The story of Legend of the Galactic Heroes follow the protracted war between the The Galactic Empire and Free Planets Alliance with a stunning degree of depth. You will know why the war started, who started it, why they started it, and why it mattered. What you might wonder is: why does it matter to you? This is where the main problem with LoGH arises, and the first problem with the story. This is a series of details, not entertainment, not development, not provoking ideas, but details. This is where LoGH gets its staggering 110 non-filler episodes. It is a slow-crawling assault of information, completely useless to the viewer. If you enjoy fictional history, this will not be a problem for you. You'll even be treated to several episodes of literal fake history lessons, in a documentary-style format, with interviews from fake historians and everything. Having fun, yet?
The second problem is actually with its characters. They fall into only two categories: Mary Sues and trying too hard. The main characters, Yang Wenli and Reinhard Lohengramm, can twist probability and reason in such ways that would make the characters in Gurren Lagann blush; they can do no wrong. Yang Wenli is outgunned to some astronomical degree like 1 to 100 most of the time and he wins because of "superior strategy" or "morale" which is never actually depicted, but more on that later. Julian, Yang's boy servant, can also do no wrong. He'll commandeer warships with little or no effort, and the writers never try to disguise this; when a character dies in LoGH, it isn't because their personality or choices brought them to error, but because Reinhard and Yang want them to die, or it's allegorical enough.
This is where trying too hard comes into play. Look no further than the character Poplan, where you'll notice it first. He's horny, and he will appear in no scene without reminding you he likes women. That's his only trait. Oberstein will go through every scene looking suspicious only to have absolutely no payoff through the entire series. An even greater insult to this cast, though, is Fredrica Greenhill. She blatantly admits she's useless aside from making sandwiches and tea. We get it, these are one-note characters. Besides the Mary Sues, you cannot care about the cast, making over half the characters uninteresting; most of them just serve as vehicles for the three main characters to spout more of their ideals, anyway.
Besides, how does "morale" make a difference to Yang? Does morale make lasers stronger or weaker? These are space ships; morale has no bearing on the functioning of mechanical things. Morale barely has an effect on weapons in our time, much less in the future. Yes, everything you heard about the tactics in LoGH is a joke. They use simplistic, planetary ideas like "circle around behind them" or "don't tell them about our main fleet," and apparently, that's very impressive to a lot of people. You won't need to worry about this, though, because action is sparse in LoGH. Yes, our Mary Sues prefer to drink, eat, stare out windows, and philosophize for most of their screen time away. You ever wondered how Yang feels about democracy? You're gonna know. You're gonna know over and over again.
The third issue with the story is that it's entirely implausible. There's only two ways for the enemies to cross into each other's territories, and they never really explain why other than "we'll die." Wars are lost and the remnant survivors are still seemingly able to combat the enemy for the sake of plot. Also, in the future, wars are waged with axes and armor, lasers are less lethal than bullets, and everybody lives like it's the 1900's. LoGH exists in some strange mindset of the future where we got into space (somehow), developed some very limited mass-communication, and all personal military technology stayed in the Middle Ages. The show Star Trek did it better in the 1960s, and even changed the world we live in with its ideas (like the wireless communicator AKA cell-phone). What is LoGH's excuse? It doesn't have one, it's just not creative enough. One would think, given the absurd amount of historical and political babble, that this show would've given equal care to imagine life in outer space, but it doesn't.
While the creativity and story of LoGH is sickeningly weak, the art doesn't fair much better. Classic and orchestral music scores carry the scenes well, but can't save them from looking bland. The characters are barely animated, even compared to other anime of this era. True, there's some shocking scenes of gore randomly spread about, but the action mostly come down to short bursts of lasers, explosions, and blood effects. It lumbers monotonously, but it does it to a classy sound-track.
So, apparently, the only attraction of this show is the dialogues between the Mary Sues. Indeed, they touch on a lot of philosophical and political subjects that are more relevant now than they were when the show was made, but this raises the question: why aren't you just reading about politics? The ridiculous scenario of this story's conflict, and the sheer "eminence" of its main characters makes it impossible to take seriously, yet it commands you to, and that's its ultimate downfall; all of LoGH's flaws could work if the show took itself less seriously, but it's direly serious, and so are its flaws.
Let's sum up. The main attraction for Legend of The Galactic Heroes is the ability for one to say "I watched something from the 1980's that nobody's heard about or cares about." Then, one can say "It was mature and intelligent, despite the fact I learned nothing." This show is a waste of time as entertainment, an example of what not to do with a show about the future, space, philosophy, politics, and the human condition. It lacks feasibility, it lacks imagination, and it lacks catharsis. There's a reason only MAL and hipsters care about LoGH, and everyone else knows Star Trek and Star Wars. Those had vision and creativity that inspired scientists and the generations to come. LoGH has 110 episodes nobody watched, flat characters nobody would recognize or identify with, and a literal universe of wasted potential.
