Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

January 16, 2005

Rated: Unrated Runtime: 125 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Anime without Mechs, police babes in skimpy uniforms, school girls, battle tanks or creatures from hell. Even without all the traditional Anime trappings, this turns out to be a pretty good film.

The story takes place on an Earth-like planet on the verge of space exploration. The nations are constantly at war with each other, and the idea of spending money on a nonmilitary project doesn’t sit well with some members of the government. However, the Space Force is a pet project of the Emperor and continues to work on its project to put a man in orbit anyway.

The members of the Royal Space Force aren’t exactly up to NASA standards. Its apparent that most of them joined the service as a way to get out of more traditional military service, or perhaps as a way to draw a paycheck without doing any real work.

When one of them (Shiro Lhadatt) meets a girl handing out religious tracts in the street, he’s intrigued. He goes to a meeting to discuss the information in the tract he received, but he really just wants to get to know the girl. In attempt to impress her, Shiro volunteers to pilot the orbit-bound rocket when nobody else in the Space Force would step to the plate. The things guys do to impress girls…

The rest of the movie focuses on Shiro growing interest in the space program and in the religious beliefs of his new girlfriend. There’s some political intrigue thrown in to spice things up as well, leading to an overall satisfying movie experience.

If you want lots of explosions and scantily clad school girls though, you should look elsewhere.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, DVD, Kôji Totani, Leo Morimoto, Unrated, Voices of: Masahiro Anzai