It's actually 'Last Exile'. Spoilers follow for the first 3 episodes, as in the header:
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Anyhoo:
Bear in mind that any spellings that follow may differ from fansubs. The show itself uses the Greek alphabet to transliterate names (I didn't look carefully enough to distinguish the 'proper' spellings of the names that follow, sorry) and Greek words for some things (one of the ships, amusingly, is called 'dikaios, a, on', which how the adjective 'just' looks when looked up in a dictionary ^_^) but I digress.
Last Exile is set in a world based on the Industrial Revolution era, almost - the lifestyle is vaguely reminiscent of that on the ground. However, air travel is highly advanced, and the most powerful nations (whose names I cannot remember off hand) have vast fleets of airships at their bidding.
The show revolves around Klaus and Ravi, two early-teenage 'pilots' - Klaus pilots their ship, while Ravi acts as co-pilot, navigator etc. They both appear to be orphaned - Klaus is following in his father's footsteps as a future ace pilot. They earn their living by running errands and doing tasks advertised on billboards along a trench they fly down each day - the first two episodes revolve around them delivering two messages to an airship commander. In the course of this, they end up flying into the midst of a fierce battle where one side unleashes mysterious laser-like weapons (possibly aided by the mysterious 'Guild', who are based high in the sky on a mysterious ship with glowing green things on ^_^) on the other after a while of 'traditional' fighting (airship battles appear to be conducted in two stages - the first stage involves infantry firing across the skies, the second involves the more obvious cannons). Klaus and Ravi try to deliver the messages (from the commander's wife and daughter) but are chased away and hunted by the guards on the command ship as they patch themselves into the intercom system to read the messages out. As the guards surround them, one (who appears in the opening credits, so I assume he will appear again), who has survived the devastation of the opening attack phase, allows Klaus and Ravi to relay their messages.
The third episode is where the real 'plot' begins, I believe. Klaus and Ravi enter an airship race (like Podracing from Phantom Menace, but with CGI that ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous) and are about to win it. However, a mysterious wounded pilot (who has been tracked throughout the episode by some sort of high-tech plane that can turn into a scuttling walking thing when it lands) crashes into the forest beneath them. Of course, being the heroes, they investigate, and the wounded pilot entrusts them with his cargo - a young girl, called Aly (?). As Klaus and Ravi escape downstream in their plane, the pilot self-destructs his own plane to destroy the walking plane thing as it hunts him down for the girl.
I don't know if I've explained that very well, the first two episodes confused me a little (I wasn't very awake at the time ^_^
with lots of nation's names flying around.
Last Exile is generally one of the most stunningly beautiful things I have ever seen. The opening sequence is almost jaw-droppingly beautiful - it seems that CG is almost at a good enough level to properly integrate it with 'cel' animation. THere are moments, of course, when it looks terrible - parts of the racing sequence in Episode 3, for example, or the moment when the walking plane lands and it appears to have no shadow (which is curious when in other places it does...) - but on the whole it's absolutely fantastic, especially the aerial battle sequences - since the sky is generally blue, there's no great problem with 3D and 2D meshing. The whole thing is slightly 'soft' (though that may be my computer ^_^) giving it a slightly dream-like feel.
The plot could end up being a bit cliche, but I'm not totally sure what angle the script will take. I had originally thought it would be an adventure story of some kind, but I now have the impression that it's more of a fantasy if anything - the Guild, for one, and some of the imagery used throughout (the eyecatches, the walking-flying-things (I really need to find out their names ^_^)) is too at odds with the more mundane architecture seen thus far.
I'd like to think Last Exile could end up a bit like Wolf's Rain in terms of plot. Not to copy it, of course, but one of the main draws of Wolf's Rain for me is the large number of interweaving plotlines - while the wolves form the main core, Cher, Hubb and Quent all have their own mysteries and storylines to resolve in almost as much detail, which has really impressed me. The opening for Last Exile features the soldier as mentioned before, and a female officer who is obviously channeling a Gundam Wing character whose name I can't remember ^_^, so hopefully they'll get good development too.
I'd originally thought that Last Exile would be vacuous beauty, but I'm genuinely intrigued by the show now. The pretty helps too, though ^_^ I'd definitely recommend it thus far, though I'm slightly wary of the fact it's by Gonzo, so could suddenly become horribly terrible at any moment.
Interesting that this and Gad Guard have turned out not to be all that bad to start with (I'm less sold on Gad Guard at the moment, I have to say, I think I need to rewatch it.) Hopefully Gonzo can keep this up.
Andrew H
