It took me awhile to finally finish the series for Last Exile, but that's because I kept losing interest. Nevertheless, I can say that the concept for this storyline is mind blowing. My favorite part of the series was the characters and their character development. When you are given a specific person and as the story progresses, you will eventually grow to enjoy or dislike the personalities of each character as each episode goes by, providing you with a very detailed expression of what you think of a specific person, their relationships with others, and their overall attitude towards the plot.
The one feature that I had a huge problem with, and has overall affected the severely low score for this series that I have given it, is plot development. Like the character development, it expands the plot to include intricate details about the scenario that a person is currently watching at. However, the development is taken far too excessively and severely hinders the attention to key details by distracting it with too many medial details. Each episode is painfully expanded to its limits on one specific skit; such as, the vanship race takes up an episode and a half and is nowhere near important to the overall plot, except for specific points, like the introduction of another character. However, you end up missing these points until the very end when it causes a hindrance with the friction between characters.
Had they reduced the series to a legitimately smaller series, or even a movie, to the point where it's more "to the point" and less excess, I would have fallen in love with this anime. But, because the presentation is terrible compared to the concept, I have to give my overall score as is. Last Exile is an example of good concept, terrible presentation.
