Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an old ass OVA series spanning 110 episodes which elitists or 'cultured' anime fans deem to be the greatest anime of all time.
The hype surrounding this series is silly, the way fans rave about it especially.
Many viewers about the series complain that the first 20 episodes or so are boring. It is mainly build up yes but that's not what I had a major problem with. Even from episode 1 or 2 you get too much exposition and detail from the narrator. I'm all for having a narrator, shows such as Kaiji and Hunter x Hunter use narration
...
to produce an effect that works and isn't boring. Thankfully there is less info-dumping from the narrator as LOTGH runs it's course. The director of this series doesn't know the meaning of "show don't tell" at times. This isn't supposed to be a book, yes it was based off a novel series but this is an animation where we are meant to see characters talking and performing. You could slip any necessary information in the characters' conversation, that way it would be much more interesting than a narrator reading sentences of information. You might think I'm being a bit harsh in criticising this, I disagree. The narrator doesn't just explain there is a war going on, he explains every little circumstance that is troubling the FPA and the Galactic Empire. It is just lazy and would be far more interesting to show these problems than to tell them us. Thankfully not every episode has infodumping....but when it does it gets even worse than the first two episodes. We'll come back to this later.
At the start of the series and for a while commanders that aren't the MCs (basically not Reinhard or Yang) are inept at commanding an army and make dumbass mistakes. You basically know the winner if Yang or Reinhard fights one of these cretins. Under the Goldenbaum empire you can understand it to an extent since the commanders are there because of their aristocratic blood, not prestige but the FPA has no excuse. And it's not once or twice, for about 30 episodes anyone who isn't Yang or Reinhard will make a shitty mistake and they will capitalise off it. The formula for each battle doesn't make it interesting despite the 'clever tactics'.
Something that doesn't change throughout the series are the lame side characters and minor villains. The minor villains only appear near the beginning but they are boring and are one dimensional villains. No doubt some arse-licker of the series will say that "it is supposed to resemble history because that's how people were", that's just bullshit. With that logic you can excuse almost anything in the series and say it's historical symbolism. Plot armour? Historical symbolism at it's finest! It took a while for me to like characters such as Julian whose personality seemed to be non-existent in the first 40 episodes of the series. He likes talking about politics. That's his character. Thankfully this changes later but the point is that other side characters are just as boring as this.
The plot armour of Yang is also very irritating. After the 1st act Yang never strategically loses a battle (the one where he 'loses' because Heinessein doesn't count since he won strategically). Despite Reinhard having a much bigger army when he was successful he is bullied by Yang on every occasion. Yang's tactics are good don't get me wrong but Reinhard seems to fall way too easily for someone who is supposed to be a tactical genius also, Reinhard uses the former finesse he had and rarely uses tactics other than send a shit tonne of ships to attack. Yang too OP. If this was any other anime where a character would be continuously undefeated they would be criticised but not in LOTGH (until now). Yang isn't the only one, many characters are saved in the nick of time such as Reinhard when he is about to lose to Yang.
Now let's talk about the history lesson episodes....the joy. There are multiple episodes that have no plot progression at all and just talk about a fictional history that you couldn't care less about. Again as I mentioned with the info dumping, there are many better ways to tell part of the history of this universe without a f**king history lesson. LOTGH forgets it's trying to tell a story with a plot and characters and focuses way too much on exposition. The reason why people drop this series is mainly due to this I believe.
Obvious death flags are also a thing in this series. As soon as we see a character starts showing affection for their family they will die sooner or later. A prime example of this is the fat Galactic Empire commander who attacked Iserlohn. He has a moment with his family before he goes to war and dies. Not only is this cliche as hell, it is a cheap effort to make the audience feel sympathy for a character that has no personality or nothing remotely interesting. He was so sh*t that I can't remember his name, all I can remember is that he had a massive head.
The drama at times is also pathetic and cringy. It's like in the LOTGH universe (which is set in the future) has Victorian Era standards of relationships. When Reinhard asked Hilda to marry him it was so unpleasant to watch, and her father says something like "I wonder if they did it right". I don't think that was a line that was intended to be funny, like who's father would say that about their daughter lmao? Okay this is nitpick territory I know but it doesn't change the fact most of the women in this series are only good at making sandwiches
I do not consider it a true masterpiece but I can see why people can overlook the flaws to do so. The themes are simply amazing. So it is fine to call LOTGH a masterpiece but please be aware of the flaws and tone down the hype for this series. This anime is certainly not for everyone, perhaps for a cultured few. Oh and Index is better. True masterpiece.
TL;DR Nothing more than two garystu characters spreading toxic masculinity in space.
Jun 1, 2019
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu
(Anime)
add
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an old ass OVA series spanning 110 episodes which elitists or 'cultured' anime fans deem to be the greatest anime of all time.
The hype surrounding this series is silly, the way fans rave about it especially. Many viewers about the series complain that the first 20 episodes or so are boring. It is mainly build up yes but that's not what I had a major problem with. Even from episode 1 or 2 you get too much exposition and detail from the narrator. I'm all for having a narrator, shows such as Kaiji and Hunter x Hunter use narration ... |
