Anime: Ouritsu Uchuugun: Honneamise no Tsubasa

Ouritsu Uchuugun: Honneamise no Tsubasa, also known Royal Space Force, is a slow-paced slice-of-life centered around the main character, Shiro, as he trains to become the first man in space. The plot is mostly simple and straight-forward, while there are some anti-war messaging and discussions about the value of human civilization, the movie never fully explores those themes beyond the surface level. The world-building is one of the highlights of this film, which shines through in its portrayal of how different factions within the country, as well as a neighboring enemy nation, perceive the importance of the space program in vastly different ways. Small details, such as the people from the other country wearing different clothes and speaking another language help add to the immersive world-building.

The biggest issue with this film is the bland and forgettable cast of characters, which makes it hard to be invested in their journey. Shiro has a very dull personality and doesn't change much throughout the film. He takes a very passive position throughout most of the film with the most memorable thing he does occurring in a completely unnecessary scene where he attempts to rape his girlfriend and faces no consequences for doing so.

The best part of Royal Space Force is undoubtedly the high quality 2D animation from Gainax's early years. A lot of attention was given to making the backgrounds feel alive and integrating the high-tech machinery seamlessly into the setting, all of which greatly enhances the film's immersion. However, the film lacked a solid soundtrack, as 90% of the film features no background music.

Royal Space Force is by no means a bad movie, but it's far from a good one. A more interesting, fleshed out and well-developed cast of characters paired with a deeper exploration of the themes the film attempts to present could result in a far better film. If you're looking for some great 80s anime aesthetic backgrounds and war machinery illustrations, I would wholeheartedly recommend this. However, anyone expecting to find the same level of innovation and experimentation found in Gainax’s later works won't find it here.

Honneamise is a movie of antitheses. Everything about it has two sides, and it wasn’t done intentionally for the sake of keeping things grey. The production team was simply insecure and that shows everywhere in the film. You could say that’s what gives it an identity, but it’s surely not to its benefit. It’s like those movies where you see they did a lot of reshooting and last moment editing. You spot the insecurity and that’s a bad thing.

It’s not that obvious in Honneamise, but it’s still there when you know it was made by the Gainax crew. It’s not zany and energetic, which is what they got to be known for. And it’s not something they began doing later on either. The sole reason they were given a lot of money to make this film was because they impressed the bigshots with Daicon, their anime convention animated shorts. “Hey, can you make us something that looks like that?” they asked. “Sure, but not with your money and not in that movie” they replied.

What I mean by that is how it doesn’t have the energy of what we came to expect froms Gainax. It looks pretty, but it doesn’t have the energy of Guren Lagann, the psychological pressure of Neon Genesis, or the sex metaphors of Fooli Cooli. It’s just a typical coming of age story. Take any generic sports plot and you get pretty much the same stuff.

And it’s not like it doesn’t have something interesting going on. There is a space program, there are protesters, there are religious fanatics, there are politics, there is romance… There is a whole multilayered civilization in this movie, with its own history and type of unique-looking technology and we barely get to see anything, because it’s a movie focusing on the training of one guy at the expense of everything else. It wouldn’t be a problem if there was a series after the movie that would explore the setting, but that didn’t happen, we were stuck will a hundred interesting ideas that do not get looked into and a hardly serviceable plot.

Also, the characterization is unacceptably weak. There are only a handful of important characters and they are super generic. You are not given something to remember them for, since they are that basic, and because the setting looks so magnificently exotic, they get completely overshadowed in a coming of age story. The reason these types of stories work best in contemporary settings is because you get to focus on the characters for doing things more interesting than the setting they are part of. That’s not the case with Honneamise. It’s a character-focused plot thrown in a world-centric story.

Furthermore, the only memorable thing the protagonist does in the whole movie is a sexual assault. Despite being somewhat excused as the result of anxiety, it raised a lot of eyebrows back when it aired, and alienated a big portion of the mainstream audiences. And this was what they thought back in the 80s. Nowadays, this can be considered attempted rape. So basically, you have a movie where you are more interested in the setting, and instead you spend your time watching a generic guy trying to rape a woman. Yeah, not a very pretty image in your mind.

By the way, anyone who doesn’t like shonen protagonists for being spineless when it comes to women, this is what happens when they are not. Why do you think most stories have sexually inept heroes? For not disliking how spineless they are in comparison to one-dimensional evil rapists. It’s cheap but it works, because sex is evil, didn’t you know that after watching Honneamise?

