Last Exile

"Last Exile" is one of those great unappreciated anime series.  Exactly why is largely unknown is a complete mystery to me, it has all the ingredients that an anime needs for greatness:  amazing beautiful landscapes, awesome airship battles, all the episodes are named after famous Chess moves, and the hero is voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch.  What more do you need?  Its rather confusing to me*.  So obviously I need to step in and save the day!

What lies beyond the sky?  Flyboy Claus Valca (played by Johnny Yong Bosch, so he's the hero) and female mechanic, Lavie Head work together as couriers for a aerial delivery service, together chasing their (separate) parents' dreams of being a top pilot and mechanic respectively.  Together they live in the world of Prester, a world of clouds and strange clearly artificial land, which is dominated by airship battles between two nations, while a mysterious third faction, the Guild, watches over in seeming omnipotence.  One day Claus and Lavie find a crashed plane, or "Vanship" if we're to use the series' terminology, and discover a mysterious little girl named Alvis, who like all mysterious females in Japan, will inevitably hold the key for the survival of the universe or something like that.  This leads Claus and Lavie to join the crew of the legendary sky Battleship, Silvana, led by the emotionally distant but serious badass captain, Alex Row, a man bent for revenge.

At this point the series really starts to switch gears, as its no longer really about Claus and Lavie's relationship, and it becomes a huge ensemble piece with dozens of characters all hanging around and inevitably vying for Claus's affections.  And of course, the entire world of Prester is turning into a massive war zone filled with chaos and such.  But even though Claus is essentially the hero thanks to his plot role, the real star of the show is just the sky itself.  The animators can never stop themselves from making amazing scenery for their production, almost to the point that you start to wonder if the amazing art design is somehow sucking energy from the story.

"Last Exile"'s world is unique in its visuals, but not just for its strange world filled with endless skies and airships.  There's tons of steampunk, but the whole world itself seems to be built out of Victorian construction methods.  At times you can see support beams holding up the landscapes. On board the Silvana, the crew uses antiquated navigation methods, like a sextant of all things, while standing upon what is essentially a floating aircraft carrier - a hugely technologically advance piece of machinery.  The two warring nations manage to fight large airship battles with infantry lines exchanging fire like we're in late 18th century Europe, a pointless code of combat that can only lead to endless draws and arms races.  All this shows a world that has massively more technology than its letting on, the exact reason why can only be explained in later episodes.  Though its a safe bet the far more technologically advanced Guild are all behind it somehow.

Also the show has Chocobos, just thought you'd like to know that.

The Vanships are animated with CG animation, and it works pretty well here.  Its a nice mixture of 2D and 3D, which isn't nearly as distraction as some other blends tend to be.  Really only the airships and planes are computer generated, while the rest is traditional drawings.  I'm of the opinion usually that plain old 2D works perfectly fine in any situation, but its nice to see new stuff occasionally.  Its doubly nice to see new animation styles when they work this well.

I'll admit though, this show is very much far-from-perfect.  The plot has a way of meandering around, and its very difficult to adequately summarize the entire thing without huge spoilers.  We start out with just Claus and Lavie, and I really liked that dynamic.  Two teenagers working together in a very majestic but frightening world.  Once they land on the Silvana, the story breaks up away from the previous main couple.  Claus remains the hero, and thanks to his heroic qualities winds up having no less than like nine love interests (including one Guild Prince and a pedophilic princess).  Poor, Lavie, formerly a central character, finds herself getting kicked right out of the main plot for a really long time, and she never really recovers.  She's a contentious objector against combat, so that right there separates her from Claus, who becomes the Silvana's ace pilot, and puts her far away in the running for Claus's heart.  Finally the climax is an explosion of plot resolutions, with quite a few memorable and awesome scenes, but equally just as many confusing elements.  The final twist of the show is thrown in so last minute you never get a chance to take it in properly.

Also, all this harem business is really out-of-place for an anime that is extremely un-cartoony.  There are no cartoon "tropes".  For example:  no character's faces morph when angry, nobody pulls out a giant hammer, the show is completely grounded in serious reality.  Its a much less colorful and darker world than "Eureka Seven".  Yet there's all romantic hijinks - underplayed hijinks - but hijinks none the less.  It would be very easy to turn this show into some kind of silly brainless comedy about an ace pilot and all the people who want to bed him.  Ultimately I just missed Lavie half-way through the show, I think.  She's supposed to be the second-most important character but the writers just couldn't find a place for her.

Unfortunately the music isn't really all that memorable in my opinion.  I actually cannot remember a single track, years later.  It works, but I don't remember any of it.  But here's the opening credits if you want to judge the music for yourself.

In the end "Last Exile" is a flawed show, but hardly unwatchable.  Throughout its entire run the mystery of its world and characters will keep you guessing and the characters, combat sequences, and beautiful world will keep you captivated.  It may not be as good as say "Eureka Seven", but there isn't really all that much that is that good.  If you simply want a decent anime program, "Last Exile"'s 26 episodes will keep you going.  If you want the best anime ever, then its a hopeless case.  There is no "best ever", everything has flaws.  You'll just be disappointed with everything.

ツ

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* Then again, this is anime after all.  Even titles that are considered as amongst the greatest of the entire animation genre are completely unknown amongst most people.  For every person who remembers "Dragonball Z" fondly that are 100 more who will have no idea what you're talking about.  And that's DBZ!  Imagine trying to explain to somebody what "Ranma ½" is.  Even on the Internet, the nerdy parts of the Internet (here for example), you'll find people who have never heard of "Ranma ½".  That makes me very sad.  Clearly I'm fighting a losing battle and have nowhere near enough visitors to make a dent at all.... oh well.  Back to the review.