Last Exile ep.1-4

January 16, 2004 | 1 Comments

I have to admit that I'm not exactly a Gonzo studio (Hellsing, Gatekeepers) fan so I was a bit surprised to find myself enjoying Last Exile. I contribute this mostly to Range Murata's design works on the series. Last Exile contains some of the nicest characters/ships/environment designs that I've had the fortune to see, most of which are heavily based on the French and German style during the WWII era. The show also contains exceptionally attractive opening and ending sequences, which are accompanied by songs titled "Cloud Age Symphony" and "Over the Sky" respectively.

The only problem that I had with this series was that I found the first episode to be rather dull. And that is quite unfortunate since some people will probably got turned off by this episode and decided not to watch the rest. My suggestion is to keep watching because the show does become interesting in the second and third episodes. And once you watch these other episodes, rewatch the first episode and I think you'll find that not only that the first episode stops being dull, but it also turns out to have some significant informations which will be useful in the subsequent episodes.

Anyway, the story starts off with the presence of a mysterious battleship in the middle of a turbulent sky. The ship seems to be looking for something and it's doing so by connecting itself to a Vanship (a small airship) which is piloted by a girl called Tatiana. Just when the sky is about to become even more turbulent, Tatiana seems to have detected something, which turns out to be a fleet of battleships that belongs to a group called 'Disith'. Immediately, the mysterious ship begins to attack the Disith battleships with cannon fire and successfully destroys most of them. Then the captain of the mysterious ship, Sophia, quickly orders the crew to get the ship out of the 'Grand Stream'. In doing so, the ship exits the turbulent sky and into a portal which transport them into a calmer sky.

The story then changes its focus from the mysterious ship to a sky courier pilot named Claus Valka and his fellow navigator, Lavie Head. Both Claus and Lavie are rather poor but luckily they both own a rather cool Vanship inherited from Claus' father which they often use to get a job delivering letters. They do so by travelling along a canyon full of advertisements (which, IMO, is rather difficult to see if you're actually flying inside a Vanship) looking for a sky courier. Each job is rated based on its danger level. One star is the least dangerous while Five stars is a very dangerous job. In this particular episode, they choose a 3 stars job which turns out to be delivering a letter to a Captain called Mad-thane, who is in the front line of a major battle in the Minagith area.

With this, the show quickly focuses its attention on the said major battle that is about to happen. Apparently, in this world, there have been major battles between two kingdoms called Anatoray and Disith. These battles, however, are quite unusual, because they are refereed by a mysterious Guild who sets up the rule of the battle. Basically the two kingdom will align their battleships opposite one another and then release their gunmen to shoot one another. Those who lost the most Gunmen will have to consider their loses and see if it's worth it or not to continue the battle even further by firing canon. The problem with this battle, IMO, is that it's extremely ineffective because not only it causes a lot of human deaths (because it's shooting at each other on point blank range or nothing), but also, it never really ends the war.

We then get a glimpse of one of the poor musketeers/soldiers who got the task of being in the front line of - what I think is - a massacre disguised under a pretense of chivalry and bravado. That said soldier, Mullin Shetland, keeps repeating a prayer prior to be sent to the front line hoping that the bullets of the Disith's soldiers never get to hit him. Thankfully for him, he got what he wished for as he becomes the last man standing amongst the pile of bodies that belongs to his ex-comrades. Meanwhile at the same time, Claus and Lavi have finally arrived at their destination, the same flagship that Mullin is located, Claimh Solais. Once they aboard the battleship, Claus and Lavie are informed that the Anatoray have won the war. Unfortunately the Anatorays are soon proven wrong as an unregistered Disith fleet stages a new attack on the ship.

Episode two continues from where episode one left off with the Claimh Solais in panic when they found out that the Guild, which normally intervenes and stops the battle before it goes too far, has not done anything to stop the sudden attack from the Disith fleet. Under desperation, pressure, and confusion, Captain Mad-thane make a rush decision to attack the enemy up front even though it means death for all of them. Meanwhile, Claus and Lavie are ordered to get off the battleship and therefore unable to give the letter for Captain Mad-thane that was given to them by his daughter. Refusing to give up, Claus and Lavie decided to read the letter by jacking into one of the ship's speaker systems in order to accomplish their task. They, however, are interrupted by the Claimh Solais soldiers who order them to get out of the ship at gun points. Claus and Lavie, however, finally managed to read the letter with the help of Mullin who points his gun to one of the other soldiers, holding him hostage while Claus and Lavie read the letter.

