Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise

Royal Space Force developed out of an anime proposal presented to Shigeru Watanabe of Bandai in September 1984 by Hiroyuki Yamaga and Toshio Okada[11] from Daicon Film, an amateur film studio active in the early 1980s associated with students at the Osaka University of Arts and science fiction fandom in the Kansai region.[12] The Daicon Film staff had met Watanabe earlier through their related fan merchandise company General Products, during his involvement with product planning for Bandai's "Real Hobby Series" figurines.[13] The position had also led Watanabe into Bandai's then-new home video label Emotion, where he helped to develop Mamoru Oshii's Dallos. Released at the end of 1983, Dallos would become the first anime original video animation (OVA),[14] an industry event later described as the beginning of a new "third medium" for anime beyond film or television, offering the prospect of "a medium in which [anime] could 'grow up,' allowing the more mature thematic experiments of creators".[15]

Okada and Yamaga's pitch to Watanabe had followed the recognition Daicon Film received earlier that year in Animage magazine through a special secondary Anime Grand Prix award given to their 8 mm short Daicon IV Opening Animation.[lower-alpha 2] Their September 1984 proposal gave the outline for an anime to be entitled Royal Space Force, to be produced under the heading of a new, professional studio to be named Gainax.[17] The proposal listed five initial core staff for the anime.[18] Four had been previously associated with Daicon Film: Yamaga was to be the anime's concept creator and director and Okada its producer,[lower-alpha 3] Yoshiyuki Sadamoto its chief character designer, and Hideaki Anno its chief mechanical designer. The fifth, Kenichi Sonoda, listed as responsible for the anime's mechanical design model sheets (settei), had previously assisted with product development at General Products.[13][lower-alpha 4]

The Royal Space Force proposal, subheaded "Project Intentions: A New Wave in a Time of Lost Collaborative Illusions,"[24] began with a self-analysis of "recent animation culture from the perspective of young people".[25][lower-alpha 5] Yamaga, who at the time of the proposal was 22 years old, had at age 20 been director on episode 9 of the original Macross TV series and had directed the opening anime films for Japan's 1981 and 1983 national science conventions, Daicon III and IV,[27] which through their sale to fans on home video through General Products were themselves regarded as informal precursors of the OVA concept.[28] Okada and Yamaga argued that what prevented the anime industry from advancing beyond its current level was that it had fallen into a feedback loop with its audience, producing for them a "cul-de-sac" of cute and cool-looking anime content that had the effect of only further reinforcing the more negative and introverted tendencies of many fans,[29][lower-alpha 6][lower-alpha 7] without making a real attempt to connect with them in a more fundamental and personal way:

"In modern society, which is so information-oriented, it becomes more and more difficult even for sensational works to really connect with people, and even so, those works get forgotten quickly. Moreover, this flood of superficial information has dissolved those values and dreams people could stand upon, especially among the young, who are left frustrated and anxious. It could be said that this is the root cause of the Peter Pan syndrome, that says, 'I don't want to be an adult' ... If you look at the psychology of anime fans today, they do interact with society, and they're trying to get along well in that society, but unfortunately, they don't have the ability. So as compensatory behavior, they relinquish themselves to mecha and cute young girls. However, because these are things that don't really exist—meaning, there's no interaction in reality happening between those things and the anime fans—they soon get frustrated, and then seek out the next [anime] that will stimulate them ... If you look into this situation, what these people really want, deep down, is to get along well with reality. And what we propose is to deliver the kind of project that will make people look again at the society around them and reassess it for themselves; where they will think, 'I shouldn't give up yet on reality.'"[32][lower-alpha 8]

The proposal described Royal Space Force as "a project to make anime fans reaffirm reality".[34] Gainax asserted that the problem was not unique to anime fans, who were only "the most representative example" of the increasing tendency of younger people not to experience reality directly, but as mediated through "the informational world".[35] "We live in a society mired in a perpetual state of information overload. And the feeling of being overwhelmed by the underwhelming isn't something limited to just young people, but everyone" ... "However, this doesn't mean that people want to live alone and without contact, but instead they want to establish a balance with the 'outside' that is psychologically comfortable for them."[36] Yamaga and Okada believed that this sensibility among some fans explained why anime often combined plots that "symbolize modern politics or society" with characters whose age and appearance was "completely incongruent with reality".[37] The Royal Space Force plan proposed to use the creative techniques of anime for a radically different aim, to make "the exact opposite of the 'cool,' castle-in-the-sky anime[lower-alpha 9] that is so prevalent these days ... It's on our earth now, in this world of ours now, that we feel it's time for a project that will declare there's still something valuable and meaningful in this world."[39]

One of the "image sketch" paintings by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Mahiro Maeda that accompanied the original proposal for Royal Space Force.

"It is essential to pay close attention to the smallest design details of this world. It's because it is a completely different world that it must feel like reality. If you ask why such an approach—when the goal is to get anime fans to reaffirm their reality—it's because if you were to set this anime in our actual world to begin with, that's a place which right now they see as grubby and unappealing. By setting it in a completely different world, it becomes like a foreign film that attracts the attention of the audience. The objects of attraction are not mecha and cute girls, but ordinary customs and fashions. If normal things now look impressive and interesting because they've been seen through a different world, then we'll have achieved what we set out to do in the plan; we'll be able to express, 'Reality is much more interesting than you thought.'"[40]

The September 1984 proposal for Royal Space Force was unusual for an anime pitch in that it described the setting and story, but never named the main characters.[41] The written proposal was accompanied by a set of over 30 "image sketches" depicting the world to be designed for the anime, painted in watercolor by Sadamoto and Mahiro Maeda.[11] Maeda, a high school classmate of Daicon Film director and character designer Takami Akai, had attended Tokyo Zokei University with Sadamoto; Maeda and Sadamoto had also worked on the Macross TV series, and both were subsequently recruited into Daicon Film.[42] That same month, Watanabe brought the pitch to Bandai company president Makoto Yamashina, who himself represented a younger corporate generation;[43] Yamashina's response to reading Gainax's proposal was, "I'm not sure what this is all about, but that's exactly why I like it."[44] Yamashina would later state in an interview with the comics and animation criticism magazine Comic Box shortly before the film's release that this viewpoint represented a "grand experiment" by Bandai in producing original content over which they could have complete ownership, and a deliberate strategy that decided to give young artists freedom in creating that content: "I'm in the toy business, and I've always been of the mind that if I understand [the appeal of a product], it won't sell. The reason is the generation gap, which is profound. Honneamise just might hit the jackpot. If so, it will overturn all the assumptions we’ve had up till now. I didn't want them to make the kind of film that we could understand. Put another way, if it was a hit and I could understand why, it wouldn't be such a big deal. I did want it to be a hit, but from the start, I wasn't aiming for a Star Wars. In trying to make it a success, it had to be purely young people's ideas and concepts; we couldn't force them to compromise. We had to let them run free with it. In the big picture, they couldn't produce this on their own, and that's where we stepped in, and managed to bring it all this way. And in that respect, I believe it was a success."[45]

"This was a project that made full use of all sorts of wiles. At the time, Hayao Miyazaki said, 'Bandai was fooled by Okada's proposal.' I was the first person at Bandai to be fooled (laughs). But no, that's not the case. I'm a simple person; I just wanted to try it because it looked interesting. Nobody thought that Bandai could make an original movie. There wasn't any know-how at all. But that's why I found it interesting. No, to be honest, there were moments when I thought, 'I can't do this.' But [Gainax]'s president, Okada, and the director, Yamaga, both thought strongly, 'I want to make anime professionally, and speak to the world.' Producer Hiroaki Inoue felt the same way, as did [Yasuhiro] Takeda ... I was about the same age, so I got into the flow of all those people's enthusiasm." —Shigeru Watanabe, 2004[46][lower-alpha 10]

