Jul 11, 2018
Anyone who's aware of basic facts about the world we live in should know that politics is a fundamental aspect to our lives. Our daily routines of going to work, spending money at our favorite restaurants, speaking with our friends, and traveling are all things which politics determines. War being merely politics with the added component of violence, is also a fundamental determining factor in what kind of society people live in. War can be politically transformative or a means of preserving the political status quo. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is, at it's core, all about politics and war on a galactic scale, and
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it fully fleshes out those themes, and doesn't merely use them as a backdrop for the adventures of individual soldiers, like you can find in countless mecha anime, for instance.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes pits autocracy (modeled loosely after 19th Century Prussian autocracy) - the Galactic Empire, against democracy closely resembling our own in the West - the Free Planets Alliance. Battles as fought up to the 20th Century are recreated in the war of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and people familiar with military history can find plenty of strategies analagous to those used in the great wars of history.
Questions about the launching of a "just" war, the conditions of victory in war, the comparison between the desirability of an autocracy with a benevolent and competent monarch versus that of a free democracy plagued with corruption and internal division are all explored by the characters in this world. These characters have to live with the consequences of how they act based on their answers to all these questions, and so their exploration of them come off as believable, and not just as Tanaka preaching to the audience.
The character cast is rich with amazing, unconventional characters unlike the generic, traitless main protagonists anime nowadays are burdened with. Reinhard von Lohengramm isn't anything like the passive anime protagonists most are familiar with, he's someone who grew to hate the dynasty he grew up underneath, and made it his life's goal to destroy that regime and bring massive change to his nation and to the galaxy as a whole. He's the original Lelouch, and I'd say the superior version.
Yang Wenli is more of the everyman - a guy who doesn't have any great ambition of personally bringing change to the galaxy, he'd just prefer to settle down and study humanity's long history since migrating into space. He's reluctantly pulled into war, which he clearly has a skill for perhaps even exceeding that of the legendary Count Lohengramm in the Empire. Yang has an extraordinary talent for the just and competent use of power, but it's clear that he'd much rather follow than lead, if given the choice.
Yang and Reinhard are surrounded by dozens of other well-fleshed out figures, Reinhard most significantly by certain members of his family and friends that influenced him deeply in his drive to reform the Empire, alongside his subordinates (the affable and loyal Mittermeyer, the jaded badass Reuental, the outwardly-stoic Machievellian Oberstein), and Yang by members of his family, his protege Julian, and a handful of comrades with whom he shares tremendous mutual loyalty with. Both are also surrounded by their domestic political adversaries, who exist as relatively unique products of their respective systems of government, and are interacted with in ways unique to each character's personality and politics.
The story spans the decisive years of the war between the FPA and the Empire, and is epic in scale, featuring poltical machinations, deception, power-grabs, and all sorts of twists and turns.
As to things not concerning the narrative of the anime, it was created in the 80s and the 90s, and so the animation quality isn't great (nor is the art), but it's passable, it gets the job done, and personally, I much prefer a low-budget, hand-drawn retro style to disgusting modern CGI like we've seen in, for instance, the new seasons of Berserk. The voice acting really stands out - all of the character traits mentioned above are conveyed exceedingly clearly, and not in such a way as that the seiyuus are beating you over the head with the personality traits of their characters. And on top of that, we've got a beautiful classical score for the anime, and none of that (not necessarily bad, but definitely over-used) J-Pop we have to deal with nowadays.
If you want a slow burn, thoughtful anime will well-crafted characters that feel real in their world, and a huge focus on politics and war on a grand, galactic scale, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is definitely for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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