The anime explore every aspect of a guerilla war for independent: troops and officers recruitment, propaganda, supply lines, politics,.... Of course, some of the elements weren't as detailed as it is in real life, and any history and military nerds can pick it apart, but every thing still hold together as a very believable epic war story. This is also one of the few mecha anime in which combined arm tactics is important. The main mecha is just a cog in a machine, not the win button.
Realism aside, what is truly important for fiction is still story and characters, and this anime has it. The show has some of the best villains of all time. None of them are simple "I want to destroy the world" assholes. They are real people with complex motivations and desires. Once again, this anime got on my good side for having actually competent military commanders on both sides. All of the main cast are likable, although kind of bland.The story is slow moving, but became very engaging later on, as question like: "Is the sacrifice worth it?", "what is a true victory?", "how much power human have in the course of history?" were asked. Despite looking silly, this anime is very intelligent.
Unfortunately, the Dagram has some serious flaws that caused it to be forgotten. First of all, production value is bad, even by 80s standard. It look worse than Gundam 0079, which is 2 years older. The music is decent, but very repetitive. The story, as I said above, is good, but the build up is too long. In the age where most anime is only one cour long, this old anime took 3 cours to truly get going. Plenty of modern audiences will likely be very bored by this series. There are lots of 80s silliness and immersion breaking moments as well. Sadly, Taiyou no Kiba Dagram didn't age very well.
To sum up, this anime's one of my favorite, but it might not appeal to many. Because of that, I will list the pros and cons and let reader decide for themselves:
Pros:
-Intelligent story
-No over-powered mecha
-No annoying characters
-Great villains
Cons:
-Slow pacing
-Very long
-Lots of inappropriate silly moments
-Some plot armor and contrivances
-Poor animation and repetitive music