Royal Space Force was initially planned as an OVA project, with a budget variously reported at 20[47] or 40[48] million yen; however, resistance elsewhere within Bandai to entering the filmmaking business resulted in the requirement that Gainax first submit a short "pilot film" version of Royal Space Force as a demo to determine if the project would be saleable.[49] Work on the pilot film began in December 1984[11] as Yamaga and Okada moved from Osaka to Tokyo to set up Gainax's first studio in a rented space in the Takadanobaba neighborhood of Shinjuku.[50] That same month, Gainax was officially registered as a corporation in Sakai City, Osaka; founding Gainax board member Yasuhiro Takeda has remarked that the original plan was to disband Gainax as soon as Royal Space Force was completed; it was intended at first only as a temporary corporate entity needed to hold production funds from Bandai during the making of the anime.[51]

The Royal Space Force pilot film was made by the same principal staff of Yamaga, Okada, Sadamoto, Anno, and Sonoda listed in the initial proposal, with the addition of Maeda as main personnel on layouts and settei; Sadamoto, Maeda, and Anno served as well among a crew of ten key animators that included Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Yuji Moriyama, Fumio Iida, and Masayuki.[52] A further addition to the staff was co-producer Hiroaki Inoue, recruited as a founding member of Gainax by Okada. Inoue was active in the same Kansai-area science fiction fandom associated with Daicon Film, but had already been in the anime industry for several years, beginning at Tezuka Productions.[53] Takeda noted that while a number of the other Royal Space Force personnel had worked on professional anime projects, none possessed Inoue's supervisory experience, or the contacts he had built in the process.[48] Inoue would leave Gainax after their 1988–1989 Gunbuster, but continued in the industry and would later co-produce Satoshi Kon's 1997 debut film Perfect Blue.[54]

In a 2004 interview, Shigeru Watanabe, by then a senior managing director and former president of Bandai Visual, who in later years had co-produced such films as Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and Hiroyuki Okiura's Jin-Roh,[55] reflected on his personal maneuvers to get Royal Space Force green-lit by Bandai's executive board, showing the pilot film to various people both inside and outside the company, including soliciting the views of Oshii[lower-alpha 11] and Miyazaki.[57] As Bandai was already in the home video business, Watanabe reasoned that the strong video sales of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, released the previous year, meant that Miyazaki's opinions would hold weight with Bandai's executives.[58] Watanabe visited Miyazaki's then-studio Nibariki alone and spoke with the director for three hours, of which time, Watanabe joked, he got to speak for ten minutes. Miyazaki, who had worked with Hideaki Anno on Nausicaä,[59] told him, "Anno and his friends are amateurs, but I think they're a little different," comparing the matter to amateurs having "a gorgeous bay window" versus having a foundation: "They feel like they can make the foundation, and maybe raise a new building. If necessary, you can give that advice to the Bandai board." Watanabe laughed that when he told the executives what Miyazaki had said, they approved the project.[60]

In April 1985, Okada and Yamaga formally presented the finished pilot film to a board meeting at Bandai, together with a new set of concept paintings by Sadamoto. The four-minute pilot film began with a 40-second prelude sequence of still shots of Shirotsugh's early life accompanied by audio in Russian depicting a troubled Soviet space mission, followed by a shot of a rocket booster stage separating animated by Anno,[61] leading into the main portion of the pilot, which depicts the story's basic narrative through a progression of animated scenes without dialogue or sound effects, set to the overture of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.[62] Okada addressed the board with a speech described as impassioned,[63] speaking for an hour on Gainax's analysis of the anime industry, future market trends, and the desire of the young for "a work called Royal Space Force".[64] Bandai gave interim approval to Royal Space Force as their company's first independent video production; however, the decision to make the project as a theatrical film would be subject to review at the end of 1985, once Gainax had produced a complete storyboard and settei.[65]

In a 2005 column for the online magazine Anime Style, editor and scriptwriter Yuichiro Oguro recalled seeing a video copy of the pilot film secretly circulating after its completion around the anime industry, where there was interest based on Sadamoto and Maeda's reputations as "the genius boys of Tokyo Zokei University".[66] Oguro noted as differences from the later finished movie the pilot film's younger appearance of Shirotsugh and more bishōjo style of Riquinni, whose behavior in the pilot put him in mind of a Miyazaki heroine, as did the composition of the film itself.[67]

The more "Ghiblish" look of Riquinni in the 1985 Royal Space Force pilot film; the character was depicted with an appearance and behavior noticeably different from the actual 1987 movie.

Yamaga, in a 2007 interview for the Blu-ray/DVD edition release, confirmed this impression about the pilot film and speculated on its consequences:

"It's clearly different from the complete version, and by using the modern saying, it's very Ghiblish ... Among the ambitious animators of those days, there was some sort of consensus that 'if we can create an animated movie that adults can watch, with decent content "for children" which director Hayao Miyazaki has, it will be a hit for sure.' The pilot version was also created under that consensus unconsciously. However, I figured it's not good to do so, and my movie making started from completely denying that consensus. Of course, if we had created this movie with the concept of the world similar to the pilot version, it would've had a balanced and stable style, and not only for staff, but also for sponsors, motion picture companies, and the media ... it would have been easier to grasp and express. But if we had done that, I don't think that any of the Gainax works after that would've been successful at all."[8]

Following the presentation of the pilot film, Gainax transferred their operations in May 1985 to another location in Takadanobaba that offered twice the space of their previous studio. The existing staff gathered in friends and acquaintances to help visualize the setting of Royal Space Force.[68] Among those joining the crew at this time were two of the film's most prolific world designers: Takashi Watabe, whose designs would include the train station, rocket factory, and Royal Space Force lecture hall[69] and Yoichi Takizawa, whose contributions included the rocket launch gantry, space capsule simulator, and rocket engine test facility.[70]

Yamaga decided that the vision of the alternate world depicted in the pilot film did not have the kind of different realism he was hoping to achieve in the completed work. Rather than use the design work of the pilot as a foundation for the full-length anime, it was decided to "destroy" the world of the pilot film and start over again, creating a new series of "image board" paintings to visualize the look of Royal Space Force. The total worldbuilding process went on for roughly a year, and was described as a converse process between Yamaga and the gradually assembled team of designers; expressing his ideas into concrete terms, but also bringing their concrete skills to bear toward the expression of abstract ideas.[71] Yamaga reflected in 2007 that this reciprocal process influenced his writing on the film: "My style is not 'I have a story I created, so you help me make it.' Creators come first, and this is a story I created thinking what story those creators would shine at the most."[72]

In the decade following Royal Space Force, the Sadamoto-designed Nadia La Arwall[73][74] and Rei Ayanami[75][76] would each twice win the Anime Grand Prix fan poll for favorite female character; Sadamoto's Shinji Ikari[77][78] would also win twice for favorite male character. By contrast, his male and female leads designed for Royal Space Force, Shirotsugh and Riquinni, ranked ninth and twentieth respectively for their categories in the Grand Prix poll of 1987 releases.[79] In a roundtable discussion on Royal Space Force following its release, it was pointed out that neither Shirotsugh nor Riquinni look like typical anime lead characters.[80] Yamaga remarked in his 2007 retrospective that, "One of the changes you can easily see from the pilot version is the character modeling of the protagonist. He used to look like a boy, but has become like a middle-aged man. As you can see in Evangelion later on, characters that Yoshiyuki Sadamoto creates are more attractive when they look young. But of course, he's really skilled, so even if he challenges the area that's not his specialty, he can give us what we're asking for."[72]

