The best space opera anime I've had a chance of seeing.

Written by ggultra2764 on February 8, 2012 at 9:45 PM

Legend of the Galactic Heroes (which I'll call LotGH for the rest of this review) offered up perhaps the most expansive developments I've seen with an anime in my ten-plus years of anime fandom. With a very large cast of characters; in-depth focus on political ideologies and military strategies; an extensive history on the Free Planets Alliance and Galactic Empire; and an epic-sized conflict between both opposing empires and other groups that emerge as the show progresses, the series sticks out as perhaps the best space opera anime I've had a chance of coming across. Being at 110 OAV episodes, LotGH makes for quite the commitment considering its intimidating length as many well-known anime titles are known for running at much shorter lengths. However, the series makes full use of its length in exploring the various situations that take place with both the Planet Alliance and Galactic Empire within its time period of five years, as well as exploring its many elements.

The series does enough fleshing out of its various characters that are introduced throughout the series, and the cast of the series is very extensive. It is extensive enough that each episode reintroduces the names of the characters for those who lose track of them. Whether prominent, supporting, minor or not even among the living, LotGH takes enough time at focusing on its characters where we get to know of their motives, personal beliefs, thoughts on a political/ military situation and/or their backgrounds. All these characters do get affected by the outcomes of political decisions and military battles which do effect their characters for either the better or tragically as they come to adapt to them in differing ways depending on how the events influenced their lives.

The series also does enough extensive focusing on prominent areas of the empires, factions and their personal ideologies. Like the characters, LotGH will reintroduce the names of prominent locations in the series within each episode to those who are unfamiliar or lose track of them. Prominent areas within the series serve as either historical landmarks, strategic locations for both empires or major facilities for authority figures and the military. There are also a few episodes in the series that devote focus at exploring the extensive history of the founding and organization of both empires and how humanity eventually colonized other planets.

It also offers up an unbiased look at the positives and negatives to many political ideologies prominent in both empires that a number of the show's prominent characters come to realize, in particular leading Free Planets Alliance character Yang Wenli whose study of past histories give him a thorough understanding of how the flaws of varying styles of government and ideology led to the downfall of past powerful empires and knowing full well the issues within both the Alliance and Empire. The series features aspects to political systems like democracy, autocracy and dictatorship that some powerful figures exploit for their personal gain at the cost of the human rights and decency of common citizens with oppression, abuse of power and concerns of future rulers having differing beliefs than their forefathers focused on, while also addressing the benefits of such systems when less corrupt figures are placed into power. The only shortcoming on the ideological focus I found was the show's skewed views of religion shown through the Terraism cult when it makes its presence known later in the series showing all the stereotypical negative aspects of religion.

Battles within LotGH were very engaging as well as many of the leaders representing their differing factions are some of the best strategists I've seen in anime. The series explores different methods of strategies applied in the heat of battle that involve taking advantage of battle terrain, enemy resources, attrition and fleet numbers. The series also isn't afraid at showing the harsh realities war can create such as low morale for soldiers and the citizens, the shocking deaths of prominent characters and the destruction of major landmarks coming from enemy fire or acts of terrorism.

LotGH is fairly outdated in its animation quality considering the series first started during the late 1980s. Earlier episodes of the series look rough in their details and color shading, though they get better as episodes within the series progress. The show is notable for featuring believable looking character designs as the "big eyes" facial design style isn't used and characters are shown to be anatomically correct in their details. Animation shortcuts are quite prominent in the series during battle scenes with still and reused frames, though this is forgivable as LotGH is more notable in its exploration of the strategical element to battles than the action side. The show's soundtrack mostly consists of classic orchestral pieces of music used to great effect in battle scenes while making use of mellow, tense tracks for other dramatic situations seen throughout LotGH.

If you have no problem with the show's long length, Legend of the Galactic Heroes offers up the most extensive focus on many of its elements within a series that I've come across with enough focus on its characters, ideologies, history and world. It is the perfect title for any fan of space opera titles to hop onto the bandwagon for.