Reviews for Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (8.65) 6t3x3s

You may as well skip the rest of this review, because the bottom line is this: this is the ultimate military and sci fi anime to date. There is no other anime that can outcompete it in this genre and this is a universally accepted fact at this point.

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes) is a 1988-1997 anime that many consider to be the best and most sophisticated anime to date. While there are a multitude of reviews for this anime, I thought I would give it a go as well. That said, this anime is far more complex because of its length and, and as such I doubt I will cover everything there is that can be said about the anime here. Additionally, there are a ton of reviews for this anime that cover in the very least the facts about it quite well, such as the historical prototype of the planet Phezzan, and so I will not go into those too much either. I do not feel I can add too much to what is said in those reviews. Apparently there is even an academic work covering such themes in this anime by a polish man. This review is mostly my impressions from the perspective of cinematography. One thing I will say right off the bat, is that one has to be careful with subtitles in this anime, as I feel some translations are better than others.

As far as I am aware and as was said earlier, this anime completely outclasses most military-futuristic anime as well as political anime or even most live action work for that matter. By that classification I mean popular anime like Code Geass, Attack on Titan, Youjo Senki, or 86, the latter being representative of a more modern series. All of these anime bring forth somewhat overlapping ideas and they fall far short in the same fields of thought as compared to those in this anime. They also fail to achieve the same levels of execution in direction and plot. In the very least I have not come across anything that comes even close. To be sure, it tackles a very ambitious premise and executes it well. That said, at a length of 110 episodes, it is very daunting to watch it fully and take it all in as a single series and is generally prohibitive to people who would prefer to casually watch anime, though it is very enticing and people who prefer to binge watch their anime will spend every second available to finish this series.

As a whole, the main thing in of themes that differentiates this anime from the aforementioned millitary-futuristic anime is that the anime overall avoids any edgyness and yet it is deathly serious on its non trivial themes and messages. It goes to the point that you not only sympathise with the 'villains' (if they can be called that) but it is always unclear for whom you should be rooting for and not because of the "you know the villain's backstory and how he came to be this way but he is still bad' cliche, which happens all too often. There are a lot of themes present in the anime, from merits of democracy versus autocracy, to Machiavellianism. It should be said, though, that the themes themselves are often looked at on the surface and there is no deepness or newfound truths, so to speak, that are shown here. Instead we get how these themes intersect and work convincingly, which is just as good. The anime tackles the various paradoxes that can threaten the existence of schools of political thought and how to rectify those paradoxes. For instance, the very existence of the perfect and just autocratic ruler in the face of Reinahard von Lohengramm already threatens the advantages of a democratic system, in the eyes of Yang Wenli. At the same time, the defender of democracy Yang Wenli is himself an amalgamation of some of the best takes I have heard of in of politics and life in general. He is also a very conceptual character in that he may not be a perfect soldier or a ruler like Lohengramm, but he is a ridiculously powerful tactician and strategist as well as completely unwavering in his beliefs. His Achilles heel is the fact that he is ready for a lot of sacrifices for his beliefs. There is also some irony associated with him as he collected a lot of his friends and allies not only through his beliefs, but through his character, which on its face is the hallmark of an authoritarian ruler to be, even if he defies any such transformation. That just goes to show that even good would-be authoritarian rulers have their place in a democracy. Similairly, the existence of Job Trunicht shows the weakness of democracy. He was not some alien or part of any particular conspiracy. He was even worse than an opportunist, as someone who had nothing even vaguely relating to honour as part of his character, and thus allowed the Alliance to fall even when it had more than enough power to fight. Both of these examples are potent. There is also an overhanging theme of warfare going back to its roots with infantry using axes and crossbows in certain situations and not having access to reliable communication in the middle of a battle. This is supposed to say that mankind will fight with sticks and stones once again eventually. This goes to the larger point of futility of warfare, in that in the battles shown, it is normally tens of thousands of ships engaging one another and firing almost arbitrarily, which results in absolutely abyssmal casualties that are measured in the hundred thousands. In episode 51 it is shown that it becomes more of a chaotic event than a coordinated action at that point. One of the more subtle and powerful themes is that people can be much more contemptable than they themselves think. If even a small fraction of anime that is released nowadays had even vaguely similar ideas, then most anime would not be relegated to one season isekai stuff, ridiculed by the community. This anime trumps any anime I know of in of its themes, in the very least those that dictate how a government should be run as well as philosophy on warfare. Compared to this anime, almost all anime I have seen only use political and war themes in the form of mere repetitive platitudes, that is if they use them.

