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Director: Hiroyuki Yamaga
Screenplay: Hiroyuki Yamaga
Voice Cast: Leo Morimoto as
Shitotsugh Lhadatt; Mitsuki Yayoi as Riquinni Nonderaiko; Aya Murata as Manna
Nonderaiko; Bin Shimada as Yanalan; Hiroshi Izawa as Darigan; Hirotaka Suzuoki
as Domorhot; Kazuyuki Sogabe as Marty; Kouji Totani as Tchallichammi; Masahiro
Anzai as Majaho; Masato Hirano as Kharock; Yoshito Yasuhara as Nekkerout
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
Synopsis: On a planet similar to ours, the laid back slacker Shitotsugh
Lhadatt works at the Royal Space Force of the Kingdom of Honneamise, seen as a
joke by everyone with the kingdom as they have never succeeded in sending
rockets to space. On the eve of the government finally removing their budget
and ending them, the Space Force make one last ditch attempt, an ambitious and
dangerous mission to send one member into orbit. Influenced by his attraction
to Riquinni, a devoutly religious young woman he has met, Shitotsugh volunteers
himself to be that test subject, only for the weight of his mission, the danger
and the political machinations around the Royal Space Force to drastically
change him as a human being spiritually.
The reputation Royal Space Force has is greater knowing
of its origins. Gainax, who most will
know as the studio who created the Neon
Genesis Evangelion franchise, was always seen as the studio created by fans
who managed to get their foot into the door of the anime industry. Figures like
Hideaki Anno, before the reputation
of the likes of the Evangelion
series, who were just fans of anime and the likes of Ultraman who starred in their own fan films. Once they were a group
whose first major animation projects, the Daicon
III and IV opening films (1981
and 1983 respectively), where made for fan conventions and had to recycle
animation cells by washing the paint off them after each segment. They
impressed Bandai who, back when
projects like this could be a worthy risk, they gave these people the chance to
create a theatrical film. Even though, in the time in-between, members of the Gainax worked on big projects as
animators, the group who'd become a fully fledged studio in the nineties and
into the Millennium still had to hire students to help finish Royal Space Force. The company that'd
eventually triumph with Evangelion, FLCL (2000) and Gurren Lagann (2007), but were also fraught with constantly
financial problems, having prominent members like Anno leave, and be challenged by the likes of Studio 4°C in terms of being innovators, were a mere glint in the
eye still here. And yet with Royal Space
Force, you have an incredible one-off, alien to juvenile otaku fetishes and
taking on such an ambitious, psychologically and morally complex science
fiction story, one even spiritual and philosophical as it follows a character
in an alien world through a drastic existential change.
Royal Space Force exists in its own world. Like ours but fleshed
out as a planet with its own fashions, languages (at least for a foreign nation
who feel the space launch is a political threat), even having the cutlery on
tables that's unique. It isn't exaggerated to the point of being flimsy either,
worn and fully developed as a pre-fifties world, if to tie it back to our own,
a form of dieselpunk sci-fi where everything is heavily mechanised, with
elaborate city sprawl, but the idea of space rockets is seen as insane and has
claimed the lives of the Royal Space Force many times before. Seen as
embarrassments compared to the air force, closer to our own modern military
airplanes, they are an absurd dream who attempt one last time. All with the
knowledge, in a country with sprawling poverty and constant work strikes, that they
are seen as much as a waste of money as much as a popular media event. It
builds in terms of storytelling naturally, before the personal journey of Shitotsugh
clashes more with political and moral issues which conflict with the dream. As
their own government is purposely flexing its muscles with a rival nation, the
inherent chance he could die is there too. As is the fact they might've only
been allowed to go with the rocket test for military purposes.
