My wife and I just finished watching this anime serial on Netflix instant watch. It was pretty good. Very subtle with a good deal of depth to the story. It’s the first anime series I’ve been able to get her to watch, and the only anime I’ve been able to get her to watch outside a couple Miyazakis. I think she actually liked it better than I did.
I loved the hell out of the characters and the setting, but the story moved very fast for me in some places without explaining much, and the ending seemed to come pretty abruptly, and left what I felt were a lot of unanswered questions. I think it would greatly benefit from a 2nd viewing, but it’s a pretty big time investment so I won’t do that right away.
I’ve seen it a few times- it’s a very fun show. Upon repeated viewings I think the writing suffered a bit, and went from being a great show to a good show with great visuals and music, but it’s still a lot of fun.
One point which, frustratingly, never got into the actual anime:
According to an interview with the director, whats-his-face the crazy heir who jumped out of his own plane while recovering from a fugue survived the fall, and went on to lead a reasonably normal life.
His arc was really weird. His mantra was, IIRC, one of the first things we heard in the series, and I kept thinking he was going to become very important at some point, but he just hit on a few girls until he found an ugly one to like him, and then sort of disappeared.
I really quite enjoyed this series, though it does feel pressed for time in the latter portions, and as a result it can be hard to get a handle on what’s going on.
I still get the shivers from the section where the Disith citizens board the evacuation rockets, half of which fail catastrophically on launch. It really drives home how… dire the situation really was. Very creepy and effective.
And obviously, Mullin didn’t die, he just passed out from an ugly wound. It’s not like no one has ever recovered from being shot before. I felt he was an important part of the construction of the show even though he’s not really important to the “plot” - because he adds an element of “ordinary person” to the show that remains even as Claus and Lavie get increasingly drawn into the weird world of the Guild and Alex and Sophia. He keeps us grounded. (I’m pretty sure Mullin’s mantra isn’t anywhere near the first thing we hear though - I remember him appearing somewhere around halfway through the first episode. Early, certainly, but nowhere near the first thing.)
And there actually is a hint about Dio surviving because you hear his voice talking to the engineer aboard the Sylvana at one point, IIRC.
Anyway, a very strong series. I should go back and watch it again. (I liked it enough that I bought it.)
I bought it as well but haven’t rewatched it. I need to because it’s been acouple years (and hundreds of beers) since I’ve seen it and I remember very little about it. I’ll refrain from mentioning animes I thought were much better since this thread is about Last Exile.
Please do, actually. I planned on asking for recommendations when the thread started dying down, but I guess it never really heated up, so shoot. Bonus points if they’re on Netflix, and Triple Super Happy Ninja points if they’re on Netflix Instant Watch.
Hi, Cisco. My selections may not be to your taste, but I’ll name a few titles I’ve enjoyed within the past couple years and bought.
Code Geass: This was one anime I couldn’t wait for the next DVD release. It had great voice actors (For me it’s Japanese with subtitles). A very clever show, some of the scenes had me on the edge of my seat. Plot twists and turns made it very suspenseful; most anime aren’t like this.
Baccano You have to pay attention with this one more so than Geass. It flashes back and forth between 1930 - 1932 in America. I loved this anime! The opening animation is the best I’ve seen and I’ve been watching anime since Carl Macek brought us *Starblazers * in the 1980s. It’s bloody and violent at times, yet sprinkled with humor. If you turn away for a couple minutes, you’ve probably missed something important.
Basillisk Wow. This is the most beautifully animated anime I’ve seen in a long time. It clearly had a big budget. It’s Romeo and Juliet meet Ninja Scroll (NS being an anime classic). I spent over $200 buying the Limited Edition version which came in a wooden box.
Soul Eater This is an anime you watch just for fun. Very few animes make me laugh because the humor gets lost in translation. This one succeeds. But what I love most about SE is that it has moments of intensity softened by lighter moments afterwards; coupled with good character development (all of the shows I’ve mentioned have this BTW) and unusual character designs made this a must buy for me.
If I’m not going into enough detail for you for any of these animes it’s because of two things:
1 I’m in the process of getting drunk!
2 Wikipedia has done the work for me and has more info on these shows than you’ll want to know (i.e. DON’T READ THE SPOILERS!)
