Movie: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987)

Wings of Honnêamise:

Wings of Honey Mustard:

I finally saw this 1987 anime last night, on the big screen. I've been hearing about it since the late 80s. It was one of those titles all the cool kids talked about. I never sought it out because it sounded like it was going to be more overwrought space opera, the kind with tall brooding space captains with purple eyes.

It is nothing like I imagined from the title. A guy wants to join the Navy and fly planes, but his grades are bad so he ends up in the Space Force. The Space Force is a joke, since there are no spaceships and no enemies to fight in space.

He falls in love with a religious zealot who passes out end-time pamphlets and pleads with sinners to repent. He feels bad about all the money being spent on rockets instead of feeding the poor.

He tries to rape the religious zealot. She apologizes the next morning for smashing him in the head with a tea pot.

There's a war to steal the rocket, and he goes into orbit right before the enemies arrive. Then he pleads with humanity to be kind and forgiving. Then there's a montage of human history and blacksmithing.

I was impressed by all of it except the attempted rape. That seems entirely out of place. I'm sure there's something I don't understand about this story, but I can't be bothered to find out what that is.