Anime: Soukyuu no Fafner: The Beyond

“Fafner in the Azure: The Beyond” is chronologically the last installment in the franchise that started way back in 2004. From its beginnings, “Fafner in the Azure” tells the story set in the 22nd century, during the brutal war between the remnants of humanity and an alien race called Festum. In such grave circumstances, refugees from destroyed Japan live on an artificial island-ship and try to create an illusion of peace for the new generation, only for it to be dispelled and the island drawn into the conflict. “The Beyond” itself is set several years after its immediate prequel, “Exodus”. Here, a group of Festum, aided by a human traitor, abduct several children from the island and attempt to raise them. There’s more to that, of course, but I think this short description will suffice for review.

In my mind, Fafner is a rather peculiar franchise. It started on a wave of post-Evangelion “mecha mystery” subgenre that RahXephon, Eureka Seven and many others also belong to. Judging by the volume of released media, Fafner is certainly one of more successful works in anime, yet it doesn’t get as much recognition as these two series. I haven't met many anime fans outside Japan who even heard of it, let alone watched it. But apparently it holds a small but devoted fanbase in Japan, which kinda explains how Xebec managed to sell a movie 6 years after the series ended it's TV run, and a full 26-episodes sequel 4 years further down the line.

Unfortunately, it’s not a franchise that is easy to get into - “The Beyond” leaves someone who didn’t watch the original series, “Heaven and Earth” movie and 2-cour TV Series “Fafner in the Azure: Exodus” almost totally in the dark. Truth being told, there are significant chances one will be left in the dark anyways, even after watching it all. Fafner is the brainchild of Tow Ubukata, Japanese fantasy writer of some acclaim, who often comes with brilliant concepts but utterly fails at delivering them. Fafner has quite rich and detailed mythology, but most of it doesn’t really matter as anything can be handwaven as “island’s blessing” or some other metaphysical mumbo jumbo. While the original series had a fairly consistent set of worldbuilding rules and stuck with it, the sequels made many of these rules obsolete while providing really weak or no rationales at all. This is why I hold “Heaven and Earth”, and “Exodus” even more, as the lowest points in the franchise - full of retcons and dumb plot devices invoked on a whim, while desperately lacking the exposition and some coherence in character and world building. Luckily, “Beyond” mostly returns to the franchise roots. I really didn't expect for it to hook me up but it did, and after watching it I'm happy to find it almost as good as the original series, and far better than the aforementioned dumpster fires.

Let's state what is the most important takeback for me. For all intents and purposes, this seems to be the end of the story. There's some space left for the sequel, but if it ever happens I doubt it will be a good one. It would be good to finish the story here, but then - it would be even better to finish it along with the original series. It was already a complete story that left most important points resolved and personally, I liked it better than the story arc started with “Heaven and Earth” that only now comes to conclusion. That being said, the closure presented in “The Beyond” isn’t that much worse and also resolves all important points. Whether it does it in a satisfactory way is up for debate.

The first episode alone feels like it was taken from “Exodus”. It's rushed, heavy on fights and throws around references to what happened offscreen. Frankly, with that start I wasn't expecting much of the series. But from the second episode onwards, “The Beyond” delivers a lot while avoiding most of “Exodus” mistakes. It doesn't try to squeeze in dozens of new characters that lack necessary exposition, a crime made even worse by Hirai Hisashi's designs. That guy used to be better, but now he literally just swaps hairstyles while reusing the same portrait. “The Beyond” is also much less metaphysical, which is good because “Exodus” metaphysics suffered from lack of any rules and bounds, thus being increasingly unbelievable. In "The Beyond", the plot is a lot more grounded in reality, which in my opinion serves it well. Importantly, the series refrains from resurrecting any of the previously killed characters, which was one of my major points of criticism with previous installments. In an anime like Fafner, death is supposed to be meaningful, so bringing a character back from the dead does a huge disservice, diminishing the sacrifice and making further deaths less impactful. Set after “Exodus”, “The Beyond” has to deal with the damage it caused to the story, but I’m glad it chose not to add to it.

Not only “The Beyond” tries hard not to repeat the previously made mistakes, it also delivers a pretty solid narrative on its own. The plot device of destroying Soushi’s illusionary peaceful world is simple, but works for me and echoes the events from the start of the franchise itself. The villains are well constructed and have agendas and rationales of their own that are somewhat reasonable. That is not to say that “The Beyond” story is a narrative masterpiece that deserves only highest praise. As I mentioned, the first episode feels disconnected from the rest and the events that culminated there are never fully explained. The anime as a whole has many moments "for the feels", perhaps a bit too many and at times the attempts at tear jerking come across as forced. And the conclusion itself, while reasonably paced and not really confusing, still amounts to “magic happens”. The biggest problem, however, is characterization. It won’t be a big spoiler - it’s revealed in episode 2 - that Soushi acts as an annoying brat, which not only runs contrary to his character in previous series, but is also objectively unlikeable. At times, Maya seems to act very out of character, though it’s somewhat justified in that it happens in connection with annoying Soushi. Overall, bad characterization doesn’t outweigh the upsides of the story, but it does take away from its quality.

I found the visual presentation of “The Beyond” to be very pleasing and on par with current industry standards. Arguably, Xebec was always good at delivering good looking graphics and the original series was already praised for its visuals in 2004. One could say that the rest of the industry catched up, so “The Beyond” isn’t extraordinarily pretty but doesn’t disappoint either. Careful budgeting shows at times: while many action scenes boast high production values, the rest is often too static to not be noticed. But the result isn't bad at all - because it's set on a tropical island, Fafner's color palette makes even static backgrounds look pretty.

The soundtrack is mostly reused from previous installments, but it’s good and fitting. Grandiose orchestral pieces are balanced with nostalgic piano and it’s a mix that works well with setting the tone. Openings, endings and some insert songs again feature the pop duo Angela, who was present with the franchise right from its conception and delivered 34 songs in total, getting an official recognition from Guinness World Records in 2023. Though I find some of their work to be of debatable quality, I loved the old school, energetic openings and more ballad-ish endings of “The Beyond”.

It is with a heavy heart that I followed both “The Beyond” and the franchise it belongs to to what seems to be a definitive end. For personal reasons, the conclusion strung some particularly emotional strings in me - but on a more general level, it feels sad to see the end of a franchise that I followed almost from its conception. Even though I never considered it a masterpiece, it had some very enjoyable moments and with such a niche product, the connection is bound to get somewhat personal. And even though I realize it’s probably better to let it end rather than keep on life support through continuous sequels that wouldn’t resolve anything, part of me wishes that Fafner would manage even more installments despite being a very niche phenomenon. This franchise feels like a product from a bygone era, with high ambitions that are underdelivered in the end, but not afraid of trying - contrary to many newer productions.

It is what it is, however. It was a bumpy ride, but I’m happy - in a bittersweet fashion - that it ended on a good note. Let’s cherish the fact that Fafner managed it to a conclusive end while remaining largely dedicated to a niche group of fans. Not many franchises are allowed that.