Can something as grave as war have characters that are likable? In this case, yes.
Based on the manga by student of Leiji Matsumoto, Kaoru Shintani, Area 88 is about a middle eastern war and a group of air force mercenaries and how the war affects them. Most are war-grizzled veterans, except for one, Shin Kazama, an airline pilot gulled by his best friend, Satoru Kanzaki, into serving in the armed forces after a night out, which involved some alcohol. Now forced to serve out of the airline and away from his civil life and girlfriend, Ryoko; Kazama is determined to make enough money pay his way out of his service. Kazuma is faced with the realities of war: death, bloodshed and apathy; but he presses on having to kill enemies out of necessity. As soon as his chance to leave is in sight, he is shot down over the desert, he tries to find civilization for a day, hoping he could desert, but finds himself back at the base instead. Forced to use his money to buy another aircraft, Kazuma must start all over again. This time he earns all of the money needed and is free to go, but as soon as he is sent back, he decides to return to the fight, reclaiming his old aircraft and heads back into combat for an air battle which may be his last. This is where the OVA ends.
Aside from Kazama and Kanzaki, the other main characters include Micky Simon, a pilot who is, according to him, has become unable to leave war behind him after years of combat; Greg Gates, a confident pilot who was dishonorably discharged (an event described in the manga), he serves as comic relief in his sly remarks; Saki Vashtal, the regent of the kingdom at war (the Kingdom of Asran), who was overthrown by his brother in a coup d'etat; Nguyen Van Com, a fearsome Vietnam veteran who is often at odds with Kazama, but comes to respect him later on the series; Boris, a pilot severely affected from battle fatigue after being the only one to have return from multiple missions in succession; and, finally, there is the weapons shopkeeper McCoy, known to be shrewd in making deals and cheating people out of good products and even own property. These characters, on account of their flaws, help characterize Kazama as a human with compassion and not a war-hardened soldier.
Since I have covered the plot in the premise, please refer to it for this information. This review is free of all major spoilers.
Overall, this is one of the best anime I have seen and can highly recommend to those looking for characters who are both human and outside of tropes, as well as to those with an action-centric plot. Needless to say, recommended!
P.S: There is a 1988 movie (which is hard to find) based off of the OVA and a 2004 series which uses different elements from the manga (still, none of these adaptations are directly from the source manga), I may watch these soon, stay tuned for further developments.
P.P.S: The O.V.As have an associated soundtrack, but the majority of the songs were never used in the final product, it is well worth a listen. You can find it here.