Reviews for Last Exile

Every anime studio has their ups and downs, their highs and lows, their hits and misses. There's not a single one that hasn't produced a decent title without producing something ... less than average (Manglobe came close, until they made a certain show about a Blacksmith). Surprisingly, many anime fans consider Gonzo to be one of the worst offenders, as while they have made some excellent shows, they have a catalogue of average to sub par (or worse), titles to their name as well. Thankfully Last Exile is a one that, for the most part, they got right, but then again, the series was made tocelebrate Gonzo's 10th anniversary so it's understandable that they made the extra effort.

The show follows the adventures of Claus Valca and Lavie Head, two childhood friends who are determined to follow in their father's footsteps, and become the best vanship couriers around. Like their respective parents, Hamilcar Valca and George Head, Claus is the pilot and Lavie is the navigator, and their entry into the Norkia Cup race signifies the beginning of their journey, one which will change both their lives.

One of the things that people complain about with Last Exile is that the first half of the series offers very little explanation about the events that occur while adding more and more layers to the plot. However, the more patient viewer will be rewarded as the answers are forthcoming in the second half of the show, and while there is a nice amount of complexity to the story, this is nowhere near enough to confuse people. In truth, I found the show was pitched in a manner that would appeal to many viewers as there is always enough going on to keep one interested.

What is most interesting about the show though, is that it is one of the few steam punk themed anime available. There are a number of aspects and designs that are clearly influenced by the Industrial Revolution and Germany during the time between the two World Wars, and more references are forthcoming when one looks closer at the series. There is also a clear influence from two classic Ghibli movies, Nausicaa and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, although neither of those titles is as heavily steam punk as Last Exile.

With regards to the look of the show, it's interesting to note that the visual production of the series relied heavily on CG. In particular, Gonzo used non-photorealistic rendering as a method to combine traditional hand drawn animation and CG, and the benefits of this technique are clearly visible throughout the anime. The quality of animation is extremely good throughout, and together with the designs of the characters, ships, equipment, and scenery, affords Last Exile a look and feel that is superior to most anime around.

That said, one of the issues with the series is that the rare colour clashes can sometimes be a little hard on the eyes.

The overall quality of the series extends to the music and effects too. The various tracks used throughout the series are often well chosen, whilst the numerous noises and sounds are well choreographed, and pitched at a level that rarely overwhelms the viewer. The OP, "Cloud Age Symphony" by Okino Shuntaro, is a strange piece of music that may not sit well with some viewers due to its more experimental approach. This is also true of the ED, "Over the Sky" by Kuroishi Hitomi, a track which is far more melodic than the OP, but retains the same off-kilter feel.

As for the acting, both Asano Mayumi and Saito Chiwa are in fine form as Claus and Lavie respectively, whilst Morikawa Toshiyuki is suitably taciturn as the enigmatic Alex Rowe. Each of the seiyuu portray their characters well, although there are one or two moments when the delivery seems a little forced, something that only really occurs during heavy action sequences.

One of the things that really sets Last Exile apart is the quality of its characters. Many people talk about things like "realism" and "believability" when it comes to characters, but in truth this is simply an attempt to explain how well the characters work in the context of the story, and also how well the characters follow certain patterns of behaviour that many know to be the average for people (and by this I mean how would the average, real world person react in a similar situation).

Its nice to see then, that Last Exile uses the characters very well. Both Claus and Lavie behave in a manner that is reasonable and understandable, and both are allowed to develop rather well over the course of the show. This is also true of a number of other characters, including Alex Rowe, who is akin to a modern day Harlock in some respects.

That's not to say that every character is great though, as there are on or two who don't seem to serve any real purpose, and are nothing more than window dressing. While it's true that there are always characters like this in any half decent story, the last place you should see them is on a battleship.

As a fan of steam punk, I found myself warming to Last Exile almost immediately. The plot, pacing and designs are very well handled and presented, and the story is easy to follow while retaining a degree of suspense and complexity - something which isn't easy to achieve. The series would easily appeal to fans of Nausicaa and Laputa, however fans of shows like Sakura Taisen, Steamboy, Giant Robo, or any anime about flying may find this rewarding viewing.

This is one of those rare titles that has something for everyone, but fans of steam punk should definitely give it a try.

Granted there are some minor niggles here and there, but overall Last Exile is well told story that looks and sounds great. A great deal of thought has gone into this series, and it shows in a number of ways. It's easily one of the more imaginative titles to appear in anime, especially as it's one that isn't based on a manga/novel/game/etc. It may not appeal to everyone, but those willing to give it a try may not be disappointed.

I just wish they'd make more imaginative shows like this instead of all the school based pap we're being served these days.

In the world that huge ships roam the skies, “Last Exile” is a sci-fi, steam punk, action/adventure anime, which is set in a somewhat futuristic Imperial age. It follows the adventures of Claus and Lavie, two Vanship messengers who happened to take on a dangerous mission to transport a girl to a notorious mercenary ship (Silvana). There was then a series of events that led to them being part of the ships crew. The beginning of the story is nothing special, as there is no real excitement or shocking moments. All this series is to begin with, a series of events with not much meaning tothem. It is only till halfway into the series that the story starts to get interesting, with some developments in the storyline. The major downfall is that the major questions are not really answered until the last couple episode, when some kind of meaning behind the show title “Last Exile” is revealed. However at this point the story undergoes a major change which can lead to you asking, “Where is this story heading?”

The quality of the animation is excellent as it is one of the best mixes of drawn animation and CG, giving it a realistic feel. So much detail is put into the cloud and smoke effects only that watching them soar through the skies is amazing. The slightly hazy look this anime has can sometimes distort the images, especially in dark scenes but it really isn’t that big a deal.

The music is alright, with is mostly a bunch of melodies that are the sort of stuff typical heard in anime. The music doesn’t really add anything to the show experience or help set the atmosphere; no real suspense, drama, excitement, nothing.

Overall this is quite an enjoyable anime series to watch however it is so incredibly slow paced, to the point where in half the episodes, nothing important happens. For a kid’s show this was pretty hard to understand, because the major plot related questions were only answered in the last couple episodes. Some people may find the ending rather disappointing with no real build-up to it and too many deaths. However at least there was some kind of resolution, to be pleased with. This show had so much potential to be superb, as there was a lot of effort put into it, however a better story could have helped.

This is a pretty good anime to watch, but it lacks something crucial to make it any special. ^_^

I was looking forward to seeing Last Exile from all the rumors and good ratings that had cross my eye related to it, but the fact is: I expected much better. On to the review. Starting with Story. A science fiction story that at first glance was joining up elements of advance technology (e.g. flying battle ships) and medieval element (e.g. musketeers; honor code from European battles). It reeled me in at first, as the first 2 episodes were intense and interesting. The third episode continued with good pace also ( this time bringing a race and it was not only this element but the junctionof others from the first 2 which made me feel that this anime got many inspiration from Star Wars). But it\'s was in the 4th ep. that I first start seeing plot holes (eg. in character relationship, and background), and it wouldn\'t be the last time. Even so the overall story was interesting although it sometimes developed faster or even in a slower pace than it should have.

This will depend a bit on people tastes, but I did not enjoy the ending, and especially how some of the plot lines around some characters resolved.

So in resume, the story has its ups and downs, it\'s pace it\'s quite irregular sometimes moving fast and other times going slow, it\'s good in overall but fails in many details.

Like the story, the characters started up promising, but many of them turned out to be disappointing. Especially main characters who got little development whatsoever in terms of personality. In fact the characters that got more evolution were within secondary cast, and at some point in the anime I actually started to care more about the latest then the ones I was supposed to care about. Good examples are Sophia, Mullin and Dio. Being the last one the character that most appealed to me, mostly due to is initial personality and also because he got a good evolution during the anime.

I can\'t stop thinking a bit of romance would have done wonders to improve character interaction but no moves were made in that direction.

So the strong points turn out to be the interesting secondary cast and the overall character design wich was very good.

Animation is Last Exile strongest point. It combines regular animation with 3D CGI sequences. And this is done quite well making not only battles but also many other scenes very pleasant to watch. The animation level is kept high during the whole anime and no glitches are worth mentioning. The overall ship design is very good and the same goes for character design stated above, background scenarios are also amazing.

As for Sound, it\'s pretty good as well. VA\'s do a great job, sound effects are very good and background music is so-so. The opening theme was very good and the ending theme was well done although it did not appeal so much to me.

The Enjoyment you take out will very much depend from person to person. For me personally it had it\'s ups and downs due to some periods of or indecision, and because I did not identify myself with the primary cast. Even so there were memorable sequences that made this show worth while.

In overall Last Exile is a good watch but not more than that. It has an interesting story, and although not having a really good primary cast, the secondary characters manage to complement this flaw. It has great animation, joining up 2D and 3D Computer Generated Imagery that give action scenes and other ordinary scenes a very good look, which is complemented by good sound effects. I do recommend this one, however don\'t have really high expectations because apart from the animation, there is nothing of really outstanding nor breathtaking in Last Exile.

For as long as human beings have existed, we have prided ourselves in being a species of innovation and success, and our successes have led us to imagine reaching more prestigious accomplishments than before; eventually, our dreams not surprisingly ventured into the skies. Since the dawn of time, humans gazed upward at the birds gliding under the clouds and we desperately desired to soar as well. In ancient Greece, one of the most enduring myths from that time is the tale of Icarus, who attempted escaping prison with his father by donning a pair of wings. In Italy during the Renaissance, the famous Leonardo daVinci crafted elaborate designs for aviation but hid them for years, fearing that influential people would have corrupt uses for them. All of these ideas and more eventually culminated in the Wright Brothers inventing the first airplane during the early 1900s. This creation served as the catalyst for films like Porco Rosso, Red Tails, and (of course) Soul Plane. However, before the 2000s, there were no anime series representing that category. Then, in the spring of 2003, the world was introduced to a 26-episode series known as Last Exile, the 10th anniversary product of Studio Gonzo, humankind’s ultimate celebration of our adventures in the sky.

Established on the Earth-like planet called Prester are two vastly different nations (Anatoray and Disith), locked in a neverending war of chivalry, elitism, and death in order to attain control of the skies. Fully immersed into this Cold War parallel (with Anatoray’s guys in blue being the USA and Disith’s soldiers in red coats being, of course, the Soviet Union) is a mysterious cult-ish organization known as the Guild, headed by the infamous Maestro Delphine, who supplies advanced airplanes, funds, and weaponry to both Anatoray and Disith, who both countries regard with intense suspicion, and who represent the corrupt companies that have bought into, promoted, and benefited from war over the centuries. Like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (what I consider to be the anime’s anime), Exile’s background is inspired by the apex of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s/early 1900s, its genre heavily leaning towards the retrofuturistic dieselpunk. This ultimately helps the series inject a lovably throwback feel to it, and this influence flows into other aspects of Exile, like the animation.

More often than not, anime series tend to rely on computer graphics (CG for short) in order to make their characters and backgrounds look more realistic than the creators can on their own. More often than not, the creators completely shoot themselves in the foot in the animation category because the CG looks and feels utterly out-of-place in their series. However, Last Exile is among the rare series that manage to not only display picture-perfect CG but also to flawlessly integrate it into the animation. It is so smoothly blended into Exile that, for the most part, the CG use isn’t blatantly obvious. Among the most apparent CG uses in Exile is during in-battle aerial attacks, where it is used to emphasize the whispery blue and gray explosion smoke. In every scene, there’s a faded tint present in the animation that causes this series to feel seasoned but appear brand-new; this tint also contributes to strengthening Exile’s aforementioned throwback feel. The impact of Last Exile’s animation on the series overall, already brilliantly jaw-dropping as it is, increases when it journeys into the cinematic. In episode 13, the sound of gunfire is used to guide the transition from one dramatic still shot to another. There’s a stunning scene in episode 18, where blood-red rose petals are slowly drifting from the sky to signal the beginning of Maestro Delphine’s active involvement in the series. In episode 22, there’s beautifully back lighting of Delphine’s face as she presents herself in front of her followers. This scene emanates a strong hint of majestic malevolence thanks to the haunting, mysterious chimes that are showcased here, which leads to another aspect Last Exile excels at: its soundtrack.

The conventional method of producing an anime soundtrack is giving one person the authority to decide what fits and what doesn’t, what sounds complement the series and what doesn’t, and what the music’s tone will be overall. For Cowboy Bebop, it was Yoko Kanno. For Gurren Lagann, it was Taku Iwasaki. For Afro Samurai, it was Robert Diggs (aka The RZA). The implied consensus is that more than one person composing an anime OST is a recipe for disaster. However, Last Exile has three people lording over the soundtrack (the call themselves “Dolce Triade”) and it still manages to be spectacular. First of all, the theme song (Shuntara Okino’s “Cloud Age Symphony”), and ending theme (Hitomi Kuroishi’s “Over the Sky”) are both phenomenally performed and composed. This show absorbs you into it and makes you feel like you’re in the sky with its excellent, atmospheric soundtrack. During fights, it’s mostly grandiose, Hans Zimmer-esque orchestral music used to craft a gung-ho mood; only in the most action-packed sequences are passionate violin solos in attendance. A vague presence of somber jazz is occasionally woven into the soundtrack while complex compositions of piano and drums appear in Exile’s more relaxed scenes. The soundtrack would’ve been my favorite aspect of this series, if not for the characters.

“The success or failure of this operations hinges on the efforts of the entire crew,” – Sophia Forrester (episode 19)

Unlike a lot of anime series, Last Exile’s cast is, for the most part, one filled with real people, with real emotions, with real aspirations, and with real idiosyncrasies. The characters’ relationships and interactions with each other is the crème de la crème of this series. The All-Star voiceover crew that contribute their talents to Last Exile help immensely with the characterization overall, big names like Steve Blum, Michelle Ruff, Crispin Freeman, and Johnny Yong Bosch dropping by here. As a result, more than a few characters are able to establish themselves as unforgettable figures in Exile. Dio Eraclea is Exile’s comic relief, a wildly unpredictable eccentric often in a playful mood (Lucciola, Dio’s absurdly quiet companion, serves as a stark contrast to this free spirit) but later on his sanity spirals downward until his former self is completely gone. Mullen is a soldier in the Anatoray/Disith War and, while he would’ve been forgettable in any other anime, he shines as a particularly immortal supporting character; Mullen is the embodiment of the Everyday Man with a purpose in life that helps drive the series forward. Lavie Head is one of the two protagonists of this series (Claus Valca is the other; I’ll get to him later), the heart and soul of Last Exile. At the start of the series, Lavie can be best described as a fiery soul (extremely common among anime’s other red-headed chicks), a mechanic of exuberance and passion yet hardened by the very personal effects of the War. As Last Exile progresses, Lavie’s enthusiasm mellows out, revealing a character that’s more self-reflective and soft-hearted than before (She occasionally dips her toes into philosophy). From beginning to end, Lavie is among the series’ most likable characters (as well as one of my favorites). Maestro Delphine is the antagonist of Exile; she is the aforementioned ruler of the Guild, utterly unquestioned in her authority, single-minded in her elitist worldview. In her role as Delphine, Karen Strassman delivers her distinctly soft and sexy whisper of a voice yet there’s a razor-sharp coldness to her gentleness that hasn’t been present in any of her previous voiceovers. In what’s arguably the greatest performance of her career, Strassman strides into her role, emphasizing the mystique, the snobbery, and the sadism that serve as this character’s most defining traits. There are more than a few unexplained aspects involving Delphine; however, she is still an enjoyably arrogant villainess but unfortunately not the most unforgettable character. Maestro Delphine, instead, will have to settle for second place, surpassed only by my favorite character: the man, the myth, and the legend, Alex Freaking Row.

“If I don’t come into this willing to sink him, then I won’t be able to defeat Alex Row,” – Vincent Alzay (Episode 12)

In a series for which characterization is a calling card, Alex Row stands out. In a series celebrating the virtues of the spectacular, Alex Row stands out. In a medium that glorifies the dark and brooding, Alex Row stands out. He is the fearsome captain of the infamous Silvana, a man whose name is regarded with uneasy respect due to his unrivaled in-battle accomplishments; it is also due to his personality essentially being a complex jigsaw puzzle. Row is a man of mystery whose all-black character design causes him to appear as a nightmarish specter when blended into the shadows. Like a ghost, Row doesn’t walk but glides, vanishing from sight almost immediately after he materializes. With the aid of his blank, almost serene visage, Row’s bored yet ice-cold gaze causes more than a few characters to wilt in intimidation; he simply obliterates people with his stare. Unlike the punch-drunk brawlers that have for years invaded the anime world, the sophisticated Silvana captain is a man of strategy, often planning much farther ahead of his opponents, sparing no sentimental notions in his pursuit of victory (Of course, he is also an excellent chess player on the side). When not in battle, Row keeps to himself, a liquor bottle at his side, contemplating his past and drowning his woes in alcohol in order to avoid confessing his sins of long ago. Throughout the duration of Exile, Row is concealing a heartbreaking backstory involving Delphine and is harboring a deep-seated hatred for her. In his epic years-long quest for revenge, Row cruelly pushes away anyone attempting to get close to him (occasionally, this includes Sophia, the person who cares about him the most). Row has effectively sealed his true feelings in a cage inside his heart (like Paul D in Toni Morrison’s Beloved) while maintaining an exterior of morally questionable motives, withering remarks, and unsettling coldness. At some point in this series, I was no longer a member of the Alex Row Fan Club. Don’t get me wrong; he was still a well-written character and an intriguing one at that. You respected Row but I’m not sure you truly sympathized with him. Ultimately, it was easy to assume that he was establishing a legacy as an unsatisfying character, and that he would have no further involvement in Exile. What happened? Late in the series (episode 21 of 26, in fact), Delphine and her Guild capture the Silvana and are searching around the ship for the captain. They eventually give up and are just about to depart the Silvana when Alex Freaking Row materializes out of nowhere, rapidly firing bullet after bullet at the attacking Guild members with a pair of gunknives. (Like, who does that?). After this magnificent comeback, Delphine imprisons and poisons Row, slowly decomposing his body away by the second. As before, I held my doubts that Row would re-emerge into the spotlight but, in the end, he does it in such a thrilling and climatic fashion that the whole sequence is a spoiler I won’t ruin. The message, as always: don’t underestimate Alex Freaking Row. He is a Byronic Hero of epic proportions, voyaging across the skies for redemption. He is a man of 007-esque coolness (In one scene, Row even steals an immortal line from GoldenEye while talking to Sophia as he says, “It’s [revenge] is what keeps me alive,”) but is more than capable of unleashing raw outbursts of fury. He is a warrior of almost-mythical formidability but displays strokes of vulnerability more often than not. He is, above all else, what all anime antiheroes should aspire to be, the Batman of this medium. It’s no wonder that the brain trust behind Last Exile originally intended for Alex Freaking Row to be the main character.

Then, what caused this same brain trust to ultimately choose Claus Valca over Row?

“Up in these skies, I was nothing but… a spectator,” – Claus Valca (episode 25)

During Claus’ first experience inside the Guild’s lair, he refers to the zomibified Dio as “an empty, soulless shell.” Claus’ evaluation of Dio is deliciously ironic in that Dio 2.0 isn’t the only blank slate in Exile. It’s downright shocking that, in a series overflowing with realistic, well-written characters, the protagonist is yet another walking cliché, yet another subpar self-insert leading man. Watching Claus, who receives the most screen time by far, trek through Last Exile is a thoroughly frustrating experience for several reasons. This guy has one job to do, to one-up his dead daddy by crossing a particularly treacherous section of the sky known as the Grand Stream, but for a lengthy stretch of the series couldn’t manage that without getting sidetracked. First, Claus wants to protect a shy loli named Alvis (entrusted to him and Lavie early on), who by the way is secured on the Silvana (often dubbed “the safest place in the world”). (Alvis doesn’t need protecting, you idiot!) Then, Claus decides to forsake his lifelong mission while claiming the Silvana as his residence in order to “know what’s going on in the skies”, a truly brainless move that made me and Lavie pissed off. (You can do that while looking for the Grand Stream!) As you can probably tell, I’ve been irritated at Claus’ existence virtually from the start but what marginal sympathy I held for him was utterly expunged in episodes 14 to 16 or as I like to label it “the Harem King Arc”. From the very beginning, Lavie and Gale (the Silvana’s homosexual mechanic) have obviously had a thing for Claus. Then, he suddenly becomes the object of sexual obsession for the kuudere pilot Tatiana. To top it all off, Claus receives a kiss from none other than a princess (Seriously, when did this guy become Mr. Steal Your Girl?). It’s pathetic that a series as phenomenal as this attempts convincing you that this forgettable, monotonous, almost-robotic kid with the personality of a stuffed animal is actually a ladies’ man. More than anything else, what causes the Harem King Arc to embody the very worst of this classic is that it’s never discussed, mentioned, or referenced again. It pains me to criticize Claus Valca like this because his voice actor is the legendary Johnny Yong Bosch (the same man who wonderfully exuded an easygoing façade while masking a volatile whirlwind of fear, sorrow, and indignation in his role as Trigun’s Vash the Stampede), and I expected Bosch to dominate here like he did in Trigun but that never happened. Speaking of disappointment, the grand finale of Last Exile can be best described as… rushed. There are several unintroduced plot elements that just sucker-punch you without warning, leaving the finale’s events to feel thrown together. In this episode, a beloved character dies needlessly and pathetically (though I heard he somehow re-emerges for the sequel) while another fan favorite, this one tragically killed, abruptly pops in during the time skip alive and well (Seeing this guy’s grinning face rise from the cornfield almost gave me a heart attack). In spite of my thoughts on Claus and the series finale, Last Exile still earns my respect for exploring a unique genre in anime, for thriving as the rare series that didn’t originate from a manga, and for an excellent representation of the joys of aviation.

Characters- unoriginal, shallow motivation, acted as plot devices more than anything, character development was random and unnatural, relationships between characters were spontaneous and poorly developed. Dialogue- boring and stifled Art and music- both fine, but art is kind of stiff and boring, especially during dog fights Story and Setting- Cliche, and terrible. I have not been so uninterested in the plot since pokemon. Plus the pacing was just so horrendous. Scenes that should be fast are slow and boring. Scenes which could develop characters are random, misplaced, and sometimes a bit confused. Everything about the pacing is poor. Comments: I compare this show to stuff like Robotech. But thereason why robotech was so awesome, was because of it's focus on characters. The character dichotomies and relationships were realistic and organic. There was nothing forced. The plot was basic, sure, but it was a character based series, which was surprisingly well written. The development and progression of the characters, relationships, and plot were done perfectly. Meanwhile, this seems like a bad knock off. Here's a comparison to detail what I'm talking about. In Robotech, you watch as Rick excels at piloting over a course of time. He isn't great at first, but he gets better and better and rises through the ranks as he proves himself. In The Last Exile, the main character flies the weaponized van-ship. At first, he does not do so well, but it does show him starting to get used to flying. You would think that he would prove himself in later battles as the show continues, but no. It implies that he got better, but ultimately we only see him fly the damn thing a handful of times. There is NO development.

Enjoyment: despite the fact that there is nothing good about this show, and I would traditionally drop it after the first few episodes, I continued to watch it out of some self hating boredom. I found a mild amusement out of this time waster, which keeps it from getting anything below a five. Ultimately, I don't recommend this series to anyone and I regret watching this pile of shit.

With the announcement of a second series, Last Exile has joined the echelon of misleading titles hinting at no other entry in their respective franchises. This category, primarily encompassing the Final Fantasy series, is the subject of many jokes along the lines of “Durr hurr, why do they call it Final (Last, in this case), when they’re making another one?” On that note, there is no joke in Last Exile. It’s a straightforward fantasy steampunk adventure that ranks as one of Gonzo’s finest efforts. The CG is incredible and still holds up eight years later, the plot is well done if not completely original, andthe characters are relatable without being outright pandering.

Despite the criticism that I’m about to lay on thick against it, Last Exile is a very competent, beautiful show that needs more recognition. However, it’s far from perfect and despite its overall high quality most likely won’t make it on anybody’s favorites list for any number of reasons.

The biggest and most glaring flaw is ironically also the aspect which it succeeds best at: Painting a colorful setting. The world of Last Exile is one where the futuristic meets the antiquated, where airships playing host to regiments of musketeers battle it out in the skies like ships on the sea.

The planet’s surface is somewhat arid, due to the limited water supplies, which are doled out sparingly by the Guild and those in power to the common folk.

Outfits are as befitting the early 19th Century as the warfare: Drab yet practical wear for the commoners, vibrant garb for the rich, and flowing majestic robes for the Guild that rules all from the skies. Best of all, the manliest of men all have impeccable facial hair, worthy of respect even in this enlightened day and age.

The sensory details are sublime, but it’s the big picture that fails to really entrance. Most of this is made up for later on, but by then there’s too much activity happening to really allow the world building to shine.

While this is fine and actually preferable in some cases (Learning about the Guild’s coming of age practices and what exactly Exile is), it goes more than halfway before elaborating beyond “They’re just fighting, okay?” on the conflict between the two warring empires of Anatare and Disith. By the time this is made known, it’s too little too late and it just feels like a lost opportunity for some real immersion.

The plot itself moves along at a good clip for most of the series, only really slowing down during one of the protracted air battles at around the halfway point. The story concerns itself with Claus and Lavi, two orphaned longtime friends whose days are spent doing deliveries and participating in races using their fathers’ vanship; essentially a tricked out trashcan modeled after World War II era dogfighters.

During a race one day, the two narrowly avoid getting hit by a crashing vanship and move to investigate the wreckage. While there, they discover a pilot tasked with the delivery of a little girl to the notorious pirate ship Sylvana. In his dying breath he entrusts the two of them with his delivery, which holds a reasonably high danger rating. In the process of bringing the girl, named Alvis, to the ship, the two are assailed by guild attack craft, affectionately dubbed Starfish for obvious reasons and are forced to seek refuge aboard at the mercy of the captain and his morally questionable crew of renegades.

For the first ten episodes, I had great trouble attempting to stop watching. The characters (Especially those aboard the Sylvana) were fun if not all that deep, the skirmishes and races were harrowing, and the general pacing was fantastic. However, it was around episode 12 where my interest started to fizzle out. It was good and certainly watchable, but compared to prior events which involved a satisfying airship duel against a cowardly noble and a suspenseful escape from a rigged auction for the captain, yet another airship battle felt contrived.

My interest was piqued again afterward so everything was just peachy, until the satisfying, if slightly rushed, ending.

The cast of characters in Last Exile is vibrant, to say the least. Alvis is a surprisingly tolerable girl with a sickly sweet disposition, the crew of the Sylvana are generous cutthroats of the most honest kind, and Claus’ Guild-aligned rival Dio is an intimidating foe who definitely feels more than a little unhinged and overly affectionate. None feel out of place, and all contribute in some way to the plot that endears them.

Despite my praise for the varied cast of characters, it doesn’t feel like they get any real development; the only one who comes close is subsequently brainwashed. Stuff just happens, and it doesn’t feel like anybody learns from it in the end. Oh sure, there’s the prickly noblewoman who’s humbled by the feats of her crewmates, but nothing is done past that to change her.

As far as the animation and art direction goes, it’s the equivalent of a fine portrait with a few chips in the paint. The excellent CG, breathtaking environs, and distinctive character models are marred by the occasional bout of laziness. There was more than one occasion when I found myself glancing at somebody talking at a medium distance from the camera, and their eyes looked like Picasso lost his motor skills. It was only a few times, but it took me out of the experience too much not to mark down.

Since all my criticisms have come to a close, I’d normally end a review here with some parting thoughts and a brief summary. However, no matter where I looked, I was forced to watch this dubbed for the latter half. The dubbing in Last Exile is good, if not great. While it has more vocal variety than the original Japanese track, there isn’t nearly as much feeling in the performances. However, the voice actor for Dio, Joshua Seth, deserves special recognition for using this trait of the dub to his advantage.

He doesn’t sound quite as passionate as his Japanese counterpart, but his voice fits Dio a bit better. While his Japanese VA made him sound like an overgrown and excitable manchild, Joshua made him sound crazy, but just as youthful. While I prefer the original Japanese overall, the English isn’t bad, and it isn’t an ordeal to listen to it.

Finally, the soundtrack is superb and definitely evocative of the series as a whole. Special mention goes to the opening, which was a nice electronica piece with a dash of world music thrown in that sounded ethereal.

My complaints for Last Exile are minor and borderline inconsequential. There wasn’t a single problem that ruined it for me, but a lot of small niggling flaws reared their heads more times than I was comfortable with. For this reason alone, I won’t call it anything but good. I recommend it for a delightful romp in a unique fantasy world with a few emotional twists and turns along the way, but not as something that absolutely must be seen.

Since I was a kid I have always been a fan of aeroplanes and intrigued by the concept of flight. Like Area 88, Macross Zero, Last Exile pandered to the child in me in a way you watch an old Tom and Jerry cartoon that's playing on TV. In terms of plot, yes there is something of a story, but you really have to pay attention to keep track of things. Besides, to be honest the story is quite inconsequentional. There is a bit of suspense and foreboding of impending disaster to keep you going from episode to episode. The artwork was excellent, evenby modern standards. The "vanships", the equivalent of an aeroplane and the huge zepellin like airships are superbly drawn.

The sound is appropriate and goes well with the visual images of vanships flying the corkscrew at high speeds. Plenty of explosions juxtaposed to arias, it was quite interesting.

The characters, although well explored and given a sense of emotional depth, are quite cliche. A bit of whinying here, a bit of heroism there. very reminiscent of the characters from Full Metal Alchemist.

As far as enjoyability goes it's a great anime to watch over a weekend when it's snowing outside, which is exactly what I did! it's faced paced, with enough action and intrigue to be called a "page turner", and then there's the excellent artwork.

I recommend this anime to all mecha, airware, action buffs, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

"Last Exile" is one of my absolute favourite anime, but it's one for which I often find difficult to justify why I like so much. For sure, most of the criticisms levelled at it is fair, even if there are ones I don't agree with. But despite being flawed in many ways, it's still an anime I simply love to bits. My viewing experience for "Last Exile" seem to be opposite to a lot of other people's. For one thing, I didn't think the animation is the greatest thing ever. I liked it well enough, with its impressive CG capturing the feeling of a smokey steampunkworld very well, but the characters faces often lacks consistency, and as much as the dreary, washed out colours matched the steampunk settings, I didn't find it particularly appealing... perhaps I just prefer bright and colourful things :D And for some strange reason some scenes are very clearly drawn while others seem to be covered by a thin grey veil, even when there's no mist/cloud around. It's almost as if the cloud effect worked so well that the animators got a bit over excited and just started using it on random scenes.

A lot of people seem to find the beginning of "Last Exile" hugely intriguing but the progression of it disappointing, but again here my personal experience is quite the opposite. The first couple of episodes didn't really pique my interest *that* much, but as the story progressed I got more and more into it. One thing I do agree with though, is that the story is isn't well explained, with the ending feeling especially hurried, leaving behind a plethora of questions unanswered. However, despite all of this, the twists and turns along the way are more than enough to keep me devouring up the episodes. A few plot holes aside, I think the story has bundles of potential. While a lot of other series feel like they could have done with a few less episodes, "Last Exile" could have done with another half season or so, and if the extra episodes gets used properly to explain things, I think the story could have shown itself to be something amazing.

What is actually amazing though, is the whole feel of "Last Exile". With a concept that includes unlikely heroes and princesses, awe inspiring battles, and a rogue ship that has a legendary reputation as the invincible battleship, captained by a man whose motives are shrouded in mystery, "Last Exile" is like a fairy tale on an epic scale. The atmosphere owes much to the magnificent music production the series is blessed with. The sweet, angelic vocal harmonies of Dolce Triarde does much to enhance the enchanting, fairy tale aspects of the show; the instrumental tracks shows off a wide variety of sounds, ranging from almost celtic sounding folk that strengthens the humble settings that the main protagonists comes from, to the majestic orchestral tracks featuring brass instruments that often heightens the epic qualities of the battle scenes with their bugle-like calls. Probably the only track that I didn't take a liking to is the rather bland opening theme (which, ironically, most people appear to love).

The dramatisation in "Last Exile" is exceptional. Each important plot twist and development is heavily punctuated for maximum impact, and most of episodes end with a dramatic flourish that had me craving for the next episode right away. The large scale battles, despite taking place in the air, really captures the feel of a proper naval battle, and is one of my favourite aspects of the show. The booming cannons, the billowing smoke and the recoils that rocks the ships as they fire a broadside... these sequences are grand to the extreme and breathtaking to watch. In fact the brilliantly orchestrated battle at Dragons Fang is hands down the best ship battle I've ever witnessed in my years of watching anime. It has everything - drama, twists and some of the most sophisticated of tactics being put into operation. And the climax... WOW! It may not have the brilliant tactics involved at the battle of Dragon Fang, but the high running emotions and the highly stacked stakes made it about as good as anything else I've seen

Though Claus and Ravi make a decently likeable pair of central protagonists, the side characters are far more interesting, as it's often the case. My personal favourite is not actually one of the more popular characters like Dio, but Alex Row, the quiet, mysterious captain of the aforementioned invincible battleship. I know that his type has been seen many times in other anime, a notable one being Amon from "Witch Hunter Robin", who has a similar, brooding demeanor. However, Amon, despite always acting cool etc, never does anything that's actually useful or spectacular, whereas Alex Row, through the course of the series, shows himself not only to be a superb marksman and a brilliant strategist, but also as a man driven towards a single purpose by an unyielding, almost demonic will. I love the fact that his uncompromising personality added a subtly cynical touch to the end of the final battle. And what's more, unlike other silent, mysterious characters, his backstory really clicks with his personality, and so he's not someone who's the way he is just for the sake of being cool... like Amon.

Other side characters, though interesting as well, mostly aren't developed as well as they could have been. Moran Shetland soon disappears into obscurity after making a notable entrance, and when he appears again, his personality turns out to be less notable than his entrance; Dio, who seems to be a crowd favourite, doesn't really interest with me all that much, so I'm not too bothered about him. However I would liked to have seen more of Dio's interactions with Luciola after I saw him feature in an incredible episode called "Castling Luciola" (nearly all the episode titles have references to chess, which is a nice touch). Though I enjoyed the episode immensely, it could have been even better had it been backed up by more character development. For a couple of episodes, "Last Exile" also toys with the idea of adding romance into the story, but what starts off as intriguing ends up as bewildering instead, since they drop the idea after a couple of episodes and it just kind of fizzed out.

"Last Exile" is a work that shows off the best and the worst aspect of Gonzo - the incomplete building of a fascinating world; the incomplete development of an enthralling story; it lacks focus but has brilliant production and dramatisation in abundance. Luckily, this is Gonzo on a good day, where, for me at least, its strengths greatly outshines its weaknesses - despite the flaws I can perceive when putting "Last Exile" under micro scrutiny, I find the overall macro affect to be something truly special. It's a series that seem to extrude this spellbinding, magical element that dreams are made from, and it completely captured my imagination.

Last Exile is a big classic adventure anime featuring a heavy steampunk aesthetic and dodgy early 00’s Gonzo CGI. It tells the story of Klaus and Lavie, two pilots of little messenger aircraft-type things called Vanships. They take over a mission to deliver a little girl called Alvis to a renegade sky ship called the Silvana. The story has a very natural progression in the classic adventure story fashion, to the point that you can practically plot its path exactly the same as the Lord of the Rings. First two episodes give you a broader understanding of the world and the scale the battles canbe. Then we cut to the sleepy little town where the main characters are given a Powerful Artefact which they have to deliver to a council of colourful characters while being chased by what might as well be Black Riders. The scale keeps getting bigger and bigger as the story goes on until everyone is involved in this big battle for the entire planet. Also one of the characters they meet turns out to be the Future Queen.

The characters all have their own dreams and fears. They all go through their own fully functioning character arcs with a beginning, middle and end for each of them. For example, Lavie is an orphan girl living in poverty with a desire to fly through the Grand Stream in her father’s vanship, but when the going gets tough and she realises there’s things she doesn’t want to do to achieve this goal, she finds her own way. Through a little soul-searching she finds her own place amongst the engineering team. Mullen meanwhile is a lowly musketeer desperate to get away from his dangerous and pointless job. After he goes through his stint on the Silvana he finds what it is he wants to do and how he can help the people around him.

I’ve picked out Lavie and Mullen in particular because they are two of the best characters and offer clear examples of this narrative arc, but even very minor characters going through this arc. When Klaus and Lavie meet their rival vanship pilots from their home town some 20 episodes after being originally introduced, they have been recruited as part of the war effort and all look like it was decisions they made on their own. Their town had been destroyed and they felt this was how they could help. Or the noble’s wishy washy daughter who we don’t see for like 24 episodes after her original introduction until right near the end where we see her working as a nurse in an army hospital, professing how she had found how she can help. Each character goes through a finding their part in the world and fulfilling their potential.

What’s great is each character’s arc and story is integrated perfectly. The best example of this is during episodes around 10 and 11 where the crew on the Silvana all get together for an endurance race that’s actually a front for an underground auction to steal some relic. Through this race format we see what each character is thinking and where they are in their respective arcs. Lavie is trying to redeem herself after blacking out during the flight earlier as she interacts with the engineering crew who are teasing the newbie Mullen who is finding his feet after deciding he wants to stop being a musketeer and wants freedom, who in turn is trying to be useful to Tatiana, the uptight lady pilot, who is busy getting annoyed by everyone around her being tardy while the little girl Alvis is helping the engineering crew and coming out of her shell. It’s seamlessly worked together and fits with the adventurous tone.

The characters are generally pretty great with the unfortunate exception of the main character. Klaus is Blandy McNoPersonality for the vast majority of the show. For the first half he just wanders blindly forward into everything and you don’t get the feeling he made these decisions with any goal in mind. Thankfully in the second half of the show he improves and gets some motivation of his own. Last Exile seems to realise that Klaus isn’t the most interesting character anyway and likes to let other characters do most of the talking. The engineering crew in particular are an eternal source of entertainment because there’s a great jokey camaraderie between them. It’s exactly like you would imagine an engineering crew to act, between all the light ribbing and bullying the new kid and showing off to girls and then all snapping to attention and looking a little embarrassed when one of their superiors walks in on them.

I particularly liked the one bald gay guy on the crew with his fashionable black turtle-neck. I liked him because his gay-ness was never a joke, nor was it ever explicitly drawn attention to, nor did he ever act camp or any of the usual stereotypes you see with gay dudes in anime. It was just part of him. The other engineering crew members made fun of him for liking one of the other guys, but it was part of their usual banter and was definitely nowhere near the jostling they gave the new kid Mullen for fancying their captain Tatiana. The show did have another character in Dio who did some of the things you might associate with vaguely offensive depictions of gay dudes in anime, but they were just presented as being creepy because he was invading personal space, not because it was gay.

This being my second time watching Last Exile and knowing the giant reveal about the nature of the world they live in, I was able to follow the politics and over-arching story way better this time around. I’m a little amazed at how much thought went into this world they created. Most of the world building is completely in the background which nobody ever stands back and explains it all to you. What’s great is you don’t have to be able to follow how the world operates to enjoy the character stories. This means you neither get bored by lengthy monologues explaining how the world works before you can even start understanding the story, nor do you feel confused and frustrated by how little a grasp you have on events. It took me until right towards the end of the show before I realised the reason the Guild controlled the skies in that world is because they provide the engine cores to each nation for their giant sky-ships. This is central to the entire conflict in Last Exile, yet I was never particularly bothered that I never quite understood this. Admittedly that might say more about me than Last Exile, so if you’re really anal about details perhaps this will annoy you.

All this gushing aside from one second, because I have to mention this one episode that almost single handedly undermines the entire fucking show. Klaus has basically no personality but everyone around him seems to think he’s amazing. He gets marooned with the tough captain Tatiana and when they finally get back to the Silvana it is heavily implied that she now has the hots for Klaus. This makes Lavie mad because she has the hots for Klaus. Then Klaus meets with the vice-captain who is about to leave the ship, who then gives Klaus a passionate kiss. Klaus is about 14-15 years old. He’s got Lavie in love with him, who is about the same age. He’s got Tatiana, who is a recent college graduate so early 20’s. He’s now got the vice captain, who judging by the age of her dad is in her early 30’s. Throw in Dio, a 15 year old albino dude, and the gay engineer, who is also implied to have a thing for him, and Klaus suddenly has the biggest harem seemingly out of nowhere without doing anything. What’s worse is it makes all these otherwise independent and incredibly well-rounded female characters act incredibly stupid because they’ve all fallen for this fucking teenager. And then in the next episode they forget about all of that and it never becomes relevant again and you wonder what the hell the point in it all was. Incredibly stupid episode. Also while I’m bitching, the final villain Maestro Delphine is too overdone to the point that I just rolled my eyes whenever she started talking.

Those problems aside, Last Exile is one of the best and most complete adventure anime around. It’s paced perfectly, scaling with each episode and getting gradually more interesting and complex while never losing sight of its core cast of characters. They’re all developed really well and go through interesting arcs with beginnings, middles and ends which mirror the events going on in the world around them. It has a genuinely thrilling ending with a final reveal that is still one of the best in anime. Even its dodgy CGI vanships and sky battles hold up surprisingly well and work within the design of the rest of the show. I didn’t expect Last Exile to hold up because my memory of it faded to the point that I couldn’t remember specific moments from the show that stood out. But it totally did hold up. It turns out that what it does well is just being consistently good in every single area.

Last Exile is an interesting, but unremarkable anime. Rather than explain or explore a lot of parts of the anime that should be important, Last Exile shows the events and characters and requires you to make assumptions and guesses as to what is behind them, and why. The characters feel like they should be interesting, but are not explored in depth enough to make them memorable. All of the characters have some sort of back story, or emotions that seem like they are important, but are not properly explained. Sometimes a character may do something, andyou can look at what was briefly mentioned and can assume why they did such a thing, but other times its very difficult to understand their motive.

The story has similar problems as well. There will be a sudden change in events, that everyone will get behind, but it is never explained to why what they do is a good idea, or even what it is they are doing. The main reason for this problem is probably the lack of explanation and presentation of the world of Last Exile. Things are mentioned briefly throughout the series, and by picking up the little things the setting can be better understood and established. This requires more work than it should, and not everything can be picked up in only one viewing.

What can be picked up of the setting, however, is what makes Last Exile worth while. The combination of colonial era uniforms and military structure with steam-punkish airships, and the poor natural resources that makes drinking water a valuable commodity creates a unique and memorable universe for the series to take place in. The freedom of the skies enjoyed by the vanship pilots, who carry out odd jobs and act as couriers gives the pilots a sense of release from the structured rule of the military.

Last Exile is a series worth watching, but is not memorable enough to go out of the way and see.

So brainless is back with another one of his random reviews, here it goes... I've been avoiding this Anime like the plague for a long time only based upon the cover looking like a boy flying a blimp...but randomly i wanted to watch a few episodes of a show that i "wouldn't get very attached to" so i gave it a shot... Ten episodes later i found myself forcing myself to go to sleep because i had class in three hours.... Story: The story was very good, though i felt it had a few holes in the start making it slightly harder to follow what was going ontill you got five or six episodes in. Despite this the story-line was quite creative and by the end i wasn't sitting there asking myself "wait...but what about (insert random aspect of storyline here)?" That is to say in the end they tied everything up and left me feeling like they ended it properly

Art: The art was amazing, creative ships, creative worlds, creative and diverse characters, all put together very nicely and with a modern drawing style to it. i do have one complaint though....CGI...i'm sick of this stuff invading my anime :( this particular anime is stuffed to the brim with the stuff, ships, water, ground, all randomly CGI'ed. I say randomly because its like they never really decided if they ACTUALLY wanted it in there...one camera angle everything is fine, then they switch to the same scene on a different camera angle and BAM! every things CGI...though i'm not sure if they did it really well or really poorly because at times i had trouble noticing the switch....maybe that was the point. Other then the CGI (and again if you like that stuff its not even an issue here) the art was magical.

Sound: The music, though seeming slightly out of place at first really starts to grow on you, giving the act of air-to-air ship combat a sense of epic-ness and even a sense of grace. The voices were really well done too, the bad people sound bad, the good people sound good, the mad people sound mad, the happy people sound happy, there is nothing much else to say.

Character: This little section of the anime is quite well done. how the people look, how they talk, how they act, they all fit their roll very well. by the end you almost feel a genuine hate for the enemy and a quaint attachment to the hero's. though through this entire thing i could only think one thing..."Eureka 7?" the character list of Last exile should almost be ashamed.

Claus:Renton,Lavie:Eureka,Alex:Holland,Talho:Sofia,Mullen:Dominic, and the list goes on and on....that is to say...if you dont like Holland...you wont like Alex...and so on and so forth...(good thing i loved Eureka 7's Characters)

Overall: This anime blew me away, like i said i came in assuming i'd hate it and then i couldn't stop watching it. it really caught me off guard. It feels almost like a Copy paste of Eureka 7, just replace the Robots with Airships, and to me thats a good thing. if you hate eureka i dont see much sense in watching this. story=win, art=win, sound=win, characters=win, overall=win.

Brainless approves: 9/10

It was in the fall of 2003 that I purchased the first volume of director Koichi Chigara’s Last Exile, the series released to commemorate Gonzo’s tenth anniversary. My first impression after watching those first four episodes was simply that “Last Exile was beautiful.” Steampunk happens to be a favorite genre of mine. Last Exile was the show that first introduced me to it, first gave me a name to go with this style that intrigued me. Almost five years later I stand by that initial assessment but only to an extent. Last Exile is indeed a beautiful program to watchand to listen to however its plot and characters are something else entirely. This is a show that was thrust onto the world incomplete, without being fully realized. This does not make Last Exile a bad show by any stretch of the imagination but it is certainly not a very good one either.

Last Exile takes place in a marvelous steampunk world of giant hulking airships and smaller faster aircraft known as vanships that seems as much inspired by the industrial 19th century as it was by the 18th. The forces of the neighboring Disith are invading the country of Anatorey. Both nations engage each other according to rules handed down by a technologically advanced group with its own agenda known simply as the Guild that resides in the Grand Stream, a violent storm system that separates the two warring nations. Claus and Lavie, a pilot/navigator team who work as couriers with their vanship, are drawn into the ongoing conflict between Anatorey, Disith, and the Guild by Alex Rowe, the enigmatic captain of the rogue battleship Silverna and a mysterious little girl named Alvis.

The setting is truly one of Last Exile’s greatest strengths and it is aided by wonderfully detailed artwork and character designs from Range Murata who is known for his earlier work on another Gonzo production, Blue Submarine No. 6. Animation is smooth throughout although the presentation is weakened by an at times obtrusive use of computer-generated animation. At its best the blend of the two formats adds an epic grandeur to dogfights and naval battles. At it’s worst it stands out in sharp contrast to the two dimensionally animated elements that surround it like in the Silverna’s hanger filled with CGI vanships. The soundtrack for Last Exile was the only one composed by the group Dolce Triade which is made up of Hitomi Kuroishi, Maki Fujiwara, and Yuki Yamamoto (Kuroishi would later go on to work on the soundtrack for Code Geass). It comes across as appropriate to the epic scale Last Exile was aiming for and is more than a match for the animation in terms of quality.

It is, however, the story and characters that are often the most important elements of a successful program and it is in these two areas that Last Exile suffers the most. It is essentially the same deficiency in both and it is that Last Exile never really goes into any great detail on either its story or its characters. This isn’t necessarily true across the board. Claus and Lavie receive an entire episode devoted to their back-story and others such as Alex Rowe, Dio, and Luciola do receive a goodly amount of attention. In addition the vanship pilot/navigator relationship functions as a very interesting character dynamic. On the whole, however, there are a lot of areas that feel like there should be some development where if there isn’t a vague hint of detail there is only its complete absence. The pacing doesn’t leave much room for this sort of development, moving along at such a rate that when developments do occur they rarely feel natural let alone believable. Characters who were once enemies become allies and two nations that had been bitter enemies for years become friends as though all their previous hostilities meant nothing at all. There is something of a coherent story to be found for the attentive viewer but it is mostly the skeleton of one.

Last Exile’s conclusion only worsens matters by throwing logic completely out the window. Strategies are implemented and character deaths occur for no greater reason than that the writers needed them to happen for the sake of the conclusion they were trying to reach. In the end, very little is explained either. Yes, the true nature of Last Exile’s world is revealed as is the true nature of the mystery ship Exile but the ending only serves to raise more questions than it actually answers. What Last Exile truly needed was more time to flesh out its story and characters than its 26-episode length allowed. As it is Last Exile is still a good show despite its faults and it’s at least worth a look for the prospective viewer. Come for the setting and the audio/visual presentation just don’t expect the story and characters to match up.

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for Last Exile. Man, I love steampunk, it's probably my favorite type of aesthetic in all of fiction ever since I discovered it watching Laputa: Castle in the Sky, then I played Final Fantasy VI and it consolidated my love for it. Unfortunately, there aren't too many good steampunk anime out there, though... After watching Princess Principal a few years ago, I started to look for more steampunk anime, only to be disappointed by the likes of Steamboy and Kabaneri, which looked and sounded really cool, but lacked in every other substantial department. I also watched Baccano, which was pretty good,but not really the type of steampunk I was looking for.

So, just when I was about to lose my interest in steampunk anime, I saw a couple of friends on a Facebook group talking about this steampunk anime called Last Exile, which somehow I never heard of, but seems like it was pretty popular in the west back in the 2000s, guess it was a lot bigger out there in North America and/or Europe than it was here in Brazil. So, after seeing my friends gushing over Last Exile, I decided to look up some stuff about it to get a feel for what I should expect, and I was quickly sold because:

1- The screenshots, character designs and general artwork looked awesome.

2- The synopsis seemed very interesting.

3- It was Gonzo's 10th anniversary project, surely something special must have come out of this.

4- Apparently it's centered around flying into the skies, which is a theme I always enjoyed.

5- "Last Exile" is one hell of a cool title, really.

With all that in mind, could Last Exile finally be the stunning steampunk masterpiece anime I was looking for all along?

Well, I'll just say it already: Last Exile is indeed the best steampunk anime I watched so far, not just because it's one of the few that are actually good at all, it's fucking great even when compared to a lot of regular anime out there. Still, it's not quite a masterpiece as a whole, though it does step into that territory, but ultimately it falls a bit short from that level as a whole.

Our story is set in a world called Prester, where huge airships and the smaller vanships are the main vehicles of transportation, powered by liquidized Claudia, a unique ore found only in this world, the mineral is also used as a form of currency. Prester is also home to Anatoray and Disith, two nations that are currently at war with each other due to their respective territories being severely affected by an abnormality in the solar light: Anatoray's lands started to lose water and are slowly becoming a huge desert, while Disith is freezing with a lot of the water being solidified into ice. Between the lands of Anatoray and Disith is the Grand Stream, a highly turbulent and dangerous air current that separates the two countries and can only be somewhat safely traversed with big airships, though some vanship pilots did attempt to fly through it, but none of them succeeded. Last, but not least, on top of it all is an organization called the Guild, which acts as ruler of Prester's skies and holds the technology of the world, mediating the disputes between Anatoray and Disith and providing such technology to both sides as they see fit.

In the midst of all this is our main characters, the young vanship pilot Claus Valca and his navigator Lavie Head, they're childhood friends and dream of crossing the Grand Stream in the vanship left by their fathers, Hamilcar Valca and Georges Head, who died in their own attempt. In order to achieve such a feat, Claus and Lavie work as couriers and partake in vanship races held in their small hometown, Norkia. However, fate leads the duo to encounter a damaged vanship fleeing from the Guild, the pilot in his dying breath, asks for Claus and Lavie to deliver a girl named Alvis E. Hamilton to the Silvana, one of the most powerful airships in Prester, commanded by local dark-and-brooding-badass captain Alexander Row and his loyal second-in-command, Sophia Forrester. Despite delivering Alvis safely, Claus decides to follow them to ensure the girl's safety, much to Lavie's dismay, which leads into them becoming part of the Silvana's crew and help fend off the Guild, led by the eccentric Dio "Wait, that's a guy?" Eraclea, in their attempt at reclaiming Alvis.

What's so special about Alvis that both the Guild and the Anatoray empire are after her, though? She is the key to finding the legendary Exile, a mysterious item/artifact that is said to grant unimaginable power to the one who acquires it. Although the Silvana is on the Anatoray side in this war, it quickly becomes apparent that our buddy Alex has his own plans regarding the Exile, so the airship kinda drifts out of the war as the crew spend their time looking for the Exile and dealing with the Guild. In the meantime, we are introduced to a shit load of characters, not just limited to the Silvana's crew, which is pretty fucking big already. Last Exile has an ensemble cast of characters, and considering this is a 26 episode show, it goes without saying that most of them aren't given that much focus, which is not really an issue per se, as this is not particularly a character-driven series.

Despite that, Last Exile still does a commendable job at handling its cast, there's a lot of subtle, rich characterization given to a large portion of the people here. Pretty much every character is distinct from one another, they all have unique personalities, well-defined qualities and flaws, as well as their own purpose of being there, doing whatever they're doing as we see their little story arcs unfold, and I'm not just talking about main characters like Claus, Lavie and Dio. For example, there's Tatiana Wisla, an ace pilot that leads the Silvana's vanship fleet along with her best friend, the navigator Alister Agrew. Ever since Claus and Lavie meet Tatiana for the first time, she's shown to be an arrogant bitch who sees herself as too good for everyone around her besides Alex and Sophia, who are her superiors anyway, and Alister, who is her close friend after all. She is very cold to everyone else, Claus, Lavie, the Silvana crew she's familiar with for quite a bit of time, almost as if she wants to give off this image of a cool ace pilot who's all business and tries her hardest to get her superiority across.

However, what's arguably Tatiana's biggest flaw is the fact that she's much more immature and simple-minded than she lets out, she also tends to just take Alister for granted. During Alex's plan to get in a secret black market auction held at the Horizon Cave and receive one of the objects required to activate the Exile, Tatiana participates in the vanship race that happens at the same time to cover up the auction and jeopardizes her mission to drop a bomb on the power generators in order to cut the lights out. Why? Because of a silly provocation from Dio, she got angry, ignored Alister telling her to focus on her mission and decided that proving that she's a better pilot than Dio is more important than getting her mission done. Granted, she did drop the bomb and everything turned out fine, but it was still a risky move she shouldn't have taken.

The consequences of Tatiana's actions start to show when Alister offered to be Claus' navigator instead of agreeing with Tatiana that she should be flying in his place, claiming there is no freedom to be found in Tatiana's sky. Later, when Silvana engages in a battle against the Urbanus, a ship commanded by Anatoray naval captain Vincent Alzey, they end up getting defeated, the Silvana sunk and Tatiana's vanship was hit, forcing her and Claus, her navigator for this mission, to land in the desert. Having been defeated and now finding herself lost, Tatiana feels devastated and through her conversation with Claus we come to understand why she acted the way she did before: Tatiana is the daughter of the Wisla house, a once respected and proud noble famiy from Anatoray that unfortunately got left behind and forgotten about when they ended up being unable to move from their old town like the others did, her mother takes care of her father who's sick in bed and she helps her by sending all the extra cash she makes as a pilot to her family. Her objective is to prove herself, restore her family's honor, make her parents proud of her and of their name, that's why she's so serious about being the best pilot in Anatoray and even some random dude from the Guild provoking can get under her skin.

After getting closer to Claus and learning not to worry too much, she develops a bit of a crush on him, which she rapidly gets over, especially since this is more due to her inexperience with getting close with other people, especially guys, so it's not like she has legitimate feelings for Claus. Once that's dealt with, it's easy to see how Tatiana got better as a person, she's more relaxed and willing to understand other people, she actually starts conversations with other crew members and the troubles her relationship with Alister were facing are now water under the bridge.

Honestly, I could make an elaborate write-up on how every major character here feels well-rounded and grows from beginning to end, but I don't think it would be necessary to get the point across. Even the more secondary characters hardly feel static because they're always doing something different, characters from the beginning of the series such as the vanship racers from Norkia and the Mad-Thane family return later, and they're all doing their best to contribute with the campaign against the Guild in their own ways. Last Exile does a wonderful job at creating a world that accomodates all these little character stories and make it all feel alive, like everything is constantly changing and the people from this world try their best to keep up with these changes, they all find their place in it. You also see events such as the war from perspectives that range from nobleman who respect the traditions surrounding it to a fault, to soldiers who are afraid of losing their lives in the ensuing battle and lower-class people who just see this as nothing more than senseless bloodshed.

A lot of people seem to sleep on our boy Claus, despite being the protagonist, the guy usually gets overshadowed by other fan-favorites such as Alex and Dio, some even accuse him of just being an overall bland protagonist. Granted, Claus isn't exactly the most amazing protagonist to ever exist, he's not even my favorite character from Last Exile, that honor actually goes to Alex for reasons I'll explain later, but I like Claus, he is a better character than most people think and a rather fitting protagonist for this series. To understand Claus' character, you must first understand what Last Exile is really about, and the tagline used to advertise the show sums up its central theme very well: "What lies beyond the furthest reaches of the sky?"

Claus and Lavie have really strong feelings about the sky, they love to fly around in their vanship as they explore the vast immensity of the skies, the freedom, the amazing views you can have from up there... Ever since their childhood with their parents, Claus and Lavie grew to love the sky. However, they soon realize that although traveling in the skies is truly wonderful, it's also not devoid of danger, a war is being fought almost entirely up there, in an attempt at bringing it to an end by crossing the Grand Stream and delivering a peace treaty to Disith, their parents became one of the many casualties in this conflict. This ultimately makes crossing the Grand Stream the main objective of the duo, but as we all know, they ended up getting sidetracked once they got in the Silvana, but that's mostly because of Claus being distrustful of Alex and wanting to go to the Silvana to ensure Alvis' safety, Lavie didn't want anything to do with all this shit and just got dragged along at first.

This is where the differences between Claus and Lavie start to become more apparent besides their chill-guy-and-hot-headed-girl dynamic, it's clear that both of them are pacifists, they would rather not play a part in this war or any kind of conflict, the sky to these two is not supposed to be a place where people kill each other. Literally, the first two episodes revolve around Claus and Lavie getting Duke Mad-Thane to retreat from a battle that's obviously hopeless and continuing for the sake of some stupid chivalric code would get him and his crew killed, resulting in his and many other families grieving.

Unlike Lavie, though, Claus actually has it in him to pilot a vanship developed for war and use it for its intended purpose if he has to, he does it to protect Lavie, as well as Alvis. Lavie, on the other hand, feels terrible acting as the navigator of a vanship that hurts other people, she passes out when they fight the Guild in a war vanship, then redeems herself later when she acts as his navigator for the Horizon Cave's race. After that, she decides to step out of the navigator seat for as long as Claus will be fighting alongside the Silvana's crew, promising to fly together with him once more when all this is over, but that doesn't mean Lavie becomes a useless character or that she doesn't do anything afterwards. Lavie turns her efforts into improving her skills as a mechanic, making sure Claus' vanship is always good to go, as well as fixing their own vanship which got heavily damaged from their trip to Silvana and the first battle against the Guild.

When Claus gets more involved with piloting in battles with Tatiana, a conflict between him and Lavie starts to develop, not just because Lavie has feelings for him and feels jealousy with him getting closer to another girl and all, but because Claus is starting to commit himself more to this militaristic cause and lose sight of his passion, his very identity as a vanship courier who loves the peaceful skies and dreams of crossing the Grand Stream is slowly being lost to this war. After Claus and Lavie's past is uncovered and he gets to hear the truth about their vanship from Alex, he gets pretty close to giving up on the promise he made with Lavie, as apparently he saw no reason to keep this up when the vanship they've been using all along wasn't what he believed it to be. After some reflecting, with help from Lavie, Alvis, Tatiana and a few side-characters, Claus gets reminded of the simple joy to be had in flight, he also reflects on how he was wrong in the early episodes with his obnoxious hero complex and his lack of faith in the Silvana's crew.

When it's later revealed that Claus' risky move in the first two episodes actually caused Mad-Thane to see the potential of vanships as tools for war and start to get the best vanship pilots (including the ones from Norkia) to participate in war, both protagonists are deeply saddened that their effort was used as an opportunity to "evolve" how wars can be fought, rather than help with bringing peace. But what does Claus do, then? Does he give up and try to run away? No, he fucking takes responsibility for his actions, he ain't gonna let his buddies from Norkia lose their passion to war like it almost happened with him, so he sets out to fight, this time as a protector of the skies. Claus' arc is about how his curiosity to see what's happening up there in the skies, especially what lies in the Grand Stream, made him go from a mere spectator with a misguided hero complex to someone who can defend the sky he loves so much, and it's really well done. When I see other reviewers talking about how Claus doesn't develop as a character at all, I seriously wonder if they were even paying attention to what they were watching.

On a side note, fan-favorite Alex actually is a character who doesn't develop much, but I'm not really pointing this out as a flaw, him being a static character makes sense with the story they wanted to tell with him, it might even be my favorite use of a static character in anime, or at least one of them. Despite being the captain of the Silvana, a formidable fighter and strategist, earning the respect of many, as well as the fear of those who stand against him, one look at Alex's face and you can see that he is a broken man, his eyes feel lifeless, he has very little emotional range and a seemingly cold atitude, feeling distant even from Sophia. Alex's story is a rather interesting take on a typical revenge tale, he really wants the Guild leader Maestro Delphine fucking dead because of what she did in the past to him, his close friends Hamilcar and Georges and, most importantly, his lover, Euris Bassianus.

While revenge stories usually have the main character realizing revenge is wrong, following this path will not bring the people they want to avenge back, coming to terms with their loss and then finding a new purpose in life... Alex actually commits himself to revenge entirely. He is shown to be completely aware of the fact that that killing Delphine won't bring Euris back, he is given plenty of opportunities to abandon this path, Sophia clearly loves him and seems very reminiscent of Euris, the children of Hamilcar and Georges are in his ship, but Alex really chooses to ignore these things and sets his eyes only on finding the Exile and killing Delphine. One could argue that this makes Alex a one-dimensional character, but since the writing for Last Exile is as good as it is, even Alex is given some subtle characterization beyond his dark and brooding self. Not just in the flashback showing Claus and Lavie's past where he gives Lavie a goat plushie to help her calm down, this caring side of Alex still shows some signs of life in the present, he offers to help Lavie with repairing her and Claus' vanship, he also seems to acknowledge Sophia's feelings for him and his inability to reciprocate, but he still cares for her.

During the final battle against the Guild, Alex ends up getting captured by Delphine, she tries to torture him into giving out the Mysteria, a series of four riddles with four corresponding answers that are necessary to unlock the Exile. However, Alex thought ahead and decided not to learn the last remaining Mysterion so that Delphine can never get to it even using a drug that forces him into telling the truth. As soon as he has the opportunity, Alex breaks one of his arms free out of Delphine's device and proceeds to strangle the bitch until her fucking neck breaks, it's definitely one of the most satisfying villain deaths I've seen and Alex's definitive chad moment in the whole series. As expected, killing Delphine did not do much to make Alex feel better, he still misses Euris, and now that his thirst for revenge is satisfied, he just doesn't care anymore, so when Sophia has to shoot Delphine's ship with Alex in it, he just accepts his death as if it's freeing him from all the hatred and desire for revenge that drove him for all these years, with his very last words being "To the sky".

I usually like revenge stories, when done right, some excellent character development happens in them (Scar and Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what I heard of Thorfinn from Vinland Saga seems pretty good as well) but Last Exile's darker, more tragic take on the subject showed me that it's not always necessary to have the main character change his world view and abandon revenge for redemption instead to tell a great story that still shows that revenge is ultimately futile. My only gripe is that I wish I had seen more of Alex's caring side rather than just glimpses of it, maybe that's the point, he's unable to show that trait as much by this point, but focusing a bit more on his attempt at bonding with Claus and Lavie would have been cool. But whatever, he's still my favorite character in the series.

Now, as much as I find most of the cast in Last Exile to be captivating and entertaining due to how the writers manage to make them feel human and believable in spite of their simplicity, I'm afraid not every character is written this well. For a series that's about moral ambiguity, the more villainous characters (those asshole nobles from the casino station and our main villain Delphine, for example) are cartoonishly evil and they stick out like a sore thumb, considering how complex the rest of the characters can be. Like, what does Delphine's character have besides her being cruel, sadistic and kinda sexy? The backstory regarding the four houses of the Guild is interesting, but since the series only hints at it instead of dedicating at least one episode to tell us what happened in more detail as a payoff to all the hints, it ultimately feels lacking and Delphine is as generic a villain as it gets. It also takes a little away from Dio's character arc, which highlights another major theme in the series: How people are capable of putting their differences aside and form bonds, even people from the Guild such as Dio and his totally-not-boyfriend Lucciola, who board the Silvana initially with the intention of just dicking around, but started to warm up to the crew as they also warmed up to their "guests".

Is there something else I have to complain about? Oh yeah, episode 15 had that unnecessary harem shit where everyone seemed to want a taste of Claus' dick for some reason. I mean, it makes sense with Lavie and Tatiana because that was built up to, and in Tatiana's case it's quickly dealt with for reasons I already explained, but the gay mechanic having a thing for Claus is kinda unnecessary, as is Sophia kissing him in the end of the episode, even if she's not really in love with him, she was just frustrated over her feelings not being reciprocated by Alex and used Claus to vent it all. It's not a terrible episode, some interesting things happen in it, but yeah, I could live without Sophia's kiss and the gay dude's sudden crush on Claus, both of which the series even acts like never happened after that episode, probably for the best. Also, I would rather see Claus and Lavie's past being revealed gradually as the series progresses, rather than having one entire episode dedicated to it, but whatever, it's not like I hate the "backstory episode" approach anyway.

These flaws aside, I still really love the worldbuilding, this is Last Exile's strongest point to me. Not only does the series make a believable world with a sense of progress where almost every character is doing something, the "show, don't tell" approach to it works spectacularly well. How do you know Claudia is a unique mineral used not only as a form of currency, but also as fuel to airships and vanships alike? You actually get to see some Claudia mines in the darker places as Claus and Lavie run away from the Guild using the underground water canals, Claus also scavenges for Claudia in the caverns when he and Tatiana are lost in the desert and uses that and the water they have to create some Claudia fluid for their vanship. The same episode also shows Anatoray's deserts where Claus and Tatiana are lost in contrast with the freezing lands of Disith where people are desperately trying to get away before they freeze to death, showing how both sides are facing difficulties and Disith reached a breaking point by forcing themselves into taking the Anatoray side of Prester. A bit of the cultural differences between the two countries is also shown when Mullin and Dunya, two musketeers respectively from each side, comment about how Dunya tried to catch a dove to eat it and Mullin says that bird's a symbol of peace for Anatoray.

Going back to the series' tagline a bit here, I think it's important to acknowledge that Last Exile is, first and foremost, an adventure/mystery anime. There is the war between Anatoray and Disith, but that's not really the main focus, not was it ever meant to be, it's just there for worldbuilding and thematic purposes, the biggest focus of the series is uncovering the secrets of Prester, the Grand Stream, the Exile and (though it left quite a bit to be desired on that front) the Guild. In other words: What lies beyond the furthest reaches of the sky. That being said, Last Exile is not exactly a series that's too keen on handholding the audience and explaining everything as clearly as possible, on my first watch I got a tad confused with the final episodes, especially the very last one. Originally, I just thought the series was being overly cryptic and wrote the final arc off as a bloated mess where the series bit off way more than it could chew, but on a second watch I actually caught a huge portion of the foreshadowing for the twists that happen later, visual cues, hints provided through dialogue, the Mysteria and their answers, after making sure I paid close attention to that stuff and kept it all in my mind, it was incredibly satisfying once I finally got to trace it all to the events of the final arc, felt like I just completed a puzzle, it also helped me with appreciating how poignant and powerful the ending of the series actually is.

There are a couple of things about the final arc I feel could have been handled better, though, it does feel rushed in some aspects. I wasn't a big fan of Mullin's "death" with him inexplicably showing up alive later at the very last scene, then again I just hate fake-out death scenes in general, if you're gonig to kill off a character, then fucking do it, don't pretend he's dead and proceed to make it so that he actually survived, that's cheap. I also thought Dio's last moment was anti-climactic, considering how Claus and the rest of the Silvana's crew grew attached to him, it lacked a more emotional reacton on their part, though it can be blamed on the fact that Dio has been lost before that, when he got brainwashed in the Guild's coming-of-age ceremony thing, but it still could have been done better.

Nevertheless, there's so much attention to detail in Last Exile's visuals and art direction that even if you don't find the plot of the series all that engaging, this style of narrative isn't for everyone after all, I'd argue it's still worth watching just for the visuals and the adventurous atmosphere. I can almost feel the wind blowing during the flight segments, the fantastic stylish, but grounded character designs by Range Murata are brought to life beautifully, honestly this is probably the best-looking Gonzo anime, or at least one of them for sure. The animation is consistently good, with only a few off-model character instances here and there, and the CG holds up surprisingly well, as far as 2000s anime CG goes, then again I don't think better looking CG than this was done as far as 2003. This is also backed up by a great, soothing soundtrack that enhances the series' atmosphere, and of course I couldn't leave the opening out of this, Cloud Age Symphony is one of my favorite opening songs of all time, the opening sequence in general really sets the tone of the series perfectly, my attention was grabbed in an instant when I saw it in the first episode, Over the Sky is also a phenomenal ending, it's impossible not to feel melancholic while listening to it.

It's apparent that the folks over at Gonzo really wanted to make something special for the studio's 10th anniversary, and in my book they succeeded, Last Exile is a great series and definitely one of Gonzo's best works. A lot about it feels very polished: The visuals, the world with its detailed lore that the team behind it envisioned, the way almost every character feels well-rounded with clearly defined story arcs, the thematic richness present in the individual plot points and how they complement the overarching story... I love how much effort went into this. If it weren't for some pacing issues in the final arc, the weird decisions of episode 15 and the fact that the Guild's backstory wasn't fully uncovered, Last Exile would have earned a 9/10 score and certainly be up there with my favorite anime shows. Still, what the series does right more than makes up for its missteps, it encompasses all of the charm, the personality, the unique and experimental ideas found in 2000s anime and shows how executing them well can create something memorable.

Last Exile: Saving the Best for Last Exile Okay, maybe it's a stretch to call Last Exile the best anime ever made. However, I think I might just come out and say that Last Exile just might be the most underrated anime I have ever watched. It is a captivating story with a very likable cast of characters, a beautifully animated and orchestrated masterpiece. To me, the strongest aspect of this series was the atmosphere and mood. This goes back to the animation and music. They were intertwined so well and gave the series a historical, steam-punk feel. The animation was top notch and unlike mostanimes, I actually liked that there was very little color integrated into the animation. It had a vintage feel and I loved the vibe I got from it.

The orchestration/music was unbelievable. I've talked about mood so far but the music attributed greatly to that. The OP (Cloud Age Symphony) and ED (Over The Sky) were great examples of how a song should be implemented into an OP or ED. The OP does a nice job of getting your attention and intrigued for the episode and the ED is a soothing end to the show/series.

As far as the story is concerned, it was the weakest aspect of the show, but that's not saying much. Both the story and the characters were great. My biggest complaint as far as the story is concerned is that it is slightly difficult to pick up on the current events of this series. I wasn't sure what the war between Anatoray and Disith was all about at first nor was I sure what the Guild had to do with that. I felt that could've been handled a little better, but at the same time, I felt the writers did a nice job filling in the blanks as the series progressed. I had a lot of "oh, I get it now!" moments as the series progressed. If nothing else, this series did a nice job of creating a "mystery" element with the lack of plot that was revealed during the early stretch. The pacing was also rather slow, but I couldn't really complain too much about the slow pace. I should call it more of a smooth pace than slow.

The characters were great. I thought the three leads Claus, Lavie, and Alvis were fantasic and I loved their realistic interactions. The only thing that I found slightly strange were how quickly the three of them bonded when Alvis came into the picture but I'm guessing it was speaking more from Claus and Lavie's personal experience. I thought one minor weakness was a lack of development with Alvis. For one of the main characters of the series, we don't learn a whole lot about her, even after it's revealed what she really is. The supporting cast was also very sound, from the cast of the Silvanna to the very peculiar, Dio Eraclea. One of the few sub-plots I REALLY enjoyed with this series was the interactions and story of Dio and Lucciola. It was a powerful message of friendship in this series that could go a bit unnoticed. The antagonist, Delphine Eraclea was absolutely fantastic. You want to figure out how to create a very unlikable antagonist, look at the character model for Delphine. Her superiority complex and vulgar actions towards her allies and enemies alike made it easy to hate her.

Overall, this was one of the best animes I had seen in quite some time and probably the best steam-punk anime I have ever seen. I tend not to have the highest opinion of steam-punk animes but this one was top notch. Gonzo produced a gem of an anime and I glad I took a chance on an anime that didn't interest me at first glance.

Last Exile is one of those shows with an amazing premise, some strong characters, good action, and an interesting lore and world for a story to take place in. Anime is a genra for strong imaginations, and Last Exile has that in spades, from the world the series is set in to the weapons of war which its nations use. So why only three stars? By all appearances LE has all the trappings of a great show, and has gathered quite the following, and for good reason. Don’t let my rating fool you, this is a good show which a lot of people willenjoy. It’s not one of those clearly overrated pieces of trash which I love to bash into (looking at you Elfen Lied) but it does have its share of flaws which, to me, held the show back considerably from living up to its full potential.

The premise is quite simple, deceptively so even. There are few animes out there which have managed to grab my attention so early, yet lose it so quickly. Dusis and Anatore, two powerful superpowers who dominate what little land is left inhabitable on the planets surface, are at war. To open the series viewers are treated to a gripping opening scene of two fleets of enormous flying battle ships “sailing” side by side, as teams of worthless riflemen fire at one another from ship to ship. Right off the bat the idiocy of the politics in this world are brought to light (and I mean that as a compliment); the riflemen on board serve no useful purpose, they can’t sink the enemy ship, they are never used for boarding either, are simply forgotten about after their numbers start to dwindle. They really are not good for anything except catching bullets, yet the captains of these enormous battleships insist on sacrificing them by the hundreds in order to fulfill a sense of chivalry, and “obey the rules of war” as it were. We are thrust into the boots of one lonely foot soldier, huddling afraid in the bowls of the ship as they prepare to open the doors and march out into the line of fire. It is a truly harrowing setting that reminded me not only of the battle formations made famous by Napoleon, but also of the charges across no man’s land in WWI. The riflemen fighting all know that their chances of survival are slim, and they know how pointless their sacrifice really is, but they march into the line of fire anyway prepared to give their lives away. It presents a very antiwar message, while also treating audiences to a very beautiful battle scene. Of all the things Last Exile got right, the opening is high amongst them.

Then there are our two main characters, Clause and Lavi who are two orphaned children who’ve taken up Vanship piloting as a means to support themselves (a Vanship being a sort of airplane with anti-gravity technology of the same kind the battleships use). Of all the characters in the show, early Lavi is my favorite (and there’s a big difference between early Lavi and late Lavi). She’s a confident, strong, take charge type of characters with a very close relationship to her best friend, Clause. The reason I liked her most I guess is because out of all of them she seemed the most believable. Whereas other characters go around doing stupid things to save girls in distress Lavi early on makes it clear she wants nothing to do with the dangerous missions Clause gets them into. This may seem selfish to some, but it’s also the most realistic portrayal in the series. Why should she want to risk her life for a mission she cares nothing about, or people she’s never met? No one else seems to have a problem with doing just that, so Lavi’s reluctance stood out in stark contrast to the sometimes baffling illogical decisions some of the characters make. But more on that later.

While taking part of a race in their home town Lavi and Clause unwittingly rescue a young girl name Ai (at least that was her name in the sub I watched) and become mixed in with a plot to destroy The Guild, an almost supernaturally powerful organization which controls the technology to all flight. After an all too brief battle with a Guild starship (literally planes that look like stars) they end up on the legendary Battleship Sylivanna captioned by the personality less Captain Alex, his love struck second in command Sophia, and his head fighter pilot the emotionally unbalanced Tatiana and her (supposedly) lesbian lover. Okay, that last part isn’t really said outright, but it did give me that vibe. When Clause and Lavi deliver Ai to the Sylivanna, which was their mission from the start, Clause for some reason suddenly distrusts the crew and decides Ai needs rescuing.

And this, in my opinion, is where the show starts to fall apart. See, Clause from the very beginning has no reason to think Ai is in any danger, or that she needs rescuing. In fact the Sylivanna crew just saved Ai from being killed, and were taking her on board their ship for protection. Sure, one of the men handles her kind of roughly, but he’s quickly scolded by the Captain for doing so. Despite doing exactly it was he was supposed to do, IE delivering this girl to the Sylivanna, Clause now thinks it a good idea to risk his life, and the life of his best friend, to rescue a girl he hardly knows from the very people he’d risked his life to deliver her to. For no reason.

It’s these kinds of lapses in logic that really hold the show back. Characters have little to no motivation to do half of what they do (especially Clause). What’s more, their goals and what little motivations they do have are in a state of constant flux, changing from episode to episode. For instance Moran, the rifle man from the beginning of the show, decides after the opening battle to quit his job as a rifleman. This makes sense considering the dire circumstances under which we were introduced to this character. However when they make him a mechanic on the Sylivanna all he does is reminisce about the “good old days” when he served as a rifleman before actually going back to the job he’d made such a big deal about leaving. Why does he want to go back? What is so terrible about being a mechanic on a ship where his captain doesn’t useless sacrifice his men? The people he works with are all really cool people, his commanders are descent, and there’s very little danger compared to his previous job. So what’s the problem, Moran?

Now let’s use Clause as another example. First he wants to bring Ai to the Sylivanna, but then he wants to rescue her from it. Then he doesn’t want to rescue her, he wants to keep her safe. But then it’s not about keeping her safe anymore, it’s about “seeing what’s in these skies” or some other nonsense like that. What’s the end result of all this? Characters who have no idea what they are doing, why they are doing it, or what they wish to accomplish. This is the main problem with the show.

Now to touch on what the show does well. The lore and backstory to Last Exile is really quite interesting. It does a really good job in creating a mystery for the viewers to try to piece together with what little info is given us. What is Exile? What does it do? Hoe does Ai play into all this? How is it that the Guild manages to hold such a stranglehold on the world? Last Exile does not reveal too much too early, which gives us the satisfaction of piecing the mystery together as we go along. But the real treats are the battle scenes. Fleets of huge floating battleships flying through the clouds as they fire their enormous cannons at one another. The battles in this series are some of the best I’ve seen. If only the show had more battle scenes and less bipolar characters I might be able to justify a higher rating. I also found the tech to be extremely fun. It’s a steampunk show, so you already know the general idea, but they use it in such inventive ways (such as a giant listening device that acts like a sonar).

The animation, though passible, is nothing to write home about. It’s really quite dull and colorless. A lot of browns, blacks, grey’s, more grey, dark grey, white, greyish brown, you get the idea. A little more color might have helped to liven things up a little bit. The music as well I found underwhelming. There are times I found the music to be quite inappropriate for the scene, in fact, and in other cases it was simply too loud. It’s not very often that the music actually manages to detract from the overall experience, but I found this the case for Last Exile.

So what’s the final verdict? Though I can fully understand why people love this show so much, personally I didn’t find it to be all that impressive. The world was interesting, the battles were awesome, and the tech was inventive, but the most important aspect of any story, the characters, just didn’t resonate with me. They were too bipolar, too wishy washy, too prone to doing dangerous things for unexplained reasons. The pacing was also quite dull; I honestly think they could have made this into a 13 episode series and it would have been the better for it. There weren’t 26 episodes worth of story to tell, so it just seemed to drag at times.

Will I recommend you see it? You betcha. It’s a classic anime series which I think most fans of the genra owe it to themselves to see at least once. Will I recommend that you buy it? Well for that the answer is no, especially at the inflated prices anime DVD’s go for. It’s a good show with many high points and positives that many people will find enjoyable. I personally didn’t, but that does not mean you will not.

Replay value; medium.

I have watched this anime 14 years back, I was too young and I didn't grasp the end at that time, now on 27th age, I would say that "Last Exile" is a capitative anime that skillfully weaves together elements of adventure, steampunk aesthetics, and intricate world-building. With its richly detailed visuals and compelling narrative, the show transports viewers to a fantastical realm where skyships rule the skies and characters embark on a journey that challenges not only their physical limits but also their perceptions of the world around them. One of the standout features of "Last Exile" is its unique blend of technology and abygone era's charm. The creators have ingeniously crafted a universe where clashing empires vie for dominance in the skies, utilizing airships that evoke a sense of nostalgia while showcasing innovative mechanical designs. The intricate attention to detail in the animation of these airships and their complex maneuvers adds a layer of realism that immerses the audience in the heart-pounding aerial battles.

Beyond its stunning visuals, "Last Exile" also delves into thought-provoking themes. The show raises questions about the consequences of unchecked ambition, the impact of war on societies, and the true meaning of freedom. Through the journeys of characters like Claus and Lavie, the anime explores personal growth and the power of friendship in the face of adversity. The narrative's twists and turns keep viewers engaged, while the well-developed cast of characters ensures an emotional investment in their fates.

Furthermore, the world-building in "Last Exile" is masterfully executed. The creators have meticulously crafted a universe with its own set of rules, cultures, and conflicts. From the grandeur of the mighty battleships to the quaint charm of the floating cities, every aspect of the world feels purposeful and interconnected. This level of detail not only enriches the viewing experience but also invites viewers to contemplate the implications of the society's structure and the forces that shape its inhabitants' lives.

Cons, there's a lot of them: ● Painfully poor dialogues, 90% of them is filler, you can safely skip most of them ● Worthless plot with a lot of holes and convinient coincidences ● There's null tactical sense in the capital ship battles, they are there just for the pretty pictures ● Pathetic 3D graphics even for 2003, and below average production value in 2D scenes ● One-dimentional main characters . Complete lack of character development ● Poorly developed universe and politics of the planet/continent. There's some hints, but you can't really root for anyone in the show because you don't know how justified the wars they wage (maybe they'rethe bad guys or just stupid? we'll never know)

● No comedy relief or relatable supporting cast

● The show is about capital ships and fast 'oneships', but you'll gonna see the same 5 or so people on board capital ships (where's supposedly hudgreds or even thousands of sailors and marines serve) and will not know how they work from the inside, because all you'll see is a hangar bay and a bridge. That is sucks

Pros:

● Very good aesthetics, concepts and designs

● A lot of people in uniform, and all uniforms look cool and pretty

● A combination of victorian/byzantine styles + steampunk

● Some of the scenes look great in static (on screenshots)

After this being my third or fourth time watching this series, I've come to the realization that I have yet to write a review for this show, Last Exile. And honestly, I've debated on whether I should or not because this is one of those shows that belong in that “special category” for me. Shows like ROBOTECH, Gundam SEED, Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop and many more, where the word favorite doesn't really encompass the value or sentiment I have for them and besides, I have quite a few shows in this “special category” for them to be justly labeled as “favorites”. Needless to saythat this show will get a perfect 10 from me, which is also another reason why I hesitate to write this review...because basically no one really respects a “perfect 10” review. It's usually written off as raving. But I think this show deserves it because, the story is very original and entertaining and also the art is awesome.

~art

Last Exile is probably the first anime I saw that alerted me to the fact that we were in a new era of animation. I've seen CG work before but it was never as smooth and seamless as it was in this series, usually you could have easily clocked it when an anime used CGI. The CG object was usually big and bulky and of a different shading and texture apart from what was used in the rest of the scene....one of the main reasons why I detest excessive CGI use. But here in Last Exile the CG work is blended really well with the rest of the anime scenes, you can tell it's CG work because the animation is rendered so smoothly in a way that only a computer can create, the way the vanships fly or how the smoke they release slowly diffuses in the air. Only a computer can render art that smoothly. But the art itself is great! I love the design of the vanships, so much detail was given to them they remind me somewhat of those classic cars from the 1930's. Another breathtaking scene in the series is the coronation of the Empress where a lot of care an detail went into the scene, even the train of her regal gown...there was also some good angle-work in that scene as well.

~sound

This show has a beyond awesome musical score, most noticeably, the OP and ED themes. Once again this show teaches me not to dislike all things computer generated because normally I greatly dislike all things “techno” and other similar synthetic music with computerized beats yet somehow and for some reason I loved the OP theme for Last Exile. The beat is very addictive and it goes well with the way the guy sings in that very slow almost hypnotic chanting style. The ED song is equally as awesome and it's what made me sit up and take notice of the performer, Hitomi. The way she sings is very soft and delicate and I've found it to be so relaxing that I've even used it on my MySpace page and people were always asking “who sings that song?” and “where can I get it?”

I've only ever watched this show in English and they've done an awesome job. If you're they type that hates english dubs because they usually do such a bad job, then I recommend watching this one in english dub anyway to see that not all English dubs are done badly.

~story

I think it's kinda hard to put into words sometimes how great a particular show is, especially this show, because not everyone desires or likes the same thing....and as much as one person thinks this show is so “awesome” another person could just as quickly brand it as a “lame” series, which I guess neither would be right or wrong, but I most certainly am of the party that think this show is beyond awesome! I guess I could say, that from an analytical standpoint the story has all the right elements to make it a very compelling series to watch. It starts out with these two kids, Claus and Lavie, who virtually have nothing but end up realizing that they possess quite a lot. That's not to say that this is a rags-to-riches story, because it isn't , it's more about surviving, being a survivor, it's also about having dreams and realizing those dreams. Having Claus and Lavie start out as one set of people in the beginning but then evolve and become different people by the ending is really interesting to see especially if you are into having a lot of humanness in your stories. Maybe that's why I love the show so much, because it wasn't just people fighting for the sake of fighting but there were believable human reasons involved: some for rage and vengeance, others for prestige and chivalry and others for survival.

~characters

Claus and Lavie are caught in a maelstrom [literally] of politics and war, they're young kids who managed to eke out a meager but honest living as messengers and also as part-time racers by flying their late fathers' vanship. Claus and Lavie are I guess who would be the main characters, but the show also focuses a great deal on the crew of the Sylvana: Alex Rowe the captain of the Sylvana and a mere shell of the great pilot he once was, now consumed by vengeance; Sophia his second in command poised and capable she hides her beauty and many other secrets about herself behind her spectacles and dutiful facade; Tatiana, the dedicated vanguard pilot from a now defunct house of nobility who also struggles with her emotions...these are probably my favorite characters but the best character award goes to Dio the spoiled noble from the Guild, his quirky speech and mannerisms makes him the one that I could hardly take my eyes off of. At first he seems like a spoiled brat and then a gay stalker for Claus but even he too, grows and changes during the series and he eventually becomes someone likable and even a vital member of the team.

There are many other characters in this series that are just as great with wonderful personalities. The character designs were also great. They were all attractive looking but none were made excessively beautiful except for those who were supposed to be beautiful like Delphine, Dio, Sophia [without the glasses], Claus and Alvis. And it's not that they were super-duper jaw-droppingly gorgeous but the art style and wardrobe designs made them so. I really appreciated the great work that went into creating all the various wardrobes. I loved the design of the Empress's gown and the vanship flight suits used on the Sylvana, the fashion for The Guild was very unique as was the military uniforms for the Disseth.

~verdict

I don't think many people will get why this show is great because it doesn't contain a lot of the standard anime formulas, there are no giant robots, there are no epic battles with super-powers, the world isn't directly in any sort of great peril....the story is somewhat political. But it's a very intelligently written story with a lot of insightful characters expressing a lot of believable human emotion even though it all complete fantasy. It's definitely worth checking out if you've never heard of it or you've run out of anime to watch and are willing to try something new. the perfect 10 score isn't meant to be just me gushing about some show I like, but I do think it critically merits this score for being a truly original, intelligent and well-executed story.

While I love the aesthetic of the show, I'm a sucker for steampunk after all, the story ultimately fell a bit flat for me. Much of the world and many of the characters were left under developed. Many things are never explained in any sort of detail and characters often seem to do things for no apparent reason other than progressing the plot. The only real back story we get is on Dio (my favorite character) and the parents who aren't even main characters. I kept expecting these issues to be resolved but they were never addressed. Lastly, the end was a bit of a disappointmentand didn't really showcase some of the cooler aspects of the ships and their crew. Still though, the nice little epilogue at the end really got me.

This is a review of a partial completion (17/26). I usually don't drop anime once I've finished so much of it, but I did in this case, and will try to detail why below. First of all, I confess to having a certain bias against the aesthetic of Last Exile. It's an older anime, and it feels even older than it is when watching it. I'm also not a huge fan of steampunk. But while that may have influenced my personal enjoyment, I try not to let it affect anything else (for the record, the "Enjoyment" category got a 3/10). I'll run through each of thereview categories.

I gave the story a 3/10. This is because, honestly, I never felt I had any idea what was going on. So, our two main protagonists end up on an adventure and get involved in world-altering events. That's a pretty standard story. But that's neither good nor bad. What makes a story great is when there are clear and compelling bases behind not just the characters' actions, but behind the world. While the characters get a little bit of clear but not compelling support, the world gets next to nothing. I felt like I understood what was going on with at least Claus, Lavie, and perhaps Alex, but I was blank as to what was going on in the world. Locations feel similarly drawn out of thin air. Of the various locations we are taken to, none of them feel developed. And some of them simply aren't; I don't even know what the Grand Stream is by episode 17. That's an issue.

I gave the art a 7/10. I'm honestly not one to criticize art that much anyways. It has an old aesthetic. I don't think that aesthetic can really be judged. If poor art actually starts to affect my ability to comprehend what's going on, then I'll rate it lower (for example, the anime movie Hells has a very interesting art style, but it actually has a negative effect on being able to tell what's going on). Last Exile does not have this issue.

I gave the sound a 5/10. I didn't feel anything from the soundtrack. The music is appropriate for the scenes, as are the sound effects, but they don't really enhance it in any way either. Similar to art, however, sound is a very subjective category that is hard to rate.

I gave the characters a 4/10. As mentioned when I was covering story, the characters get some clear, but not compelling bases for their actions. Or at least, the major characters do. However, I felt the antagonists were one of the weakest aspects of the show, and were in large part the reason I felt compelled to stop watching. I have little patience these days for antagonists that speak or act in a meme-worthy "evil" manner. The best antagonists are the ones whose actions are justifiable from a certain perspective. Characters need to be believable. Even if we assume that such ridiculous antagonists are simply extreme narcissists, it still doesn't feel real without giving them counterbalancing traits that real narcissists have. Narcissism alone can't make a believable person.

Besides the poor character development, I also feel the need to mention the appalling state of the female cast. I don't intend to make this a feminist review, but I do feel that the way that Last Exile handles female characters is an issue. The show has an old aesthetic. Lots of shows may use an old aesthetic and therefore portray female characters in an older, more conservative sense. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Nor, for that matter, do I necessarily take issue with ecchi or harem shows that objectify women. Those shows are designed to cater to a particular audience, and generally don't feel like they're validating a view. They're made to be entertainment, not to explicitly validate what they are showing. Last Exile, on the other hand, gave off the impression that it was, because it felt like it was an honest portrayal of how the creators felt. The world of Last Exile isn't a historical period recreation. It's certainly not an ecchi or harem. It does have a somewhat historical feel from the steampunk aesthetic, but it doesn't authentically recreate 19th century society, and several female characters are placed in strong, commanding positions, with matching personalities to boot. Despite this, these characters are consistently portrayed as emotionally weak, having breakdowns from which they must be rescued by associated male characters. The male characters, meanwhile, never have breakdowns of their own. In this way, the anime gives off a rather sexist impression. In any case, if that kind of thing bothers you in anime, I strongly recommend not watching Last Exile.

Overall, I give Last Exile a 4/10. It has a world that I really did feel inspired by at first. I really wanted to get to know this world and the characters in it, and discover what fates awaited them. Unfortunately, Studio Gonzo fails to deliver a strong basis for these things, and the imaginative world they came up with drops like a Vanship with low Claudia pressure.