Kei is the main character of Girly Air Force. He was living a pretty ordinary life until his country got invaded by alien creatures known as the Zai. While he and his friend Minghua were trying to escape, a sleek crimson fighter jet appeared out of nowhere, wiped out the invaders, and crashed into the ocean. Kei ran straight for the wreckage to pull out the pilot—and was shocked to discover it was a girl.
Years later, Kei's obsession with that mysterious aircraft led him to enlist in the Japanese military. When he finally tracked down the fighter at a military facility and tried to sneak in for a closer look, he got caught by soldiers who filled him in on what he'd found: the jet was something called a Daughter, a special kind of aircraft. Weirdly, Kei had some kind of connection to it that made it work properly. Instead of throwing the book at him, the military offered him a deal—join up and work with them. That's when he got formally introduced to the pilot who'd saved his life: Gripen.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
