From Amazon: It’s the dawn of the Golden Age of Aviation on planet Prester, and retro-futuristic sky vehicles known as vanships dominate the horizon. Claus Valca – a flyboy born with the right stuff – and his fiery navigator Lavie are fearless racers obsessed with becoming the first sky couriers to cross the Grand Stream in a vanship. But when the high-flying duo encounters a mysterious girl named Alvis, they are thrust into the middle of an endless battle between Anatoray and Disith – two countries systematically destroying each other according to the code of chivalric warfare. Lives will be lost and legacies determined as Claus and Lavie attempt to bring peace to their world by solving the riddle of its chaotic core.
Last Exile holds a special place in my heart because it was the first anime I bought in full, special edition art box and all, as a budding otaku. This was back in the days when you had to pay $30 for a measly three-to-four episodes, so that was easily $200+ of my hard-earned teenage money.
But now it’s time for The Culling. A house only has so much shelf space, so Jacob and I occasionally go through our anime collection to see A) which old multi-volume favorites have been replaced with slimmer single-volume complete collections, or B) which ones simply aren’t earning their shelf space.
All of which was why I was both excited and nervous to watch Last Exile again for the first time since high school. Would it hold up to the nostalgic glow that I’d so lovingly pictured around it?
Now that we’ve finished it again, the answer is a resounding “UGHHHHH NOOOOO. ;_;”
Not even that classy opening could save it.
Don’t get me wrong. Last Exile is a gem for a certain audience, but unfortunately that is the narrow audience of “steampunk anime fans who are willing to sit through inadvertently inconsistent and stupid characters, lazy plotting, and a let-down of a big reveal all because, on its surface, the series looks darn cool.” And aesthetically, it does.
Last Exile’s neat combination of steampunk/dieselpunk (for the warring nations of Anatoray and Disith) and futuristic design (for The Guild) is what drew me to the series in the first place, and for me, that production design was enough to carry me though the entire series, watching both as a teen and as an adult. Range Murata, who to this day is one of my favorite designers, did fantastic work bringing the world of Last Exile to life, from the unique (if wildly impractical) vanship designs to the clean, geometric aesthetic of The Guild to the simple appeal of the characters’ facial designs. It’s also rare to see art that can do so much with greys, browns, and muted colors and still make for an ultimately optimistic-feeling show, but Last Exile’s design pulls that off with panache.
Which makes it all the more unfortunate that the rest of the show doesn’t live up to that. Though the design of the show is good, the actual animation that goes into it is inconsistent. Most of the time, it’s good enough, but the moments when it falters, it does so in a big way, like one shot in which a crying, sniffling character’s face seems to implode on itself with each sniffle (pretty sure noses don’t move that way, even for the most intense cries). There are also moments where the CG flickers, which is distracting.
Worse than that, though, are the characters and handling of the plot. Again, don’t get me wrong – the characters are basically likable and interesting (except for Alex Row, who comes across as Diet Zero-Calorie Captain Herlock), but there are many obvious points where the writers inserted dialogue or conflict solely for the purpose of tension – for example, early on, where the main characters stress about having to fly into a war zone even though moments earlier, they’d literally chosen to fly into the exact same war zone to deliver a message that isn’t even related to the battle. There are also moments where the characters fail to make obvious observations – when it takes Klaus several minutes to realize that Dio is from The Guild, despite The Guild’s very obvious eccentricity and appearance, or, worst of all, when Alvis suddenly starts FREAKING GLOWING AND MESSING UP SHIP INSTRUMENTATION AND NO ONE STOPS TO SAY, “HEY THAT WAS WEIRD. WHY WAS SHE GLOWING?” Even though two main characters were in the room to see it happen. 😐 Not to mention that, despite being Guild members (if runaways), and thus members of an enemy faction, Dio and his companion are given complete freedom to roam the famed Silvana. 😐 Like, how does this ship even manage to stay in the air, much less become one of the most feared ships in this show? 😐 😐 😐
Anyway, all of this is done in service to the plot, which aims to keep secrets from the viewer in attempt to prepare for a big payoff at the end – the viewer learns little meaningful information about why Alvis is so important to Exile, what Exile even is, why Anatoray and Disith are fighting in the first place, etc. until the last several episodes of the series. By then, the viewer’s patience is spent, and the reveals aren’t even that good. SPOILERS: Anatoray and Disith are fighting because Disith’s land is becoming uninhabitable and its people need a new home. Exile is a device meant to carry people off the planet to a more habitable world (or perhaps regenerate the present dying world. The series wasn’t incredibly clear on that). Alvis is a key to activating Exile.
