Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune

Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune is a military science fiction anime based on the novel by Carlo Zen, the author of Saga of Tanya the Evil.

Earth has been colonized by a superior alien civilization, and humanity now lives under its rule with few prospects for a decent life. For Akira, a young man stuck at the bottom of this society, there is only one real chance at a better future: to enlist as a Yakitori, an expendable foot soldier sent to fight in the aliens' wars on distant planets.

The Yakitori are treated as cheap and disposable, and few of them are expected to survive. Akira has to adapt to brutal training and combat, and learn to work with other recruits who joined for their own reasons.

The series is a grim, grounded take on interstellar warfare that focuses on the soldiers on the front lines and on the cruel logic of a system that sees them as nothing more than numbers.