Sadamoto in fact did use for the final version of Shirotsugh a model reference significantly older than the 21-year old character's age,[81] the American actor Treat Williams, although the character designer remarked that that Yamaga's instructions to make the face square and the eyebrows thicker had him thinking the redesign would look like the director himself.[82] As a reference for Manna, Yamaga referred Sadamoto to actress Tatum O'Neal as she appeared in the first half of the film Paper Moon.[83] Takami Akai remarked that "Sadamoto drew Manna so perfectly that we were sort of intimidated," adding she was "a sidekick who brought out the darker aspects" of Riquinni.[84] Regarding Riquinni herself, Sadamoto commented in 1987 that there seemed to be a model for her, but Yamaga did not tell him who it was.[85] In a 2019 interview session with Niigata University, Yamaga remarked, "What I see now is surprisingly the character Riquinni is nothing but me. At any rate, Shirotsugh is not me. If you ask me where I would position myself in the film, I would identify myself as Riquinni in many aspects, in terms of the way I think. I was probably someone weird [and] religious, ever since my childhood."[86][lower-alpha 12] The appearance of several minor characters in Royal Space Force was based on Gainax staff members or crew on the film, including Nekkerout (Takeshi Sawamura),[53] the Republic aide who plans Shirotsugh's assassination (Fumio Iida),[89] and the director who suggests what Shiro should say before he walks out of his TV interview (Hiroyuki Kitakubo).[90]

Still image from a four-second sequence in Royal Space Force demonstrating the film's design emphasis on "ordinary" objects seen through a different world. A weather report glimpsed while the protagonist is channel surfing conveys a simultaneous impression of the Honnêamise kingdom's 1950s technology (black-and-white television using a round cathode ray tube), its physical layout, and its numeral and writing systems.

Commenting on the character designs in Royal Space Force, Sadamoto remarked that in truth they more reflected the tastes of Gainax than his own personal ones, although at the same time, as the artist, his taste must be reflected in them somehow.[91] Sadamoto discussed the issue in terms of anime character design versus manga character design: "Manga can afford such strong and weird characters, but it's difficult to make good moving characters out of them in anime. The moment I draw a character, for example, you can see how it is going to behave, really ... but I was asking myself what I should be doing. 'Should I make their facial expressions more like those you see in a typical anime?' and so on. I feel that the audience reaction was pretty good, or at least that I managed to get a passing grade."[92]

Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery seen by Royal Space Force staff on August 27, 1985. Yamaga spoke of the impression of tremendous light and sound he received from witnessing the event.[93]

On the premise that the real world itself was a product of mixed design, Yamaga believed that the sense of alternate reality in Royal Space Force would be strengthened by inviting as many designers as possible to participate in the anime.[94] By September, the worldbuilding of Royal Space Force proceeded forward by a system where designers were free to draw and submit visual concepts based on their interpretation of Yamaga's script; the concept art would then be discussed at a daily liaison meeting between Yamaga and the other staff.[95] Yamaga compared the approach to abstraction in painting, seeking to liberate the audience from their prior view of real life by subtly changing the shape of familiar things; citing as an example the image of "a cup," and trying to avoid the direct impulse to draw a cylindrical shape.[96]

A deliberate exception to Royal Space Force's general design approach was the rocket itself, which was adapted from a real-world Soviet model.[97] This exception was later noticed by Hayao Miyazaki, for whom it formed one of his two criticisms of the anime; he was surprised that a film which had gone so far as to change the shape of money did not make the rocket more unusual.[98] Yamaga argued that although the anime reaches its eventual conclusion through a process of different design paths, it was necessary to end the film with a rocket inspired by reality, lest the audience see it as a story about a different world that has nothing to do with them.[99] In their roundtable discussion with OUT, Gainax described the rocket as also emblematic of the film's approach to mecha; despite its many mecha designs, they all play supporting roles, and even the rocket is not treated as a "lead character".[100]

Yamaga returned to his hometown of Niigata to begin to write the screenplay and draw up storyboards, using a coffeehouse in which to work, taking glances out the window.[101] The opening scene of Royal Space Force, narrated by an older Shirotsugh considering his past, depicts a younger Shiro witnessing the takeoff of a jet from an aircraft carrier; the look of the scene is directly inspired by the winter damp and gloom of Niigata's coastline along the Sea of Japan.[102] Yamaga envisioned the fictional Honnêamise kingdom where most of the events of Royal Space Force took place to have the scientific level of the 1950s combined with the atmosphere of America and Europe in the 1930s, but with characters who moved to a modern rhythm. The inspiration he sought to express in anime from Niigata was not the literal look of the city, but rather a sense of the size and feel of the city and its envrions, including its urban geography; the relationships between its old and new parts, and between its denser core and more open spaces.[103]

In a discussion shortly after the film's release, Yamaga remarked, "I wanted to taste the sense of liberation I could get if I recognized everything [about human nature] and included it," a view with which Okada concurred, saying, "this is a film that acknowledges people in their every aspect".[104] On the 2000 DVD commentary, Yamaga stated of the character relationships in Royal Space Force that "A critic once said that none of the characters in this film understand each other. That there's no communication between the characters. He was exactly right. The characters don't understand each other at all. But throughout the film, there are moments where there are glimpses of understandings between [Shirotsugh] and the other characters ... In reality, it's okay not to understand each other. People all live their individual lives—it's not necessary to feel the same way another feels. And in fact you will never understand anybody anyway. This is how I feel about the relationships I have with the people in my life."[105]

In August 1985, six members of the Royal Space Force crew, Yamaga, Okada, Inoue, Sadamoto, and Anno from Gainax, accompanied by Shigeru Watanabe from Bandai, traveled to the United States for a research trip, studying postmodern architecture in New York City, aerospace history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.,[106] and witnessing a launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.[107] Yamaga made revisions to the script during the American research tour.[108] While staying in the US, the group was surprised and amused to see an English-dubbed version of Macross showing on their hotel room TV, a series which Yamaga, Anno, and Sadamoto had all worked upon; the scenes were from a rerun of Robotech, which had completed its initial run on American television earlier that summer.[109][110]

After the completion in December 1985 of Daicon Film's final project, Orochi Strikes Again, its director Takami Akai and special effects director Shinji Higuchi moved to Tokyo to join the production of Royal Space Force as two of its three assistant directors, alongside Shoichi Masuo.[111] Higuchi would make the first scene actually animated and filmed in Royal Space Force, depicting a newsreel of Shirotsugh arriving in the capital city; its look was achieved by filming the cels using the same 8mm camera that Daicon had used for its amateur productions.[112] At age 20, Higuchi was the very youngest of the main crew;[113] his previous creative experience had been in live-action special effects films rather than anime. Higuchi was described as someone who did not "think like an animator," and would therefore bring unorthodox and interesting ideas and techniques to the project. The director felt that Royal Space Force benefitted from the creative contributions of people from outside anime, including opening and ending credits artist Nobuyuki Ohnishi, and several part-time college design students who did not go on to pursue a career in animation; Akai and Yamaga joked in retrospect that, owing to their scant experience, at the time they themselves had limited familiarity with the anime industry.[114]

