Last Exile
This was something else; a really really good anime, but with some flaws that make it a little hard to comprehend. Beautifully animated and drawn anime with a cast that is both adorable and squeeful and serious and crazy too. The story is a little hard to think about, but the end goal, the reason Last Exile is called what it is and things; it’s about a piece of technology that was from a civilization long long ago, this technology is said to contain the power of gods and all sorts of things. (Thinking about it, the ambiguous ending and the phrases said….. sort of imply some things, I’ll leave that in a spoiler at the end).
The story unfolds in several manners; we have the slice of life aspect between Claus, Lavie and Alvis (Al for short), they’re at the center of it all, due to some rather unforeseen and unfortunate events during a vanship race. There is also the war and despair aspect of the anime between two countries on the planet (which might be Earth, but I don’t remember them calling it that); Disith and Anatoray are the two countries at war with one another and as they fight, there is a spectator, or more like a supposed referee called the Guild, but they’re not just referees, they “own” the skies; their main ship has technology that quite literally will make other ships lose power and crash to the ground. There are other things that happen in the background during the war stuff which take place on the Silvana, the strongest and most powerful airship known to people, never destroyed and known as being merciless, much of the anime takes place on or with the Silvana. All aspects of the story mix in action and adventure; there is also the steam punk element which is pretty huge.
The world in Last Exile is that of Steam Punk, it’s a crude modern world, but not exactly modern at all or in some cases, crazy futuristic. The Guild and all their technological advancements raise more than one question mark, more like a hundred or so. They’re capable of using small gems to communicate with one another (where as everyone else relies on couriers), their weapons seem to be laser based, their armor for their ships repel bullets and are typically unscathed in fights; although they sound unstoppable, using certain weaponry can get through to them, but still, they’re absolutely crazy in terms of tech. What’s even weirder is their society, the members of The Guild live in the sky, they control everything and they’re especially wasteful. From the anime, we’re told (shown) that resources, water is especially scarce, down to having ratings such as First Water to Third Water. None of this is ever explained or at least, I never saw an explanation. The Guild and their mighty power is never explained either, we just have to accept their way of living as absolutely normal. The leader of The Guild, Maestro Delphine, holy crap… she’s wicked, she’s crazy and she’s lost her mind. She’s also incredibly hot/attractive and has a thing for her younger brother Dio. She reminds me of Anemone from Eureka Seven in personality and wickedness. Dio is also really out there, at first he reminded me of Anemone, buuuut not like Delphine. Dio is wild, but he’s actually a nice guy, though he has a thing for Claus and expresses it weirdly. In-fact, the entire Guild organization and community is just out there and if you pay attention, the only female is Delphine, not one girl exists in this Guild place and that’s also never explained………. Plot holes, I’m pretty sure is what I would call these things and a lot of them rest with The Guild because they’re super unique and there is never enough exposition for it all.
Aside from the Guild, let’s focus on the stars of the show, Claus, Lavie and Al. Claus and Lavie are childhood friends, they’ve been together for just about ever. Their parents were best of friends and they played a huge role into the reasons why Claus and Lavie wanted to fly in a vanship. One day their parents received a mission (Vanship pilots act as couriers for many a things), a 10 star delivery mission that required them to cross the grand stream. (I’ll get to that in a moment). They unfortunately died (Not a spoiler), but not without leaving Claus and Lavie massive inspiration and motivation, as such, Claus is one of, if not, the best pilot in the world and Lavie is a top notch navigator and without her Claus wouldn’t be able to fly so well. They’re both absolutely amazing together and have a dynamic that blends and mixes perfectly, it’s also really nice that by the end of the anime, it looks like… oh spoiler, hehehe, well they’re good friends is all. Al though…… I love her. She’s by far my favorite character in Last Exile and she’s so adorable and amazing that everyone would enjoy seeing her on the screen. The best thing about her (aside from being the best ever) is the way she’s incorporated into the anime. She’s young, naïve, innocent and totally inquisitive; for most of the episodes that she’s involved with, the scenes take up on her features and mimic them and expose them. The BGM involved with her, her questions and her goodwill, honestly, I squeed and smiled and was so happy when she was on screen, by far my favorite and she’s totally mega ultra-cute too ♥ She’s also incredibly mysterious and I feel like one of the larger plot holes in Last Exile. She’s supposed to be the key to the exile and in-fact she is, but it’s never explained as to why/how she became so important and things, really unfortunate because I’d love to get proper exposition on her.
The main cast is superb and just amazing, but so are the supports. From Alex to Alister and everyone in-between, they’re simply amazing. Alex is mysterious, he’s broken, hell-bent on revenge; the way his eyes are rendered/drawn, they’re that of a broken and lifeless man, a dead soul and it’s scary. Sophia is special and super totally amazing; her scene with Claus, that was a surprise… I gasped and then went, NO WAY…. Episode 15 =). Alister and Tatiana are pretty great and Tatiana’s growth with Claus was unexpected, the way she’s shown throughout is incredible and as a team, Alister and Tatiana are perfect. The others that I won’t mention are pretty great too, the mechanics on Silvana are full of laughs and lighten the mood, the Musketeer who has been in 19 different battles is great, just a whole ton of good characters all around in Last Exile.
