Last Exile

Posted by in Anime Video Reviews | | 15 comments

If Miyazaki were to do a Barrel Roll, it would probably look like this…

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  • Xane

    Holy crap Tai and Izzy!!!
    Well, seems like my “3 standards of Gonzo” finally got an exeption, atleast as far as this review seems to show.
    Great review Ark, you just keep getting better.

  • Worcanna

    I watched this a little while ago, im kinda surprised by the voice cast but it made me laugh to think that most of the cast is atleast well know in some part.

  • http://blogs.myspace.com/hypnofun685 HypnoFun

    Sadly, most dub companies toss their blooper reel immediately, or so a few Q&A panels with dub voice actors has revealed. Whether or not Funimation generally does this, I have no idea, but when the *only* time I remember seeing Funimation put bloopers in their DVDs was with Yu Yu Hakusho, and at that, it was only a separate track of *audio only* at the end of the last (individual episode) DVD with bloopers for the entire show… yea, I wouldn’t bet on them even still having the bloopers, and if they do, giving them in a fashion where you’ll have any clue where they happened or who’s in the scene until the blooper is over where you pause and go “Hah, that was Freeman” because it was so quickly spliced with no video.
    [/rant]

    I love Funimation, but goddamn it, put in some extras. They take the effort to do commentaries every now and again, people would appreciate the bloopers being kept and put into DVDs.

    It’s also a good point that more extras = DVD production costing more money. Funimation saves money by not putting on a lot of extras, thereby allowing the DVDs to be cheaper for us (which is also likely why full season sets from Funimation are thinner in extra content than their individual DVD releases, I’d bet on it).

  • JesuOtaku

    Actually, Fruits Basket and Ouran both had blooper reels…and I think some other shows, too, but I’m a little tired and can’t remember.

  • http://thegeekgallery.blip.tv/ Goombasa

    I have to admit, while Gonzo doesn’t make consistently good shows, quite a few of their titles *cough*finalfantasy*cough* are actually a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I do understand that they aren’t what you would call ‘good’ shows, but I can’t help but find something likeable about series like that when I watch them.

    As to this one, I actually stopped watching after the first eight episodes or so, which I almost never do. If I start a series, I try to finish it, damn it! But this one… It just suddenly got uninteresting to me and I couldn’t find a reason to push myself towards the end of the series…

    Still, a very good review, and I particularly like the parallels you draw from the other shows in Gonzo’s library, as well as pointing out the ‘rip off’ moments in series like this.

    Hehe, death star…

  • http://www.youtube.com/MCBigman Michael Flinn

    I don’t get all the Gonzo hate around here. I like most of Gonzo’s shows. Matter of fact, I try to keep an eye out for new product from them. I think the only Gonzo show I disliked was Gankutsuou and that was just cause it failed the Vol.1 Test for me. It’s still a visual treat. I didn’t care much for Burst Angel either.

  • WWI historian

    I began watching the abridged series of the show, and considering some of the plot characteristics, I’d think that it would be on the fence to being interesting and totally boring.

    The end was a nice laugh.

    Peppy: Do a Barrel Roll!

    Ah, Star Fox. One of my favorite nintendo franchises, but the 64 version pawns all of them.

  • nevercomemonday

    The one thing that I really hated about this show other than the unfulfilling ending is the fact that NONE of your questions are answered. What exactly is exile? How did it come into exsistance? What is the history of the two nations and the guild? what is the history of the war? who the heck is Alvis????????

  • OtakuGamer

    Great review Ark. Might look into this one if I have the time.

    Just as a suggestion I was wondering if maybe you’d be able to go back to your “buy it/rent it/screw it” ratings again just so we can get a better idea at how seriously we should take each series. If you don’t want to then whatever, it’s your review. Just a personal suggestion. Looking forward to next weeks review :)

  • MeggieMay

    About any bloopers for this show. While Funimation is the currently licensee for Last Exile, the show was originally released by Geneon USA. They paid for this dub, or Geneon Japan did – I’m actually not sure exactly who footed the bill for the dub other than it wasn’t paid for by Funimation. The studio which did LE was BangZoom!, for the record. So BZ! or Geneon would have had any bloopers if they still existed, not Funi (and they probably don’t have them, seeing this was dubbed circa 2003).

    As for Extras, those cost the U.S. companies extra money to get since they are a separate license. I’m not sure if LE had many on disk extras on R1 or not (the original R1 release did have a ton of pack in extras FWIW). I tried to do some research at AoD but they did reviews for both R1 and R2 UK and AoD’s current site isn’t clear what review is what. It seems R2UK did get extras (lots of them) but R1 may not have received the same extras. The version I picked up was the original thinpak release from Geneon but I’m not sure what it has on it because it’s in my Backlog of Doom™ and I’m just praying the disks work when I finally get to them to watch.

  • SpacemanHardy

    This show proves that, if nothing else, GONZO has the potential of doing really incredible work…. when they have a budget.

    I do think they get a lot of unjustified hate, though. Even some of their lower-budget shows (like Speed Grapher, Basilisk, Trinity Blood, Solty Rei, and Black Cat) are well worth watching, but all the haters seem to focus on their “slump period” shows. Yes, shows like Hellsing and FFU aren’t very good. Yes, their recent shows like Dragonaut and Tower of Druaga are pretty amateurish.

    But whenever someone insists that nothing good ever comes out of GONZO, I tell them to do four things:

    1. Watch Last Exile.
    2. Watch Gankutsuou.
    3. Watch Gad Guard.
    4. Shut your God-damn pie hole.

    They really do deserve better credit than a lot of people give them.

    Besides, no studio is perfect. Not even your precious Bones. They DID make Mars Daybreak, after all.

    Anyways, good review. ^_^

  • SpacemanHardy

    By the way, Ark…

    It’s pronounced “Bloom”, not “Blumm”.

    Just… so you know. ^_^

  • http://www.aniviewreviews.com lyzl

    I got through about half of the series until I just became too dreadfully bored (same thing happened with .hack//sign). Did you find the beginning too dull as well? I heard it gets more exciting in the later half.

    I enjoy a lot of gonzo’s work, but they are certainly bonkers on the consistency scale. I enjoyed Gankutsuou, Kaliedo star, Gantz, Basilisk, Bokurano, and by far my favorite work of theirs, Welcome to the NHK! (Well, Bokurano comes close actually). They have some amazing ideas and styles in their animation, one look at Gankutsuou or Basilisk can tell you that, and I enjoy that their style is ever changing, unlike the way too obvious SHAFT for example.

  • http://www.aniviewreviews.com lyzl

    Also, just to hate on Bones because everyone looks up to them as the “master” animation studio, they have some problems too. Without even going into their bad shows, I find that many Bones shows have very similar and honestly not very innovative plotlines. While their animation is almost always top notch, shows like Jyu Oh Sei, Xam’d Lost Memories, RahXephon, and Eureka Seven seem just a bit too similar too each other and dull as stories in the first place. (disclaimer, I dropped Eureka Seven at ep. 5, but I’ve heard where most of the plot goes).

    While Bones does make some of the most top notch series, they rarely deviate from their “epics” like FMA (twice ><). These are probably their best series, but for myself, I find that type of story has been done so many times, it's like watching a JRPG in action. Not my favorite cup of tea. I would like to see more innovative stories from them, (like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0) and deeper meaning / more interesting messages in their work.

    All that being said, it's still hard to not give them credit as at least one of the top 3 animation studios I've seen.

  • fulltvalchemist

    Something tells me Ark’s written a fanfic of Blum and Freeman