pg 67, _Animerica_ volume 4, issue 2

# No Longer At Ease: The Wings of Honneamise

By Carl Gustav Horn

    Sold thru: Manga Entertainment
    Format: English VHS / Subtitled VHS
    Price: US $19.95/$24.95
    Length: 119 mins.
    Release Date: On Sale Now
    Catalog No.: 7-800-634-797-3 (8) / 7-800-635-253-3 (6)
    Notes: By Studio Gainax

A long-suffering partisan of _THE WINGS OF HONNEAMISE_ (and its 
co-producer), Bandai Visual's Shigeru Watanabe, was recently asked 
why, in his opinion, American fans - who have voted _HONNEAMISE_ 
their top anime film in the last three annual `rec.arts.anime` polls 
- seemed to hold it in so much higher regard than those in Japan, 
where it proved profitable only seven and one-half years after its 
release. It's not an easily answered question; Mr. Watanabe could 
only opine that American anime fans are on the average older, and 
therefore, presumably, more open to sophisticated material.

A number of American fan observers of anime, such as Gerald Leung and 
Emru Townsend, have written at length on the complex subtleties of 
_HONNEAMISE_ - its modes of expression, ethical presentation, and 
symbolic structure. But merely examining the superficial aspects of 
the film indicate reasonable grounds for the film's status: its 
unmatched level of art direction that created an entire imaginary 
world down to the smallest detail, the boldness of its concept, the 
association many American fans feel with _HONNEAMISE_'s 'Generation 
X' protagonists, and of course, the association the fans feel with 
Gainax, the studio of _otaku_-turned-pro who created the film.

Gainax associated itself strongly with _HONNEAMISE_; the film's tiny 
"Royal Space Force", ridiculed by a society that doesn't believe in 
space travel, is a metaphor for Studio Gainax itself, the band apart 
in a society that doesn't take anime seriously. When the protagonist, 
Shiro, is the surprise volunteer to be the first man in space, he 
must overcome the considerable doubts of his own friends, reflecting 
the anime industry's own lack of ambition.

The story of the film is *how* the first man goes into space, with 
all the ensuring technical, political, and ultimately *moral* 
questions Shiro must face on the road to the rocket; the question of 
whether he can mature gets linked to whether mankind in general can 
grow up and *both* questions are contained within that poised by 
Gainax in making _HONNEAMISE_: Can *anime* grow up?

Those who are encountering _HONNEAMISE_ for the first time are 
advised that while the English dub contains certain merits - its 
(generally) good casting and superior voice direction helps to bring 
out qualities subtitles can obscure, such as the film's humor - the 
script for the dub contains a number of changes from that of the 
subtitled version that alters Yamaga's narrative intent. Some are 
relatively minor (three references to economic conditions in society) 
whereas some - such as Leiqunni now blaming herself for a notorious 
incident in the film - brought contempt from many film critics during 
its U.S. tour and chagrin from those fans in the audience who, unlike 
the critics, knew the original dialogue.

Most serious, perhaps, are quite deliberate changes made in Shiro's 
moral assessment of himself in the bazaar scene and in his closing 
monologue which tip the delicate secular/religious balance of the 
original (the spiritual aspects of _HONNEAMISE_ have come in for 
criticism even among fans; yet Shiro merely prays - in the anime 
version of _NAUSICAA_, the heroine dies for the sins of humanity and 
is resurrected to fulfill a prophecy!) into the latter camp, another 
change that produced negative critical attention.

The final scenes of the film, where Leiqunni is the only one in the 
crowd to notice the change, seem unintentionally prophetic of 
_HONNEAMISE_'s legacy, for the film, like Shiro, changed history 
forever - the history of anime as a medium, which grew up so much in 
its 119 minutes - yet it was a change unacknowledged by so many. 
Yamaga, speaking of world history, once observed that the price one 
pays for progress is sometimes a very personal and painful one, but 
could as well have been speaking of the price he and Gainax would pay 
for _HONNEAMISE_. "But we must pay it", said Yamaga, "or things will 
never be better than they are." _HONNEAMISE_ is not an easy film for 
many people to like, yet it earned respect because it puts you no 
longer at ease. That is a hard gift to accept, but it is perhaps the 
greatest one.