Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Blu-ray Movie Review

Spirit: the final frontier.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 17, 2013

It’s not every anime Blu-ray release that includes a pull quote from Roger Ebert, but there is the vaunted Pulitzer Prize winner’s imprimatur emblazoned across the back cover of Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise, praising the film's visual sweep. The kind of interesting thing about this kind of critical acclaim is that Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise took the better part of a decade to matriculate from its native Japan to the United States, and even after it (star) trekked to this side of the pond, it was largely met with barely stifled yawns by an uninterested public. It’s kind of interesting to contrast Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise’s long journey into public consciousness with that of Akira (due very soon in a 25th Anniversary Edition from FUNimation Entertainment), an anime which came along a year after Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise’s 1987 Japanese debut, but which skyrocketed to international acclaim much more quickly. Akira is seen as one of the most seminal of feature film anime, which may leave some fans of the other film asking (rhetorically or otherwise), “Hey, what’s Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise, chopped liver?” While Akira trafficked in the post-apocalyptic genre which has become such a recurring trope in anime, Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise is at least a relatively more optimistic enterprise. The culture it depicts is definitely dysfunctional, and there are hints that things could soon tip into an apocalyptic maelstrom, but the film has a rather unique spiritual underpinning which seems at least a bit more sanguine about Mankind’s future (even if the species being depicted may or may not be actual humans). Gorgeously drawn in that very distinctive old school Japanese style, Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise follows the adventures of young would be astronaut Shirotsugh (nicknamed Shiro) Lhadatt, a kind of disheveled slacker type who would seem to not possess an inherently recognizable quantity of “the right stuff”. Shiro shows up late to the funeral of one of his colleagues who has perished (in a a debacle involving the unlikely cause of a leaking urine bag, but which may remind some of the Apollo disaster), upsetting his commanders and causing a bit of good natured ribbing by his buddies, who seem to have gotten used to the fact that Shiro isn’t exactly the most disciplined young space jock in the program. When a series of events gets Shiro to volunteer to be his kingdom’s first man in space, things become more serious, as Shiro suddenly finds himself an unwilling celebrity and an example for a cause that may have some sinister undertones.

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise never really explicitly discusses where it’s taking place, but it seems to be an Earth-like planet which has in fact evolved in slightly different ways from our home world. There’s an ancient ritualistic aspect to some of their beliefs, as is indicated both in the opening funeral sequence as well as in the quasi-end times religious philosophy of Riquinni Nonderaiko, a young female believer who is initially seen trying to get passers-by to accept her pamphlets, but who later forges a close relationship with Shiro.

The ironic subtext to Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise is that Shiro’s kingdom is going to great lengths to get the first man into space in what would appear to be on its surface a global unifying prospect, but which in fact has ulterior motives that could lead to war with a neighboring society. This brings to mind the early Cold War stances of the U.S.S.R. and the United States, when a lot of pontificating about the “peaceful exploration” of outer space of course only slightly masked (if at all) the more than obvious potential for strategic superiority, a superiority not stemming solely from so-called bragging rights.

Much the same thing happens in Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise, when the slightly dunderheaded but well meaning Shiro figures out that Honneamise’s attempts to launch him into space may simply be a pretense—a provocation, in fact—to create conflict. The film very carefully and in a surprisingly nuanced fashion builds on small character moments to deliver a rather profound denouement, when a species’ spiritual evolution is riding on the cusp of either apocalyptic showdown or amazed intuitive appreciation (in this regard, there are certain similarities to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially with regard to a montage that lets Shiro experience something akin to Dave’s “Seven Ages of Man” in the live action outing).

What may ultimately surprise newcomers to this title is how unassuming the film seems to be. Is this simply a kind of halting, Marty-esque love story between two misfits, albeit one of them a manufactured national hero? Or is it almost a comedy depicting a Gomer Pyle-esque recruit blundering his way through military misadventures? Or is it in fact a rather staggeringly profound piece that manages to very subtly discuss elements of religion, belief, war mongering, and, yes, spiritual evolution in an almost subliminal way? It’s fascinating to contrast how Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise deals with such weighty philosophical matters in such an off the cuff manner with, say, the almost frighteningly verbose and labyrinthine approach of Mamoru Oshii in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. Oshii tends to almost bludgeon the viewer with abstract ideas and an almost hyperbolic rhetoric and dialectic. Here, writer-director Hiroyuki Yamaga takes a much more discursive, though no less effective, approach. The end result is an anime that offers at least a glimmer of hope instead of the more traditional apocalyptic wasteland of soulless machines.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Maiden Japan with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.74:1. This is a kind of odd video presentation, windowboxed instead of letterboxed or pillarboxed. Fans of this anime will remember that Bandai Visual actually released this title on Blu-ray several years ago, and my memory is that that version did not have this same anomaly (see below for a note on the Bandai version). My hunch is this may have been sourced from an older master that in turn was sourced from some slightly problematic elements. Aside from more expected issues like age related wear and tear, there are some slight spikes of noise in a few scattered (darker) scenes as well as a recurrent milky wash that permeates the bottom of the frame at intermittent intervals. Grain is very healthy, especially in opticals (the film has a large number of montages). Colors look just slightly faded some of the time, though some of the film's bold primaries do pop at least relatively well. Line detail is generally very sharp, though this film has a rather soft overall look due to its old school hand drawn technique, which is frankly a large part of its charm.

Note: A database I maintain on the discs I have indicates I have the older Bandai Visual release of Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise, but it wasn't where it should have been when I went to look for it today to do some comparisons (what else is new?). I'm going to search through some additional storage places I have for discs, and if I'm able to find the first Blu-ray release, I'll append some extra screenshots to the existing review and also revisit the video analysis with some comparisons to the first presentation. If/when that occurs, this section will have a bolded Update section, so stay tuned over the next week or so.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise features both an English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 as well as the original Japanese track in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Perhaps surprisingly, there isn't that much difference in the overall aggression of these mixes, if only because the film only has some sporadic opportunities for big sound effects. The Japanese track is in fact mixed with slightly less overall amplitude than the English mix, which may also play into the perception that not all that much is going on in terms of surround activity. There are some nice moments, including a couple of launches and sounds of jets panning through the soundfield, but the 5.1 mix is a relatively restrained affair. However, both of these tracks offer very good fidelity and decently wide dynamic range.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Japanese Trailer Collection (1080p; 22:51)

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise is a weirdly, almost criminally, underappreciated anime that deserves the same sort of mass market appeal that has accrued to some much less well realized fare over the years. A lot of people tend to default to Akira when a "newbie" asks them what anime feature film they should initiate their anime experience with, and I confess to having fallen in that trap myself more than once. I'm going to hopefully ameliorate that situation going forward, and I'll start by giving this release (despite some passing issues with the video and a lack of supplementary features) a Highly recommended.