Ranked #514

The Wings of Honneamise

Wings of Honneamise is a perhaps one of the most underrated and under-appreciated animes ever made. It is clearly made for adults, not due to vulgarity or gratuitous violence, but due to its moral ambitions and its seriousness.

STORY
Ahead of its time. Amazing storytelling, a cut above almost every other anime out there, save for maybe Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon. The young director of this film really knew his stuff.

ART
The art style is a bit old, but by no means is it bad. It is extremely detailed at times, and the animation is very fluid and stunning. I'd say it's around AKIRA quality.

SOUND
Sadly, the weakest link in WoH. The music, while trying to sound otherworldly, fails to enhance the scenes most of the time. There are two memorable songs, though, near the end.

CHARACTER
Some of the best character development you'll ever see in an anime. This is the kind of movie that even non-anime fans will like. The characters are very well handled, and grow after each scene.

ENJOYMENT
Extremely entertaining, well directed, amazing climactic action scene, what else do you want?

OVERALL
An extremely underrated classic. I don't know why the rating is so low. Seriously, go watch this movie. Buy it even, it's not that expensive on VHS. The fact that this movie is so underrated really depresses me, and makes me think twice about the taste of most anime fans. read more

Wow. I can't believe no one has written a review for this movie yet. I'd have to say that, based on its current 7.8 rating, it's slightly underrated. I myself would call it a masterpiece, but keeping other people's tastes in mind, I give it a conservative 9/10. (See bottom for a quick summary)

STORY
What makes this movie stand out is its spot-on storytelling. For me, there's not a single dull moment from beginning to end. Fans of action may be put off by instances of character development in the middle, but the movie always picks up and gets right back to forwarding the plot. I myself found the character development engrossing and mostly believable. (I also think it was crucial to let the viewer feel out the world of Honneamise by developing the main character, but that's just my opinion.) The movie has such good writing that it wouldn't have mattered much if they glimpsed over the side characters, but they're given their own time in the sun, and it adds a nice touch to the realism.
Speaking of realism, the alternate universe of Honneamise is so finely tuned that you'll hardly catch all the details on your first viewing. The world will seem so familiar that you'll want to connect it back to our world. I think that's what the director intended, because I felt invested in the unfolding events of the movie, as if the history of Honneamise were somehow my own.
Most importantly, the ending of this movie is epic. And that's all I'll say, because I don't want to give anything away. If you're watching this with your enjoyment meter at 5 or 6, PLZ try to make it to the end.

ART
This movie had an insane budget - I think that's all I have to say. It has great art and fluid action scenes. Sure, it's a little dated (which is why I gave it a 9), but you can't ask for anything that much better even nowadays.

SOUND
The score is amazing. It's far-above-par soundtrack is one of only two anime soundtracks Ryuichi Sakamoto (of The Last Emperor fame) composed (source: fatalist17 on Youtube). However, its sound is fresh from the 80s, and some people may not like it. Still, it shouldn't get in the way of enjoying the movie. Also, the seiyuu is excellent!

CHARACTER
I've already talked about character development when I talked about the plot, but let me just repeat that the main character's easygoing nature was easy for me to relate to, and really helped me immerse myself in the film. I'd have to say every character is believable, even stereotypical stock characters like the quirky scientists. I gave the movie an 8 because there were two characters who annoyed the heck out of me - but that may be just a personal grudge. I won't say who, because I don't want to bias you before you watch the movie.

ENJOYMENT
A great story. Solid characters. Awesome artistry and soundtrack. A nice dose of action. The very recipe for enjoyment. Now, enjoyment is subjective, but I still can't see how anyone would NOT enjoy this unless they were only in it for the action.

OVERALL
The production values (art and sound) for this movie are phenomenal! They really tried to make the characters believable - I found it easy to root for the main character. Of course, the storytelling is what really brings this film together. If you like well-rounded works, this is a must-see. If you get bothered by things like the slow scenes in The Godfather, you may not enjoy it as much, but I still highly recommend this masterpiece. read more

Main
This is a real treat for people who are into vintage anime! Wings of Honneamise [WoH] is very much like a Miyazawa anime [Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Castle] except instead of dealing with fantasy WoH is sci-fi.

Art-Style
I love the art style, the animation and the character designs. I have the lower-grade fansub version and I know that WoH was just released in Hi-Def and Blu-Ray so I can only imagine how awesome it looks now! But in all honesty, as with Akira, I don't think you would have been able to tell this show was from the 80's were it not for the music score or some of the tell-tale character designs but animation-wise you would not be able to tell. The animation was not jumpy and there was no looping or any of those tricks. I think the best moment in art and animation culminates at the final launch scene, which was a very beautiful scene! This being a sci-fi anime.

you will see a lot of machines and technology but it's no Robotech, Transformers or Gundam, there is no transforming into humanoid looking mecha or any of that and that's why I really liked this show. I love Robotech and Gundam Seed but after a while everyone tries to be like those shows and originality goes though the door, everyone tries to deliver the sleekest, newest, "fantabulously" awe-inspiring mecha......boring! Honneamise pays homage to old-school technology by looking backwards and gives you realistic machines with all the metal, smoke and cabling that goes along with it not to mention the bulky flight suits....a little less glamorous but awe-inspiring art nonetheless.

Sound
If you are as old as I am, I think you will say that the ending is probably the most memorable thing when it comes to the music....which sounded like Nu Shooz's “I can't wait” And that is why I say the music gives it away as an older anime. The opening theme was actually not that bad it was a dramatic piano composition, which didn't sound too dated at all.

I watched this show in English and it was very good voice acting on the English side, this was probably supposed to have been for theatrical release or something.

Story
The story is a very subtle one. In the beginning there may not even seem to be a point to it all......and maybe there still isn't! But the moral of the story from what I've gathered is probably about self-awareness. Honneamise starts out small about an introspective and possibly lonely young man who thinks about the insignificant mediocrity of his life and from there it slowly progresses into something of a much grander scale: the science of man. The progression of a country, the conscience of mankind, mankind's place in the world and then our world's place in the universe. So it's about awareness but not only awareness it's also about perspective, personal drives and ambitions.

There is also a lot of God-talk, which at first made me apprehensive because it started with the female lead and that little kid always praying and stuff and then it seemed to be contagious because now the main guy was praying all the time.....and I thought “oh gawd, what have I gotten myself into?” But it's all good and it does seem to serve to add another layer to the story and further accentuates the perspectives between the characters and even the main guy's perspective in this cosmos.

Cast/Characters
As I said before, I loved the character designs they looked very unique. A lot if not most of them are drawn with a high forehead and more realistic chins and jaw lines. Some were more pronounced and squarish and others were softer and rounded. There were also a lot of variations of realistic looking noses instead of just the hint of a line and some shadow.

This is just my opinion, but I think that sometimes it's important to have characters look like us so that we can have that human connection with the character, sometimes when the characters are too stylized or glamorized we lose that bond and are no longer able to empathize with them. These characters looked human both in face and body styles. I also think a lot of work was done with wardrobe and set design and you did get the feel of being in another world, place and time. I especially liked the official military dress clothes which was very colorful and unique it did not look like it was borrowed from any other actual culture, I'm always impressed by these types of originality.

Worth it or NOT?
Again I think this would be a real treat for anyone who's into vintage anime or perhaps an anime sci-fi aficionado. Or maybe even if you are looking for something that not super fantastic or filled with mecha or you have watched all of Hayao Miyazawa's anime and you want to see more stuff like that. There are many reasons to watch this show, either way I don't think you'll be unhappy with this choice.....especially if you have the HD/BluRay version. read more