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Visuals & Atmosphere - This adaptation has the most cubicle office worker art direction and presentation I’ve seen in anime. If ships aren’t departing or Reinhard’s hair isn’t the focal point of a couple frames, the animation is gonna look stiff but consistently being on model. I personally found the designs of the ships and armor bland at best. In what possible world is the imperial’s armor being made to resemble skeletons not extremely corny? Star Wars can get away with this because its demographic has always been twelve year old boys, while this story clearly has an older target audience. The real visual strength ... is the backgrounds for how they portray the setting. Something mundane like the endless void that is outer space will have the atmosphere of a grand black sea before conflict starts. The scene where Reinhard gets more news of Oberstien’s actions after almost getting assassinated again in episode 89 is my favorite in the visuals department. The sunset lighting really ties it all together.

Tactics - I’ll be so real. These are tactics I’d be impressed with when I thought Ash Ketchum was a prodigal genius for memorizing and preparing for a type weakness in a Pokemon battle. Only eight year old kids will have their mind blown in this area. The writing going into tactical warfare is amateur. I’ll slightly cheat by bringing up an encounter from My Conquest Is The Sea of Stars. Reinhard and Yang are portrayed as geniuses for doing basic research on the gas planet they fight on. The tactics don’t make people look like prodigies, it makes the average admiral look ignorant and/or arrogant rather than somewhat competent. Are we supposed to be impressed when somebody does their homework and learns the first thing to know about a planet? Whenever Reinhard and Yang lose fights it's because someone on their team goes full Leroy Jenkins or their opposition makes a simple misstep. A possible defense for this is because nobody in the war expects to win or make any progress towards ending it, explaining widespread complacency and carelessness among the armies. To this I say your victory is only as great as your competition. The straightforward structure of the battle sequences isn’t the issue here. The issue is these are characters meant to be portrayed with a keen eye for detail and an insanely high intelligence. Instead they just appear unimpressive whenever they aren’t against each other.

Philosophy & Ideology - The story will often go on philosophical explanations after characters have their little back and forth antics. I welcome these as they’re always at the right time and comfortably eased into with compelling points on corrupt democracy vs beneficial dictatorship. To my memory the show consistently portrays every admiral suicide to be done out of cowardice and without honor. This is one reason why the scene where an older admiral attempts to take his own life but is talked out of it when his subordinate suggests his fleet will answer for his shortcomings after death is powerful. The idea of prolonging certain death to save others is nothing new in war stories but that scene gives honor to admirals living for the purpose of taking punishment over troops. This is especially impressive today considering concepts like honor and chivalry are seen as decrepit in and out of fantasy/space fantasy/sci-fi stories. Funny how it is my favorite scene in the show yet I can't remember the names of the two characters in it. Speaking of names…

Characters - None of the women are interesting so I won't talk about them or use their names. Unfortunately they're basically all subservient to men. I only tolerated Julian and his love interest because they bear a surface level resemblance to Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade with their designs and rocky first interactions. Yang studies history so it may not be repeated. Every time he thinks about resigning it's a whole dilemma that's interesting on a personal and ethical level. I respect the guts it took to kill him off but the story became less interesting as a result of his absence. Reinhard is very much like Ulysses in how he’s built for war and dies of illness when it ends in his favor. He is a man who accomplished his goals in ways that went against his dream. His death was a slow but certain one after his adversary perished. There was never a dull moment with Oberstien after he aligned with Reinhard. Reuenthal is a bozo who knocked up a lady that tried to kill him. He most likely did this because she reminds him of his mother and he has a terrible perception of love. Reuenthal's friendship with Mittermeyer isn’t believable because the ladder is a normal well adjusted person while the former is deranged. The best thing I can say about Mittermeyer and Julian is that they exist. The worst thing I can say about Mittermeyer and Julian is they exist.

Legacy & Final Thoughts - I can tell Reinhard is the template for characters like Lelouch from Code Geass and Edelgard in Fire Emblem. Yang likely inspired Captain Tylor. The dull earth cult likely inspired every cult in Fire Emblem that wants to resurrect an evil purple dragon. The DNA of this story’s characters and philosophy can be traced through a ton of media. The narrator is used very well by chiming in when there is information that isn’t explicitly stated by characters, shown to the audience, or to elaborate on knowledge we already possess. This may not sound like much but it goes miles in preventing reading subtitles from being redundant. This is a story I’ll recommend and revisit with a few asterisks due to the length, especially around episode 50 where the length of each episode goes from 20 minutes to half an hour. Coming from a person who drops stories regularly, I do not regret the commitment.

