“Last man” or the revival of French animation
In 2016, “Last man” a 26 episodes animated series came out and changed the scene of French animation. Its defining feature, a story clearly made for adults: take a depressed main character with a great power, add some dark humour similar to the show “Archer” and put all of that in the setting of a pulp movie and you get an episode of “Last man”.
Directed by Jérémie Périn and produced by Everybody On Deck. It is a prequel to the eponymous comics, although the two stories are disconnected and both can be enjoyed independently.
The story follows Richard Aldana, middle-aged, unemployed and an amateur boxer. Although you’d think he is a loser, his whole life changes when his best friend and boxing mentor, Dave McKenzie is abducted and killed by a secret organization. Aldana ends up having to protect McKenzie’s daughter, Siri, who is thought to be the key to enter a mystical world. Between boxing tournaments, paranormal events and mafia schemes, every episode is nervous and you can never get bored of it. The short format of the episode(about 10 minutes long) really helps to depict the very fast paced rhythm of our hero’s life.
France has always had a great History of creating animation although usually targeted at kids: this one is definitely not. The plot is heavy, the violence is omnipresent, the enemies are grotesque, sex scenes are explicit and body horror is graphic. Yes, this show is a parody of an 80’s pulp, action packed movie, as the very influenced(and very good) soundtrack can also testify.
I would heavily recommend this show if you want to see a satire of those very manly 80’s actions movie. Though, the show could seem very sexist and heteronormative -most female characters are overly sexualized, however some characters fight against that, like Tomie Katana a pop star trying to get people to like her for her talent and not for her body.
We can also see strong influences of Japanese anime in its design, very simple, very clean, close to 90’s animation.
The way violence is depicted is particularly on point, especially in the animation of the fights which are smooth and well choreographed. The style of the comics is well replicated and the addition of colours really improves the atmosphere. However, and this is the main criticism I would do to the show, the animation is sometimes a bit flat and under the quality the show gets us used to in most episodes. Though, this is explained by the struggle the creators got to produce the show due to its mature themes(and had to resort to crowd-funding), hence why the show ended up being a pretty low-budget production.
The show is available in France on Netflix and in English on the obscure streaming platform VRV(hence why the show is not popular outside of France).
