Simoun

Aer, pioneer air fighter

Aer loves to fly, and to shoot down the enemy. By flying she staves off a difficult choice: pilot-priestesses like her escape the general societal demand that children—all of them born with female bodies—go to the nation’s sacred Spring at age seventeen and pick a physical sex.

Just a few snags intrude. Much of the rest of Aer’s squadron, Chor Tempest, don’t think they’re military pilots at all, and would prefer to focus on their religious calling. The best available co-pilot, Neviril, seems unaccountably cut-up over losing someone in the most recent battle. And then there’s the small matter of the enemy, who’ve every reason to offer war to the knife: they desperately need access to the Spring for themselves.

Thus opens Simoun, one of the odder anime for which I’ll advocate.