Anime Review: Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing

 

Genre: Steampunk

Studio: Gonzo

Distributor: FUNimation (note: at present only available on Hulu and on FUNimation’s own site.)

No of Episodes: 23, two of which are recaps.

My Rating: 4/10

Summary: This is a reboot of Gonzo’s hit series Last Exile. It’s a complete redesign.

Review: I really tried to like this series.  The redesigns were actually not too bad.  The overall animation was pretty good. Keep in mind, when Gonzo made this, they were recovering from bankruptcy.  So, the fact that they werea ble to do some good with the budget they had us amazing.

And yet…it really could have been so much better.  By about the fifth episode, I began to lose interest.  I really only watched it all the way through for the sake of this review.  And no the budget is not an excuse.  I’ve seen lots of anime with small budgets pull off amazing stuff. There were so many attempts that were made to expand on things.  The world of Fam the Silver Wing seemed bigger than the original series.  We got to see many of the countries and the conflicts between them.  But so little is actually discussed. There is also an attempt to bring in the fanbase of the original. Dio is brought back, but there’s no explanation of how he survived the previous installment of Last Exile.  Not only that, but he didn’t feel the same. Yes, he was cheerful in the original.  But it was gradually clear that was a facade.  Here, he felt fake, as if he was added to placate fans of the original.  The same for Claus, Lavie, and Alvis.  And the there was the recap of the original series. That made me feel like they were thinking “if we remind people how good the original was, they’ll like this just as much.”  But problem is, they also wanted you to think this was independent of the original, so why did they keep bringing it up? Instead, what it really felt like was a tease.

To sum it up. I really felt cheated.  I liked Last Exile a lot, enough to give it a full ten points. This was nothing like Last Exile. I was very disappointed with it. This was a waste of time.

Music/Score: The opening wasn’t even close to the caliber of “Cloud Age Symphony,” the opener from the original.  The closing theme was much better.

Violence: 4/10 some dogfights and such, but that’s it.

Language: 2/10

Sexuality: 0/10

Nudity: 0/10

Religion: 0/10