last exile

its kind of odd…this time last year i was buying asian cinema left and right because of a lack of anime. now theres a noticeable lag in asian dvds i want, and concurrently a significant number of anime series i now want. how does that work? so having just gotten back my federal tax returns, i fig’d that it was coo for me to go out and get meself a new anime series. (woo!) so i got around to picking up last exile from otaku den, a (relatively) new series from gonzo, the studio that made blue submarine no.6. last exile takes place in a world called prestale, where two dominant nations, anatore and dusis, are at war with each other. their battles however take place in the sky, between giant flying battlecruisers, vanships (aircraft), and riflemen who fire broadsides reminiscent of naval battles. two vanship couriers, claus and his friend and navigator lavi, get caught up in the war when they take on a “cargo” of a little girl named alvie, who is being pursued by a third arbiter party…the guild.

while ill admit to being a sucker for airships and industrial-era designs, the whole story, design, and execution of last exile is just absolutely coo. the look of last exile is both familiar and original…much of the design takes cues from a broad range of influences, including turn of the century 1900’s, weimar germany, napoleonic france, and everything in between. they even have chocobo racing! chocobos yo…i swear. the storys coo too, but thats a given. im just nearing the halfway point, and the story is still picking up (with no indication of slowing down…)

> official last exile page (dead?)
> last exile info page