The newsreel scene was located near the beginning of the storyboard's "C part".[lower-alpha 13] The third out of the anime's four roughly equal half-hour divisions, the C part began with the scene of Riquinni working in the field, and concluded with the assassination attempt.[116] Royal Space Force followed the practice, adapted from TV episodes, of breaking the storyboard up into lettered parts; although intended to denote the parts before and after a mid-show commercial break, the practice was also used in theatrical works for convenience in production.[117] As 1985 drew to a close, Bandai had still not formally committed to Royal Space Force as a feature-length film release, as a distributor for the movie had not yet been secured.[118] Gainax was also late in finalizing the storyboard, which would not be completed in its entirety until June 1986.[119] However, the C part was nearly finished, and the decision was made to start production there, on the reasoning also that the sober tone of many C part scenes required precision in expression; as there was no release date yet, it was better to work on them while the schedule was still relatively loose.[120]

In January 1986, Toho Towa agreed to distribute Royal Space Force as a feature film, and production assumed a more frantic pace, as the process of in-betweening, cel painting, and background painting began at this time; additional staff was recruited via advertisements placed in anime magazines.[121] Gainax relocated its studio once again, this time from Takadanobaba to a larger studio space in the Higashi-cho neighborhood of Kichijoji, where the remainder of Royal Space Force would be produced.[122] Following the C part of the film, the animation production proceeded in order from the A part (the opening scene through the fight in the air force lounge),[123] to the B part (the arrival at the rocket factory through the funeral for Dr. Gnomm),[124] then to the concluding D part (the General's talk on history to the film's ending).[125][126] The daily exchange of ideas between Yamaga and the other staff at Gainax continued during production, as the artists attempted to understand his intentions, while Yamaga reviewed animation drawings, designs, and background paintings to be re-done in order to get closer to the "image in his head," although this questioning process also continued within Yamaga himself, between concept and expression, or "author versus writer".[127]

A tank is bombed from above during the climactic battle to capture the launch site, in an explosion animated by the film's special effects artist, Hideaki Anno. Hiroyuki Yamaga and Anno were film students together at the Osaka University of Arts;[128] Anno was the first animator he had ever met, and it was witnessing the "bodily sensation residing" within Anno's explosions that first made Yamaga interested in anime. Even before determining a theme for the project that became Royal Space Force, Yamaga decided the story's climax would feature "Anno's shrapnel".[72]

Although Royal Space Force was essentially a pre-digital animated work[129] using layers of physical cels and backgrounds painted by hand,[130] computers played an important role in its production. Scheduling and accounting on the film was performed using a Fujitsu OASYS100,[131][132] while design drawings were scanned into a NEC PC-9801 which permitted them to be studied at different rotations and for possible color options, using a 256-color palette.[133] Rough draft animation of line drawings testing how sequences would work utilized a Quick Action Recorder computer-controlled video camera, a technology by that point common in the anime industry.[134] Computer-assisted animation seen onscreen in Royal Space Force was used for certain difficult motion shots, including the contra-rotating propellers of the Honnêamise air force plane, the rotation of the space capsule while in orbit, the tilted wheel turn of the street sweeper, and the swing of the instrument needle in the launch control bunker. The motions themselves were rendered using ASCII 3D software, and then traced onto cels.[135] By contast, Ryusuke Hikawa noted that the flakes of frost falling from the rocket at liftoff, which might be assumed to be a CG effect, were done entirely by hand under the supervision of Hideaki Anno.[136]

A one-minute scene of Shiro and Marty conversing on the bed of a truck delivering the Royal Space Force's electromechanical computer, originally meant to precede Shiro's first training run in the capsule simulator, was scripted and animated for the film's B part, but was not included in the theatrical release.[137] The scene was cut for reasons of length before it reached the audio recording stage; however, the 1990 Royal Space Force~The Wings of Honnêamise Memorial Box LaserDisc edition, described by Animage as a kodawari (committed to perfection) project of Bandai co-producer Shigeru Watanabe, would reassemble the film's sound team and voice actors Leo Morimoto and Kazuyuki Sogabe, and record the dialogue and sound effects for the scene.[138] This one-minute scene would also be included on subsequent DVD and Blu-ray editions of Royal Space Force.

Many of the staff of Royal Space Force had also worked on two of the major anime film projects released in 1986: Project A-ko and Castle in the Sky, including Royal Space Force's assistant director Shoichi Masuo and animation director Yuji Moriyama on A-ko;[139] design artist and key animator Mahiro Maeda had worked on Castle in the Sky,[140] as did Noriko Takaya, who had earlier developed for its director Hayao Miyazaki the "harmony" method used to portray the shifting carapace of the Ohm in Nausicaä; the technique would be used also for the rocket nozzles in Royal Space Force.[lower-alpha 14] By the summer of 1986, both works were completed, and a large number of their crew joined the production of Royal Space Force, which by that point was running on a round-the-clock schedule.[143]

Yamaga would later say of the making of Royal Space Force, "it was like we were all swinging swords with our eyes blindfolded".[8] Akai and Yamaga remarked that since they weren't "animation purists," they altered the animation drawings, cels, and timesheets in ways that were not traditional industry practice, to the extent that "the young people who followed in our footsteps in creating anime thought that was how it was done," speculating that they may have created new traditions for anime by breaking the old on the production of Royal Space Force.[144] The idea that Royal Space Force would not use anime's traditional division of labor and strictly assigned roles was developed while it was still in the pre-production stage.[145] In 1995, Okada reflected that the film "was made in that kind of chaos ... On a Gainax anime project, everyone has to be a director. Therefore, everyone's feelings and everyone's knowledge are going into it ... That's the good side of how Gainax's films are different from others. But we have no strong director, and that's the weak side."[146] On the director's commentary, Yamaga himself noted that when the film's final retakes were done at the end of 1986, out of 100 adjustments made to scenes, only three were based on the director's own suggestions. Akai had personally rejected other change requests by Yamaga on the basis of representing the opinions of the entire staff and making sure that "everyone was being heard". Yamaga replied, "I was just pleased that everyone was so involved in the project. I hadn't expected that to happen. It was a wonderful time. At the beginning, I was expected to make all the decisions, but as time went by, the staff started to understand that I wasn't going to make all the decisions and that they were going to have to get involved. By the end of the project, nobody cared what I had to say ... I thought that was great."[147]

In April 1986, Ryuichi Sakamoto was selected as the musical director of Royal Space Force.[148] Sakamoto was already regarded for his work in the pioneering electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra and his soundtrack for the 1983 Nagisa Oshima film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence[149] which had won the United Kingdom BAFTA Award for Best Film Music; the year following the release of Royal Space Force, Sakamoto would share the Academy Award for Best Original Score with David Byrne and Cong Su for their soundtrack to The Last Emperor. In 1986 Sakamoto was prominent also in the Japanese domestic film market for his soundtrack to the top-grossing nationwide movie of that year, Koneko Monogatari.[150]

Sakamoto brought into the Royal Space Force project his prior collaborators Koji Ueno, Yuji Nomi, and Haruo Kubota;[151] the team together composed over 40 pieces of music appearing in the film[152] of which 15 were included[153] on the Royal Space Force original soundtrack album released in March 1987.[154] A majority of the soundtrack album pieces were composed by Sakamoto; the several exceptions included Kubota's "War," used for the battle to capture the launch site, Nomi's "Holy Riquinni," played when Shirotsugh first reads her scriptures, and Ueno's "Dr. Gnomm's Funeral".[155] Gainax gave Sakamoto a sardonic checklist of items to guide the composition of the Royal Space Force's pompous anthem, requesting for example that it sing of the galaxy even though the force had never even left the planet, that its lyrics evoke manly phrases befitting the 1950s and 60s generation, and that "on a sunny day, you can feel the tranquility of ten people singing it in the middle of a graveyard."[156] A version of the Royal Space Force anthem featuring Sakamoto's own vocals would appear on a December 1986 promo 12" maxi single containing early mixes of four pieces from the film's soundtrack.[157]

