Last Exile: The Complete Series Steampunk Anime at it's finest! Last Exile creates a gorgeous world that is a blend of eras, from the French Revolution, the Victorian Age to the possibilities that come from the future. This amazing adventure takes place on a world that is controlled by air power and communication is still limited to connected wires or letters delivered by couriers. From the talented artists at Studio Gonzo and the brilliant direction of Koichi Chigira, this tale unfolds in 26 episodes. Last Exile first aired in April 2003 and ran through September 2003. The English dubbed version was first seen in America in March of 2004 on Tech TV. This engaging story revolves around two orphans. Claus Valca, a Van Ship Pilot, and his life long companion and navigator/mechanic, Lavie Head. These two youngsters lost their fathers to the Grand Stream many years ago and dream of following in their footsteps. They want to be the first Vanship Pilots to cross the Grand Stream. In the journey to achieve this goal, they became couriers to perfect their flying abilities. On one of their deliveries, they come across another Vanship that has been attacked and the dying Pilot recruits them to complete his delivery. The cargo is a young girl, Alvis Hamilton, who is the key to the power all factions want. The involvement with this girl leads the two young pilots on an adventure that has world changing consequences. EPISODES Disc One: First Move, Luft Vanship, Transpose, Zugzwang, Positional Play, Arbiter Attach and Interesting Clans. Disc Two: Takeback, Calculate Alex, Swindle, Develop, Discovered Attach, Isolated Pawn and Elude Lavis. Disc Three: Fairy Chess, Breakthrough, Making material, Promotion Sophia, Sicilian Defense and Grand Stream. Disc Four: Rook Dio, Queen Delphine, Casting Luciola, Sealed Move, Quiet Move and Resign. OVERALL For those of you who are not familiar with the Steampunk idea of Sci-Fi, you should think of it as the true mixture of the steam power age and the craftsmanship that went into making their machines beautiful and functional. All of the equipment built took on a life of it's own. The thought of creating a functional piece of equipment was not good enough, it had to be beautiful too. The more elaborate the better. This was the first attempt at creating eye candy. This is the landscape that Last Exile is created in. All of the machines, from the simple everyday to the most important, such as a Vanship, are all created with this in mind. The Vanships take on a look of the 1930 autos that the rich would own, like the Excalibur or Pierce Arrow.
The Steampunk aesthetic is not what make Last Exile the classic that it is. It is the sum total of the Imagery, depth of character and the cleanliness of plot line tied to the the straight forward approach to encapsulating it all into 26 episodes. Although the story unfolds over 26 episodes there is no wasted space. Each episode moves the plot line along and draws the viewer in deeper. The animation is by far some of the best TV production Anime I have ever seen. Last Exile provides clear, crisp yet warm and flowing images along with a Futuristic / Antique appeal to them. If there was any part of this series that I found to have weakness, it is the last episode. It seems as though the ending was a little hurried and several characters were tossed away as being unimportant to the end. But, overall this series had very few flaws. I can understand why it has all of it's diehard fans. There are no real extras to this package, but there is no reason to have them. I would think that the series alone is enough of a reason to own it. FUNimation will release Last Exile: The Complete Series on May 5th. This series should be a part of all Sci-Fi and Anime fans library. ComicsOnline gives Last Exile: The Complete Series 5 out of 5 Steam-powered Musket Shots. 