So if you sum it up, the visuals are amazing and the themes can be quite motivational, but everything else is disappointing. Watch Planetes instead. And this planned sequel is totally not necessary.

The setting of this movie is, as far as I’m concerned, its major attraction. It is a very rich world, ranging from the familiarly mundane to the slightly otherworldly. The characters are shown in the full range of their daily lives, so we get to see most of the products of their civilization, from clothes and kitchenware to motorcycles and computers. Most of the technology shown is very similar to ours but departs from it on a tangential basis; everything is recognizable for what its usage is, but the details are alien enough to keep the setting from being identical with our era. Even the alphabet used for various scripts and labels is purposedly muddled in order not to look like any earthly language. The most characteristic representation of the world of Honneamise is probably found at the very beginning of the movie, where the protagonist claims to have pursuited the carreer of an astronaut because of his failing grades (which is a ridiculous claim by our standards). Narrated over the launch of a pretty conventional-looking military aircraft, that sentence makes the viewer feel at ease and at the same time pique their interest with a sense of mystery.

The picturesque landscapes and detailed objects add a lot of depth to the progress of the story. Especially the various machines and artifacts involved in the construction and launch of the satellite show an amazing amount of detail. The characters and vessels show an great amount of mobility, with the animation looking smooth and effortless. I also liked the character designs; they are somewhat unconventional by anime standards, but they feel homely and have much variation from character to character; their reactions and expressions appeared realistic, with only a hint of extremeness in cases of comic relief. By and large, the graphics look wonderful, even twenty years after their production. In general, the environment’s warmth and attention to detail is very similar to the works of Studio Ghibli. Only towards the end of the movie, where the scenery expands to dogfights and spaceflight, does the large-scale style of Gainax come into effect.

The voice acting was perfectly fine, with the protagonists’ voices sounding warm and earthly, and the rest of the cast ranging from deep to scrawny. The soundtrack was also very nice, and in a movie of attempted spaceflight it succeeded in being majestic and large-scale whenever the scenes needed it to be.

As a story of Lhadatt’s coming of age, the movie succeeds on every level, emotional, mental and physical. The only pity is that it is too predictable by modern standards. Perhaps the story elements didn’t use to be so commonplace back then, but nowadays an experienced viewer can probably foresee through what kind of hoops Lhadatt will jump in order to reach his goal. The story remains emotionally fulfilling, but it doesn’t really have any plot twists. The only part of it I didn’t like was the very end. Admittedly, I have no liking for 2001: A Space Odyssey (which seems to be the inspiration for that final scene), and the surrealistic pastiche of various random worldly achievements and works felt very anticlimatic. I think that the directors could at least intersperse it with some scenes of Lhadatt’s return and reunion with Riquinni.

Lhadatt’s personality blooms very nicely as the plot moves along. His perspective and composure at the end of the movie is almost the opposite to how he begins, but all his transitions feel very realistic and heartfelt. Riquinni’s character also matures, albeit in a more subdued tone. The supporting cast (especially Lhadatt’s colleagues) are typecast, but they are shown in various actions and environments, so they don’t feel one-dimensional; in the end, Lhadatt’s enthusiasm carries much of the cast forward, so that they show at least a little depth. The only characters with deadpan personalities are probably the spacecraft construction crew, but I suppose that this is excusable, given that they are only introduced much later into the movie. Personally I didn’t like the appearences of Manna; she seemed off-key and maladroite in comparison with the rest of the cast. That was probably done on purpose, but in retrospect there have been young children playing similar roles in other anime with more well-rounded and useful characters.

This movie is very important based on its historic status and significance. But even if judged on its own in a void, I think that it displays fascinating qualities. It has aged very well, and in doing so it has gained some old-school charm. Either way, it is highly recommended.

Quick Review

Summary
Wings of Honneamise is semi sci-fi/drama flick that focuses on a man's path to becoming the first astronaut. Shirotsugh who is part of the royal space force begins as a care-free guy, but upon meeting a religious girl preaching on the street he becomes more serious with his life and sets his goals to become the first man in space.

Overall thoughts
Before I got recommended this movie by roriconfan I had never heard of it or even knew anything about it. When I read up on it a little I found out that it is the flagship movie that basically jump started Gainax! So then the main question that was to be answered for me is did it really live up to what it is suppose to be?

Looking at just production value I can say that for its time this anime must have paved the way for many others to come. Really I was pretty blown away by the quality of the anime that might I say may have been even better then Nausica which is the closest competition it would of had.

