Last Exile Anime Review

Reader Review

• Reviewer: Animonster
• Review Date: 2004-04-13 (updated 2010-11-18)
• 4 stars out of 5 (?)

More and more these days, it seems like I hear absolutely nothing about anime before it comes on TechTV. Cartoon Network's choices you can see coming from a mile away, but TechTV has practically no rhyme or reason. And they just keep getting better.

After the abysmal Geneshaft (okay, if I'd known that existed I'd have seen it coming from a mile away), TechTV was... not in my good books. It seemed more and more that they could only get ripoffs or sequels of things they already had. But Last Exile is a complete departure from anything they've ever had before, AND it's actually good! Wow, I got my anime and watched it too!

Unfortunately, Last Exile isn't completely without flaws, which mainly has to do with the story and the way TechTV shows it. It starts out interestingly enough. Two countries are at war, and there's a mysterious organization called the Guild that makes sure everyone sticks to the rules. The other guys disobey the rules and the Guild doesn't do anything. Then Claus and Lavie get their mission to deliver Al to the Sylvana. If the entire show had been about them delivering her to the Sylvana, it would have been painfully traditional, but they end up getting her there two episodes later and joining the crew. All this was fine, but the problem is that nothing is ever explained about why the two countries were at war, why the Guild didn't do its job, why it was chasing Alvis, or anything that Alex Rowe or his ship was or did. So essentially no part of the story is explained. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that TechTV decided to license episodes 1-13 before episodes 14-26 were even made yet, which would have put them back in my bad books if this hadn't been so good anyway.

If the characterization hadn't been as good as it was, the story would have sent this show's rating plummeting through the pavement (though still not into the sulfurous abyss of pure misery occupied by Geneshaft, Beyblade, and Medabots). It isn't super-deep; it's about like Cowboy Bebop, with each character having ostentatious personality traits, but also having personal motivations and a past. Being the hero, a kid, and a skilled pilot, Claus is much more soft-spoken and modest than other such characters. Other characters in this mold are usually loud, lazy, and overconfident, and filled with prattle about dreams (like Luffy in One Piece, Naruto in his manga and anime of the same name, Ash from Pokemon, and of course the king of this stereotype, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars!) Claus doesn't decide to pilot a battle vanship so he can go show off and win himself fame and glory; he only does it because he wants to help Al and the Sylvana's crew. And since Claus's personality is so much more restrained, that means Lavie doesn't have to play the stoic straight-man every second of the show. She's loud and filled with attitude, but like Claus her traits were kept to believable levels instead of exaggerated to inhuman heights. There were also two things done with her in the story that I appreciated very much: First of all, she actually decides after failing once that she doesn't want to be Claus's battle navigator anymore. Most anime plunge one of two extremes; either: failing would make Lavie mad and drive her to insane levels to be Claus's navigator; or, Kikaider-style, she would sit and stew in misery and decide that her entire existence was pointless. And the second thing is that she isn't in love with Claus! Praise be to the Holy Spirit! Thank you for expanding this beyond Jinto and Lafiel in Crest of the Stars! Another great thing about the characterization is that it's used as the source of some humor, instead of shoving in out-of-place slapstick humor or making the entire production take itself too seriously and become dry like so many things these days do.

Making that little difference it always does in my opinion was the technical values. As I've said in some review before (or maybe I didn't, but who cares), I won't usually take notice of anything technical unless it's either really bad or really good. Last Exile is the latter, with beautiful animation even faster and smoother than the previous champion, FLCL. It uses the same technique as Zoids, with most of the ships being in computer graphics, but unlike Zoids or any other show to use this technique, in Last Exile it improves the look. Many of the ship scenes take place in the dark or in extremely wind-torn skies, and by making it shadowy or washed out or generally disorienting, they manage to blend the ships into the cel animation almost flawlessly. I didn't even notice the ships were in CG until the third episode. The music is as close to perfect as anything can come, with several varied tunes that always play at exactly the right moment. I liked the opening a lot, which is something I can't usually say for anime that doesn't use J-Pop of some kind.

But even more impressive than the music, just for being what it is, is the dub. Dubbing companies seem to be building up a stable of tried-and-true actors that fit a variety of roles, and every actor here is in it. Claus was voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, a former Power Ranger who was later fired and turned to anime acting instead of sinking into the depths of Hasbeenia like his colleagues (I'm sure he wishes people would forget his past). Proving himself previously as Vash the Stampede in Trigun and Kaneda in the new dub of Akira, he brings a mild, easy-going voice that (aside from sounding a bit too grown-up) fits Claus's personality perfectly. I'm not sure of the exact name of the actor who played Lavie, but I know she did Haruko's voice in FLCL. As Lavie she uses a higher pitch, but is still perfect for the role and a good actor besides. Everyone else was well-cast and acted too, and some of them are in the notes lower down (I didn't know the names of all the actors, but everyone I knew is listed). Another great thing about this dub is that they didn't do that stupid L/R thing with the names!!! May even more praises come to the Holy Spirit!!! Deo gratia!!!

Last Exile is good all around, but not great in any area. The story is definitely the weakest part, and the technical points the strongest, but the rest of the episodes will probably fix the story. As it is, it's good enough to be worth buying and definitely good enough to watch if it's ever on TechTV again. It also managed to rekindle whatever faith I had in TechTV a long time ago before I saw--okay, see notes for what made me lose faith in them, if you actually haven't heard yet.

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