"Royal Space Force was put into production at the very height of the first surge in [anime] video sales, when a studio's ownership of an all-new product, deeply ingrained in the newfound market of adult fans and active fandom, made 'by fans for fans', was immensely tempting. One imagines that investors hoped to bootstrap a new Gundam or a new Yamato out of nothing, which might have explained the enthusiasm during production for a possible movie sequel or television spin-off.[lower-alpha 15] However, as the footage of Royal Space Force neared completion in late 1986, and was found to be inconveniently free of many merchandising spin-off opportunities, there were signs among the investors and sponsors of cold feet."[159]

In a 2013 survey of the last century of the anime industry, Jonathan Clements devotes three pages to a case study of the distribution and exhibition issues surrounding Royal Space Force, describing "outrageous attempts" by the movie's financial backers "to 'fix' the ailing film project," not by changing the film itself, but through a deceptive marketing campaign that began with "prolonged arguments over a sudden perceived need to rename it".[159] The project had been pitched, developed, and approved for production under the name Royal Space Force; Okada remarked that, to Gainax, it was "its one and only title".[160] All Nippon Airways, one of the film's sponsors,[161] however desired that the title include the word "wings,"[159] while Bandai favored that the title should use the form "Something of Something," on the reasoning that the last big anime hit had been called Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.[160] Over the course of 1986, more than 20 other titles for the film had been suggested to Gainax by outside parties, including Space • Love • Story, Myth of Passion, Young Morning Star Shirotsugh, Spirits of Fire, Song of Icarus, Parallel Zone 1987, and Zero Vertex.[162] As Royal Space Force "was 'not sexy enough'" and Riquinni was "conveniently female," the initial push was to use the title (The) Wings of Riquinni.[159]

Although the plan to make Royal Space Force had been known around the anime industry since mid-1985,[163] the official announcement of the film was not made until June 4, 1986 in a press conference held at the prestigious Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.[148] Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was the only member of Royal Space Force's main staff known to the general public[164] spoke at the event, remarking that Royal Space Force would be his third film soundtrack and that its details reminded him of one of his favorite movies, Blade Runner.[165][lower-alpha 16] The announcement at the Imperial Hotel used Royal Space Force as the main title of the film, with (The) Wings of Riquinni as a smaller subtitle; privately, Yamaga objected strongly to the subtitle, pointing out the purpose of the film was to expand the audience's view of the world, and that he did not want a title that focused on one character; therefore, if a second title was absolutely required, he suggested it use Honnêamise after the name of the kingdom in which most of the film's events takes place.[167] As 1986 drew to a close, the battle over the film's final name could be traced through updates on the project in the anime press; in the October 1986 issue of The Anime, just half a year before the film's release to Japanese theaters, the movie logo was still listed as it had appeared at the June announcement, with a large Royal Space Force above a smaller (The) Wings of Riquinni.[168] In the following month's issue, the logo no longer contained (The) Wings of Riquinni, and now read The Wings of Honnêamise~Royal Space Force, with Royal Space Force moved to the bottom, but both titles at equal size.[169] By the December 1986 issue, the logo had assumed its final theatrical release form, with Royal Space Force now smaller than The Wings of Honnêamise.[170]

In a 2010 memoir, Okada reflected on the conflict, asserting that it had involved not only the title, but that at one point Bandai had also requested Gainax cut the film's length from two hours to 80 minutes. Okada considered that it had been a "natural" request from a sponsor's perspective, as a movie theater would give four daily showings to a two-hour film, but six if it were only 80 minutes, opening the possibility of 50% more ticket sales. At the time, however, Okada refused, arguing that the box office performance was not part of his job, and telling the theatrical distributor and Bandai in a meeting that if they wanted to cut the film by even 20 minutes, they might as well cut off Okada's arm. In retrospect, Okada felt that he had acted like a child, but that "creators are all children," and if they were making something new and interesting, then in the end everyone involved should profit; he acknowledged, however, that in the meantime it was the "grown-ups" who had to deal with the risks and problems along the way, yet to him, acting like such a "responsible adult" would have meant going along with a deceptive compromise and being just a chouseiyaku (fixer).[172] Bandai company president Makoto Yamashina affirmed shortly before the film's release that he had indeed thought of cutting 20 minutes from the film: "There were about three weeks during which we considered cutting it. Toho Towa was going through the same thing, but the process of deciding what [scenes] to cut began with conversations about why they shouldn't be cut. And afterwards, I thought, 'Ah, I get it now' and felt that I couldn't cut it. And with apologies toward Toho Towa, to please go along with this ... For the sake of the box office, it could have worked at around 100 minutes, but if we cut the film at this stage, the whole objective of the movie flies out the window, and the hundreds of millions of yen spent on it have no meaning. So I apologized—I'll be responsible if it's not a hit, so please let me do it as it is."[173]

Okada wrote of having later heard how "emotions were running high" on the Bandai side as well, to the extent of considering taking the project away from Gainax and giving it to another studio to finish, or even cancelling the film's release, despite the 360 million yen already spent on producing it. However, this would have required someone's "head to roll" at Bandai to take responsibility for the loss, which could mean Makoto Yamashina himself, who had announced Royal Space Force as his personal project durung the official press conference in June.[174] Okada noted that the person caught in the middle was Shigeru Watanabe, who had supported the project from the beginning and had secured Bandai's funding for Gainax, but now found himself "forced into a very difficult position," becoming so depressed by the conflict that following the film's release, he took a year's leave of absence. Okada expressed great regret for what he described as his lack of kindness at the time toward Watanabe, on whom he had taken out his anger and sense of betrayal, but nevertheless did not regret his lack of compromise, believing that if he had given any ground, the film might have not been completed.[175]

In one of the trailers made to promote the film, the standing stone seen briefly in the movie was presented as having an iconic and supernatural role in the film's plot.[176] In the marketing push to position the film as reminiscent of Nausicaä, giveaway posters were placed in Animage, which was still serializing the Nausicaä manga at the time.[177]

Clements remarked, "the promotions unit did everything in their power to make Honnêamise appeal to precisely the same audience as Nausicaä, even if that meant misleading advertising," citing one example recalled by Okada as "the 'insect incident', in which the artist [Yoshiyuki] Sadamoto was commissioned to draw an image of a giant spider-beetle attacking the city from the film. The insect in question only appeared in the film as a finger-length child's pet, although the advert gave the impression that it would grow into a house-sized behemoth equivalent to the giant ohmu in Nausicaä. Okada was incensed, not only at the apparent conspiracy to mislead audiences about his film, but that the producers would assent to wasting the time of Sadamoto, who spent three days on the commission. Okada felt ... that, if he had three days to spare, he [as one of the film's animation directors] could have better utilised the time by correcting several problematic scenes in the film itself."[159] Okada had earlier affirmed the deceptive marketing push in a 1995 interview: "Toho Towa was the distributor of The Wings of Honnêamise, and they didn't have any know-how, or sense of strategy to deal with the film ... And they were thinking that this film must be another Nausicaä, because Nausicaä was the last 'big anime hit.' But when they finally saw Wings, they realized it was not another Nausicaä [PANICKED SCREAM] and they thought, 'Okay, okay ... we'll make it Nausicaä in the publicity campaign!"[lower-alpha 17]