As reveals go, these are all pretty basic, and I would have much preferred to watch a series where these points were revealed early on, and time was spent answering questions about the world around them.
Like, if they have big ol’ warships with ranged guns, why do they bring the ships close to each other to fight with musketeers?
If Anatoray and Disith are able to come to a truce so easily, why’d they even war to begin with?
How did The Guild even come to be? Why’s The Guild so weird? What’s up with that wack coming of age ceremony? Like Guild why even?
What exactly is Claudia fluid and what does it even do? Okay, to be fair, it’s the magic BS that allows these impossible aerial designs to fly, but even then, where’s it come from? How’s it work? If it’s apparently easier to come by than water (you never see Klaus and Lavie worrying about the quality or amount of their Claudia fluid, after all), why’s the variety of flying vehicles so limited? For that matter, if Claudia fluid allows The Guild to maintain its posh floating fortress, why shouldn’t Disith use it to power alternative housing? Man, you could almost write a Dune-scale series about the economics and politics of Claudia fluid. (*Quietly goes to plot the intricacies of clarien fluid…*)
Finally, if Exile was built to get people off-slash-save a planet, why make it so crazy hard to find and activate? And why use something as specific as a magic little girl and some words that are only passed along orally? What if the words get changed or forgotten over the ages? Also why wrap the thing in killer spaghetti robots? That’s like giving a person all the M&Ms in the universe but coating all of them in a poison shell – except these M&Ms can save a whole population, which makes it worse.
The first third of the series is fun, but Episodes 13-16 provide the clearest proof of how the series fails. These episodes reveal information and twists that, by all means, should have been earth-shaking for the series, but since it’s so badly set up, the viewer has no emotional connection to anything that’s going on. You know you’re supposed to be surprised and intrigued by what’s happening, but it’s just not there, and that same feeling of lost potential continues through the end of the series, where I literally did not care about anything that happened in the last six episodes.
Ultimately, Last Exile tries to be a character-driven political sci-fi war drama, but since it never focuses on any one of those things, it fails at all of them. Dedicated steampunk and dieselpunk fans will enjoy it for the aesthetic, but even for those fans, only the first 10 or so episodes will be worth it. The rest will just be a glaring example of a series with worlds of squandered potential.
It’s still staying on my shelf, though. The nostalgia factor is just too great. (And I really do like those first 10 episodes.)
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Seems more to me like you didn’t understand the series rather than it being actually flawed, most of the questions you asked are answered through the dialogue you claim to have paid attention to, but obviously didn’t.
“Like, if they have big ol’ warships with ranged guns, why do they bring the ships close to each other to fight with musketeers?”
Because that’s how early naval fleet battles worked, they made use of musketeers and cannons, the series is based off the twentieth century, after all. Also, it might just be some cruel fluff dictated by the Guild, considering how Delphine enjoys seeing people she considers to be inferior killing each other for shits and giggles.
“If Anatoray and Disith are able to come to a truce so easily, why’d they even war to begin with?”
Previous attempts at a truce were secretly thwarted by the Guild and neither of the two sides really wanted to fight in the first place, they were left with no choice after the climate started to become unbalanced and communication attempts went poorly. Also, after some point, the Anatoray emperor did not want to come to a truce anymore and prioritized the lives of his own people instead. So, when Sophia as the new ruler of Anatoray attempted to have a truce with Disith, it might have been the first attempt in a very long time and, unlike the others, a successful one.