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| From http://www.simbasible.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2016/09/unnamed-1-10-1024x597.jpg |
Whilst there are a few action scenes, the most prolonged an attempted assassination with purposely drags out into a messy, streets long scramble, this is the slowest of burns in terms of drama. Shitotsugh decides to be the pilot only because he can impress a girl named Riquinni he is attracted to. Deeply religious, she only pays interest to him baring as a friend due to her admiration of the Royal Space Force wanting to enter space rather than commit war. Through severe questions to his own moral compass, through his relationship with Riquinni as well, he is to be challenged for his decision to go into space. The level of complexity goes as far as even include religion, which is rarely done in anime or done well, usually terrible or with foreign religions like Christianity being used symbology to look aesthetically interesting rather than with context. (Something Gainax's own Evangelion has been accused of). Here the religion, even if created for this world, is visibly taking parallels from real ones. The Greek legend of Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods. Eastern beliefs and especially Christian morality, the concern of sin and redeeming oneself felt throughout. It's a film, surprisingly for the science fiction genre when it is more cerebral or action packed in anime, which gets progressively more spiritual as it moves along, following Shitotsugh's own realisation of the worst in humanity as well as wondering if his own kind, through this rocket launch, could strive for better.
It's not a simple moral film
either. Shitotsugh is not a perfect, virtuous character, and likewise Riquinni is
not a conventional love interest, her devotion to her faith leading her to only
seeing him as a friend. Details of her are subtly hinted at, details never
explained like the small girl, dressed as a boy, who lives with her like a
sister, who possibly could be a daughter as its never explained where she comes
into Riquinni's life. Royal Space Force
is truly a film in need of multiple viewings, likely to grow for the character
details told without dialogue you miss and plot details with are given more
meaning with what is discovered later in the running time.
All the following could easily be
superfluous if the project wasn't exceptional technically too. How beautifully
made and intricate it is as an animated work. How Ryuichi Sakamoto the legendary musician and composer - alongside collaborators
Yuji Nomi, Koji Ueno and Haruo Kubota
- can add Royal Space Force in his
unconventional and fascinating career through an atmospheric score that pushes
the material to greater heights, sandwiched between his Oscar winning score for
The Last Emperor from the same year
and the children's film The Adventures
of Milo and Otis in 19861.
Finally seeing the film, in the best version possible for me for the first
time, it amazes me how it manages with such subtlety to both build its world
and how emotionally complex it is. Anime fans pride themselves, as I do, that
our favourite work is emotionally complex and mature, but the medium can also
be idiotic and trite at its worse; watching Royal Space Force is amazing when you consider how young everyone
who worked on the film was, members of Gainax
who were once just fans of anime and self professed otaku who decided, when
given their first major project, to create a complex and even existential story.
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[Major Spoilers Warning]
There is one detail, justifying a
Trigger Warning, however that has made Royal
Space Force impossible for some to love. A sequence under ten minutes long,
and it's a moment part of the moral and psychologically complexity to the film
which is still talked of to this very day and members of the production
consider a mistake. I'd be delusional not to deal with what has caused viewers
to dismiss the film's entire series of virtues, a scene of attempted sexual
violence which is deliberately more problematic as it is our protagonist Shitotsugh
himself who is attempting to molest Riquinni. Abrupt, but a major plot event,
one which with our liked protagonist of before dissolves the initial view of
him and complicates him to a very uncomfortable territory of characterisation.
The issue is that it is sewed
carefully into the plot, as carefully done as possible, but is a major challenge to the viewer. He pauses mid
attempt, visibly regretting mid way before Riquinni strikes him in the head
with an object to knock him unconscious. As much as the controversy is the
aftermath and is itself even more dark, as she forgives him the next day as if
nothing has happened, Shitotsugh utterly remorseful and shocked by her
reaction. I will say that, if anyone is uncomfortable with the sequence, I completely
understand them. It is however, whether a justifiable risk or not, as subtly
and done as well as such a scene could be. It's also part of a level of moral
complexity even live action films do not dare to tread into, which is why even
if you ask if it is an acceptable scene there's the inherent challenge of it. A
viewer tends, unless they are claimed to be a villain, to sympathise fully with
a protagonist of any story, making an act like the one Shitotsugh commits, when
we see him as a lovable oaf, problematic and a violation of that trust between story
and viewer. For myself the film is completely succinct in dealing with the
subject, and it has a purpose that is not a cheap shock tactic but part of its
overall existential concerns.
