Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam – 12

Okay, so I was only joking in my previous post when I said I should call these ‘Late Exile’ but this is ridiculous.  Hell, late isn’t even appropriate anymore, I should just dub these ‘Last Week’s Exile’ but even that’s starting to feel like it’s not enough.  Geez, this is getting bad.  Real bad.  So let’s take a quick flashback to last week’s episode which was a flashback to the fated meeting of the entire cast of Last Exile ten years prior to the present timeline of Last Exile (which was last week but now this week).

If you’re still with me and not caught in that abysmal transition sentence, I’m here to talk about the flashback episode of Last Exile with the Grand Race and the assassination, not the most recent one which I’m already several days late on (ugh, don’t remind me).  But the flashback episode did provide us some necessary insight into the world before the current wars, the personalities and peaceful lives of everyone during prosperous times, a transition point in all the character’s lives, and it set the stage for the current timeline of events where the current story takes place.  In other words, this episode did everything to explain the characters, the setting, and the basis for the story of which we are watching.

Perhaps most significant from this episode was seeing the magnanimous Late Queen Farahnaz grace the world with her presence and influence all the characters around her, especially the dependent Luscinia and the impressionable Liliana.  Not only could you see the authority and respect she commanded throughout the world but you could feel it too in the way everyone acted around her.  And it was simply not for her power alone but her compassionate and thoughtful personality, too, that is a portion of her triumphs.  We can finally begin to understand why she is such a dignified and worshiped figure in the anime now after finally seeing her during her supreme reign.  I do wonder what the world would’ve been like had her life not ended that day.

Speaking about that, what’s with the assassination?  Did we receive any explanations on who the assassins were and why they targeted Queen Farahnaz?  This episode answered or at least quieted a bunch of questions of mine and did a fantastic job of incorporating and developing all the characters of the series so far (even though having them all there at the same time is incredibly cheesy but it’s worth it when you consider what the episode did development-wise) but it stuck a thorn in my side when I received no resolutions on the assassination.  They seemed like common folk rather than sanctioned killers from a foreign land but it seemed like everyone loved the Queen or at least not enough to want to kill her and spill the balanced world into one of turmoil, chaos, and death.  I hope we do find out more about this assassination before the anime wraps up because it’s something that now itches me in a place I cannot even begin to starch.

Lastly, I do like how the episode developed Liliana’s character and showed why she has such a fervent connection with the enemy.  As we saw in this episode, the young princess already had admired the grand Farahnaz before meeting her and recalled all her accolades when the two first met.  Then, when she tripped and was helped up by Luscinia, the blush was a dead giveaway that she began to develop a crush on our main baddie.  That crush probably still exists in some form today which explains her following of Luscinia and his wicked actions.  And to crown the sympathizing with Ades, the Queen used her body as a shield to protect the young princess which, judging from her previous behavior of her as a role model, must have devastated her beyond recovery.  All these plot points come together to provide a solid background on why Liliana has ties to Ades and does a reasonable job on why she favors Ades over Turan.  Besides the crush, I feel she believes Ades has the power to restore the world to what it once was under Farahnaz and believes the military conquest is a necessary step toward this peace.  Perhaps we’ll learn more about her actions in the present when we see her confronted but for now, these seem like reasonable assumptions based on what we saw.  And while all the characters had important developments, it seemed like Liliana had the most significant of them all and was one that I was most eager to discover.  Consider this to be one of the most satisfying episodes of the series for me in terms of characters, setting, and plot.

On my trivial side, I am curious about the history of vanship or airship racing in this world.  This seemed like the first time the Grand Race took place but it seemed, judging from all the people, the enthusiasm, and preparations (besides security) that this was a massive event that the world looked forward to on an annual basis.  But it wasn’t.  The fact that it was a race used to celebrate world peace tells of its universal acceptance and love in the world.  That also means that racing had already been established in the world and is a favorite around the globe.  But to what degree?  Where are races held?  What influence and culture do these races have on their own?  How do they affect the world beyond these vanships and pilots?  I’d love to learn more about these tangential facts but these are some of the things that are never developed in anime due to a lack of awareness, depth, or usually time.  Maybe there will be some literature or manga that will fulfill these answers but I hardly ever remember these interests myself and, by the time the next episode airs, these thoughts are long gone from my mind and into simple nothingness.  Ah, a bit depressing but that’s the way it goes it seems.