Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: LoGH, LotGH, GinEiDen

Japanese: 銀河英雄伝説

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Information

Type: Novel

Volumes: 10

Chapters: 94

Status: Finished

Published: Nov 1982 to Nov 1987

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

Themes: Adult Cast, Military, Space

Serialization: None

Authors: Tanaka, Yoshiki (Story), Katou, Naoyuki (Art), Kamoshita, Yukihisa (Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.62¹ (scored by 2,153 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #89²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2014

Members: 10,537

Favorites: 312

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8.62

Ranked #89Popularity #2014Members 10,537

NovelTanaka, Yoshiki (Story), Katou, Naoyuki (Art), Kamoshita, Yukihisa (Art)

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Volumes: /10

Chapters: /94

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Synopsis

In the far future, two young military leaders rise above their peers. The invincible genius Reinhard von Lohengramm is matched only by the unbeatable magician Yang Wen-li; though the two share a profound respect for each other, they meet on the battlefield not as comrades but as bitter adversaries. Commanding thousands of warships and millions of soldiers, they lead giant space fleets into battle on behalf of the two interstellar states that have wrested for control of the Milky Way for over a century and a half.

The Galactic Empire, an absolute monarchy ruled by Kaiser Friedrich von Goldenbaum IV and an entrenched nobility, seeks to suppress the rebels daring to oppose the inviolable crown. The Free Planets Alliance, a representative democracy led by a corrupt High Council, degenerates as its elected leaders⁠ use war and conflict as a way to win popular support. Reinhard is a minor noble who became a High Admiral through his strategic brilliance and his sister's position as the favored concubine of the Kaiser, while Yang is an avid historian and reluctant commodore hailed as a hero despite only using his tactical prowess to navigate around his leaders' incompetence. On opposite sides of the galaxy, the two men have wildly different visions for the future: Reinhard dreams of uniting mankind under his iron fist, while Yang wants only to carve a path to lasting peace. As the war rages on, Reinhard and Yang each strive for their ideals and secure their place among the stars as the leaders of a new era of galactic heroes.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu won the Seiun Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1988.

The series was published in English as Legend of the Galactic Heroes by VIZ Media under the Haikasoru imprint from March 8, 2016, to November 19, 2019.

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Reviews

Aug 31, 2023

TAMNI-GT

Recommended

LOGH is a gray work in its judgment. It questions and criticizes 2 main systems and discusses individual freedom and happiness in the face of this. Thus, it brings with it the selfish goals in a sea of stars swallowed by the void, with several adjacent meanings, be it to perish as a supernova being the legend of the universe, to become the sun to guide the next generations, or to prove itself the pathetic black hole. who swallows the ambitions of others around him. All manifestations of selfishness that govern the laws of the universe!
So, in more obvious terms, reading LOGH, it's like a ...

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Jul 11, 2021

Noahboy

Recommended

It's no easy feat to make ten novels so consistent in quality, but Legend of the Galactic Heroes never seemed to dip in quality for the three years over the course of which I read through this series.

The whole series is written in a way that feels like a recording of historical events with bits of commentary added in from a historian's perspective. This commentary also isn't shy about foreshadowing future events to build a sense of dread in the reader which really made things more interesting for me at least. This series also has a way of writing character deaths in a really cold ... and objective way that hits brutally hard. It's not shy about criticizing characters' actions and noting multiple historians' opinions on certain events which is interesting and encourages the reader to make their own opinion on the characters and their actions throughout the course of the story.

The scale of the story is also huge and covers a lot of the political aspects of the various wars that occur over the course of the story. At first I had a hard time following the political aspects of the story, but I did come around and eventually found them to be extremely interesting and thought provoking. The scale of everything definitely makes it hard to follow at first because there are so many characters to keep track of at first and some have similar enough names that I found myself confusing many characters together, especially among the admiralty in the Imperial Navy. But this problem got lessened as I got further into the story and more familiar with each character as a result, so it's more a barrier to entry than a major issue if you ask me.

I really like how the characters all feel human and all have their own flaws to go with their strengths, this makes them all more interesting than most other stories could hope to have. Some characters make massive mistakes and some characters die without realizing their goals and ambitions, and things like these make the plot fascinating to follow and kept me guessing what was going to happen next on top of hurting my feelings at certain parts.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes has very little to fault, I'm shocked to look back on the series and realize that once I got behind the politics of the story, there was never a boring part of the series. It feels super unique and definitely earns its ten novels of length to the grand epic that is its story. The only warning I have for people interested in it is that it may take some time for them to get into it like it did for me due to my initial confusion following the politics and the massive roster of characters. It's also worth noting that the ending is one of the most satisfying endings to any story I have ever experienced, and I would like many others to get that same feeling I did when I finally finished reading the last page.

