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I have never written a review, but this anime just blew me away so much, I think it's finally time.

This review was slightly revised on July 28th, 2024 to be a little more coherent. The original review was posted on June 15th, 2021.

TL;DR It was bad.

It was in fact so bad, it almost cured my crippling anime addiction.

I, like many others, was drawn to this anime due to its high rating, and equally high praise. I was in the mood for something a bit more serious, with clever writing, smart characters, political intrigues, and conspiracies. I was disappointed in every aspect.

Obligatory "no, it did not ... get better after 20/60/109 episodes".

At the risk of beating a dead horse, the first sign that something is off was that the battles in 3D space were, in terms of tactics, in 2D (save for maybe one or two). Now, sure, it would be hard to write and show these to the reader/audience - but if it that's the case, do not write your epic in a space setting. From what I understand, the series is a nod to Napoleonic wars and strategies, but in my mind, that is no excuse. Heck, I would even ignore it had it not been for the fact that "Oh no, we are surrounded!" is usually a major turning point in the battles, and then the audience can clearly see that if the losing party just went up, or down if feeling a little adventurous, they would easily be able to retreat.

This show is a shining example of famous doctrine of "tell, not show". To be fair, there is a part of me that enjoyed the report-like summaries from the narrator, but I feel that these were overused. There also seems to be an issue with the show runners misunderstanding what "foreshadowing" is. Hint: It is not foreshadowing when the narrator blatantly tells us a fact in an ominous manner, as he tends to do at the end of every second episode. In short, I have some mixed feelings about that part.

Some light spoilers follow.

Then, there were the Replicants. I mean, the Alliance. Long story short, at one point in the story they get defeated multiple times, lose a majority of their units, are left with measly numbers, but keep engaging the Empire and _winning_. This seems ridiculous, as it seems they always have the exact same number of ships left as they had a few battles ago, but we also are told that they have no means of getting new units. Full disclosure, I haven't done the math on that - frankly, because I don't think it's worth my, or anyone's time.

But the Empire is not problem free either. My major issues are with the senior staff of, who are mostly a bunch of half-wits, or reasonable people who become half-wits, because plot advancement, I guess. Probably the only character I looked up to was Mittermeyer, who actually was came off as mostly reasonable, with logic that I could follow, decent advice, and a heart of gold (mostly). Some of the major offenders in the idiot department include Bittenfeld and Reuenthal (but only in the latter part of the series). Then there's Oberstein. I disliked him initially, which was the point, I suppose. But then, I started seeing his value and believed his counsel was needed. But when I thought about it some more, I realised that Oberstein's character makes no sense. He is portrayed as being a cold-hearted pragmatist trickster, willing to use any means necessary to achieve whatever he thinks needs to be done. But the problem here is he takes it to the extreme. No compromises whatsoever. Oberstein is implied to be very smart and, being a trickster and manipulator, familiar with human psychology. As such, he should be able to comprehend that his cutthroat approach will only alienate other officers, and thus hinder the efficiency of the army. And yet, for some reason, he tends to wear this as a badge of honor. Having that one jerk-who-is-always-right is perfectly fine, but not when their jerkiness is in direct opposition to what they are trying to achieve when portrayed as smart to be trivially be able to recognise that their outward behaviour actively hinders their schemes.

My final gripe is with Reinhard. At first, he is an in-universe tactical mastermind. A prodigy, a genius. But then, for no reason, he suddenly isn't? It's not even that he stopped taking active part in battles - he is on the battlefield essentially every chance he gets. He just asks the people around him for advice, and then says "Indeed, please do that". I guess, yes, that _is_ what the senior officers are on the bridge for, but we get no insight into his own thought process - he just parrots his advisors' orders to the fleet. No matter how absurd.

To conclude, it goes without saying that I did not enjoy this series. There were moments when I had hope and thought to myself "Is this finally when it gets better?" only to be disappointed.

Do yourself a favour, and go watch something else.

Micro update:

I still get flashbacks when I randomly stumble upon anything related to this anime. It's been over 3 years since I watched it and my opinion of it still has not improved after "aging" in my mind. The unfortunate part? I still remember most of the plot. It just stays with you, for better or for worse.