One of the weirder things that Last Exile did, which I was not expecting, was how they tried to show a rivalry (or jealous hatred) between Tatiana and Lavia. I didn’t expect a tease of romance to linger through some episodes that caused drama on the Silvana, but I think that episode and the consequent episodes were totally needed, they helped expand the relationships of Claus and Lavia, and it helped bring a more human element to Tatiana’s personality, a huge welcome.
The Grand Stream…. You’re probably curious so I’ll try and explain it…….. It’s this huge zone in the sky, above the clouds where the Exile exists. The winds reach over 100 knots and it’s a crazy archaic area, the clouds are all black and dark, very scary. It’s also where the Guild live in I believe, which is just wild. The Exile…. Now this is just weird; when we’re first shown the Exile, it’s a small cube with the center missing, so really, more like 4 corners or something; it appears in the middle of the anime during a special event. By the end of the anime it takes shape as a cocoon and then at the end of the anime, it becomes… oh wait, spoilers… below. The Exile is beyond interesting and I wish it had more exposition too.
The art in Last Exile is phenomenal, it’s sooo unbelievably good. The character designs are done by Ranga Murata and as of now, his designs are just incredible. The way they’re all drawn and the style, it’s so unique and different from what I’m used to seeing; I really really like it. It’s not just the characters that look good, the detail in Last Exile is astounding and really well drawn, there is detail in just about everything, from clothing to the background to the instruments on the vanships and air ship; it’s soooo good. The animation is also superb and really good. A good portion of Last Exile is also done in CG; I feel like all the vanships and maybe even all the airships are done in CG, same with the smoke and some other things, but what makes the CG so good is how well it blends into the hand drawn art, sometimes it’s almost discernable, from the drawn art, which is beyond huge in terms of compliments. Watching the Last Exile reminded me of Haibene Renmei in the art style, it’s surreal and otherworldly (which I guess it actually it is), so getting those emotions translated from art is really well done. Now, unfortunately for Last Exile, despite all the praise in the world for its’ art, I did notice that around the last few episodes the quality took a hit, faces seems to be drawn wrong or the perspective didn’t make sense, the way faces and hands were drawn looked off at times, things like that were a little obvious during the last few episodes, fortunately the animation was perfect throughout all 26 episodes.
Music is pretty much perfect. The OP is a little hard to get into, but only the first ~5 seconds when the bagpipes (or something that sounds like them) is playing; once the vocals begin and the type of music changes, it becomes amazing and worth at least several listen throughs. The Ending on the other hand, never skipped this one at all; it’s perfect and during the last episode we get to listen to the whole song in all its glory, one of the best ED’s of all time, it’s slow, it’s beautiful and the vocals, oh my gao they sound amazing, like simply amazing. The BGM is really good too; the steam punk aspects of the anime are well realized through sound. I mentioned Al and the BGM with her above, but seriously…. Honestly… the BGM that goes along with Al will make you giggle, smile, and probably squee; it’s so cute how the sounds and music mimic Al perfectly and if anything, it makes Al so much more lovable. Music is a super important variable to anime, and I feel like most anime pull it off really well, but Last Exile went above and beyond, it was just perfect.
I just realized I hit close to too many words for this write up…….. and things. Last Exile is a must watch; it’s a must if you like Steam Punk, it’s a must if you want to watch a good adventure, it’s a must if you want to be enthralled in an amazing world, it’s a must if you want to be lost in a story that might actually make you lost. I enjoyed Last Exile so much, it’s so good. Now of course I had some issues with it, the plot holes are real and I honestly had to read up on it to understand what happened, though if I were to think about it, I may have figured out what happened eventually. The combination of it all though, art, music, story, cast (Al ♥), I think everyone should give this anime a try. Last Exile on a whole reminded me of several anime too; the Eureka Seven aspect, Xam’d Lost Memories and even Castle in the Sky, if you’ve seen all of these, you might even be able to make the connections I had =).
Spoilers: Only intended if you watched or don’t mind being spoiled about Last Exile.
So the Exile is secretly a portal (or a ship? Something capable to send people to a whole different planet) that will transport people back to Earth? Oh wait…. Getting ahead of myself. The planet that this old civilization came from was Earth and the planet they left the Exile on was a different place, ruined by many things I imagine, which might explain the poor living qualities and things. The last episode shows the Exile taking shape and when Al is responding to the Mysterion, the world around her changed to represent Earth, golden wheat fields, oceans and the last image ends up showing Earth. The Exile also has these two huge light purple blades (more like wings) that are transparent and if you look closely, shows Earth. I imagine, because of the wording used by the mechanics on Silvana, that Claus, Lavia, Al and many others left to this new world. It’s also obvious they’re in a different place because I honestly don’t ever remember seeing an ocean in the planet they came from. The ambiguity isn’t something I like, but now that I think about it, they did give hints to explain the lore behind what happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t read anything up on the Guild, but I feel like they’re best left ambiguous.
