“L is for Last Exile!”

I haven’t really posted much about Last Exile ever since I mentioned it somewhere in this blog that I was going to hide in my cave and watch it. Oh boy, has it delivered the goods. Along with some bruised apples and Russians.

Every episode release has me, most of the time, at the edge of my seat waiting for each file to reach 100 percent as fast as it can. I’ve said it before to friends, and it seems like it’s true once again — Last Exile has been the only anime I will painfully wait for each week. It’s not that it’s a perfect anime. Far from it. But there’s a world that surrounds Last Exile and I absolutely want to know more. It also has that naval battleship theme going for it. I appreciate the details like watching crew loading up shells into the cannons as opposed to some magical craft firing projectiles with no reloads in sight. If there were more materials and information on the Last Exile universe, I’d certainly love to read it all.

Unfortunately, the art takes frequent dives into “ugh” territory. I remember looking at a cup being drawn incorrectly according to the angle. The cup itself seemed like it was drawn fine. Just happened to be wrong. It’s quite a bummer to see the art not be as consistent. But is it a complaint worth being voiced? I’ll certainly have to rewatch Last Exile to see if my memory of the original series isn’t being rose-tinted with nostalgia. It’s seriously an issue when the last series I applauded for rather consistent and good quality art was Yuru Yuri. Last Exile does have its CG scenes which probably makes up for the unsightly flaws. The art problem really isn’t an issue if I’m still awaiting each episode eagerly, but it is what it is.

The mechanical detail behind the ships is one of the primary aspects of this show that manages to keep me sucked in. The concept art for the vanships and other craft in the series are awesome, which I’m assuming Range Murata worked on. At first I was wondering why I haven’t bought any Last Exile art books, but looking it up resulted in finding that the art book has been discontinued. If others are interested in it, the name of the art book is Last Exile Aerial Log. Pick it up if you see it, it’s rare, and most likely going to be quite a treat.

And then they had to include Russian speaking vanship pilots, whose vanships look like frigates from a matari shipyard. (Minus the duct tape.)

I also can’t get this post done without mentioning the Russian in episode 8. It sure sounded dodgy to me most of the time, but according to some Russian speaking watchers, one of the characters was okay. Wish I knew which one, but it seems like the Russian speaking girl with the most lines wasn’t the one. Aside from nitpicks, I have to say I HNG’ed very hard. From an immersion stand point, it was awesome. Maybe it’s just me. I sincerely hope not just me, because I have to applaud whoever decided there be Russian speaking characters. Instead of just making up a fake language that would have been torn apart for sounding half-assed, they just went with something that exists. While even that can backfire, I think it works well in this circumstance because of the themes that surround Last Exile.

After all the flaws I have pointed out, it minimally dilutes the watching experience. I obviously have a bias for the show, but anyone who has enjoyed the first Last Exile series, there’s no reason to skip on this one. If we’re lucky, it’ll be an extremely solid addition to the universe that I’ve come to love.

There is one tidbit that I’d like to mention. In the Mythbusters 55th episode, they attempted to create the Archimedes Steam Cannon. I haven’t seen that episode, but the people at MIT made the same steam cannon.  They have a video of it firing, which I did watch. It was successful. Granted, the steam slash pressure guns used in the first Last Exile series were obviously not the same design. A steam gun however, is a very real weapon, and the MIT people proved that a one pound cannon ball powered by half a cup of water has 10 times the kinetic energy of the 7.62×39 cartridge – the ammunition that’s used in the AK-47. If the scenes in the first series of Last Exile are any indicator, people got wounded and/or killed by walls of high speed steam powered projectiles. Don’t let that silly “they only did it to fit into the steampunk category” logic invade the brain too much. Hurray for science being correct in an anime. I was hoping for a cameo of the steam-based weaponry but I just realized that this isn’t Disith versus Anatory.

Major points for Last Exile‘s steam weapons being viable, instead of animu mojo.

See for yourself about the MIT Archimedes steam cannon here.
top image drawn by saiko dagashi (pixiv link, potentially NSFW)

+1/+1

-maserbeam