Review of Royal Space Force: The Wings Of Honneamise

Introduction

They say good things come to those who wait. I`ve had to wait until 2007 for my two favourite movies to get the releases they deserved. Well you can forgive me for getting a little impatient and pre-empting one of them, and importing from Region 4. You never know when a film like The Wings Of Honneamise will get a UK release, if at all, and Australia has a surprisingly more vibrant anime community than the UK. I first saw The Wings Of Honneamise over ten years ago, and was instantly smitten. I had the foresight that night to set the video, and got myself a letterbox copy of the original language version that I have nursed through annual viewings ever since, while I played catch up with the distributors.

Manga UK only ever released the film on VHS, with a Pan and Scan English dub, and a limited edition subtitled version. Both were deleted by the time I opened my wallet, and the fact that Manga had willingly excised a scene to gain a PG rating in the UK made me reluctant to pick up any stray copy that I could find. Incidentally, that ancient television showing had the same edit. Looking abroad seemed more promising, especially once DVDs had been invented. The film was remastered for its 10th anniversary in 1997, but unfortunately Manga US looked to the existing VHS masters to create its disc a few years later. Opinions were wholly negative, with a major interlacing error the cause of several complaints. I was an import virgin at the time, and reluctant to take a chance. By the time my common sense was outweighed by my need for the DVD, it too was deleted. So slowly but surely, I wore away the magnetic tape that I cherished so much, until last year when there appeared a glimmer of hope.

Bandai Visual US saw that there was an elite among anime fans, a group that would pay top dollar for classics of the medium, and with the advent of next generation formats, would expect the best audio-visual quality to boot. A new label was born, a Criterion of sorts for anime fans. Classic movies would be revisited, cleaned up, remastered for HD presentation and released in super-spiffy boxsets with bundles of extras. This new label was called Honneamise. It was at this point I started rubbing my hands with glee, for while the initial releases were well-known titles like Patlabor and Ghost In The Shell, I knew it wouldn`t be long before my favourite film would finally get the treatment it deserved. Unfortunately there is a fly in the ointment. BV US has jumped on the HD bandwagon, and they`re format neutral, as long it`s HD. As with its earlier releases, when The Wings Of Honneamise finally appeared, it appeared remastered again for HD presentation in Blu Ray and HD DVD flavours, with the DVD bundled in the package as an optional extra. There is no individual DVD release, and the R.R.P is a wallet busting $80. Even with the exchange rate as it is, that goes over the customs limit, and I would wind up with a disc that I couldn`t watch as yet.

Fortunately, Madman Entertainment in Australia know that there a whole lot more anime fans with DVD players, than are HD ready, and they took the DVD from the US release, and released it by itself for Region 4 customers. This time I wouldn`t be left holding the baby. This time I pre-ordered it.

Studio GAINAX has an interesting history. Nowadays they are firmly established, and have hit shows like FLCL, Mahoromatic and Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi under their belts. And of course there is their magnum opus, forever associated with them, Evangelion. It`s hard to believe that in the mid eighties they were the first of a new wave of animation studios. For once, fans that had grown up with anime as an art form would have a hand in making it. It was a company born much like any other of the period, a group of college students got together with a new ethos, that they could make anime with a mature outlook as opposed to the mass audience favourites that had come before. All that`s missing is a father`s garage. What blows me away is that they didn`t start at all small. Their first project would be the most expensive anime feature made up to that point. They pooled their resources and produced a 5-minute pilot (in the extras on this disc), and on the back of that, The Wings Of Honneamise was born. Also, when you look back at their subsequent success, you have to remember that like all groundbreaking movies, Honneamise was a box-office failure. 1987 audiences just weren`t ready for it.

From an early age Shirotsugh Lhadatt wanted to be a jet fighter pilot, but his academic scores weren`t good enough. In a world not too dissimilar to our own, the Space Service is a laughing stock, and unmotivated Shirotsugh just drifted in. He spends most of his days slacking, and avoiding the more dangerous aspects of his job. That`s until the day that he meets Riquinni. In a world becoming more decadent and self-absorbed, Riquinni stands on street corners and preaches of piety and humbling oneself before God. When she hears of the work that Shiro does, his noble calling impresses her, she`s awed that he will touch the face of God. Her reaction serves to inspire Shiro in turn, and soon he is uncharacteristically fervent about his work. He`s just in time, as after 20 years of experimentation and work, and despite the ridicule of most, his nation is finally ready to put a man in orbit, and all they need is one volunteer. But it isn`t the purest of endeavours.

