Weekly Review: Last Exile
The Weekly Weeb Review for 5/30/2022
Do you remember this show? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. It’s from Gonzo’s heyday in the early 2000s, and it’s definitely a product of its time. A lot of the story beats are bizarre, the CG is… inconsistent, and the writing is all over the place. Yet there’s something here that I find charming, even if I can’t say it’s an immediate recommend. The art direction is obviously the main pull, but there’s a level of originality to everything here that is rarely seen these days. More after the jump.
A bit of background for the zoomers: the early 2000’s were a weird time for anime. A DJ-Khaled- Suffering-From-Success kind of vibe. The post-Evangelion landscape allowed for higher production values, but CG was still in its infancy. The Western market was rapidly growing, but so were the means of pirating imported content. And adaptations of serialized manga had yet to fully overtake the output of original series — a lot of adaptations pre-FMA:B had low weekly budgets and operated outside of the now normalized 2-cour cycle.
The result is some of the strangest high-budget anime productions we’ve ever gotten. Mind you, most of it was bad. Studios bumbled around between questionable adaptations and inexplicable originals, and animation quality was a game of Russian Roulette. A ton of the worst rated shows ever made are from this era. Mars of Destruction, Nami, Tenku Danzai Skelter+Heaven… okay, I’m kidding, I’m just listing a bunch of Idea Factory schlock. But seriously, a ton of the worst rated stuff to ever see the light of day (DearS, Boku No Pico, the original Ghost Stories series… you get the idea) is from this era and would have never been greenlit today.
And there’s no way Last Exile could have ever been produced otherwise. The opening is a fairly good indicator of what you’re in for: bagpipes transition into eurobeat dance music while an odd mix of CG and traditional animation blitzes past you. The animation quality is actually fairly close to the OP — which is to say a little dated, but still excellent on the whole. The CG involved in most of the airship battles is rather noticeable, but it’s not unbearable (I’m thinking that god-awful CG they used for Overlord season 3). I expect some will be turned off by this, but I’ll leave it to your discretion.
Above all, there’s a really nice cohesion to the visuals, even when they’re not perfect. It kind of reminds me of the original Star Wars trilogy in this regard: the world is not only well-developed, it’s a breath of fresh air in terms of fantasy design. Some people will point at Final Fantasy and other Japanese steampunk settings as progenitors; however, I think those people are overlooking how focused this series is. It’s got a very distinctive World War I era look; I’m vaguely reminded of Jakub Rozalski’s art for Scythe, but with a stronger emphasis on industrial technology and environments. The OST is fine, if unexciting, but the sound design strongly complements the distinct art direction — whoever was doing the foley for the weird Guild ships should be proud.
If the visuals are oddly original, then the story is oddly contrived. In many ways, this series will feel foreign to younger viewers - the tropological language that holds the plot in place has been altogether forgotten as years have passed. A mysterious young girl, a brooding ship captain, hell, a pod-racing episode… while I wouldn’t call it good television, it’s interesting to watch in the context of modern anime. I suspect younger weebs will be engaged by its old-timey sincerity, and older weebs will feel a twinge of nostalgia — and both will be surprised at how oddly unpredictable parts of this show are. Unlike a lot of other shonen adventures from this time, Last Exile doesn’t shy away from violence. Weirder yet, its deuteragonists are enjoyably fallible — Claus is a slightly more autistic Shinji, and Lavie is a terminally friendzoned sweet-heart who sucks at flying.
Actually, Evangelion might be the best point of reference for this show; I can trace a lot of inspiration from the former. Like Eva, Last Exile features a distinct art style and an imaginative, internally consistent setting. Like Eva, it follows the adventures of an emotionally stunted boy as he tries to save the world. And like Eva, the show is normal until it isn’t — insert meme about theism, etc. etc. However, Last Exile lacks the warmth and memorability that Eva has. There’s nothing like any of the funny slice-of-life episodes in Eva to really invest you in the main cast, and the narrative lull in the middle of the show designed to endear us to Claus is more annoying than anything. More importantly, there aren’t any fundamental themes at play — for all of its uncomfortable elements and contrivances, Eva does want to tell you something about growing up. Last Exile lays no such claim — it’s a rather unpretentious if unambitious adventure story carried by a mixture of visual inspiration and dated charm.
This isn’t to say that Last Exile is bad; it’s just more focused on telling a convoluted story than it is investigating its characters’ coming of age. If you want to take a look back at the Wild West of modern anime, or just watch a particularly inventive world in motion, then I can solidly recommend Last Exile. There’s still a lot to like — just don’t expect it to be a hidden masterpiece.
Oh, and don’t bother with the sequel. It sucks.
Final Rating: 6/10