One fun thing to do is to read the texts that are shown in the anime, like on a piece of paper that is on screen. Some of them are so random it is hilarious.

The plot to the anime is very well done and excellently accentuates certain events and characters to fuel its message. I personally have never seen a more displeasing act of government control than that of what happened to Jessica Edwards, for instance. I suppose there are a couple of uncertainties in plot, but they are by far overshadowed by the merits of the plot and its tenets. It should also be noted that only twice in the whole anime do the authors show faster-than-light travel, despite it being mentioned earlier and clearly necessary for travel in this universe. This seems to exist as a given.

One aspect that makes the plot really successful is its pacing. With 110 episodes, the director had ample time to play his plot out fully and develop characters, not to mention tailor the direction to the music perfectly. For instance, with the case of Reuenthal's child, such a plot twist and all the other associated developments would not mean nearly as much (and are almost cliche on their own) were it not for the fact that Oskar von Reuenthal has been extremely and patiently developed as a character. There are quite a few such plot mechanisms that rely very heavily on them being executed patiently that would not work or would be cliche otherwise. Nowadays very few anime can maintain such pacing.

There are quite a few references in the anime to military lore, especially what appears to be the military history of the USSR. An FPA pilot was named Ivan Konev, a pretty obvious reference to a famous WWII Soviet commander. In a flashback to Yang Wenli's academy days, he can be seen looking at pictures that seem to depict the Eastern Front as well as possibly the Afghan War. A lot of the names of Imperial officers also vaguely correspond to famous German generals, though that is far from accident. Even Yang Wenli's story of wanting to become a historian which then turned into military leadership is reminiscent of Vo Nguyen Giap, a man who is credited with the defeat of about 4 different nations at the hands of People's Republic of Vietnam. A lot of places also resound of famous battles, such as Hotel Batavia on Phezan. An Alliance carrier is called Ameretat, which is a term in Zoroastrianism denoting that ancient religion's concept of immortality, which is ironic since that carrier did not last.

The direction is impeccable, especially in the battle scenes. I felt Antonin Dvorak's 9th Symphony Op 95 reverberate through my bones in Episode 15. In fact, episode 15 is an excellent example of how many "battle events" can be shown properly within one episode, something very few anime directors succeed at. This anime can compete with Star Wars in of direction with relative ease, though I would be hard pressed to say which one is a better series. Despite ample opportunity for shock scenes, the director used them very sparingly in order to suddenly show them in places like episode 51 to hammer a point across very effectively so much so, that that scene is more tragic rather than shocking. This puts this anime apart from Attack on Titan or 86, where gore is there simply for shock value and show generic and edgy "reality of warfare" type of thing with no overhanging motif. In particular in the case of Attack on Titan, because shock scenes have been overused, the viewer gets numb to them.

The animation looks very archaic as compared to modern anime obviously, owing to it being rather retro. It does take some getting used to, but it is detailed and fluid for most part. The animation quality and even some of the characters designs are somewhat inconsistent throughout, but that is because this anime took a decade to air. This means that Yang Wenli can look completely different a couple of episodes on, from a curved chin he goes to a more oval head with massive eyes, especially in the first half of the anime. The 4:3 format is also outdated and requires patience from the viewer. Many of the scenes containing spaceships have been reused as well in other episodes. Thanks to the animation and the direction, though, the viewer has a pretty decent time of following the various space battles, because it is not chaotic. The space battles do at times look a bit simple, because quite often they break up into ships simply exploding to indicate who is winning, which feels a bit primitive to do too much. Compared to a non-anime movie, Star Wars was quite a bit more creative and daring in its direction, thanks to Lucas, but he focused on following individuals through battles, with the battles themselves serving as more of a backdrop, whereas here the characters are directly in control and engaging in these massive battles. It should be noted that while it may seem that there is not too much gore and shocking scenes, this certainly changes with episode 52. In particular, the deaths of alliance crewmen in that episode is not something one can easily forget. This scene is also a very good example of how to use a shocking scene to underpin the ideology in the plot, unlike the 1st season of Attack on Titan, for instance, where it seems that the gory scenes were just a backdrop or a situation for the characters. Overall, while the direction is great, the animation is outdated and inconsistent, which may drive away some people from watching this anime. Animation is definitely the weakest part of this anime, though I feel they did what they could with it and did it well for the time and the massive amount of work.

