Needless Bashing!
Review of Last Exile
So, I realized that I was running short on unnecessary creative ways to whore out my opinion and my writing, but since I've been anime-binging, I figured, why not post one of my reviews on my site?
And the review turned out ugly. But whatever. There's no "standard of excellence" to meet.
First and foremost, Last Exile is a war story. Now, war hasn't ever been "my" genre, as they say. Usually I get lost in the drama of it and especially in the sci-fi lingo that goes on. It has to be really intense and thorough and somehow comprehensible for me to have full enjoyment... I'm not the biggest fan of the "storylines" in Read Or Die, Juuni Kokki, or Crest of the Stars. But it can be done right; Fullmetal Alchemist's storyline was superb.
Last Exile is no FMA, though. It starts in media res, which again is not inherently a problem but doesn't exactly help things. Serious Business War doesn't really ever grip me, and the character interaction and action sequences were pretty boring. Basically, story was weak.
Character was also weak. I... have nothing really to say here. Claus, typical ace-pilot child genius, is likeable enough. So is Aru, the innocent seven-year-old with hidden psychic powers. Delphine does have her "evil villainess" appeal... but there was no real development for anyone besides "OMG CLAUS IS GOING TO A BETTER SKY" and whatnot. There was also an extremely generic backstory involving "We grew up together and our fathers both died in a war! Oh, and my mom died from sadness!" Didn't contribute at all to the main story; gave a patchy feel.
Graphically, I have mixed feelings. Art and character design are both pretty damn good. However, while they are of reasonable quality, most of them lack some sort of soul. Only Claus, Aru, Deeo, and Delphine have any inspirational sort of design. The rest are rather... generic, bland, unattractive, you name the adjective and I'll tag it onto Last Exile. Animation is nice.
On the other hand, however, Last Exile also uses its fair share of CG, and... uh, they're about FFVII-quality. Now FFVII is a fine game, but when you have airships in an airship anime that look like those from FFVII... you have a problem. Doesn't integrate very well with the hand-drawn art at all.
My final qualm with the art is the palette. I thought Monster looked drab at first, but I quickly changed my mind after getting past the first four episodes. Last Exile, on the other hand, is brown-tinted from crown to toetop, from nose to tail, from ... okay, perhaps my literary devices are getting out of hand, but I exaggerate very little when I say that there are basically no bold colors in this anime at all. There are a few flashbacks of grass and blue skies, but always the brownish mindset crowds in. I'm pretty sure it had some sort of negative psychological effect on my watching and overall ability to focus on watching.
Sound-wise, I don't have many complaints, if any. Voice-acting was spot on, though they wasted much of their talent spewing boring war jargon. "Cut output by 57%!" is fairly authentic-sounding, but for me, "authentic-sounding" really doesn't cut it. There's a frickin' prophecy in this anime; realism is the least of my concerns, not to mention boring as hell... Anyway, voice-acting was basically good. Sound effects were also good, but I don't really give a damn about sound effects when they consist of VROOM VROOM and PEW PEW. In fact... I don't think I care about sound effects ever, so I won't have any more mockery there!
Music was strong, probably my favorite part of Last Exile. The soundtrack seemed a bit too epic for very lacking action sequences, but it did add a lot. In some cases of character interaction, like the celebration of Deeo's birthday, the music really made the scenes. Music was in fact probably the show's strongest suit. It had some very pastoral, quaint-sounding pieces. The lighthearted mood was a well-executed break from the consistently grimmish atmosphere, probably the most gripping aspect of any Last Exile scene. Unfortunately, most of the time I didn't notice the music at all, so the show faded out into the peripherals of my mind again.
Last Exile is not pro-active at all. It's extremely slow and muddled; there is little incentive to figure out the storyline, because the atmosphere makes caring about the story pretty hard. Nothing else drives it.
The series picks up a little bit actually during the last five episodes, but it collapses upon itself once again at the end with an incredibly weak conclusion and some underwhelming air-fighting.
Final take... Watch it if you're big on sci-fi war-type stuff and if you like pilots and planes. Also, if you have a feces fetish, the color of it will also appeal to you.
Otherwise, avoid.
SD
Aug. 20, '06
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