Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise
[...]The first thing that struck me was the art direction. The film's art style had a pretty interesting concept that I wasn't really expecting. I'm a sucker for good art direction, and the level of detail in this seemingly alternate universe was something that grew on me. It had a strange balance of Fantasy, 50's style Sci-Fi, and modern times that I appreciated a lot more as the film progressed. It felt different yet at the same time it remained very cohesive. The high quality animation definitely helped in that respect and it's really impressive how well it holds up for an 80's anime film. Very good stuff[...]
All in all, a very well made and ambitious film. Kinda meandered a bit around the middle of the film but I enjoyed it a lot.
There's really so much to say about the
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise that I could write about it all day. That's not to say that it's my favourite anime film or anything - in fact, to this day, I've only see it once. However I did enjoy watching it and I respect the ambition and scope of the piece.
If I was just to highlight one aspect of the work for a moment, I've always found myself impressed that it's one of those rare science fiction where the story is actually
about the science, rather than the 'sci-fi elements' simply acting as a pretty backdrop to a standard plot that you could really shoe in to any setting e.g. a war movie that just happens to take place in space.
It's very specifically about the journey to get man into space and what that means both for humanity and the individuals who strive to make it happen. That it manages to cover this very dense topic without being boring, condescending, simplistic or preachy is a testament to the skill of the director and writer. It could have become rubbish very, very easily. We're lucky that
Planetes managed to tackle some of these very ideas a few decades later, although
Planetes can get quite preachy from time to time.
There's also a commentary track available for the movie.