Video

Let`s get the bad news out of the way first; it`s an NTSC to PAL 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, apparently taken from the Region 1 NTSC DVD. I suppose it would have been prohibitively expensive to go to the new HD masters to source a native PAL transfer, but it would have been nice if they had. Having said that, this is the best such transfer I have seen for an anime disc. The image is clear and sharp, and the colours are well defined. Except for one brief scene, blurring and ghosting is absent, and pans and scrolls are really smooth. Watch out for a point a third of the way through the film just before Shiro visits the rocket factory for the first time. The camera pans left for about 10 seconds while the characters are walking and talking, and it appears as if every NTSC-PAL flaw is shown in that moment. Were it not for that scene, and the runtime, I could almost be convinced it was a PAL source, so sharp is the image. You`ll be more likely to notice the age of the film, with cine wobble, the occasional faded frame, and a couple of scratches and bits of dirt visible during playback. This is as good as the film has looked on DVD.

Honneamise is a stupendously visual film. Not a frame goes by that doesn`t grab the attention, doesn`t amaze at its inventiveness and attention to detail. When you make a parallel world, it can be cheap and cheerful, or it can be an opportunity for art designers to play God. In this film, it seems that the animators and designers` primary goal was to design everything from the beginning again. Whether it is something substantial like a car or a plane, or something basic like a book, a doorbell, or currency, they went back to first principles, and took it through a different evolutionary path. Everything looks skewed, door handles work in a different way, motorbike ignitions are unrecognisable, but you get the feeling that all of these designs would work in the real world. It`s just that history didn`t turn out that way. It`s even true in real life. We have the QWERTY keyboard because keys were less likely to stick that way on a manual typewriter. Yet it is the least intuitive layout for fast typing, and we have to be trained to use it. Honneamise is a world of what ifs, and while the character designs are pleasant and well drawn, it is the world design that will mesmerise.

Audio

You have a choice between DD 5.1 Japanese or DD 2.0 English, with the option of translated English subtitles. When the film was remastered in 1997, the sound got a good work over, so the surround track here is more than just a glorified upmix. The soundstage is put to work conveying the effects and the music, while the dialogue is clear and centre stage for the most part. It`s a dialogue heavy film, but there are moments when the effects take precedence, and I found myself having to eke the volume down a tad during the more strident scenes. It helps not to watch it at 2 am in the morning when neighbours will be especially annoyed.

Alas nothing is perfect, and this disc does have one niggling flaw. There is a sound sync issue that appears in the final chapter. It`s a fraction of a second out of sync for the last 8 minutes, not much more than half a lip flap and I have seen less tightly dubbed television anime. Too, it`s during the film`s final montage sequence, and it is only noticeable for three lines of dialogue, and the scene of a blacksmith striking an anvil. Also, be aware that I had to play the scene through five times before I could be certain. So it isn`t a massive deal, and not worth throwing too much of tantrum about. It is a little disappointing though.

Incidentally, the English dub is unaffected by this, but it`s also the old Manga dub, and it`s one best left to the annals of history.

Features

Have you seen the size of the age rating logos that the Australians have to put up with? Fortunately the Amaray case comes with a reversible sleeve that is free of all that hideousness. There is also a 20 page commemorative booklet that looks at the film. There is an intro from anime film historian Ryusuke Hikawa, an interview with director Hiroyuki Yamaga and a look at the effects work of Hideaki Anno. There are plenty of images from the film, and it`s all written in teeny tiny print. You may need a magnifying glass, but it`s a booklet worthy of the name. There is also an Anime Update magazine. Our Australian chums get a decent size insert from Madman, which advertises other anime and manga releases. But it`s more than just adverts, and there are a few useful snippets of information as well.

The disc itself gets a pretty straightforward presentation, with static menus, and a jacket picture to look at when the disc isn`t spinning.

There is a minute long deleted scene, which sees Shiro and friend Matti enjoying a drink.

There is the original trailer of course, but of most interest is the Original Pilot film, which lasts 5 minutes. This was the promotional piece that the animators put together, and on the back of it got the funding for the feature film. All the elements of the final movie are there, but the world is more reminiscent of feudal Europe. It says in the booklet that they thought the promo was a little too Ghibli, and they threw it away and started from scratch.

Finally there are some Madman trailers for shows like Death Note, The Highlander Anime, The Naruto Movie, Castle Of Cagliostro and Karas. Also kudos to the Australians for having an anti-piracy ad that doesn`t hijack the disc, nor make me want to gouge my own eyes out.

The Manga disc had one thing going for it, a feature length commentary, and it would have been nice to see it here. Unfortunately not to be though.