This is not a story or parable. It's a shallow think piece that was born from a lonely fantasy the creator had. It has likable characters that bond organically. It brings up interesting concepts of reincarnation, war, myth, history, evolution, memories, and love while not making a single point on any of them. I read this three times and initially enjoyed surface level aspects while questioning why something about it felt hollow. I realized while walking my dog an hour later that the manga had no lesson to derive meaning from. The closest it gets to something meaningful you can take away from is when ... it acknowledges ideas a person may have given no attention to before reading.

Spare me the trite "you actually didn't understand it" kneejerk reaction.

The reason Ema smokes? So she may forget the memories she considers a burden. The manga brings up smoking harming your memory for this very reason. The reason the first encounter takes place on a boat at sea? Ema was born as a bacteria from the sea and she is reborn metaphorically with a new mindset from the time she spent on the ship. This plays into the reincarnation theme. The reason Ema and the protag bond so fast? The protag is dumb and honest which was charming to Ema as seen when she laughs at him for not understanding the husband lie. She also just projects her former husband onto him. The reason Ema left the protag behind despite liking him? Ema used the protag to kill time and bail her out of uncomfortable scenarios initially, then he became a tool to ease her burden. The amount of time spent is insignificant to her because time doesn't equate to value. What matters is what occurred in the experience, not the length of it.

Anyone can bring up grandiose subjects or layered concepts. It takes effort to actually make a discussion on them. While the manga has charming characters and art, it only works as an indulgent fantasy for people that wish they met a super hot and mysterious girl that opened up to them because they want people to know how secretly genius they are. I don't hate or love this manga, just apathetic.

You can't have a competent story with a horribly written protagonist.

Manji isn't the main character. His goal isn't the focus. Manji's goal isn't even worth mentioning. He'll complain and moan, but go along with some dumb girl and accidentally flirt with her because he's an unambitious hobo that stopped putting effort into fights due to being carried by immortality. At least he's honest about being a bloodthirsty adrenaline junkie gremlin. Despite being an immortal who's literally claimed to have met a ton of idiots like Rin before and turn them down, he warms up to Rin by projecting his dead sister on her. He ... doesn't actually like Rin (I mean who would tbh) but he does but he doesn't but he does since no actions are taken out of any hint towards the idea of him disliking or not valuing Rin.

The protagonist is a meandering indecisive girl who doesn't put substantial thought into her values or actions. Rin is genuinely so trite and insufferable whenever she decides on something before quickly backpedaling at an obvious drawback to a decision and/or mindset. She's overly sentimental, even getting bogged down by thoughts of dead people her bodyguard kills despite them being known murderers and rapists. She can come off as pretentious by how she loves to indulge in the moral and social high ground, the scene where she demands an apology from a rapist serves my point. When Anotsu points out an obvious contradiction in the relationship between her ideology and actions with the use of her weapons, I was left wondering why she never chose to train with a sword for 2 years instead of the one trick pony throwing knives. She had 2 years to think about all of this, and her thought process sucks. She had 2 years to train for this, and she can't fight no name thugs. Rin considers an alternate history, one where if she could know her weakness from the start she wouldn’t go on a revenge path. This is blatantly so asinine so I just won't go into detail why. The story goes through the motions of a typical revenge story with everyone telling Rin it's not worth it multiple times, just beating it over her head really. Rin is insufferable. She'll genuinely be baffled when a clearly stronger opponent rocks her world, then cry after being bailed out. Somebody tell this braindead sack of tears to hit the lab or hit the hay.

Anotsu deserves a better manga. He's somebody who rightfully grew to hate traditional samurai values but took the best aspects of them to form his own ideology. I've grown fatigued of the term "deconstruction" but that's what he brings to the table and it's quite entertaining. His ideas were well thought out and he had an honestly heartwarming relationship with Makie who was another interesting character.

This manga isn't worth your time due to the played out ideas behind Rin and her insufferable characterization.