Hearing the letter from his daugther as well a plea of sanity from Lavie, made Captain Mad-thane realises that he has nothing to be ashamed of by retreating from this deadly situation in order to have as many of his men survive and rethink their situation. Meanwhile, Claus and Lavie decide to help as much as they can by contacting the Guild. Strangely, however, while the guild seems to notice the morse code sent by Claus and Lavie, they decided not to do anything about it and instead laugh at Claus and Lavie's attempt to ask for their help. Realising that they can't rely on the Guild any longer, Claus and Lavie decide to distract the Disith battleships using smoke bombs. Luckily before they kill themselves in vain, the red Vanship that belongs to Tatiana appears and drags them away from the battle while throwing a bomb into one of the Disith's ship, detonating it.

Not long after that, the mysterious ship that appeared early in episode one, suddenly appears again and starts attacking the Disith's battleships. The ship, which is known by the Claimh Solais soldiers as 'Silvana' (or 'Silverna' according to the eyecatch) is actually considered a 'ghost ship' and a 'dark horse' whose action is quite unexpected. However, this time Claimh Solais is fortunate because Silvana is on their side and with the ship's firepower, it doesn't take long for Silvana to easily destroy most of the Disith battleships, allowing the Anatoray fleet including Claimh Solais, to make a full jump away from the rest of the Disith fleet. Silvana itself, living up to its reputation as a 'ghost ship' immediately disappears into the clouds as soon as the Anatory fleet is able to escape from the Disith fleet.

Claus and Lavie returns to Lieutenant Mad-thane's wife and daughter to let them know that their husband/father will return home soon. Unfortunately for Claus and Lavie, they are unable to make it to the preliminary race of a Vanship race because they were involved in the battle of Minagith. As a result, in episode three, we get to see the two of them involved in a race where they start at the very last position. Episode three then mostly focuses its story on this Vanship race that does not look too different from that pod race in Star Wars episode one. In this race, Claus and Lavie managed to climb to the top three position thanks to their perseverance and skills. Unfortunately, not long after they managed to take the first position in the race, an unknown Vanship crashes and steers them off the race course.

Claus decides to forget about the race and helps the crashed Vanship. When they find the ship, however, the pilot is already severely wounded. In his dying breath, he asks them to continue his mission of delivering a young girl to a ship called Silvana. However, unlike the usual courier tasks which at the most have five stars, this particular one has seven stars assigned to its danger level. This means delivering this girl to the ship will by no means an easy task for Claus and Lavie. And this point is soon proven when what looks like a robotic ship appears in the sky, looking for this girl. Thankfully for Claus and Lavie, before the robotic ship can chase them, the dying pilot manages to detonate his own ship, destroying the robotic ship along with it.

Episode four starts with both Claus and Lavie in disagreement as to what they should do with their new 'cargo', the young girl whose name is Alvis E.Hamilton. Claus, who understands what it feels like to have no parent sympathises with Alvis' situation. Lavie, on the other hand, feels that Alvis can give them a lot of problem and think that they should hand her to the Vanship Union instead. Lavie is correct after all because that night, their home is attacked by another robotic ship who's looking for Alvis. The three manage to escape in the Vanship and after some evasion, finally arrives in an abandoned ruin where they supposed to meet the Silvana ship. Unfortunately, they once again are attacked by the robotic ship who manages to snare Alvis. However, when Claus is almost got killed by the robot, the robot is shot by someone who turns out to be the owner of the Silvana ship.

All in all, I really enjoy Last Exile. The series feels like a continuous grand adventure when you watch all of the episodes in one go. The storyline contains enough mystery to make you want to watch the next episode as soon as possible to find out all of the answers. The characters are quite interesting although not as well developed at this point in time. What impresses me the most, however, is the attention to detail that this series shows. Practically every single object in the show is full of tiny details. I also like the general style and tone of the world within the series. The world that Claus and Lavie inhabits looks a bit like German or France circa 1930s or 1940s only that it has some technological advancements (and weird animal) that were missing from that era. And unlike other Gonzo titles where the 3D animation sticks out like a sore thumb, Last Exile somehow manages to ensure that they blend seamlessly with the 2D animation. There are some occasions where this is not the case but these instances are so short that it doesn't really bother me.

The DVD that Pioneer released is awesome. If you just want the DVD, you can do so. However, I'll recommend the special edition version which comes inside a storage box that contains the DVD as well as an Alvis E.Hamilton figurine and a mousepad. Other extras include an image gallery, non credit opening and ending. and some trailers. There's also an interview with the director of the show, Mahiro Maeda. I was also surprised to know that the English dub is actually not bad at all. Lavie is a bit more whiny in this version than in the Japanese version but in general, both the Japanese and English VAs do a good job of voicing the characters. If I can make one criticism of the DVD release it will be of the DVD covers. The R2 covers of Last Exile feature exclusive artworks which are personally created by Range Murata himself. As a result, the R1 covers look pale in comparison to the R2 covers since they just use the normal publicity images. I think Pioneer should have made this a reversible cover. Oh well, at least they use the first R2 cover in the storage box as well as on the mousepad.

© memento 2003