Last Exile review

To commemorate their tenth anniversary, studio Gonzo created Last Exile and spared no expense on the production of it. Last Exile is about two orphans Claus and Lavie who pilot an aircraft called a Vanship to race and to deliver message tubes to make a living. Claus and Lavie also want to cross something called the grand stream which has brutal winds and nasty storms. The world Claus and Lavie in, is at war which two countries Anatray and Disith are waging under the supervision of the mysterious Guild, who seems to control this world. Anyway Claus and Lavie are asked to deliver a mysterious little girl named Alvis to an airship called THE KILL THEM ALL Silvana by a fellow vanship pilot, who was dieing from gun shot wounds given him by a guild starship.

The setting is similar to Germany in the 1930's without the nazis but is contrasted by the Guilds futuristic society. This mix of the two societies wouldn't have worked out as well as it did, if not for the excellent character, clothing, aircraft and airship designs by Range Murata and Mahiro Maeda who worked on the production design. I think they also used a naval consultant to make sure all the characters on the Silvana have real jobs which adds to depth of this anime. The story is good but could have been better, only minor problems like a rare plot hole but nothing glaring. The characters in Last Exile are also good but needed more time to be fleshed out. Last Exile also a healthy douse of action with excellent Vanship racing scenes, amazing Vanship dogfights and epic airship to airship battles. Also it has one scene of fan service.

The first thing, you will notice when you press play is it's freakin beautiful because of the nice mix of hand drawn and CG art. This is achieved by using a soft edges blending effect on lighting the hand drawn characters, to make them not stick out against the CG backgrounds. There are also hand drawn and hand painted backgrounds which are great ( done by studio Bee Train, I believe). The CG effects are the best I've scene with cool smoke and muzzle flashes on guns. The animation is very good and stays that way all the through without cutting any corners.

The second thing, you will notice is the great opening theme "Cloud Age Symphony" by Shuntaro Okino and a great ending theme "Over The Sky" by Hitomi. The music in Last Exile is mostly orchestral which adds to the epic feel of the series. The sound effects take full advantage of dolby 5.1 with realistic machine gun and cannon fire sounds. The Japanese seiyuus and the english voice actors both do a good job but the Japanese seiyuus are slightly better.

Last Exile is an excellent all around addition to any anime collection, it gets a 9/10.