The script however is a bit messy. However, I still thought it had its merits and i will discuss further in the detailed section.

I think all in all the movie took be by quite a bit of surprise. Even though I knew it wouldn't be bad I still had some doubts for it. However I did think it was a bit long and really left more unanswered then answered. This is also the downside of a movie I guess rather then a series.

in conclusion I would recommend this to sci-fi fans who like a bit more drama, dialogue and depth in the series. Probably the closest example I can think of to this movie is Les Planetes so if you liked that you would probably like this.

Ratings by section

Animation
It is quite appealing to the viewer. This movie does not show any blemishes or cheapness that you can find in your everyday anime series. Even compared to standards today it is safe to say this movie can compete and probably win against many of the new series and movies.

Background
They are quite beautiful for almost every scene. You also have a wide variety of locations and each and everyone is done with quite a bit of detail and attention. From the scenes of space to the launch site to the busy urbanized towns they really give your eyes something nice to look at.

Movement
Another spectacular part of the series is the animation for the characters and their vehicles. The movie has a wide variety of scenes that include bar fights, to air and land military battles, to just simple launching a rocket up into the sky. All I can say is they all look quite natural and great! Really when something looks the way its suppose to in an anime you know its just THAT good.

Character
This is probably the hardest for me to rate. Most fans are more used to the modern day style of anime characters and well this era really had a totally different style. I think for me personally I'm not that fond of how characters looked like in this period, however this is most likely due to being used to newer styles. My main problem with the character designs the overall facial features. In particular the nose and eyes. The eyes make the characters look like they have a mental disorder or something cause they those dopey looking eyes.

Sound
Again the overall soundtrack is an older variety and some of it was kind of weird. I think for the most part the sound fit in quite well but did not steal the show or distract the viewer. The main thing I noticed was in the beginning when I thought that the audio was broken because the sound was louder in one speaker then the other. I wasn't sure if it was part of the movie or not. Other then that I have nothing I can really pick out that stood out for me.

Story
The overall plot was quite interesting,however the path it took to get their confused the crap out of me. I really don't understand why half the things that happened, happened! The story introduces you to many great ideas, but very loosely molds them together to bring together the final product. From religion to politics to just normal relationships. I guess in a sense this mirrors reality where most of our lives are dictated by these things, I still think they tried to bring in too much.

Characters
This part of the movie perplexed me even more. Many aspects of this movie may relate to real people but in terms of development and actions of each character they are far more radical then what you could actually expect. The main character goes through many different mood swings and well... They are quite extreme no matter how you look at it. This also extended to various other important characters and this is what made me think the characters did not feel real. I think this all also was largely effected by the plot that also jumped around.

Value and Enjoyment
Putting the plot and characters aside the movie itself was quite a good commentary of human evolution and human nature. For me it felt quite close to home and I could only agree with the messages it was telling me. The movie itself also had many good conversations so this and the great animation is worth a re-watch. Having said all that I did enjoy the series but it isn't up their on my favorites list or anything. I do think it deserves its place among the classics and definitely is one of those titles that anime fans should see at one point in their life. So if you watch it Enjoy.

Well, I think the main goal of this anime is to always show opposite sides in the life of the characters. Like the history showed us the U.S and U.S.S.R in the cold war, the anime has two kingdom that are racing for the military and this atmosfere is very appropriate to show this antagosnism, like richness and poverty, the religious and the non-religious.

Animation: It´s shure well done. I liked most some details of the, spaceship (the simulator, the instruments and the small-sized cockpit),the airbattle in the final, although it´s difucult to imagine the way the airplanes were designed and the drawings in the begining and in the end of it. There is some really well drawed landscapes too.

Sound: It´s good, but nothing really remarkable. The backgroung music is good (I liked most the inicial and the final one, I think they are the same) and I think seyuu made a good job.

History: It´s not needed to say the histoy is very original, to show some frustrated characters and a frustrated organization that is gaining some reputation, the first sayings of the main characters say much about this ("I wanted to be an airforce pilot, but my grades in school weren´t enough, so I became a spaceforce member").

Character: They are some way realistic, the main one grow along the history, but they are some inexpressive too (maybe to show their "loosenes"), what make some difficult to see what they are really thinking.

Value: To me it has a very good value after all. I rewatched it one time and I think to watch it a third time.

Enjoyment: I recomend to those who like some politics and some space race. The anime don´t have much action (except in the final) but it´s very complex and make you loose some time thinking when it ends.