Last Exile, ep. 21-26

[oyceter]

Spoilers for all six eps!

Ok, the entire Dio thing is very creepy, as was Dio and Claus returning to the Silvana and finding it supposedly empty. And every time the Guild comes up, I am reminded of Dune, but the giant melee for the sword of Maestro-ness (or whatever) reminded me even more of Dune and the ritual fighting and etc.

Delphine is such a typical anime femme fatale! She even has the "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!" laugh and the crazy insane maybe incestuous thing. Also... crazy! Also... random torture with roses that inject truth serum!

You know, I was thinking Last Exile wasn't all that cracktastic till I remembered the Deadly Roses of Truth.

On the other hand, I think the entire conclusion went by too fast. Either that, or else I have no idea what happened because I was attempting to knit and keep the rats from scaling the heights, playing with the telephone, eating my knitting, eating my shirt, trying to be alpha rat, grooming my toenails, and/or eating my dinner.

So I got very confused because there was brain-tampering with Dio, and then giant battles with the Guild, and then something with the Exile, and then random tentacles, then more giant battles, and daring escapes.

I think I wanted a lot more political stuff, given all that stuff about Disith and Anatoray in the beginning, and having Sophia crowned Empress seemed too easy a way out. Also.... so now the Guild's destroyed. What did it do to begin with? I am still so confused! I assume it created the Grand Stream? Or caused Disith and Anatoray to not like each other? Or controlled the water supply?

I feel like if one is going to change the fundamental structure of the world, there should be much more build-up toward it.

Also, I am sad how the story became much more Claus' story than anyone else's; Sophia largely stays XO, Tatiana fades into the background and loses her edge, and Lavie is left behind to be an object to be missed. I was very, very glad when Lavie finally got to be navi again, because then she could finally do something, as opposed to sitting around and missing Claus.

Also, that bit about Alex's last words and what Wina said his last words were? OUCH.

I suppose he was too pretty and angsty to live for long.

Anyhow, interesting anime, but I'm not wholly satisfied.

Comments

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pretty much felt the same about Last Exile- lots of cool imagery, but not fulfilling enough. It made me want to watch Nadia: Secret of Blue Water again, for something with a little more substantial at the end.

On the other hand, I just really enjoyed Space Pirate Captain Herlock, though it suffers from the usual Leiji Matsumoto thing where women exist solely to comfort the 2 male archetypes- silent and strong, or loud and rash...

[oyceter]

OOo, I haven't seen Nadia, what's it about? I remember seeing some old vids with it, and it had nifty imagery.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Nadia is an anime out of the early 90's, by Gainax before they did Evangelion. It's a fun steampunk adventure involving an Egyptian princess descended from Atlantis, Captain Nemo & the Nautilus, and ranges from light hearted to serious along the way. Strong female protagonist, issues including racism and war, and a damn cheery soundtrack.

[oyceter]

Steampunk!! Ok, must see.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I forgot all about the random tentacles and the rose truth serum thing. Huh. Don't forget the random giant chickens!

Anyway, I had to rely on other people's LJ commentary and Wikipedia to figure out what the heck Exile was and what the devil had happened there at the end. I'm pretty grumpy about Dio's pointless death and Luciola's pointless sacrifice, and I was extra peeved about Dio when Mullin Shetland turned out to be alive. Grrrr. Also, I think there was something definitely hinky about the timing of everything--wasn't the big ritual Guild ceremony supposed to happen at exactly the time they were attacking, except it was already over by then? Is it me, or did all the kids that got killed in the ritual suddenly turn out to be alive later?

But, I did like that Sophia killed Alex by killing Maestro Delphine, and that it paralleled the time when he would've killed Sophia during her coronation ceremony when he had a shot at the Maestro, except all his friends stopped him.

Overall, some of the best art I've seen in a long time, but the ending really needed work.

[oyceter]

The art was really gorgeous! I felt it got a little choppier near the end, as anime art usually does, but gah, the airships and the greyness of the sky and everything!

I like the Sophia-Alex-Delphine parallel, I totally didn't think about that!