There are several OPs and Eds throughout the anime, but the third ending was the most memorable for me. It showed what life Yang Wenli wished for. As the ED progressed and the music continued being dreamy, characters appear in the scene that are unlikely to appear as they were in front of Yang Wenli in his civil life. It soon cuts to Julian Mintz watching these scenes almost like a memory.

The characters in this anime are impeccable. Even all of their names sound so distinguished and yet natural, even the minor ones. That said, it is annoying that for most of them you have to actually their names, as there are quite a few characters. Louis Mashengo's repetitive eternal wisdom of "Humans cannot go against their fate" is notable and oddly fitting, that is for sure. Another thing I noticed is their likability. There are not really any characters who suddenly turn bad or the other way around. Simply put, most of the characters are very likeable and in general can be seen as very good people, but those characters that are shown as bad are literally presented as the worst things to exist. Probably the only mistake made in regards to characters is that some seemingly important characters are not given enough attention, such as Fyodor Patorichev of Katerose von Kreuzer. This also applies to Lao, who appears to feature more prominently in the novels and even in this anime he is recurring. Had they and other similar characters only had more dialogue, then the characters of this anime would be even better as a whole. For Patorichev to be given relatively little attention is also a shame, since he features quite prominently in the Spiral Labyrinth arc of the Gaiden series.

The OST is somewhat unique in that it almost entirely consists of either OPs and Eds or classical symphony music. Such music includes works by Frederic Chopin, Antonin Dvorak, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, among others. The precise music can be found on the many Spotify playlists relating to this anime. The symphony music is used very well and timely by the director, and I will never forgive them for that because I have found quite a few works by Mahler and Dvorak, but every time I listen to them, I instantly get thrown right back into the scenes from this anime. One thing to note is that AniDB lists the record brand VEB Deutsche Schallplatten in the credits to the music, presumably the classical ones. This record brand was a monopolistic enterprise in the German Democratic Republic. Among other things, I feel that even this adds more of the Prussian feel and adds to the political aspect of the anime, considering that Prussia was part of the GDR. Since GDR ceased to exist in 1990, it would make sense for that record brand to be able to sign an agreement to license the music for this anime, which started to air in 1988.

The legend of the Galactic Heroes is a product of tremendous ambition and extremely skilled execution in writing to back it up. If you are a fan of strategy and politics in anime, then I couldn't think of a better title, even taking into its length and age. In this respect, it probably even trumps Code Geass, not to mention inferior and more edgy titles like Guilty Crown, that just involve these aspects simply as erstwhile plot mechanisms. It is also better than Youjo Senki, which has a relatively fresh setting, but is still just a pompous attempt at exposition of WWI style combat. In of dialogue between Prussian officers, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu outdoes Youjo Senki by a mile, if you are into that. With all of this in mind, it is a bit sad to see this anime fail to gather the same kind of classic status as other anime of the time and is instead relegated to a relatively obscure series, held in high regard by those that have watched it, but one that seemingly does not appeal to the general audience, contemporary and present. It seems that this is why the Die Neue Thesis series has been greenlit, as not that many people will link it to this anime at this point and it will seem newer than it is. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of fan material made for specifically this anime, such as a wiki page (not hosted on Fandom, which is kind of quaint) and a mod for Sins of a Solar Empire, the latter of which, unfortunately, has not been updated in over a decade. To end this, I will agree with one of the earlier reviewers, greenobeano, in that this anime certainly has reconfigured my own scale by which I judge cinematography as a whole now. I can't bring myself to doubt that this anime is better than my "best" anime, but it certainly ravaged everything below that in my list and placed itself solidly at number 2. The curse of this anime is that having seen it, one will automatically compare other anime to this anime, and god forbid that the anime in question has any political or war themes.