As a lover of the art of anime and manga, I found Last Exile beautiful. In particular, its use of CGI for realistic perspective and movement, with hand drawn characters for expressiveness impressed me as masterful. I was grateful for its minimal use of manga clichés (exaggerate mouths, slapstick, etc) and moderate cuteness. The composition of scenes, timing, sound affects and music were pleasing to the eye and ear.
However, I found a lot to fault in this beautiful series.
From a storytelling point of view, there was some disjointedness, especially in the final episode, which IMHO had three of four episodes compressed into a final five minutes, as if planners had expected to have another half or full season to finish the story. There are arguably too many characters and subplots for the limited film minutes to cover. Since anime has a tradition of letting the viewer fill in plot blanks, however, I'm was little bothered by this, deducting at most 1 point out of 10 for it.
What bothered me the most about LE is that, like much anime scifi, it's bad science fiction. It's wonderfully realistic look, achieved by its excellent mechanical designs and masterful union of CGI, artwork, makes its bad science even worse by making it less obvious.
The worst science of LE is the heart of its fictional technology, claudia engines, AKA claudia boiler, drives, and units. Claudia is a florescent blue crystalline material, mined from underground deposits, that when dissolved in water produces a fluid that provides both thrust and lift for all of LE's flying vehicles, from 2-seat vanships to giant battleships to city-sized ships and citadels. When "boiled" under its own power and circulated through coiled pipes, it renders these vehicles effectively lighter than air. In rotating engines resembling WWI rotary piston airplane engines and tailpipes resembling WWII pulsejets, it drives these vehicles through the air at speeds comparable to late WWI aircraft.
No known chemical element or compound behaves in this extraordinary manner. In good science fiction, an explanation must be offered. For example, perhaps claudia is not a natural substance, but was artificially deposited in minable deposits during the colonization of Pretale/Prester, using the same technology that built Exile. Though a weak explanation, this is better than the lack of any explanation offered by the series, and far better than the naïve explanation that a substance like claudia could reasonably occur naturally.
One could argue that, like LE's plot holes, a science fiction explanation is left to the imagination of the viewer. However, if it's IMDb reviews and polls are an indication, few viewers have.
However, I found a lot to fault in this beautiful series.
From a storytelling point of view, there was some disjointedness, especially in the final episode, which IMHO had three of four episodes compressed into a final five minutes, as if planners had expected to have another half or full season to finish the story. There are arguably too many characters and subplots for the limited film minutes to cover. Since anime has a tradition of letting the viewer fill in plot blanks, however, I'm was little bothered by this, deducting at most 1 point out of 10 for it.
What bothered me the most about LE is that, like much anime scifi, it's bad science fiction. It's wonderfully realistic look, achieved by its excellent mechanical designs and masterful union of CGI, artwork, makes its bad science even worse by making it less obvious.
The worst science of LE is the heart of its fictional technology, claudia engines, AKA claudia boiler, drives, and units. Claudia is a florescent blue crystalline material, mined from underground deposits, that when dissolved in water produces a fluid that provides both thrust and lift for all of LE's flying vehicles, from 2-seat vanships to giant battleships to city-sized ships and citadels. When "boiled" under its own power and circulated through coiled pipes, it renders these vehicles effectively lighter than air. In rotating engines resembling WWI rotary piston airplane engines and tailpipes resembling WWII pulsejets, it drives these vehicles through the air at speeds comparable to late WWI aircraft.
No known chemical element or compound behaves in this extraordinary manner. In good science fiction, an explanation must be offered. For example, perhaps claudia is not a natural substance, but was artificially deposited in minable deposits during the colonization of Pretale/Prester, using the same technology that built Exile. Though a weak explanation, this is better than the lack of any explanation offered by the series, and far better than the naïve explanation that a substance like claudia could reasonably occur naturally.
One could argue that, like LE's plot holes, a science fiction explanation is left to the imagination of the viewer. However, if it's IMDb reviews and polls are an indication, few viewers have.