Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987)
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Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise Movie Review
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise is a 1987 science fiction anime film directed by Hiroyuki Yamaga. It is a solid, yet very disappointing film.
This is the film that I have been looking forward to seeing for years and it definitely disappointed me. It is solid for sure and sometimes even inspired, but it rarely reached the greatness that I expected from it. The plot itself is one of the reasons why it’s so troublesome. The first half is excellent, but the second one is not. The first half centers on good characterization and intriguing astronaut drama, but the second one centers on boring military elements and its ending is rather typical.
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“I am the first man in space. Can anyone hear me?“
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Lhadatt is really good, but unfortunately not as great as the script demanded him to be. The same goes for Riquinni. These characters are definitely good, but because this is basically a character-driven drama, they were disappointing as the format demanded much better development. But the voice actors did a great job.
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise has some inspired and just marvelous animation. It just might be the best animated film of the eighties, it is that good! Not only is the attention to detail meticulous and highly impressive, but the visuals are polished, the designs are awesome and the film just looks beautiful to behold. It is a shame that it didn’t go down in the history of animation and it should have just for its animation which to me felt groundbreaking and way ahead of its time. If I didn’t know in advance, I would never guess that it came out in 1987, ever.
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Another great thing about it is its sound design. The movie sounds terrific and every sound is beautifully created and very realistic. The music did felt overloud at times, but it was nonetheless very good and definitely fitting to its sci-fi sensibilities. Speaking of sci-fi, Royal Space Force is interesting for not being a typical sci-fi picture. It is to me above all a drama as the technology in the movie is definitely reminiscent to our own, but because this Earth is alternate and some things are definitely not like our own, the film is most certainly a science fiction tale as well. And I really found that mixture of the two genres to be very interesting and quite authentic in its own right. It led to a very weird and interesting feel to it.
The cinematography is excellent as the camera movements in particular are so refined. The same goes for the directing, but the pacing should have been better as the second half felt dull and sometimes uneventful. I really liked its serious tone, but I have to mention the attempted rape sequence. That to me came totally out of the blue and it is the weakest scene in the movie. Unnecessary and stupid.
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The film is definitely sophisticated, especially in its religious themes, but I never found it to be particularly moving as the emotion should have been stronger. The dialogue is great, but the film is sometimes a bit too realistic for its own sake leading to a duller film than needed. In the end, I definitely found it to be disappointing, but I also respect it in some areas, especially the technical ones, and it definitely is an interesting experience.
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise is a solid, yet disappointing film that has absolutely terrific, groundbreaking animation with an impressive attention to detail, a splendid sound design and score and the mix of science fiction and drama is very intriguing, but the characters needed better development, the second half is pretty dull and the film never achieved greatness in the storytelling department.
My Rating – 3.5
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