Yamashina had himself acknowledged that although Bandai's plan to sell one million tickets for the film at the box office was based on that having been the sales performance for Nausicaä, "the content of this work isn’t like Nausicaä ... No one’s ever done something like this before, so it’s a great risk in that respect."[178] In 2000, Akai recalled, "The PR department didn't really seem to understand the film. They have a tendency to make a new release interesting by making it appear similar to a film that was previously a hit."[179] Yamaga remarked that, "There was no precedent in advertising a film like ours at the time. When they are asked what type of a film it is, they can only compare it to something like Nausicaä. It's actually completely different. But Nausicaä at least served as a reference when we were asked to describe our film. If it wasn't for that precedent, there would have been no reference point at all. We could never have explained why it was animated or why it was a theatrical release, or much of anything about it."[180]

The national publicity campaign for the film now being promoted under the title The Wings of Honnêamise~Royal Space Force began on New Year's Day, 1987, including full-color newspaper and magazine ads, as well as TV commercials,[181] with eventual placements in over 70 media outlets.[182] As with the "insect incident," a frequent aspect of the marketing push involved taking images from the film and presenting them in ads as fantastical. Akai gives as one example the steam train on which General Khaidenn departs for the capital to seek funding; advertisements labeled it as a "bio-train".[183] The official press kit for the theatrical release presented Riquinni and her book of scriptures as elements in a prophecy of salvation that drove the plot, describing the premise of the film as: "'... Through the guidance of a lass with a pure and untainted soul, those who are awakened shall take wing and rise to Heaven, taking in hand the Honneamise holy book' ... Shirotsugh grew up to join the Royal Space Force, as did other youths as hot blooded and energetic as he. It was then that work began on a grand project to search space for the envisioned holy book that promises eternal peace to Honneamise."[184] The weathered standing stone seen briefly outside the church storeroom where Riquinni lives during the latter part of the story,[185] while given no particular meaning in the film itself, was made into a major feature of the film's advertising, relabeled as a "Symbol Tower" that shines due to what ads described as a secret telepathic link born from the "passionate love" between Shirotsugh and Riquinni;[186] one of the film's trailers opened with an image of the glowing "tower" struck by lightning, then rising through the clouds as Riquinni prays before it while Shiro gazes up beside her; a caption proclaimed, "A world of love and youth, containing electrifying romance!" The only dialogue spoken in the trailer, "Do you believe in the miracle of love?" said by Riquinni's voice actor, Mitsuki Yayoi, was not a line from the actual film, but referenced a catchphrase used in the advertising campaign.[187][188]

"We can't make any more movies on this level. It's not just the money, not just the passion, it's the way they put this together, piece by piece. It's not about whether the story is interesting or uninteresting. It's a matter of quality, and it's not possible to maintain this level. Or that may be the case. So I think they did a great job, and yet from a professional perspective, they've made something that's a problem. When you look at it from the viewpoint of the anime industry, it must be very difficult to make something on this level. I've recently come to understand just how demanding it was for them to put make this piece by piece. And once it comes out, it'll set a new standard, won't it? If whatever comes next doesn't equal or surpass it, then it'll be a regression in terms of quality ... Disney achieved the peak [in animation] 50 years ago. You can't surpass them. Even if Spielberg or someone like that tries, it would only be an extension of what Disney did, but it wouldn't surpass it. But perhaps this time Yamaga has shown us a different approach from Disney, another possibility. Whether or not it ends up making a major impact in animation, the possibility will remain. And that's why I think he's created something amazing."—Makoto Yamashina, 1987[189]

Makoto Yamashina, the executive producer of Royal Space Force, detailed his conflicted feelings toward the final work and its box office prospects in an interview conducted shortly before the film's release in Japan: "If I had understood their concept earlier, I think I would have done it a little differently ... What they were trying to express is [found within] a visual world, so there are things that aren’t said in the script, that can’t be expressed with dialogue. The concept of the film couldn't be expressed without going ahead and making it. And after that there are no fixes; you now have this world that's been created, the world of Honnêamise, and it can’t be changed."[190] When asked what changes he would have liked to have made, Yamashina answered, "The big difference from how I thought it was going to be was that their expression was so flat. I would have made everything a bit more emotional and expansive, like the rocket launch scene at the end. While I believe at the same time that this was one of the [filmmaking] methods employed by Yamaga and the others, nevertheless it's flat. Constantly. In the emotional sense. I was fine with the scenes, the concepts, the plot development, but I would express more emotion ... "[191] Yamashina, citing the aerial action from Top Gun, felt that "movies these days are all about entertainment," whereas "How the protagonist lives—his way of life, feeling depressed, wondering if he's okay with himself. That part of life, from the best movies, that's what's missing. And I think Yamaga dared to do that part." Yamashina asserted that Honnêamise was so significant because it was "the first film made for this [young] generation by that generation," and related an incident where a friend of his who also "didn't understand [the film] at all" was bewildered at the reaction of a young girl sitting next to him at a test screening, whom he saw noisily "cackling with delight". His friend, said Yamashina, wondered if he was witnessing a "revolution in the film industry" that if it succeeded, would put an end to the previous generation of filmmaking.[192]

To Yamashina, the contrast spoke to a paramount issue dating back to the original proposal for Royal Space Force—whether the creators were correct in their understanding of what their generation was truly looking for in a film; the pre-release research and test audience reactions had left Yamashina personally uncertain on this question: "I'm afraid that the theaters will be deserted, and no one will go to see the movie."[193] On the other hand, Yamashina repeated his concern for the implications if the film did turn out to be a hit: "If this is the [new] line that Yamaga is setting out, then filmmakers in the future are going to have to follow this line," suggesting that the previous assumptions about movies "will all get blown away ... You won't be able to make [a hit movie for young people] unless you're of that same generation."[194] Yamashina expressed the belief that directors the same age as himself such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could still connect with young audiences because "in America there isn't such a big gap" whereas "in Japan, the gap starts from around 25. There's a fault line between the generations" and that what Honnêamise was offering viewers was a new approach compared to Lucas and Spielberg, whose films he described as "entertainment, simple to grasp ... If it turns out that young people today are thinking along Yamaga's lines, at that level of sophistication, it's going to be very difficult [for other filmmakers]." Yamashina speculated on whether rapid generational change meant Yamaga should have made the movie when he was even younger in order to better connect with a teenage audience, remarking that the director first conceived the idea of the film at 19, but that the movie was not finished until he was 24. "It's hard for me to talk about the film like this, but regardless of whether or not it succeeds, it's a movie that I don't understand. Until it opens at the theater, we won't really know."[195]

What was described as the world premiere of the film occurred at an event held in the United States on February 19, 1987 at Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.[196] Americans invited to the showing included anime fans from the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization,[lower-alpha 18] and several figures associated with U.S. science fiction cinema including The Terminator and Aliens actor Michael Biehn,[198] as well as Blade Runner designer Syd Mead.[154] The screening, intended to help build publicity for the film's release to theaters in Japan the following month, was arranged for and covered by the Japanese news media.[199] Footage from the Hollywood event was incorporated into a half-hour Sunday morning promotional special, Tobe! Oneamisu no Tsubasa —Harukanaru hoshi no monogatari— ("Fly! The Wings of Honnêamise—Story of a Distant Star") that aired March 8 on Nippon TV, six days before the film's release in Japan.[154] Although referred to in Japanese publicity materials as The Wings of Honnêamise~Royal Space Force's "American prescreening,"[200] the movie was shown under the name Star Quest, and presented in an English dub remarked upon by both U.S. and Japanese anime magazines covering the event[198][201] for its differences from the original film; in particular its use of "Americanized" names for the characters and changes to their motivations: as examples, in Star Quest, Riquinni, now known as "Diane," opposes the space project from the beginning, whereas Shirotsugh, now known as "Randy," is more positive toward it,[202] while the superiors of General Khaidenn, now known as "General Dixon," wish to use the rocket launch not as a provocation for war, but as a peace overture.[203]

