Wings of Honneamise is a tremendously impressive animated film. Analogies come stumbling over each other when one tries to write about it. Most obviously, the achievement of the tiny Royal Space Force in the movie parallels that of the small group of independant animators who raised the money to make this towering production in the mid 80's, against all odds.

Honneamise is kind of like an animated version or 'The Right Stuff', set in a slightly alternative universe, with the equivalent to post-WW 2 technology, and with some philosophical and religious overtones thrown in. Lhadatt, the central character, is a member of the Royal Space Force, an organisation which is usually the object of ridicule by anyone who has even heard of them. The country is, after all, at war, and the real heroes are the armed forces, not some group of nuts who want to put a man into orbit. "What are you going to fight - space monsters?", one character jibes.

Lhadatt is initially half-hearted, but finds new conviction when he befriends Nondelaiko, a highly religious girl, who inadvertently convinces him of a broader purpose to the space mission.

WoT is Miyazakian in its incredible attention to detail. Every facet of this alternative civilization is realised, down to the tiniest and most insignificant detail. The thing is teeming with gadgets, and everyday cultural objects and behaviours, yet none of this is shoved in your face. In fact it's almost miraculously unobtrusive.

WoT is, of course, one of the earliest of what we might consider modern cinematic 'anime' films. I'm discounting Ghibli's movies, which are family oriented, and thinking of anime in the sense of... well, just about everything else. That which is aimed at a teenage or young adult audience. As such, to the eyes of a modern anime fan it must seem rather ponderous and slow. Frankly, I find this refreshing (and anyway, the popular 'Crest of the Stars' anime series could out-ponder a room of Zen monks.)

Those who have problems with WoT generally complain of one or more of three things.

1) It's too slow
2) It gets religious
3) The infamous attempted rape scene

I want to tackle these individually, though be warned there are minor spoilers herein.

1) This is without question a slow film compared with, let's say, an episode of 'Cowboy Bebop', which now and then it reminds me of just a little. But is it slow by comparison with, let's say, 'Citizen Kane'? No. In fact I see nothing wrong with the pacing at all. It's more the case that virtually all other anime proceeds very briskly, often just for the sake of style, and on top of that, this movie has absolutely no concern with coolness or style, except in keeping the universe of the movie internally consistent. There is none of the posturing sheikness which spoils 'Cowboy Bebop' for me, and intrudes into just about every other anime series ever made. Nobody has ridiculous, multicoloured hairstyles which constantly stir in the breeze (even indoors). They're just regular people who aren't behaving as if they know there's a camera on them the whole damn time.

2) The religious business, I'll admit, does get a little heavy-handed, but only at the end of the film. And on the flip-side of this possible downer, we have the unusual achievement of a movie wedding technological achievement and science with religious inspiration - two things which are usually antithetical. On top of this, the religious theme, when it is used, is often used as a means of promoting a pacifist message. There is a rather wonderful line in which Lhadatt's religious love interest Nondelaiko asks God to forgive them for showing the stars the face of so many wars. I found the religious content to be very underplayed, until the very end, and generally speaking I didn't find the film preachy.

3) The attempted rape scene. The objection goes something like this. In one scene Lhadatt becomes overcome with lust and tries to force himself sexually on Nondelaiko. Later she apologises to him, as if it were her fault. This is of course highly offensive.

Here's what actually happens. Lhadatt indeed does try and force himself on Nonelaiko, but she brains him with a metal religious ornament of some kind and knocks him out. The next day he comes to her, to apologise, but she apologises to him. He insists that it was all his fault and continues apologising, but she insists that he must forgive her. Ok, firstly she's apologising for braining him, not for somehow giving him the come-on. More importantly you have to realise the context of this apology. Nondelaiko is an absolute pacifist, and earlier in the movie allows her home to be bulldozed rather than take any action to stop it. In her eyes she has transgressed her most central belief, by attacking someone, regardless of the reason. The question of whether she ought to be apologising or not is something which is called sharply into question for the viewer, if they bother to think about it. It had been Lhadatt, after all, who had railed against her for not defending herself when her home was knocked down. So in my opinion this is a rather multi-faceted and ironic scene which is just going over people's heads when they have a knee-jerk reaction to her 'apology'.

Wings of Honneamise is an important film which (in another analogy/pun which seems to want to force its way into this review) helped get big budget anime movies off the ground. It's a meticulous, careful and thoughtful movie which doesn't care whether it looks cool. Its animation isn't up to 21st century standards, but it still looks pretty damn good, and the art direction and direction in general are first class. Really, I can find almost nothing to seriously criticise the film for, except the rather heavy-handed way that Lhadatt's religious conversion is finally handled. But even here it propels the film into a five minute closing sequence of montages which are artistically breathtaking. However, for this reason, and because a film somehow needs to just push me over the edge emotionally to get my highest rating, and this one doesn't quite - WoT gets three and a half stars from me. The film is a real achievement, and a breakthrough movie for adult-oriented Japanese animation.

Incidentally, during production, the filmakers formed themselves into the company 'Gainax', which would go on to combine technological and religious themes more famously in 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'.

Whilst the animation was great i found this rather slow and long and i couldnt find a strong story line.