Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam

"I've made up my mind! I'm going to steal that ship!"

All source of life originates from the Grand Lake.

At this very sacred lake, the battle between the Ades Federation and the Turan Kingdom has just begun. The Ades Federation, armed with massive battleships and its sights set on conquering the world, declares war on the Turan Kingdom. With the Federation's troops encroaching on their beloved country, Turan now lies on the brink of collapse. As this is happening, the princesses of Turan look on as a small vanship named Vespa cruises above their heads.

"We shall now commandeer your flagship and take her from this battlefield. The choice is yours. Die here, or survive with us Sky Pirates!"

The Vespa continues to weave through the barrage of bombs, while the fleets of the Federation close in on Turan.

What are the motives of Luscinia, the man leading the Ades Federation into the war? And what is the secret behind "Exile"?

(Source: Animax, edited)

Fan Fan, Fam Main

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Collette, Giselle Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Turan, Millia il Velch Cutrettola Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Eraclea, Dio Supporting

Noda, Junko Japanese

Head, Lavie Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Valca, Claus Supporting

Asano, Mayumi Japanese

Hamilton, Alvis E. Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Wisła, Tatiana Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

Forrester, Sophia Supporting

Yamazaki, Wakana Japanese

Agrew, Alister Supporting

Kuwatani, Natsuko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Takagi, Junichi Producer

Chigira, Kouichi Director

Isobe, Kenji Director

Reviews

Jan 26, 2012

5camp

Recommended

When a sequel to Last Exile was announced, it had a real air of desperation to it. It felt like Gonzo were desperately rummaging through their back catalogue to find an IP with recognisable quality that they could rehash for some extra dough. The original Last Exile was great, but it was also complete, and ended in a way that solved all the characters issues and wrapped everything up in a perfect package. It by no stretch needed a sequel. But they did so anyway, setting it with new characters and on a completely different planet, with only very loose connections to what happened in ... the original. That all said, Gonzo put an extraordinary amount of effort into this, pumping out something that I would say could stand proud alongside the original. That is, if it wasn't for Fam.

Let's talk about the good first though. Last Exile was a standard-bearer for how to integrate CGI into hand-drawn animation well, keeping only the machinery CGI. Last Exile Fam is that except bigger, better and with more intricate detail. The scale of the CGI models for the battleships is phenomenal. They really give the sense of these giant clunky machines that were built by real people, with insignias and rivets and everything. Asides from simply looking impressive, this also helps flesh out the world by designing everything so well. The variations between the bad guys factory produced fancy ships and the pirates less conventional looking weapons to the Russian women's pointy fighter jets. There's a real sense of different cultures conveyed through the designs. It feels like a proper world. There's a great sense of epic scale to these battles too, because you can feel how immense these ships are. Compared to something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes, where the space battles may as well have been some kid on his playroom floor going "pew pew pew", when a ship explodes in Last Exile Fam, it really gives the sense that a monster has been taken down. The pitched battle sequences here are probably the best in any anime I've ever seen.

The way the different cultures are portrayed ties into the other big area I feel Last Exile Fam excels at: The politics. Each nation has a reason for fighting and reasons for wanting peace, but what it does really well is how it is portrayed. It's not done through some boring narration over a shot of people fighting. When you just throw names of nations and political ideals at you, it just goes in one ear and out the other. You have no reason to care. Last Exile Fam does this well by having the politics centre around a small group of characters that are central to the conflict and it's their ideals and personalities that shape the direction. On one side we have the two Princesses of Turan and on the other we have the military one-eyed general and his teeny tiny Augusta. It all works because it explains why these people are fighting through character development, which is how politics in a story should be conveyed. OK, it's a little too keen on making the military general start massacring people, but his reasoning are logical and human. You understand why he's doing it.

The problem starts when the person they use to watch this conflict through the eyes of is a complete brainless twat. As far as I'm concerned, Princess Millia is the main character in this story, or at least she should be. She's the character with flaws and the one with the real human investment in this conflict, both for political and personal reasons. She is the one who is developing slowly through her encounters with different nations and people. However the person she chose to ride around with is Fam. Fucking. Fam. The most brainless moronic single-minded simpleton to ever grace the skies. A character who mindlessly blunders her way through anything and everything, not having the mental capacity to doubt herself or justify her actions beyond her witless adherence to the genki philosophy. This character archetype has slowly but surely become one of my most hated, up there alongside the Yuji Everylead the Bland. The problem here is that genki juvenile idiotic energy is treated like A Good Thing. Her justification to just jump into things because it feels right should not be something that constantly rewards her. It's not that I can't enjoy a stupid character. Yuki in Future Diary is an idiot, but he gets punished for his idiocy, and is therefore incredibly entertaining to watch. People just conform to Fam's way of thinking, degrading the intelligence of the conversation around her.

Possibly my favourite episode of the series so far was the flashback one to the Grand Race where Fam is only 6 years old, part of the reason being because her idealistic energy flying in the face of actual facts fitted someone who was only 6 years old. Every single other character from the flashback had since developed. But not Fam. Oh no. She remains exactly the fucking same. The next episode had a scene where Fam said she wanted to return to the times like the one where the Grand Race took place, only for the Russian chick to point out that there was an assassination there that highlighted that there was unrest beneath this seemingly happy scene and it was merely a mask for the problems in the world. But such a complex issue couldn't fit into Fam's tiny brain, so she just blunders on saying she wants to recreate that day anyway. What's worse is the other characters agree with her. They get sucked in by her stupidity, their own brains abandoning their skulls in the face of this black hole of intelligent writing.

