(DISCLAIMER: I don’t know how this function works on this site, so I’ll just throw in a warning beforehand that the review contains spoilers; those who have not finished the story, proceed with caution)
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“Hi Flyers!” starts off as a light-hearted, almost slice-of-life series about futuristic delivery men with (organic, this part is important) wings, and ends off as, imo, the same thing - true to the contest category that it finds itself in. However, because of this, I feel like it has untapped potential that the author didn’t, or perhaps, couldn’t, explore within the constraints.
The story “truly” started from a bombing incident that tried to strip these future humans from their wings, prompting our hero Arwain to step up and dismantle them. Following suit, Arwain became the “face” of the city, its hero in need, and stayed this way until the end of the series. Perhaps that was a bit too much paraphrasing, but the point I’m trying to make is that this path to heroism for our protagonist is a bit *too* smooth. In fact, it was so smooth because it was none other than the villain’s intention all along - forcefully bringing Arwain to heroism, then “sacrificing” him to be a martyr. Then Arwain of course found a way to overcome the situation with no casualty, but then it begs the question: did he *win* at all? He’s still an icon, perhaps even more of an icon than the original plan from the villain (which btw was full of holes to begin with), and now everyone’s happy. The Flyers/No-Flyers discourse, which was built up to be the main conflict of the story, just kinda got solved by itself through the power of Arwain’s good will this way as well. If I had to put an analogy, it would be like if Suzaku/Euphy’s ideal in Code Geass succeeded and everyone lived happily ever after. Yes, I understand the need for it, but in return I felt like it killed off a lot of potential conflict that would enrich the story by quite a lot.
Another aspect that I believe didn’t fully got fleshed out is the characters, who all got “brought down” in a way to fit the happy vibe. Most of the main cast are a bit one-note in their personality, and Arwain is tbh the biggest offender: a goodwill hero with a past of delinquency is nice and all, but it’s both common and unexplored (we never got to see his “dark” past, for instance), and throughout the story he’s pretty much only hailed as the paragon of justice. In contrast, I think that the mayor/Daedalus has a lot more things going for his central conflict between winged and wingless, and his plan, in a way, is indeed foolproof: Arwain is the definitive hero, dead or alive, and either way he has indeed succeed, since even if the conflict gets resolved, more people will still follow Arwain’s example. It’s kind of a shame that the conflict never got deeper/more serious.
All in all, for what it is, I still think that this is a very solid entry: good plot, a decent character, Kaze’s writing is as good as always if you’re familiar with the authors on Honeyfeed, with the only downside being that the contest’s restrictions wouldn’t allow the story to explore more of its darker potential.
