Wings of Honneamise:
Royal Space Force

" officially established anime as an art form "
-- Richard Corliss, Time Magazine, 1999

Love it or hate it

In what seems astounding and impossible in the modern corporate era, Gainax used Daicon III and IV, homemade anime, to secure funding from Bandai to create the most expensive anime film made to date, Wings of Honneamise (aka Royal Space Force). Honneamise is about an alien planet, similar to earth, and its quest for space flight. Its best direct comparisons are 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the way space flight is tied to visions of history and humanity, and The Right Stuff, as both follow the selection of pilots, numerous endurance tests, the setbacks of designing a rocket, and the banal political motivations that create and complicate the space mission.

In some ways, Honneamise has not aged well. Its greatest strength, namely its obsessive attention to detail, has become commonplace in anime films like Akira and Spirited Away. Meanwhile, Honneamise's flaws seem greatly magnified by the lens of time. Although religiously committed to experimentalism, many of the experiments simply failed to click. Ryuichi Sakamoto's electronic soundtrack sounds alien allright, but generally unappealing musically or dramatically. Sadamoto's clothing designs blend a unique mix of Native American, Indian, and Chinese influences, but fail to achieve any sort of synergy (the soldiers wear shorts and skirts, for God's sake). The visual designs for the main characters are graceless, and have not been imitated in anime since (another Yamaga choice; Sadamoto actually made better character designs, which he prefers to this day, but Yamaga wanted more "realistic" designs). The direction by Yamaga is baffling in individual scenes and deficient when taken as a whole. Interactions between characters often don't make sense. The flow of the story is erratic, progressing in fits and starts, a problem seen also in Yamaga's later directing efforts.

When released in 1987, Honneamise was a box-office flop-- Japanese audiences were unprepared for its unconventional storytelling, and it took years for Bandai to see a return on their investment. In both Japan and the U.S., a deep divide exists among everyone who has seen the film: love it or hate it.

"Just skip this movie unless you're a hardcore anime fan. I mean hardcore anime fan!"
-- Reader Review, Animecritic.com

"The film holds with Gide's warning: 'Do not understand me too quickly.' "
-- Carl Gustav Horn

It is possible to agree with both of the statements above. Honneamise can be very rewarding, but only for viewers willing to invest a considerable amount of patience and effort. Even Gainax fans comfortable with the mysteries of Evangelion may be put off by Honneamise. The distinction is that Evangelion, Gainax's masterpiece, was designed by seasoned masters of anime to be open-ended and interpreted in many ways, whereas Honneamise's message remains muddy and unclear, the product of rookies not yet at the top of their game.

 

"The more I look at HONNEAMISE, the more convinced I am that Yamaga knew
what he was doing."
-- Carl Gustav Horn

 

A number of analyses have been written on Honneamise (see links below), but I for one remain unsure whether Yamaga knew what he was doing, just as he didn't know later in Abenobashi or Mahoromatic. It remains a matter of debate whether critics have read more intellectual weight into the film than was ever intended in the first place.

Until recently, I identified strongly with the "hate it" camp of Honneamise, but after a recent re-viewing, I now suggest that the best way to approach Honneamise is to watch is as a really long Daicon animation: appreciate the details and the fact that Gainax was inventing much of this by the seat of their pants. Honneamise is a boring, excruciatingly slow movie that's also filled with almost endless creativity in the little details which portray the alien world; thought was obviously put into every building, article of clothing, vehicle, and object down to the smallest teacup, coin, or spoon. The imagination displayed throughout is not enough to wholly compensate for Honneamise's flaws and elevate the film to "masterpiece" status (that would come later for Gainax), but by appreciating the film shot for shot, it's possible to travel back in time and witness the imperfect, fiery energy that laid the foundations of anime's greatest studio.

 

Links:

Official Gainax Site - Wings of Honneamise (English)

Manga Entertainment - released WoH in the U.S. on an execrably poor DVD. The digital mastering is not only bad, it's downright defective (see next link). This release does, however, feature a very interesting commentary track by Takami Akai and Yamaga (Akai worked in many ways on Honneamise, and later on the Princess Maker simulation games by Gainax). In addition, this DVD features some more goodies like the 4-minute film the Gainax guys used to pitch to Bandai, a 1-minute deleted scene, and storyboards and artwork set to the soundtrack.

Inwards on Honneamise - an extensive technical analysis of the flawed US DVD release.

Yamaga and Akai at FanimeCon 2000: part 1, part 2, part 3

Carl Gustav Horn on Honneamise. More. More. More. - some old Usenet posts in which Horn interprets the attempted rape scene, one of the film's most unexpected and controversial moments.

Onishi Nobuyuki interview - the fine artist whose drawings appear in the beginning of Honneamise.

Onishi Nobuyuki at Anime Expo 1999

Honneamise soundtrack review - an excellent review of the Honneamise soundtrack CDs

Roger Ebert reviews Honneamise

 

Links for Otaku only:

Carl Horn on the deleted scene

Carl Horn on "Star Quest" - the absurdly bad 1987 English dub of Honneamise