Conclusion

The Wings of Honneamise is the best animated movie ever made, and from me that`s faint praise. I`m hard pressed to find live action films that I like more than this. Twenty years on, it still hasn`t been equalled in scope, in imagination or in maturity of thought. There`s no doubt that the skills in animation keep getting better, with CGI anything is possible, but that makes this film`s achievement all the more spectacular when you realise that there isn`t a single pixel in the whole thing. It was all accomplished with pen and ink on acetate. Naturally it was a box office flop. All groundbreaking films are, and Wings of Honneamise was truly groundbreaking. Prior to this, all anime features were made for general audiences, character designs were cutesy, and there would be some comic relief, some romance, something to appeal for all ages. This film tore up that doctrine and threw it away. There is nothing cute about any of the characters. If there is humour it comes naturally from the situations, the pace is glacial and the story is aimed squarely at adults. It`s thought provoking, philosophical and blisteringly intelligent, refusing to pander to audience sensibilities. And it did all this a year before Akira.

Comparisons are understandably made with The Right Stuff. The Right Stuff was made in 1983, adapted from Tom Wolfe`s novel of the same name. It told the story of America`s Mercury Space program, and those early astronauts who took their country`s first faltering steps outside the confines of this planet in the race against the Soviet Union. Wings Of Honneamise tells much the same story, except that this world`s space aspirations are considered laughable and wasteful, rather than heroic and patriotic. But the big difference is in the tone. The Right Stuff was an ode to heroes, concerned with telling us about how, not really too bothered with why. The Wings Of Honneamise asks why. Why go into space, why spend vast sums of money for no apparent return? Because of the parallel world setting, there is no worry about upsetting sensibilities, and through allegory all these questions and more can be explored. Still, NASA does get a screen credit so they must have been impressed with the final product.

This film is all about opposites and contradictions. It begins when slacker Shiro meets pious Riquinni. She`s proselytising on a street corner in a hedonistic sector of the city. Shiro and his friends have been celebrating a wake for a fallen friend, and in passing Shiro picks up one of her flyers. He winds up at her doorstep, more out of curiosity and the chance to impress a pretty girl, but he gets affected by her thoughts that humanity has fallen from grace, that in the race for progress they have forgotten something fundamental. When she hears that he is in the space program, she is enthused. The space program isn`t destructive, even though they are a military group; there is no room for a weapon on a space capsule. Instead they exemplify the purity of human achievement, a flawless aspect of creation designed to touch the heavens themselves. It`s this fervent passion that inspires Shiro, and soon he is the most vocal proponent of the Space service, volunteering to be the first man in orbit. The irony of all this is that Riquinni is a victim of progress when her home is destroyed for a new factory. She is a proponent of nature versus progress, a return to morality from a growing decadence, but it is that same progress that will put Shiro into space. She sees Shiro as the purest of all, a man who will touch the face of God.

It isn`t long before the purity of the space service is tainted. It`s immediately a tool of squabbling politicians, the rocket cannot be completed without its creators yielding to corruption, and Shiro is soon the poster child for a propagandising nation. While he is having his photos taken, there are the homeless outside on the streets, questioning why the money for the rocket can`t be spent on them. The political football gets kicked up to a higher league when the nation`s traditional enemy hears of the launch. What was previously an international joke becomes a prize to be coveted, and soon agents of the foreign power are after the rocket. Honneamise is happy to oblige, and moves the launch site closer to the border, just to draw the enemy out into a conflict to gauge the state of their military.

These bigger issues are played out in microcosm with Shiro and Riquinni. Shiro becomes a vessel for Riquinni`s hopes and dreams while her world falls apart, while he struggles on a path towards spirituality that can make him understand why he is determined to get into space. It becomes difficult given Shiro`s initial motivations in pursuing Riquinni. Incidentally, this is the uncut version. Manga UK willingly cut a violent assault to get a PG rating, but it is here in its unsavoury 30 sec totality. The film makes a whole lot more sense now, and the character arcs are much clearer because of it.

The Wings Of Honneamise is one of those films where a few thousand words in a review just aren`t enough to do it justice. The animation, the imagination, the attention to detail, the considered characterisations, maturity and smart story all come together to deliver an unforgettable experience. I`ve barely scratched the surface of what is great about this film. It is one of the best films ever made.

The HD revolution has given The Wings Of Honneamise an Indian summer on DVD. Finally it gets the transfer it deserves, and I doubt that there will be another such release down the line. It`s a film that has to be seen, and it really deserves a UK release. Whether that will happen for such a `cerebral` title is uncertain. But if it does, my wish list would include a native PAL transfer, as well as sorting out that minor sound blip. If that doesn`t happen, this Australian release is good enough. But if you have the money, maybe now is the time to make a move to an HD format.