Overview:

Last Exile is a Science Fiction/Drama set in a world where water is a precious commodity (the cleaner the water the more it costs) and wars are fought in the skies, according to the rules of the mysterious guild. Large battleships fly through the sky shooting barrage after barrage in an attempt to sink the enemy's ships and eventually they fly past each other so that minutemen style artillery men can fire their rifles at each other. I found this blend of old and new technologies was put together really well and helped establish that this is a completely seperate world.

Story:

Claus is a vanship pilot with his friend Lavie as his navigator. Their dream is to fly through the Grand Stream (a violent ever-existant storm) that took the lives of their fathers. In order to maintain their vanship they take courier jobs; the more stars on the package to be delivered the more important the message, and the more profit. But in order to qualify for the higher ranking deliveries, they must first make a name for themselves. To way they plan to do this is to win an upcoming race, one that they have yet to complete in the past. Just as things look good, and they are set to win the race, Claus drops out to help a downed vanship pilot. The injured pilot entrusts his cargo, a young girl named Al, to Claus and Lavie, asking that they complete his mission and deliver her to Alex Rowe, the Captain of the infamous battleship Silvana. From that point the two are drawn into the war, but not the one they think, For Alex Rowe has a grudge with the Guild itself and needs Al as she is the key to the mysterious Last Exile.

Conclusion:

While Last Exile started a little slow (the first episode mainly set up the world and the ongoing war between two countries) it still left me intrigued enough to check out the second episode to at least see what was going on.Thats where things started to pick up a little, but it wasn't until they run into Al that I knew I was truly hooked. The makers of this anime were diabloically clever enough to end each episode so that I couldn't wait to start the next one to see what the outcome from the previous episode would be. There were very few dull moments in this series, with even the slower parts still interesting, and a strong finish. They did an amazing job with the ending, not leaving you hanging to decide on your own what happened. And I loved the episode titles, how they had a woman actually say the names of each episode.

Reviewed by my friend James at animetrics.net