Thanks, Methyl. Those are all on Netflix, but none of them are instant watch, so I’ll get around to them but it’ll be awhile. Our DVD queue is loooooooong . . .
Have you seen one called Gun Sword? I watched the first episode last night and it didn’t grab me, but first episodes don’t always grab me.
Yes, I remember Gun Sword. I watched it to it’s conclusion and soon forgot about it with one exception: as the show progresses, the antagonist (the man with the clawed hand), didn’t seem to be the bad guy, but the protagonist (Van), in his lust for revenge switched roles. This is only my opinion, but I’ve never watched an anime where that happened. Your mileage may vary.
I’m watching and enjoying Baccano! (I believe the ! is part of the title) right now. It’s very good. Whether it can pull it all together for some sort of ending remains to be seen (this is a common flaw.)
OTOH, I loathed Code Geass. I felt it was a very polished but completely lifeless product.
If we’re doing recommendations:
Noir - about the same era as Last Exile. Pretty compelling. Good imagery, music. Interesting story.
Mushi Shi - relatively recent. A series of largely self contained episodes. Setting is a little strange - seems like a sort of ancient japan but not really. Fundamentally pretty satisfying, and lack of arc plot means that they can’t mess up the ending.
Sadly, that’s all that leaps to mind right now. Mind like a sieve these days.
Sorry for the long delay-I was traveling, and forgot to check the thread when I got back!
Anyhow yes, as others have noted that was Mullin at the end- he was shot during the breaching action on the drive and received a serious but non-lethal wound. My own personal explanation was always that he passed out due to a mixture of shock, rapid blood loss, and the fatigue that sets in when you come down off of an adrenaline high, and that his new girlfriend, who was established as a very inexperienced soldier, freaked out and over-estimated the severity of his wound.
Anyway, if you have any other LE questions feel free to shoot! I’ll answer as best I can. ^^
Personally, by the by, when I first watched the show I was certain that Levy would end up with Mullin, and Claus would either end up with the hostile fighter ace or alone and unhappy. When Levy let the ship to go party and ended up starting a barfight with Mullin, I thought that was the deathblow for the levy/claus thing.
Let’s see, as far as other shows I’ve enjoyed…
The two seasons of the Ghost In The Shell series are fantastic. Stunning visuals, an interesting story, great music, and what is at least in my opinion some of the best-written dialog in recent anime history.
It may be dated now, and it’ll always be light and fluffy, but I thought Tenkuu no Escaflowne (english The Vision of Escaflowne) was a really fun show. I’d add details, but I feel watching the first episode without knowing where it’s going is more fun.
Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo are both hideously fun shows, directed by the same guy with many of the same writers. They both start as seemingly vapid/light and funny shows, but both contain surprising depth that becomes increasingly obvious as the characters are more fully fleshed out.
A great all-around watch and my second favorite anime, Boogiepop Phanom starts out normally, then confuses you, then spends the rest of its run un-confusing you in bits and pieces. At only 12 episodes it’s a fast watch, but you’ll probably want to watch certain episodes multiple times- the entire series is shown out of chronological sequence, with any given episode often containing segments from 5-10 different points in the show, and it largely depends on viewers putting stuff together for both the overall plot and the chronology to become clear.
Finally, allow me to recommend what is easily my favorite show of all time, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, or Revolutionary Girl Utena. I positively refuse to say anything about this show other than “It’s probably brilliant, and definitely exquisitely written and directed”. It obviously applies to any show, but for Utena and Boogiepop in particular I would recommend avoiding spoilers like the plague, as much of the initial impact in both shows derives from their blowing your mind and/or surprising you at various points. (I’ve probably seen Utena 5 times by this point, and I discover/learn new things about the story every time I watch. In fact, I think I’m going to go watch the first episode again now. ^^)
This thread made me realize I don’t remember a lot about this show, so I watched it again. I really liked it, better than the first time. I don’t really mind the ambiguity, especially since a lot is explained in websites like TvTropes and Wikipedia. A couple of questions:
[spoiler]What was Delphine’s plan? I get that a lot of her actions were based on being totally evil for evil’s sake, but she seemed to have a goal in mind with exile. My best guess is that she wanted to use Exile to flee the bottle-- allegedly named Prester, though I can’t recall this in the series–with a few of her hand picked followers, including Dio. I’m not sure why she needed to destroy Anatoray and Disith though, unless it was out of spite. I’d think that would have drawn a lot of attention to her plan.
