Rail Wars! – Episode 1

OP: Mukai Kaze ni Utarenagara by Chihara Minori

ED: Overdriver by ZAQ

Episode 1: Welcome to K4!

Synopsis:

He’s just a walk over

Naoto Takayama is excited to join the Japanese National Railways, but everyone applied is ushered into joining the Public Security Force. There he meets Haruka Koumi, Aoi Sakurai and Shou Iwaizumi.

We’re a Team

The four of them form a team and take part in security training, with Haruka excelling in studies and Aoi in the shooting range. The final task is take a steam locomotive up to 100km/h in which they suceed by shoveling coal to specific locations of the boiler maximising fuel efficiency. They are only ones out of the class to complete the task.

First question is tough, What is your name?

The four of them are assign to work and given the task to locate a lost dog on a train. Handing in the dog at the lost property they witness a theft and immediately chase the thieves, but they escape on an outbound train.

That’s for no boarding ticket!

About to give up, they remember a service train and board that to beat the thieves to the final destination. They then apprehend the thieves but get a scolding by their boss. They fear the worse, but they are assigned to the K4 Peacemaker Squad.

Analysis:

So far this has been a really good anime. I have a love for trains and when I was younger I wanted Naoto’s dream job; a train driver. However, I settled for a 00 Gauge train set. Now though, I use TS (Train Simulator) 2014 for my train driving. For anyone who wants to know my favourite train is the ‘Flying Scotsman’ in Apple Green Livery (Not the Black livery which it is currently in, but plans to restore its Green colour is planned).

The group seem to work together well, each bring their skills to situation, except for Shou who seem to be a bit of the odd one of the group at the moment, at least he helped to take down the thieves. Aoi seems to be hell bent on taking on offenders by shooting them, which I think is a bit OTT. Such as riding with no ticket isn’t a shoot-able crime. Naoto seems too timid for my liking, why can’t he man up a bit, I suppose security wasn’t in his future plans, but he is the kind of guy that runs around panicking. However, when it comes down to defending someone, he defends them “with strong words” but gets a beating hard when fighting ensues, until a stronger comrade(s) rescues him. There is a strong sign of love in the air but I think this is an small part of the story and won’t take much part in the entire series, but who do think Naoto would go for, Aoi or Haruka? I’ll let you decide on that.