The Wings of Honnêamise~Royal Space Force was released nationwide in Japan on March 14, 1987[154] through Toho's foreign film branch theaters;[204] in some smaller cities, it was shown as a double feature with the 1985 made-for-television film Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.[205] In a roundtable discussion in late spring following the film's release, co-producer Hiroaki Inoue observed that he could say the film "put up a good fight," arguing that the average theater stay for original anime films was four weeks, and Castle in the Sky had shown for five; in one theater, Royal Space Force had managed a seven-week engagement.[206] In 2002, Takeda recalled, "Not a single theater cancelled its run, and in some locations, it actually had a longer run than initially planned ... The budget scale meant that reclaiming all the production costs[lower-alpha 19] at the box office simply wasn't feasible."[204] Clements commented, "Such a claim, however, obscures to a certain degree the goldrush tensions of the period, when Japan's booming bubble economy arguably resulted in more investors than a film warranted," contending that Royal Space Force might have been reasonably expected to make back its money on its initial release, had it been a more modestly-budgeted OVA as first conceived.[47] On home video, the film's title was changed back to Royal Space Force, with The Wings of Honnêamise as a smaller subtitle, beginning with the 1990 Japanese laserdisc box set release.[208] Although Gainax itself was nearly bankrupted by the project, Bandai was reported as having made back its money on the movie in September 1994, seven and a half years after its Japanese theatrical release; the anime continued to generate profit for them in the years to come.[209][210][lower-alpha 20]

Toshio Okada, who had attended the Star Quest event together with writer/director Hiroyuki Yamaga,[212] "concluded that a market did indeed exist in America for well-dubbed and subtitled animation," and after discussions with Bandai prepared a subtitled 16 mm film version of the film to be shown at the 1988 Worldcon in New Orleans, with the subsequent aim of making a "budget-priced videotape version" available in the United States.[213] However, Royal Space Force did not receive an English-language commercial release until 1994, when a new English dub of the film was made by Manga Entertainment using its original 1987 Japanese theatrical release title, The Wings of Honnêamise: Royal Space Force. Previously active releasing anime in the United Kingdom, the dub of Honnêamise was Manga's debut project upon entering the US anime market.[214]

The new English dub showed in over 20 movie theaters during 1994–95 in a 35 mm film version distributed by Tara Releasing[214][215] and in June 1995 the film was released by Manga Entertainment in separate dubbed and subtitled VHS versions[216] followed in January 1997 by a bilingual closed-captioned laserdisc release by Manga Entertainment and Pioneer LDCA.[217] Animerica, in a contemporary review, assessed the dub as "admirable in many respects," but remarked on several differences between the dialogue in the English subtitled and dubbed versions, noting that in the dubbed version of the film, Riquinni suggests that she herself is to blame both for Shirotsugh's attempt to rape her, as well as for the earlier destruction of her home, and that in the dub, Shirotsugh does not ask Marty about the possibility of being the villain of one's own life story; the review argued that the subtitled version represents "a clearer presentation of the original ideas and personalities created by Hiroyuki Yamaga."[218]

The 2000 release by Manga Entertainment on DVD, which features a commentary track with Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai, was severely criticized for its poor quality.[219][220][221][222] In 2007, Bandai Visual released a Blu-ray/HD DVD version to mark the film's 20th anniversary; this release used the audio of the 1997 Japanese edition of the film[223] in which its sound effects were re-recorded in Dolby 5.1.[224] Although containing a 20-page booklet with essays by Hiroyuki Yamaga and Ryusuke Hikawa,[225] it lacks the commentary track of the 2000 Manga DVD release, and is now out of print. Maiden Japan re-released the movie separately on Blu-ray and DVD in 2013.[226]

The film's initial release in the United Kingdom on VHS in 1995 by Manga Entertainment was cut to remove the attempted rape scene; in a contemporary interview, BBFC examiner Imtiaz Karim indicated this was done voluntarily by Manga, so that the film, which had been certified for audiences 15 and up when shown in UK theaters, could receive the lower PG certificate when released on home video.[227] The 2015 Blu-ray and DVD UK edition of the film from Anime Limited was released uncut with a 15 certificate.[228]

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily newspaper, published a mixed review of the film the day before its Japanese premiere, advising readers that, "if what you’re seeking is Top Gun heroic fantasy, you’re not going to get it;" the review took the perspective that rather Hiroyuki Yamaga, as director, writer, and original concept creator, had been attempting with the film "to pour out all the images within his mind into contemporary Japanese society".[229] The newspaper characterized the movie as scattered and boring at times, and stated a certain "resentment at its lack of excitement," but concluded by expressing its admiration for the film on the grounds of its effort and expense, honest and personal vision, and for not clinging to the patterns of previous anime works.[230]

Royal Space Force ranked high in major annual retrospectives awarded by the Japanese anime press. The film won the Japan Anime Award for best anime release of 1987, chosen by an industry jury and sponsored by a consortium of magazines including Animedia,[lower-alpha 21] OUT, My Anime, The Anime, and Animec.[232] In the Anime Grand Prix fan poll rankings, sponsored by Animage magazine, Royal Space Force made two of the year's top ten lists: voted #4 anime release of 1987, with Shirotsugh Lhadatt as #9 male character,[233] in addition to receiving an Animage Award presented that year by the magazine to the film itself.[232][lower-alpha 22] In 1988, Royal Space Force won the Seiun Award, Japan's oldest prize for science fiction, for Best Dramatic Presentation of the previous year.[232] At the beginning of 1989, Animage founding editor Hideo Ogata, writing for Tokuma Shoten's retrospective on the first 70 years of anime film, compared Royal Space Force to Isao Takahata's 1968 The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun; just as Horus had suddenly demonstrated a new level of realism and social themes in anime, Ogata saw Royal Space Force as a work that also seemed to have emerged onto the scene unrelated to any previous commercial release, "an anime movie with a different methodology and message ... It's uncertain what influence it will have on anime in the future, but what is certain is that this was a work filled with the tremendous passion of its young staff."[235] Hayao Miyazaki, who had been a key animator and scene designer on Takahata's film,[236] would in 1995 himself argue that the staff of Royal Space Force demonstrated it remained possible to make an anime film the way he had helped to make Horus in the 1960s, as part of a crew of "inexperienced amateurs in their mid-20s, who hung out together and ate together, who mingled their work and their personal lives together".[237]

Tetsuo Daitoku, editor of the anime magazine OUT, reviewed Royal Space Force for Japan's oldest film journal, Kinema Junpo, in their March 15, 1987 issue.[238][lower-alpha 23] Daitoku wrote that he began watching the movie wondering why the young creative staff making the film, whom he called "a new kind of people in anime," had chosen to use the "well-worn subject" of space travel, which had already been the focus of such iconic works as Space Battleship Yamato, not to mention live-action films such as The Right Stuff.[240][lower-alpha 24] Daitoku however found the question in his mind being removed "little by little" as the film progressed: "Yes, human beings have gone beyond this world in the physical sense, and left their footprints up among the stars, but did their conscience and mentality go along with them?"[243] He felt the movie acknowledged the issue and therefore took it as "necessary to observe the history and civilization of mankind from [a point] where the whole Earth can be seen ... The Wings of Honnêamise has this kind of motif at its very bottom. It is obvious from the scenes where they look at the real history of mankind, not from the different world [of space] that is shown at the end of the film."[244] By "taking full advantage of the unique medium of animation," the creators "observe civilization objectively first and then disassemble it to eventually restructure it" ... "creating the different world by newly creating everything," down to the spoons, in the example Daitoku gives.[245] "Stories that feature cool machines, robots, and attractive characters, with the plot unfolding while drifting through space, already reached their peak in a sense with the [1984] Macross movie. Rather than trying to go beyond Macross, I think the creators of this film believed that they could find a new horizon for anime by creating a different world in a way that draws the story closer to Earth again."[246] Daitoku points out Shirotsugh is aware that whatever technology humans invent will be misused, and that Shirotsugh, although with noble intentions, is shown by the film to be less than heroic as a person, asking in conclusion: "What did the windmill mean that this Don Quixote named Shirotsugh Lhadatt went to space to confront, on this Rozinante called a rocket?"[247]

