure anime movie few people seem to have heard of. Obviously, exoterically, this isn't true. Subjectively, it feels as though The Sky Crawlers was "patched" into reality for my benefit.
My novel has, what I believe to be, some originality and original elements that would certainly set it apart from The Sky Crawlers. I've shown slices of my work to people and they've told me it's original and interesting. I do believe it's still worth doing, but this issue of feeling like I've "manifested" or "(un)luckily stumbled upon" works of art and media that are 'solutions' to what I've been doing" has happened to me before, and it is creatively frustrating.

The demotivating factor of The Sky Crawlers being so good, and so "what I was trying to do" has forced me to temporarily shift to this idea: this review blog. Perhaps writing this sort of public review blog/magickal diary will spur insights and motivations that will get me out of the writer's block induced by a work from superior artists. Have I mentioned how much I like The Sky Crawlers? I like it more than Star Wars.

- Mister X