Also I’m guessing at the end the people of the bottle used Exile to restore the climate functions of their artificial world, rather as a starship, which is what I assume it was. Probably their were too many people in the bottle to fit onto Exile.
Most confusing, what was Alvis? On some level she was just a twelve year old human girl, but what was the source of her connection to exile? Why did she glow and cause all that crazy stuff to happen when someone read the mysteria to her.
Also, word of God allegedly says Dio survived at the end, which I find much more implausible than Mullin, who I saw as merely badly wounded in the battle. I prefer to think that he is dead, another victim of Delphine.[/spoiler]
I really like fantastic worlds and stories that don’t spoon feed you too many details with too much expository dialog. So I really liked this and I’m glad I saw it again.
My impression was that Delphine intended to use Exile to retain or strengthen the Guild’s stranglehold on the world. Remember that the only reason the Guild was the “official” neutral arbiter and essential sword of damocles that hung over every ruler was because they controlled the engines that allowed the capital ships to fly in the first place. Both the high level of industry and hedonistic lifestyle the Guild demonstrated had to have been dependent on the surface world’s products, as even with superior tech they couldn’t be entirely self-sufficient in the air. I think the political climate had recently shifted against the Guild, perhaps especially in the wake of Delphine’s admittedly unstable rule- if the Guild still had a stranglehold on things, it would have been much harder to convince both kingdoms to openly rebel and stage breaching actions against the reactor crews of their own ships.
So I think Delphine sought Exile for its technology, and as an unassailable and incontestable base of power from which to permanently subjugate the region. This particularly makes sense to me given the fact that everyone else seems to be in a headlong race for Exile, and anyone who wasn’t affiliated with the Guild getting it would be Bad News for her people.
That’s just my WAG, though.
Considering how industry was depicted as a necessary but environmentally (and subsequently, socially) damaging enterprise, I have little trouble believing that terraforming/restoring the weather system was a possible use, although I can’t believe that, given a functioning spaceship, nobody would ever at least think about trying to visit their home planet again- obviously it wasn’t intended to become lost tech, so there must be somebody wondering what happened.
Regarding Alvis I can’t remember if this was ever explained in the show or just another fancying of mine, but my assumption was always that she was a, and perhaps the only (remaining) direct descendant of Exile’s crew. I like the idea that Exile, being massively advanced, recognized and responded to crew by looking for a combination of genetic markers and proper passcodes: #1 confirms their identity, #2 ensures they’re not a disgruntled family member looking to wreck their unwitting but gainfully employed relative’s day.
And yes, according to supplementary material Dio canonically survived, but this was never (as far as I can recall) ever hinted at in the final episode itself.
[spoiler]I’m still not sure why Delphine was messing with the weather controls. But I guess with Disith freezing and Anatory drought-ridden, they might not interfere with her plans to seize exile. Also, it helps establish her as being totally evil, though the scene where she destroys the Disith ship bringing water to Anatory pretty much does that on its own.
I’m fine with Alvis being somewhat mysterious. I think everyone must have been a direct descendent of exile’s crew. Where else would they come from? but maybe there were only certain people who could control the ship, the others being passengers. Perhaps she was a manifestation of a recessive gene.[/spoiler]
Omi no Kami, weren’t the Guild members physically superior? IIRC didn’t Dio kick a whole room full of Anatouray people’s asses at one point with like no effort? Or am I misremembering?
Also, his voice is heard in the final episode. That’s a hint at bare minimum.
Dio killed a bunch of people in a ceremonial battle, but they were all guild. However some guild people had superhuman abilities. Luciola and Cicada had superior strength and fighting ability. Luciola knocked down the big mechanic without breaking a sweat.