“How did The Guild even come to be? Why’s The Guild so weird? What’s up with that wack coming of age ceremony? Like Guild why even?”
The Guild is a special organization created by the people behind the Earth Regeneration Project and the Prester colonies, their original purpose was to act as a safeguard, overseeing the management of the colonies and assisting their inhabitants. Once the Earth is fully restored, the Guilds are supposed to use the Exiles from their respective colonies to guide the inhabitants back to Earth and start a new government there. However, the Guild from the Prester colony where Last Exile takes place ended up suffering from internal strife due to the colony’s weather control device malfunctioning and the people from House Eraclea not knowing how to fix it thanks to their previous generation’s failure to properly pass their knowledge to the current one.
As time went by, the Guild’s traditions and knowledge were lost and they had forgotten the responsibilities they previously had. This led to the four houses of the guild (Eraclea, Hamilton, Dagobert and Bessianus) growing less cooperative and eventually turning against each other, with Houses Bessianus and Dagobert wanting to end the Guild’s exclusive access to the technology they have and merging their society with the inhabitants of Prester in order to keep the knowledge alive, while House Eraclea believed the Guild should be superior no matter how much knowledge is lost, while House Hamilton chose to remain neutral in this conflict. Eventually, House Eraclea successfully kiled the other three houses and took complete control of the guild, but Alvis, the granddaughter of the previous maestro from House Hamilton, was able to survive thanks to her grandfather sending her off with Graf and Gita.
“What exactly is Claudia fluid and what does it even do? Okay, to be fair, it’s the magic BS that allows these impossible aerial designs to fly, but even then, where’s it come from? How’s it work? If it’s apparently easier to come by than water (you never see Klaus and Lavie worrying about the quality or amount of their Claudia fluid, after all), why’s the variety of flying vehicles so limited? For that matter, if Claudia fluid allows The Guild to maintain its posh floating fortress, why shouldn’t Disith use it to power alternative housing? Man, you could almost write a Dune-scale series about the economics and politics of Claudia fluid. (*Quietly goes to plot the intricacies of clarien fluid…*)”
Claudia is a type of ore unique to Prester, it’s used nor only as the foundation of Prester’s technology, but also to produce currency, as it is constantly generated by Prester and thus not possible to counterfeit. The Claudia fluid used to power the ships is created by dissolving Claudia in alcohol because it greatly increases the density of the fuel, which is why the technology in this world is steam-based. Now, the Claudia Units, which are responsible for the ships being able to fly at all, are created by dissolving Claudia in the water, then heating and compressing it, which generates lift. Also, if Disith attempted to use Claudia drives to power alternative housing, it would most likely cause the Guild to attack them, as it is currently run by House Eraclea and they’re not keen on letting normal people get to the same level as them.
Sure, you might wonder why the density increases when Claudia is mixed with alcohol or why it has those properties when mixed with water along with heating and compressing, but it’s a fictional mineral.
“Finally, if Exile was built to get people off-slash-save a planet, why make it so crazy hard to find and activate? And why use something as specific as a magic little girl and some words that are only passed along orally? What if the words get changed or forgotten over the ages? Also why wrap the thing in killer spaghetti robots? That’s like giving a person all the M&Ms in the universe but coating all of them in a poison shell – except these M&Ms can save a whole population, which makes it worse.”
The Exile was not originally hard to find, it became hard due to the internal problems faced by the Guild over their generations. It wasn’t just one magic little girl who could activate the Exile, any female from House Hamilton could have the genetic marker to activate it, but since House Eraclea killed everyone from the other houses and Alvis was the only survivor of the incident, she ended up being the only person left who could act as a key to Exile. House Eraclea did not know of House Hamilton’s link to the Exile until later when they already got rid of the other houses, that’s why they ended up going after Alvis.
