is a 1987 Japanese animated science fiction film written and directed by Hiroyuki Yamaga, co-produced by Hiroaki Inoue and Hiroyuki Sueyoshi, and planned by Toshio Okada and Shigeru Watanabe. Ryuichi Sakamoto, later to share the Academy Award for the soundtrack to The Last Emperor, served as music director. The film's story takes place on an alternate world where a disengaged young man, Shirotsugh, inspired by an idealistic woman named Riquinni, volunteers to become the first astronaut, a decision that draws them into both public and personal conflict. The film was the debut work of anime studio Gainax, whose later television and movie series Neon Genesis Evangelion would achieve international recognition, and was the first anime produced by toy and game manufacturer Bandai, eventually to become one of Japan's top anime video companies.
Yamaga and Okada had become known through making amateur fan-oriented short films, particularly the Daicon III and IV Opening Animations, but their pitch for Royal Space Force argued that growing the anime industry required a shift away from works that pleased fans on a surface level but reinforced their isolation, advocating instead for a different type of anime that attempted to engage with fans as human beings who shared in the alienation issues of a larger society. The making of Royal Space Force involved a collaborative year-long design process using many creators, including some from outside the anime industry, to construct an elaborately detailed alternate world described as neither utopian nor dystopian, but "an attempt to approve existence". Science fiction writer Ted Chiang, author of "Story of Your Life", the basis for the film Arrival, would later describe Royal Space Force as the single most impressive example of worldbuilding in books or film.
Royal Space Force collective approach to filmmaking, its deliberate rejection of established anime motifs, its visual complexity, and the general lack of professional experience among its staff were all factors in its chaotic production, while increasing uncertainty about the project led to what has been described as an attempt by its investors and producers to "fix" the film before release, imposing a late name change to The Wings of Honnêamise, and a lavish but deceptive publicity campaign that included misleading advertising as well as a staged premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre on February 19, 1987. Although receiving some support among domestic anime fans and the industry upon its March 14, 1987, release in Japan by Toho subsidiary Toho-Towa, including praise from Hayao Miyazaki, and Mamoru Oshii, the film failed to make back its costs at the box office, but eventually became profitable through home video sales. Future Evangelion director Hideaki Anno would later describe the reception Royal Space Force received as having had a major impact on him both personally and as a creator.
Royal Space Force did not receive an English-language commercial release until 1994, when Bandai licensed the film to Manga Entertainment. A dubbed 35 mm version toured theaters in North America and the United Kingdom, during which time it received coverage in major newspapers but highly mixed reviews. Since the mid-1990s, it has received several English-language home video releases, and various historical surveys of anime have regarded the film more positively; Yamaga has stated his belief in retrospect that the elements which made Royal Space Force unsuccessful made possible the later successes of Studio Gainax.
Plot
In the Kingdom of Honnêamise— on a different, Earthlike world of mid-20th century technology— a young man named Shirotsugh Lhadatt recalls his middle-class upbringing and childhood dream to fly jets for the navy. His grades disqualifying him, Shirotsugh ended up instead joining the "Royal Space Force," a tiny unit with poor morale whose commander, General Khaidenn, dreams of human spaceflight, yet is barely capable of launching unmanned satellites. One night, Shirotsugh encounters a woman named Riquinni who is preaching in the red-light district. Riquinni Nonderaiko, who lives with a sullen little girl named Manna, surprises him by suggesting that humanity could find peace through space travel. Inspired, Shirotsugh volunteers for a last-ditch project to keep the Space Force from being disbanded: send the first astronaut into orbit.