And now here’s a sketch I made of Saki Vashtar, the head commanding officer of Area 88. Like I said in my review of the anime, Saki is most notable for his long black hair which reaches down to his lower back along with an X-shaped scar on his forehead which is said to have been self-inflicted. In appearance, Saki looks relatively young for a commanding officer. In fact, his age is somewhat questionable. At first glance, he doesn’t look too much older than Shin Kazama or Mick Simon, so I’m guessing he’s somewhere in between his early to mid 20s, or in between his late 20s and early 30s. But again, that’s only my personal guess. Chances are I’m wrong. Besides, the actual ages of the characters were never given. As the commander of Area 88, Saki does pretty much what most military leaders would do; he briefs out the pilots on their mission, gives them instructions, and he pays them for carrying out their duties. Saki is often depicted being mostly a serious, no nonsense, and straight forward individual. He can also be somewhat cold and uncaring towards the personnel at the base; he doesn’t care how many men he loses in war as long as the job gets done. But what can you expect from him? He’s a commander, and those kinds of people are more than likely to be cold on the outside. Saki was voiced by Taro Shigaki in Japanese, and by Illich Guardiola in English.

One thing I always found weird about Saki is his name. To my understanding, “Saki” is a Japanese name. However, according to what he says regarding his background and history on how the Asranian civil war started, Saki doesn’t seem to have any actual Japanese roots despite his first name. Especially if you count his last name “Vashtar” which is most likely a Muslim family name. And also, both of Saki’s parents were of Middle Eastern decent. And so I thought; why would two Middle Eastern parents give their son a Japanese name? I mean unless either his mother or his father had some Japanese in them, I don’t quite understand why they would name their son “Saki” if that wasn’t a Muslim name. If you ask me, that’s just odd.

Another thing I noticed about Saki is that out of all the characters in Area 88, he’s pretty much the only one who remains the same in both continuities. In fact, when I compared his 80s incarnation to his 2004 counterpart, I didn’t really notice anything too different about him. He pretty much retains the same serious and straight forward personality, and he seems to be the most rational and most civilized character in Area 88. In the 80s OVA, Saki often wore a dark red jumpsuit, which I thought was kind of questionable. But hey, that was the 80s. So what would you expect from the fashion sense? Sometimes he would wear a traditional military buisness suit complete with a neck tie. One of the strangest things I noticed about Saki in the 2004 series is that he always wears dark glasses which he never takes off. In fact, throughout the course of the series, Saki would always keep his sunglasses on no matter what the situation. He even wore them during the night when it was dark. And I’m like “This guy must have a serious fixation for those glasses because he never takes them off!” However, in various online sources regarding this continuity, it is stated that the reason why he always has them on his because of some eye injury, and that he is near blind. So I guess I can understand why he always keeps his glasses on in this continuity. Still though, that same cliché was used for not just Saki, but various other fictional characters as well including Umibozu from City Hunter, Todd from Beavis and Butthead, and countless others.

Most of you out there who have played UN Squadron probably remember Saki Vashtar as the character who appears in the map screen, briefing the player on the layout of each level before the player starts the game. In fact, depending on how well you may remember such a game, you may instantly reconize this guy's face as well. And if you watch either the OVA or the TV series, you might instantly recognize him there two. So anyway, here's Saki Vashtar from the obscure and lesser known anime, Area 88. Enjoy.