TL;DR: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Last Exile.
Is there an expanded lore for ‘Last Exile’ (manga, light novels, etc.)?
Your explanations do make a whole lot of sense, but I’ve watched the series to completion three times (two of those just after its original release, when I genuinely *liked* the series), and I didn’t pick up on these details even when I *enjoyed* the show.
I should add that I haven’t seen ‘Fam the Silver Wing,’ so any context provided in that series is naturally lost on me.
If there’s additional media somewhere, though, I’m actually rather curious to read it. I did enjoy the *potential* of ‘Last Exile’s world – and still think that, at its heart, the world is hecka cool – but found the story itself ungracefully executed (at least as far as this core series is concerned).
I enjoy complicated worlds (and Prester is definitely one), but a story hinging on a complicated fantasy/sci-fi world has an obligation to make its essentials clear to the viewer. ‘Last Exile’ may have done that, but it did it in such an unmemorable and un-engaging way that neither I (nor the even-pickier-than-me Jacob) could recall these essential world-building details, even right after we finished the series. That said, the series may not have failed to include the literal information, but it definitely failed to articulate it in a memorable way – or, at the very least, in a way that resonated with me personally. But then that just comes down to viewer preference.
Thanks for commenting, by the way! At the very least, it did elucidate some of the details of the world for me. 🙂
Wow, I came off as a dick in that comment. My bad, I must have been in a bad mood and I somehow stumbled upon this not-so-positive review on one of my favorite series, so I ended up not reacting very well. There’s a handful of additional media, the Travelers From the Hourglass manga, Fam the Silver Wing and the Aerial Log books, which go into more details on the world the series is set in.
It’s important to reiterate that Last Exile is primarily a mystery/adventure series set in a world that even the characters don’t have a full grasp on what it really is, and it’s not a series that particularly likes to handhold the audience, too. You really have to pay attention to the dialogue and the visual cues, as most of the worldbuilding and how the mysteries are hinted/resolved lies in that aspect.
Like, the thing with the Exile and the maidens who can activate it is made a bit more clear in Fam The Silver Wing, since the whole backstory of the Guild in the first season is more alluded to, rather than directly told to us. The first season also has some clues on what could have happened. Like, from the way Alvis was introduced to the plot and how she looks, you can assume she’s from the Guild or at least has some relation to them, and as the series reveals/hints at more information such as the Guild’s original purpose and the Exile being meant for them to use after the Earth was restored, you start to connect the dots if you’re keeping all the info provided by the episodes on your mind. I also learned how the Claudia works just from watching the series by itself: They refer to it as currency earlier, Claus scavenges for Claudia mineral in one of the tunnels when he and Tatiana are in the desert and he puts some of it in the water they had, which created the fluid necessary to operate their Vanship.
Granted, that kind of narrative isn’t for everyone, some people (I’d argue most) prefer to have things explained in a more straightforward manner, but that’s just what appealed to me the most about Last Exile. It felt like a puzzle of sorts that I have to solve with the info provided by what I watched, and when I figured it out by myself it was really satisfying. There are other matters such as the war and the character arcs, but I feel the series is more focused on building a world that accomodates all of that, rather than focusing on one of them specifically, even so I like how they made the characters distinct, all of them have their own personalities, they have their own reasons to be in the story, they progress in their little story arcs and they also provide different perspectives on what’s going on. The commentary on how the whole culture surrounding war affects the lives of the people was really well done as well, they show how the military/nobility tends to take advantage of everything they can for war, even well-intentioned moves like Claus and Lavie risking their lives flying in the middle of a battlefield, which caused Mad-Thane to force Vanship couriers/racers from Norkia to use their ships as weapons for war instead.
But yeah, it obviously resonated a lot more with me than it did with you. I hope I was able to articulate myself better this time around, I really didn’t like the tone of my previous comment.
Lol, strangely, now I want to dig up my old ‘Last Exile’ OST. There were some really good tracks on that album.