Ouritsu Uchuugun: Honneamise no Tsubasa

Shirotsugh "Shiro" Lhadatt may be a cadet in the Kingdom of Honneamise's Royal Space Force (RSF), but he has never been in space before—in fact, nobody has. The RSF is often regarded as a failure both by the country's citizens and a government more interested in precipitating a war with a neighboring country than scientific achievement. Following the funeral of a fellow cadet, an unmotivated Shiro is walking in the city one night, when he bumps into Riquinni Nonderaiko, a young, pious woman, genuinely enthusiastic about the significance of space exploration.

As the two gradually bond, Riquinni's encouragement inspires Shiro to volunteer as a pilot for a prospective rocket ship, potentially becoming Honneamise's first man in space. Shiro and the RSF are soon joined by a team of elderly but eager scientists and engineers, and together, they embark on a mission to mold their nation's space program into a success. However, their efforts soon catch the attention of the government, which seems to have a different plan for the RSF in mind. Even as the odds are stacked against them, these men and women continue to stubbornly look to the sky, because somewhere among the frontiers of space may lie humanity's last chance at redemption.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Lhadatt, Shirotsugh Main

Morimoto, Leo Japanese

Nonderaiko, Riquinni Main

Yayoi, Mitsuki Japanese

General Khaidenn Supporting

Uchida, Minoru Japanese

Manna Supporting

Murata, Aya Japanese

Tohn, Matti Supporting

Sogabe, Kazuyuki Japanese

Maseba, Yutaka Producer

Inoue, Hiroaki Producer

Yamaga, Hiroyuki Director, Script, Screenplay, Planning, Creator

Tashiro, Atsumi Sound Director

Reviews

Jun 22, 2024

ComfyRainyDay

Recommended

“Ideas grow; sometimes bigger than life.” - Marty Tohn

Story Development ★★★☆☆☆ Okay

Royal Space Force is very clearly the first major work of a group of people who are monstrously talented, but have not quite gotten their artistic footing. It was clear that this was a story they truly cared about, sending a message they believed would broaden peoples' view of the world. Yamaga and Okada refused to compromise on it in the face of corporate pressures, acknowledging that even if paring down the movie would increase the profits by millions of yen, it would not be worth destroying what they were trying to accomplish. The ... result is a movie that doesn’t quite hit its mark, but which inevitably charms you with its limitless passion.

Its greatest strength is its worldbuilding. It takes the opposite tact from many modern anime, which place themselves in the most generic fantasy or sci-fi world possible and yet still finds ways to dump constant exposition. The kingdom of Honneamise is aesthetically dense and lived-in and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, all delightfully oddball and anachronistic, near modern in some ways and near medieval in other ways. And characters never take the time to explain things to each other which they would find obvious. Instead, it’s up to the audience to intuit much about the world from what little information we’re given.

Art Style and Composition ★★★★★★ Outstanding

This movie has to come pretty close to the absolute limit of how good a work of art can possibly look. You have some of the most talented animators of all time pouring their hearts out before your eyes, and every frame is filled with so much detail and color and beauty. Even simple, humble scenes of machines operating, or character buying fruits at a street market, can steal your breath away with its aesthetic splendor. If you find animations of complex machinery at work as satisfying as I do, you will love the look of this film. Why can’t anything this beautiful be made nowadays?

Character Development ★★☆☆☆☆ Bad

Lhadatt experiences the majority of the character development in the movie, and his arc fails to impress. He instantly goes from a lazy, unmotivated wash-out, to being utterly determined to succeed even at the cost of his own life, seemingly just to impress a girl at first. The film threatens to be interesting when he struggles with the question of “is it ethical to create wondrous technology, knowing that it will inevitably be used in war?” But this question is basically forgotten about. Worse is an infamous scene past the halfway point, which throws a massive wrench in his development out of nowhere and will make many viewers utterly hate him.

Character Design ★★★★☆☆ Good

The characters are impressively detailed, semi-realistic, and perfectly match the aesthetic of the world they inhabit, nearly as rough and gruff and humble as the machines they operate. There is no glamorization of the characters, except for perhaps Riquinni, who is the movie’s obligatory cute girl.

Voice Acting (Sub) ★★★☆☆☆ Okay

There were no true stand-out moments in either direction. The performances always succeeded in delivering their intended tone, but never drew any emotion out of me.

Music & SFX ★☆☆☆☆☆ Terrible

As a converse to the art, this soundtrack is about as bad as a soundtrack can possibly be, in my opinion. It sounds just like the ‘songs’ I used to make as a small child, by randomly ordering notes in a synthesizer until I found something slightly bearable, and then repeating that progression over and over with slight alterations. The music actively worsened every scene it was in; thankfully, it was sparsely used.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 28, 2021

Ciaran_Zagami

Mixed Feelings

This is without a shadow of a doubt the single most beautiful looking movie I've ever seen.
It cost nearly 1 billion Yen (In 2021 money) to produce and it REALLY shows.

Unfortunately I can't say quite as much nice stuff about the rest of the movie.
The characters are bland, the music is so awkward its actually painful to listen to.

The story is very cliche, boy meets girl. Girl changes his world view and he undergoes some kind of deep seated change. Very standard stuff, just with a heaping tablespoon of religion and moralizing.

Honestly though, the art is so outstanding. It more than makes up ... for the above shortcomings.

There is only one scene that I can say nearly broke me, near the final act of the movie the main character. He outright sexually assaults the female lead in a scarily accurate sequence that turned my stomach.

This isn't some James Bond guy kiss girl, girl slap guy, guy kisses her again and then they're into it.
This was full on, push girl naked to ground and pin her limbs so she can't escape.
It was frankly disgusting and ruined the entire tone the movie was going for, even during the climax of the movie I couldn't get it out of my head.

I guess I'd say watch this movie but that scene alone was such a dozy I don't know what to think.

Apparently a sequel has been in some level of development for the last 20 years, though I can't say I'm interested in exploring this setting again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 30, 2022

Superdsg00

Not Recommended

The animation and designs are amazing. Those are really the only good things I can say about the movie.
The story is remarkably boring and doesn't seem to go anywhere or have a point to it. I suppose you could say it was unpredictable though as I had hoped it would go somewhere at least.
Other than Shiro, I can't even remember the names of any of the characters. They're all forgettable. Shiro's motivations seem unclear and I don't really understand why he does any of the things he does. The relationship between two of the main characters is confusing and completely uninteresting. The music is ... weird and starts and stops abruptly.
I really like other shows with a similar style and design (Watch El Hazard if you haven't instead) and I had high hopes from seeing pictures and favorable reviews here but I was pretty disappointed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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