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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 10 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2498#1552] |
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To call Fam the Silver Wing a cash grab for Gonzo to milk off the popularity of Last Exile is sadly an accurate statement to describe this series. Gonzo had just recovered from declaring chapter 11 bankruptcy at the time they started production to this series and it looked like they were trying to milk the success of Last Exile's original run. While Last Exile was far from being a masterpiece in my eyes, it was still a unique steampunk title that offered an engaging plot, a likeable cast, an excellent soundtrack and some of the best animation put out by Gonzo. Unfortunately, Gonzo doesn't capture the same magic that made Last Exile worth looking into with Fam the Silver Wing. In Fam the Silver Wing, it focuses on a brewing war between those who returned to Earth from Prester and those who remained on the planet after it had fallen to ruin. The series focuses on a pair of young sky pirates named Fam and Giselle who get caught up on in the conflict as they befriend and protect a princess named Millia after her kingdom is taken over by the only nation that remained on Earth in the form of the Ades Foundation. Characters from the original series such as Dio and Tatiana return in supporting roles to aid against the threat of the Ades Foundation. Before I tackle the major issues of Fam the Silver Wing, I shall address what the series at least does right. It does rather well at points of showing off the hostilities between the settlers and residents of Earth with one episode showing what led to the war between Ades and other kingdoms to take place. A few antagonist characters get a good amount of focus in this series to show what drove their motives for much of Fam the Silver Wing and having to make rather difficult decisions that put them at odds with their people in spite of understanding the wider scale of their decisions. This makes the main antagonists of the series somewhat more engaging than Maestro Delphine's shallow hedonist character from the original series. Also, some elements to the series unaddressed from the original series are delved into such as how certain people gain control over an Exile and what the true purpose of those among the Guild are. The visuals to the series are also as pleasing on the eyes as Last Exile, sporting excellently rendered CG animation for battleships, planes and Exile ships employed. The animation is very fluid throughout the show's run, best highlighted in action scenes and aerial sequences involving movement of vanships or fights that break out between humans. The only sore spot with the use of CG animation is that it sticks out like a sore thumb when the animation involves trying to animate human characters as they move about while moving in planes. Beyond these praises, Fam the Silver Wing has a good number of issues to its storytelling. The most glaring of these weaknesses come in the form of the grandiose storytelling it wants to tell. Running on only 21 episodes and having a good-sized cast of characters and kingdoms to explore, the series doesn't take the time to explore its settings or allow one to become familiar with its characters like the original Last Exile had time for. While the series does have 23 episodes, two of them are wasted on recap episodes. Plus while the idea of exploring hostilities between the Prester settlers and Ades Foundation seems like an interesting one on paper, Fam the Silver Wing simplifies those tensions greatly and has little time to delve into many of the complicated issues that would arise from such a conflict due to focusing more on its animated battle and flight sequences. The other glaring issue in the series comes in the form of series lead Fam. As our lead character, Fam as a whole is quite shallow with her single-minded idealistic mentality and can border on obnoxious at points as she does not know the right times to shut up during tense situations that take place in the series. Worst of all, her character does not develop or change at all throughout the series when coming to terms with the hostilities around her as it seemed like the plot was made in such a way to conform to Fam's rather deluded beliefs of what she would like to see for a peaceful existence between settler nations and Ades. Overall, Fam the Silver Wing is a rather inferior sequel to Last Exile since its entire existence seemed to be only for Gonzo to cash in on the original series' popularity. With an overly simplistic perspective on war, a shallow lead character and being too ambitious with the type of story it wants to tell, you are better off not wasting your time on this series. Last updated Friday, March 20 2015. Created Friday, March 20 2015. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 AstroNerdBoy
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[series:2498#436] | ||||||
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Through 1 episode... I'm REALLY surprised there wasn't already a page for this. ^_^; Regardless, my fears about this sequel to Last Exile being a "meh" series don't appear to be the case at the moment.Last updated Wednesday, October 19 2011. Created Wednesday, October 19 2011. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing Wikia Site | http://lastexile.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Exile_-_Fam,_The_Silver_Wing |