I like this new rendition of Last Exile. I love the scale and intensity of the battles, the development of characters such as Millia and the military commander, and how well realised the world is. But Fam is a giant gormless genki wart on this otherwise great series, degrading everything she comes into contact with. Fuck you Fam, you suck.

::Update upon finishing the anime::

In the end, I had to hike the score up from a 7 to an 8 for Fam finally admitting around about the 4th last episode that she had been a naive twat the entire time. Too little too late perhaps, but it gave the character some much needed development.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 4, 2012

du5k

Mixed Feelings

Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam goes from an interesting tribute to a snoozer and ends in a failure.

Throughout the early episodes of the series, I remember having favorable opinions for the show; it reminds me of the brilliance of the first season, the vast world, and even one of the first reasons I started liking anime, because Last Exile was one of the earliest shows I've watched. I hated Millia, but I liked Fam, and that Toyosaki Aki did a pretty good job on her. As long they keep this up and moving on to the real story, it would turn out really good.

It didn't ... have a good story. After the first, say, 1/3 of the story, one of the most prominent problems began to show up: the lead character Fam. There are many, many things said about her character, I think I can sum it up as having no depth, no variance in personality, and no character development. She wasn't unique in any way, and she doesn't have any kind of background except for being really good at piloting. She has a one-dimensional personality and only one approach to every single problem in the story. And she learned nothing and changed nothing throughout the entire story. As you would expect, things becomes really boring, fast.

Then... when it comes down to the important moments, the storytelling was pure shit. When did the primary enemy change from Sera to Luscinia? All that screentime on Orang just for his 10 seconds of fame? A single message from Sera to end all conflict, instantly? A single ship shows out of nowhere and starts shooting everything, and the battle ends right there? The pacing is also terrible. Episode 19 contain one of the most important battles in the story, yet they rushed through it so as to begin the next part.

And finally, the story, which also disappoints. The ending left me confused about Luscinia's real objective in the end. Was he trying a Lelouch here? If so, it was terribly executed, because both Liliana's and his actions were really unjustified. I found it so un-agreeable that I'm still hesitant to believe that was supposed to be the conclusion to the story. The final impression of the story almost always rests on the ending, and such an unsatisfying ending is pretty much the worst you can do.

Oh wait, just one more. Of the two most important, and most anticipated weapons our main characters can wield, one never showed up, and one blew up on a whim. What a good idea, right?

I could talk more about the things that this series did wrong, but I don't want to turn this more into a list more than it already does. The most enjoyable episode turns out to be a recap of the previous season. So, is this a complete waste of time? Well, the show does have several good points. The production values are excellent, being Gonzo's supposed flagship material after all. I never think that they quite captured the "steampunk" feel as compared to the previous season, but I supposed that's subjective. Since the animation quality often matters a lot more to me than other people, I must say that this isn't a complete waste of time; I did enjoy it a fair bit. If you would have me recommend this to people, I can only say that this is a huge disappointment; especially if you've watched the first season.

Plot/Concept: Bad
Story Style: Really, really bad
Audio/Visual: Excellent!
Value: 5

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 14, 2013

Kere

Not Recommended

I loved Last Exile. It's one of my all time favorite shows. So when I heard there was gonna be a sequel. I was like "Oh yes". After I finished episode 2 I was like "Oh no". Not gonna lie, I'm 100% sure they made a sequel to the wrong series. The entire show is a downhill joke. If you don't want any Spoilers, don't read ahead.

SPOILER WARNING, MULTIPLE SPOLIERS BEYOND THIS RANT

Now that I have that out of the way, as others have said, the story line is lame. I think the Initial idea of the whole Space Pirates thing to be cool, Especially ... with little girls, but not these ones. So anyway, Someone blows someone else up, all war erupts. Congrats, Episode 1 done. Not Gonna lie, I was bored most of this show. Luscinia's motive is rather weak, and does nothing but make me ask "Why?" everytime he does something. Liliana Changing side was a bit unexpected, as was her death, but didn't add much to my excitement. All in all, The storyline for this show was kinda dumb.

Charecters? First Fam just pissed me off the entire show. She lost both her parents, and now is involved in a war. But don't worry, she still happy as ever. And i wanted to slap her a couple of times when she refused to listen to logic, and the only thing she talks about is the grand race. Last Exile, everyone had a motive, everyone had emotions. What do we have here? A little girl who seems to care less that they are killing people and that she doesn't even have her own parents, or that her own home(skypirate fortress) gets wrecked. Giselle is less annoying and probably much more likable as she doesn't do anything completely stupid, but does nothing spectacular.

As other have said, the Silivus is one of the most lame replacements for the Silvana you can think of. Also, apparently there is multiple Exiles flying around. So lets selfishly use them as magical war ships to Annihilate entire countries for reasons explainable in the show.

I refuse to this day to acknowledge this show as a squeal. I am telling you now. The show in nothing fantastic. It's nothing worth your time, Unless you like watching a Loli commit grand theft while smiling without a care in the world. You've found paradise. Otherwise, keep clicking around for another show.

Also the word "Grand" is grossly overused

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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