Area 88 is a Japanese manga series by author Kaoru Shintani written from 1979 to 1986. Its story is focused on the exploits of Shin Kazama, a commercial airliner pilot forced to become a mercenary fighting for money and survival in the fictional country of the Kingdom of Aslan. Kazama and his fellow mercenaries operate a variety of Cold War-era combat aircraft, ranging from F-5E Tiger IIs and AV-8B Harrier IIs to prototypes such as the F-20A Tigershark. The manga spawned a 1989 videogame adaptation developed by Capcom (known internationally as U.N. Squadron) and two anime adaptations, an OVA in 1986 and a full-length series by the defunct Group TAC in 2004.
References in the Ace Combat series[]
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War[]
- The Special color of the F-20A Tigershark is a replica of the F-20 flown by Shin Kazama.
Ace Combat Infinity[]
- Replicas of the aircraft flown by the main characters of the series appear in Ace Combat Infinity as Special Aircraft, released during the Area 88 Collaboration Event. Their existence had been revealed in a leak on Reddit and teased by Project Aces on their Twitter feed through videos in Vine, and confirmed in the 2014 Tokyo Game Show "Operation Future Prospect" trailer. The aircraft are:
