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Last Exile
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:CreationDate: 2014-03-19 12:03:47
:Id: anime/review/last-exile
:tags: - anime
- review
:rating: 3.5
:original: https://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/last-exile-complete-season-1-collection
The setting: the two countries of Anatoray and Disith are engaged in
an endless war, governed by strict rules enforced by the Guild. Most
of the battles are fought with flying vessels, armed not only with
batteries of cannons, but also with rifle infantry (yes, people on
ships, shooting at each other in the sky). A postal service via small,
fast flying machines connects the various parts of each country.
Communications between the countries are nearly impossible: the Grand
Stream stands between them, a large region of constant turbulence. The
two Anatoray protagonists, Claus and Lavie, are orphans, their fathers
having died years before, trying to cross the Stream to deliver a
peace proposal to Disith. Now, they're charged with delivering young
Alvis to the mysterious ship Silvana, and the Guild does not seems
completely pleased about that.
It's not a totally original story, but it does not matter much: the
characters are interesting, their interplay is well written, and
most of the plot is tight enough to let you ignore the occasional
issue. I think the last episode makes a bit of a hash of things,
skipping a few explanatory scenes that would have much helped to
understand what's going on, but if you watch it a couple of times you
should get the gist. Mind you, I also don't *like* the ending, so my
opinion may be a bit biased.
There's echoes of Miyazaky's Nausicaä in the set-up of the war, and of
Matsumoto's `Harlock <../captain-harlock/>`_ in the crew of the
Silvana; in `Fractale <../fractale/>`_ (8 years more recent than Last
Exile) you can see that the power dynamic between the Temple and Lost
Millennium is very similar to the one between the Guild and the
Silvana.
The society, technology and the aesthetic are the now familiar
anachronistic mix of steampunk: Victorian-era military uniforms,
stylised military rules and honour-bound officers, brass and leather
and goggles everywhere, machines running on steam and non-obvious tech
(here, mostly anti-gravity). The main exception is the Guild, with
much more advanced technology and completely different aesthetic, but
that only serves to mark them as different and to support their "right
to rule".
An interesting detail: the title of each episodes references an aspect
of the game of chess, relevant to the plot of the episode
itself. Given how the Guild is playing the two countries against each
other, and the complicated and strict rules under which the war is
fought, this choice is not just a quirk.
