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[merylsilverburg]

Last Exile is the latest anime series from GONZO (Hellsing, Kiddy Grade, Saishu Heiki Kanojo (She, the Ultimate Weapon)) and has an intriguing storyline and visuals. It's currently running in Japan (started in April), but I was fortunate enough to get a chance to see the first 3 episodes from a good friend of mine. Here is the plot: (From Last Exile)

The story is set in Prestale which is the world of fictitious with the atmosphere in the Industrial Revolution age.
Claus Valca and Lavi Hed ... They who are a childhood friend are dreaming that they jump over "Grand Storm" which is a huge storm by their airplane "Van ship" and reach the other side of the cloud someday. Their fathers also challenged Grand Storm as a pilot and a mechanic before and they had died before achieving the purpose. They sincerely respect their fathers, and want to get over their fathers. Such feelings drive them into the sky.
One day, Kraus and Lavie who manages the carrier business by a small flying boat help the girl named Alvis from the crashing flying boat. After they send her to the mysterious air battleship Silvana, they get involved in the earthshaking battle. They headed for the sky which became a battlefield as a crew of Silvana. They do not want to fly to fight. Still, they keep flying to reach Grand Storm someday.

The uniqueness of this series is probably the Industrial Revolution age which GONZO based the setting on. The visuals are all well-done, mixing CG with hand-drawn art, and the animation is fluid. The battleship designs are beautifully designed and reminds me of the Dreamcast game "Skies of Arcadia". The plot is also interesting and draws you in from the first episode. It really begins picking up in episode 3.
Has anyone seen this series?

EDIT: Here's also the link of the official site. It's only in Japanese, so your browser will need a Japanese text encoding:

LAST EXILE

[Pu the Owl]

So, the main characters are kids, right? The design for two characters reminds me of the main characters of Blue Submarine. Nice costumes they have, anyway. I'll be looking for this series when it becomes available outside Japan I'm not sure the plot is appealing for now, but I'm curious about it.

[merylsilverburg]

Originally posted by Fortune

So, the main characters are kids, right? The design for two characters reminds me of the main characters of Blue Submarine. Nice costumes they have, anyway. I'll be looking for this series when it becomes available outside Japan I'm not sure the plot is appealing for now, but I'm curious about it.

Yes, the main characters are kids...they look around maybe their teen years, so probably 15/16.

It's funny how you mentioned the Blue Submarine character designs because the same artist did the ones for Last Exile (Murata, Renji).

[Reid]

I've got the first episode of this but I've yet to watch it. I'll give you my feedback after I check it out, meryl.

[blindman]

Sounds cool, and its one of the new animes around so its got to have amazing quality.
Well, i dont know if its the correct way to keep addressing those kids parents as Fathers. But thats my vision.

[Urahara Kisuke]

Last Exile is pretty good. Just haven't been able to see much of it. It sucks, but what I saw of it. I thought that it was pretty good, like I just mentioned. lol

[Frozen]

Originally Posted by merylsilverburg

Yes, the main characters are kids...they look around maybe their teen years, so probably 15/16.

This, however, doesn´t make this show your usual stupid Digimon/FF unlimited crap in which a bunch of little, lucky ignorants save the day.

These are actually pretty damn smart kids with lots of guts and skill.

One of the best animes I´ve seen, and the 6th DVD was pretty damn sad too.

Spoiler: show

I almost cried when Lucciola died. What he said was remarkable.