Howlorihara

Story:  Last Exile is constantly thrilling and exciting.  I found myself having marathons through it because I couldn't wait to see what came next.  There were a couple of details at the end that I was left dissappointed by.  I do agree with a lot of reviewers for this anime, that the inclusion of the Sci Fi element was completely unnecessary and only served to muddy the steam punk aura of the anime (which was completely working.)  However, in spite of that, I really enjoyed the story.  The fact is, that after the first episode, I was completely hooked.  For this show, the smaller problems in the plot did not turn me off to the anime as a whole.

Animation: FANTASTIC!  The world is detailed and beautiful.  The ships gleam and fly smoothly.  The settings are gorgeous.  I really can't rave about it enough.

Sound:  I really love the opening theme.  Appart from that, a majority of the music was reletively uninteresting and I found myself not paying attention to it.  That being said, it wasn't distractingly bad.  It just went reletively unnoticed.

Characters:  Some characters were better than others.  Clause and Lavi are well developed and likeable.  I really enjoyed the development for these two.  I thought I would be bored by them, but I found myself getting very attatched. I also really enjoyed Dio.  His character was taken miles.  While he could be found irritating in the beginning, he eventually became one of my favorites in the show.  The one character that dissappointed me the most was Alvis.  This character had so much potential but just seemed to be no more than a walking, talking object.  We know so little of her past and she ends up as just background noise in the present story.  For being a main character, I thought she was entirely unnecessary up until the end.

Overall:  While I do have my complaints for this anime, I thought it was so enjoyable.  The good in this show definately outweighed the bad and I found myself hooked from the start.