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On the cusp of potential legacy or death, Shitotsugh as he is already challenged by the pressures surrounding him and falls into the worse of human tendencies. His attempt at romance with Riquinni is doomed, and in his lowest moment he commits such a horrible act, one he hesitates whilst knelt on top of her when she knocks him unconscious. Aware of how horrible his act was, Riquinni's blithe reaction is also far from a deeply misogynistic reaction, and anime and manga tragically has a lot of this, but a complex and troubling one for many viewers as it deals with a religious person able to forgive even their own trespasser. (Outside of animation, Abel Ferrara dealt with this in one of his most well known films, Bad Lieutenant (1992), where to the absolute confusion and repulsion of the anti-hero played by Harvey Keitel, a nun who raped by two men and whose case is he investigating has already forgiven the perpetrators their act due to her moralistic religious beliefs, a type of belief few viewers are comfortable to even consider when, rightly, we punish those who commit sexual violence as with other crimes).
It is a dangerous moment for a
very young studio to have made, and whilst Gainax
have challenged their viewers in the future, none are with this type of
discomforting moral greyness. For me personally it is not the moment which
capsizes the film, for whilst I sympathise with those who find it offensive, it's
one of the few moments that a production is tackling this type of material with
the psychological complexity it requires. When anime has an awful track record
of offensive and tasteless material, utterly reprehensible material even, Royal Space Force's controversial scene
is in a morally higher, more artistically minded place even if some would
prefer that Gainax took a different
direction More so as, whilst it ends with Riquinni forgiving him, their
relationship is tainted by this. It is arguably the catalyst for Shitotsugh himself,
through this sin of his, to be pushed towards a spiritual change which, on the
day of the rocket launch, he sees the world around and starts to question
mankind's tendency to violence, the moment of his own violent behaviour among
others forcing him to re-evaluate the mankind itself. Arguably the sin he has
nearly committed as much infuses the haunting final monologue where he wonders
if they as a species can transcend themselves, followed by the final montage of
ordinary life on the planet in its variety. Again, few live action films tackle
this. Sadly in cinema we have accepted moral black and whiteness, simplified, to
such a point that a story which challenges this is just dismissed when it
should be properly pondered as much as asked whether the scenes of controversy
were acceptable.
[Major Spoiler Ends]
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| From https://images.justwatch.com/backdrop/8786003/ s1440/royal-space-force-wings-of-honneamise |
Altogether Royal Space Force is a difficult film. A film structurally and in plot which is challenging in its slow paced character study. A challenge just for its notorious and divisive scene still talked of in the current day, but also for how the film even without that sequence is a drama about human complexity. All whilst justifying itself as being acquisitively made, utterly absorbing and one of the few anime films that is truly intelligent. It was the creation of a small group who took such a huge risk and, even if not financially successful, it was a symbol of pride for Bandai. Gainax would continue on with challenging and rewarding material with Neon Genesis Evangelion. For less sombre material, for a sense of fun and energy, no one could argue as well with the virtues of FLCL, Gurren Lagann and Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt (2010). Unfortunately Gainax also become the company who made This Ugly Yet Beautiful World (2004) and shows pass the 2000s, barring one or two, which are not held up high regard or even known in the West. Where the "Gainax Ending", where everything was turned upside down to the surprise of the viewer, can easily be viewed like M. Night Shyamalan plot twists once were as a punch line joke as it was part of their virtues. Long before this twin sided mask, this company just before they wore it however made a film like Royal Space Force which is held in high esteem even next to the incredible work also being produced in Japanese animation in the eighties. Seeing the film for the first time, I am not surprised now.
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1 Sakamoto's filmography as a composer is fascinating by itself. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
obviously. Three films for Bernardo
Bertolucci. Donald Cammell's last
film Wild Side (1995). The bizarre
TV mini-series Wild Palms (1993)
[Which I reviewed on my other blog HERE].
Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma, Takashi Miike,
Alejandro G. Iñárritu...alongside
video games, like the ill fated attempt at modernizing Seven Samurai (1954) with the additional help of French artist Mœbius, Seven Samurai 20XX, and Sakamoto's first ever film score for Ryu Murakami, the famous author who Sakamoto also worked with on Tokyo Decadence (1992). A film called Daijoubu My Friend (1983) that has
American actor Peter Fonda as a space alien in Japan. That eccentric,
strange list is enough to praise Sakamoto
for alongside the reputation as a great musician and composer.
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