The March 15 issue of Kinema Junpo also featured a conversation on the film between Hiroyuki Yamaga and Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki praised Royal Space Force, calling it "an honest work, without any bluff or pretension ... I thought the movie is going to be a great inspiration to the young people working in this industry. They may be intensely divided over whether they like it or not, but either way it's going to serve as a stimulus."[248] Yamaga debated several aspects of the film with Miyazaki, asserting a great difference between their filmmaking approaches.[249] Miyazaki himself characterized a fundamental difference between the settings of his movies and that of Royal Space Force, explaining he thought Yamaga's film was honest because, "sending up a rocket may give the characters meaning in their lives, but you understand very well they live in a world where they'll be caught up by reality again. That's why I make anachronistic [anime] films on purpose."[250][lower-alpha 25] In the OUT roundtable later that year, Okada would also affirm this difference: "People make serious movies trying to give answers. Mr. Miyazaki's stories are good examples. He creates a fictitious world where he can respond, 'this is what's important.' But our generation knows that it doesn't work that way."[252]

In the Kinema Junpo conversation, Miyazaki related the two problems he personally had with Royal Space Force. The first was the rocket itself, which he saw as not unusual enough; for Miyazaki, its appearance detracted from the sense of victory he wished to feel at the end, because it seemed too reminiscent of "big science like NASA".[254] Related to that was his second problem with the film, in that Miyazaki did not find it convincing that the older members of the launch team would have been prepared to stop the countdown and give up after all their years of work, and that it was Shirotsugh who had to rally them to continue: "I didn't think these old guys would ever say, let's quit. Don't you agree? They seemed forced to say that ... Shirotsugh was only riding because he had the physical strength. After all, it wasn't the young people who'd had the passion; I couldn't help but feel that it was the old guys. I thought it was just done for drama."[255] Yamaga did not deny that he wrote the script in a way he thought would appeal to young people,[256] but argued that the clash between generations was not the message of the film. Miyazaki felt that since it was young people like Yamaga who had "actively sown the seeds of improvement [in anime]" with Royal Space Force, it would have been better in the movie if the young told the old, "'Stand back, old men.'"[257] Yamaga noted in response that the film showed a reality where neither generation of the Space Force saw their personal visions prevail, as the construction of the rocket and its launch only happened because of support from a government that had a different agenda from their own.[258] "It's not about making a leap, even though from the beginning it seems that way. More than going somewhere new in a physical sense, my aim was to show something worthy in the process."[259]

Critical reaction to the English-dubbed version of the film during its 1994–1995 theatrical release was greatly divided, with reviews differing widely on the film's plot, themes, direction, and designs. The San Jose Mercury News's Stephen Whitty gave a one-star review, writing that the film offered "nothing really original ... nothing's ever really at stake; there's never a resolution because there's never any conflict to begin with ... And there's also the same misogyny that ruins so much 'adult' animation." Whitty also perceived "self-loathing stereotypes" in the character designs: "The only characters who look remotely Japanese are comical or villainous; the hero and heroine have Caucasian features and big, cute, Hello Kitty eyes."[260] A very similar perception was advanced by LA Village View's Sean O'Neill: "nearly all the good guys look white, with big, round, Walter Keane-style eyes, while the villains are sinister Asians, straight out of a WWII-era American movie. Is this an example of Japanese self-loathing, or does it simply underscore the international prevalence of Western standards of beauty?"[261] The Dallas Morning News's Scott Bowles had a more fundamental disagreement with the film's approach as an anime, comparing it to attempts to "commercialize punk music" that instead "stripped the music of its anger, vitality and interest ... face it, anime, and the manga (Japanese comic books) that inspire them are pretty scurrilous pop art forms. Filled with perfectly sculpted heroes, large-breasted and often naked women and lots and lots of violence, they're forms best appreciated by 13-year old boys. And in trying to appeal to a broader audience, writer/director Hiroyuki Yamaga has smoothed out anime's rough edges so much that what he's left with is about as interesting as a Formica counter top," recommending instead that audiences see "a far more representative anime, Fist of the North Star ... Fist has few of the pretensions of Wings and it's driven along with an energy its better-dressed cousin never attains."[262]

More favorable contemporary reviews tended to regard the film as unconventional while nevertheless recommending the movie. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Andy Grieser wrote that the film "blends provocative ideas and visual beauty ... The world of Wings is a bawdy, claustrophobic Sodom reminiscent of the hybrid Japanese-American city in 1982's Blade Runner."[263] F.X. Feeney wrote in LA Weekly, "These strange, outsize pieces fuse and add a feeling of depth that cartoon narratives often don't obtain ... Technical brilliance aside, what gives The Wings of Honnêamise its slow-building power is the love story—a mysterious and credible one."[264] Richard Harrington in The Washington Post viewed its two-hour length as "a bit windy" but also asserted, "Hiroyuki Yamaga's The Wings of Honnêamise is a spectacular example of Japanimation, ambitious and daring in its seamless melding of color, depth and detail."[265] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, writing: "One of the pleasures of the film is simply enjoying Yamaga's visual imagination, as in a montage at the end, which shows the planet's suffering and turmoil," and remarked on his "offbeat dramatic style" ... "If you're curious about anime, The Wings of Honnêamise, playing for one week at the Music Box, is a good place to start."[266] Chris Jones of The Daily Texan gave it four stars out of five; while describing the film as "really strange," Jones nevertheless urged readers to see the movie, writing, "I really liked this film more than any other animation I've seen and more than most other 'real' films. Depth and intelligence are written into it in more ways than words can describe."[267] In the United Kingdom, Jonathan Romney, writing in The Guardian, regarded the movie as the standout of an anime festival at London's National Film Theatre: "One film in the season, though, proves that anime can be complex and lyrical as well as exciting. Hiroyuki Yamaga's Wings of Honnêamise ... Creaky dubbing notwithstanding, it beats recent Disney offerings hands down."[268]

Following its initial English-language release in the mid-'90s, later retrospectives on anime have had a positive view of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. In a 1999 issue of Time, former Film Comment editor-in-chief Richard Corliss wrote an outline on the history of anime, listing under the year 1987 the remark, "The Wings of Honnêamise is released, making anime officially an art form."[269] In the 2006 edition of The Anime Encyclopedia, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy characterized the film as "one of the shining examples of how cerebral and intelligent anime can be".[270] Simon Richmond, in 2009's The Rough Guide to Anime, wrote that the film's "reputation has grown over time to the point where it is justly heralded as a classic of the medium".[271] whereas in 2014's Anime, Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc described the movie as "an example of science-fantasy anime as art-film narrative, combined with a coming-of-age drama that is intelligent and thought-provoking".[272] In a 2017 Paste listing of the 100 best anime movies of all time, Adult Swim senior vice president and on-air creative director Jason DeMarco ranked the film at #11, remarking, "If The Wings of Honnêamise is a 'noble failure,' it's the sort of failure many filmmakers would kill to have on their résumé."[273]