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Jul 23, 2024

typewritermonkey

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

Spoiler

LOGH is a space sci-fi set over 1500 years into the future, but is noticeably inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms (ROTK), set 1800 years in the past. The author Tanaka is apparently very into Chinese history and has translated a couple of classical chinese texts himself, and apropos, LOGH reads like a projection of Chinese history onto the cosmos, despite the obvious borrowing of German aesthetics.

I dug into the novels with high expectations, as I was tired of reading unambitious and gimmicky light novels, and on that front, LOGH paradoxically both delivered and disappointed. Starting with the good: the scope of active players, ... their motivations and intrigues, their interactions with each other, were indeed complex and believable. With such a large cast, Tanaka did a fine job of choreographing the actors on and off the stage. Particularly impressive were the contrasting parallels of Yang and Reinhard, whose trajectories and struggles were so unique to themselves that they did not seem to belong in the same book, much less as rivaling protagonists. Tanaka demonstrated the typical Japanese aptitude of retro-futurizing, unraveling the ROTK storyline and reweaving it with European and sci-fi elements into something aesthetically pleasing and highly original. I doubt most readers or watchers of the anime realize how much the plot rhymes with ROTK's, but even if you are aware of it, it won't negatively affect your experience. There are no issues with forced Japanese elements, which is common in Japanese writing non-Japanese settings. In fact the cosmopolitanism completely excluded Japan, minus, if I recall, one quote or historical reference. He did a good job of writing a post-national, post-racial story, and it was certainly the level of maturity I was looking for.

Before moving onto the bad, I want to mention the translation, or its inconsistency. The English translation features three different translators. Huddleston, who is credited on the volumes 1, 2, 3, and 7, was passable. I would occasionally lose focus reading longer paragraphs and have no idea what I just read, but this was not frequent, until the next translator, Grillo. With Grillo, who worked on volumes 4, 5, and 6, this became a constant struggle, which is quite unfortunate because 4-6 was in the thick of it. The last translator, Treyvaud, who did the remaining 8-10, brought a noticeable improvement to legibility, but by then, the plot was already winding down.

LOGH has several weaknesses. It doesn't offer anything new, whether to sci-fi, to its inspiration ROTK, or to the political ideologies that it so heavily depends on for the plot. Democracy, the raison d'etre of Yang's faction, felt like a cheap battle cry Tanaka was using to move the plot, and in the end, only quibbles were made about its importance and weaknesses relative to its alternatives. There were some nihilist observations, but they didn't go anywhere. The sci-fi setting was barely leveraged. Besides FTL travel, the only other progress humanity had made was in the discovery of "Seffle particles," a highly volatile gas(?) that explodes when disturbed. Aside from a few tactical uses in battles, in space, everything else was 20th century tech.

Additionally, the narration style became increasingly grating over time. It had the habit of reintroducing and repeating character descriptions every time they appeared. By the 9th volume, I was so annoyed at Tanaka for the excessive minor character chatter, as if his biggest priority was making sure I believed they truly behaved as how he had just described them, that I seriously considered reading the spoilers just to be done with it. What is worse is that most of it really did end up being unimportant. Next, the omniscient narration would frequently spoil you with what was about to happen before it actually did, slipping into documentary mode mid-action, and inserting passages from the characters' future memoirs into what was currently unfolding. It became exasperatingly self-indulgent. And once the fates decided a character was finished, they were stripped of previous agency and unceremoniously killed off. Of course, shit happens, life goes on... these motifs are lifted directly from ROTK, but LOGH's execution makes it much more insufferable. The broken record descriptions, untimely banter, and DVD commentary are entirely Tanaka's dreadful additions.

But ultimately, the real issue is LOGH took an easy way out. Once he finished writing about Yang and Reinhard, Tanaka didn't have anything left in the tank to say, except filler. Without a real thesis to all the ups and downs, and hard hitting questions that were asked but left unanswered, the narrative caved in on itself, and crippled its own legacy. Overall, LOGH was a chore to read and not interesting enough to warrant revisiting.

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Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu
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