Setting
Last Exile is set on the fictional world of Prester. Prester's two nations of Anatoray and Disith are separated by a turbulent region of the sky known as the Grand Stream and are engaged in eternal conflict according to the code of chivalric warfare. A superior faction known as the Guild enforces these rules. It also provides the two nations with technology but, unknown to them, has dishonorable intentions, to preserve the status quo and enforce its dominance of both sides. Although the story is set in the future, the technology employed differs from that in a typical space opera. Instead, the show's retro-futuristic setting resembles nineteenth century Europe at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Inhabitants of Prester operate aerial vehicles known as vanships in the world's Golden Age of Aviation; it should be noted that although the technology is primitive, the aerial vehicles use a form of antigravity and lighter-than-air methods of flight than the use of wings. .
Various scenes in the series also show existing tension between the upper and lower classes. Anatoray's nobility and military officers generally believe that commoners do not understand their codes of chivalry. On the other hand, the lower class also despise the aristocracy for their monopoly on resources. This tension extends to the accessibility of clean water, which varies in price according to purity grades. In the larger story, the advanced Guild society is portrayed as degenerate and lazy, while the people of Anatoray and Disith are creative and industrious.
The series introduces viewers to a wide range of naval and military vocabulary. More primitive navigational methods such as dead reckoning and instruments such as the sextant are also used in the series.
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