I won’t sing LoGH any praises and call it the undisputed crème de la crème of the Anime medium, nor will I go ahead and call it a terrible experience simply because it felt nauseating during times. LoGH is good, but if you are expecting anything entertaining to come out of it, then please don’t watch it. This Anime barely has any action or plot twists of that sort, and while the occasional “surprising” death appears here and there, it barely makes up a percentage of the huge catalog of episodes this Anime contains. From this introductory paragraph alone, one would guess that LoGH has several strong points to it, but also has weak points as well that people seem to overlook most of the time.
The strongest point regarding Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and the element which elevates it above many others, is that it takes itself seriously and sticks to it. It never sacrifices logic for entertainment of the audience, and it never falters or has any plot holes or plot conveniences. The characters may speak in gibberish mary sue dialogues at times, but one has to take into consideration that these characters are appointed generals and admirals at the end of the day, they know what they are doing and what they want to achieve, so it only feels natural for experienced admirals to know what their work job is. As for the complaints regarding the characters being “stock”, it is only logical for them to not express many emotions, as the emotional catharsis and the over the top reactions were not the thing this OVA was striving for. This Anime was trying to be as serious and as realistic as humanly possible at the end of the day, so it had to stick to a hackneyed feel with these characters. Would a politician act the same way a teenager acts when faced with a grand political situation? No. This is what Legend of the Galactic Heroes was striving for with it’s stoic characters, especially is the case with a character called Paul Von Oberstein. Oberstein’s whole purpose was to act cold, calm and collected, due to the fact that he wanted to achieve his end goal instead of letting his emotions get the best of him, it was only natural for him to act this way at the end of the day. These characters are not stock, nor are they underdeveloped or stoic, as they never needed to be developed more than they already were in the first place, and I feel that this is what people are missing when talking about them. Achieving realism in a story is a hard monument to achieve, especially with the fact that these characters never needed to express staggering amounts of depth or emotion, but LoGH does it well enough. As much as people like to complain about the stock characters and the lack of emotion in this franchise, not all LoGH characters go with that trope, as there are some exceptions for characters who exhibit some form of emotion and feel more human than the Galactic Empire, those characters being the entirety of the Free Planets Alliance. The Free Planets Alliance are the side who battle it out with the Galactic Empire for the entirety of the Anime. From the Free Planets Alliance, Julian is explored and develops, as is Yang, Frederica, Mashengo, Schenkopp and some others as well. This makes the contrast between the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance feel much more organic than it already is, as it shows how strict the Galactic Empire is in comparison to the Free Planets Alliance, who live by loose ideals. The Free Planets Alliance’s loose ideals are all the more supported by Yang Wenli’s loose attitude and his lack of formality, from the way he sits to the way he scratches his head and speaks ill of himself.
Another strong point which Galactic Heroes has, is that it is an intriguing work. Both of the political sides, the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance, are so charming and full of potential, filled with many unique looking characters who exhibit many memorable actions, to the point where it becomes apparent that the viewer wants - no - needs to see a side win the whole war. Galactic Heroes intrigues the viewer to finish the story, regardless of it’s very long run and the other flaws it contains. When the Anime starts to show a death or two during the beginning, it lures the viewer in with the bait, and the viewer becomes attached to said bait, wanting to see more characters die, or wanting to see a side finally end the whole war and achieve victory, even when that takes a considerable amount of time for them to do so.
As for the weakest part regarding this Anime, it is the fact that it is excruciatingly slow and overly analytical. There are some episodes, which could have been easily skipped and summarized in one to two sentences only, such as the historical episodes which show the previous tyrannical ruler of the Galactic Empire, or the episodes where they show Reinhard’s internal monologues with himself and him reminiscing over a dead loved one. These episodes or certain moments could have been skipped, skimmed or just not been repeated, since they are unnecessary to the grand scheme of things. One would argue that Reinhard’s inner monologues were necessary for Reinhard’s character to grow in the eyes of the audience. That is true, but those same inner monologues could have used some padding out, as the Anime repeats this melodramatic sequence several times throughout it’s run, which turns it rather trite.
I mentioned earlier that some fans do complain about the characters being mary sues, and how they aren’t really mary sues due to their position and experience. What I didn’t mention is the fact that the LoGH characters speak in pretense and in quotes that come out of thin air, which in turn borders them on being mary sues. So, in essence, the LoGH characters are not really mary sues, but they can act as such at times throughout the series. For example, a character from the Galactic Empire will bring up a quote such as “A mouse cannot live amongst a lion no matter how hard he tried” in relation to a betrayal that happened within the Empire. Some quotes that are famous as well are “Don’t speak the human language when you’re but mere pigs”, “Once the lid falls off, the boiling soup will spill over and all that’ll be left will be chaos” and “Those Isehorn stray dogs must have barked for so long they thought they became wolves.” I do admit that they are cleverly implemented quotes, but they make the characters much less believable, leaning on unrealistic. The characters feel less like generals and admirals thanks to these quotes, and more like philosophers or professors, which isn’t what they are supposed to be.
The third flaw that Galactic Heroes suffers from is the slow pacing and the incomprehensible amounts of dialogue littered throughout it’s long one hundred and ten episode run. There is barely any action as I have stated above, as most of the Anime focuses on dialogue rather than movement, and that takes a lot of exertion and focus on the viewer’s behalf. You can’t skip a moment during Galactic Heroes because of the colossal amounts of dialogue and info dumps it contains, as every moment is crucial to the grand scheme of things. The unnecessarily slow pacing does not make the info dumps fare any better, turning it into a chore to watch for some, rather than something one watches for enjoyment. It is a logical show, not one made for entertainment. An example of this would be a battle sequence taking up more than several episodes to commence and end, and the admirals taking their sweet time in explaining what their strategies and ways to win are, and all of this could have been done in just one episode, rather than being stretched over to three episodes just to make it as realistic as possible. To Galactic Heroes’ credit though, it was striving for a more realistic approach rather than the over the top war story, and it certainly succeeded in what it wanted to achieve, and felt that way at the end.
The fourth and final flaw which Galactic Heroes suffers from is religion, or rather it’s portrayal of religion and religious men. Galactic Heroes tries to paint religion as something that is evil for the sake of being evil, and it tries to make the viewer believe that religion is the sole reason for why wars occur in the first place. This makes it’s portrayal of religion look rather inane, and it goes against what Galactic Heroes was striving for in the first place. Some viewers and hardcore fans who have went deep into this issue have pointed out the fact that Galactic Heroes only portrayed the religious leaders as the ones who wanted to cause wars and bring destruction, and that it wasn’t religion’s fault. That would be giving Yoshiki Tanaka, the original writer for Galactic Heroes, way too much credit. The way religion is presented in this show is atrocious to say the least, especially in comparison to what the series excelled in at the end of the day. It makes matters even worse that the non-religious characters act more competently than their religious counterparts. For example, the admirals of the Galactic Empire object to some of the things that the Kaiser has to say and to some of his orders, whereas the followers of the Bishop blindly follow his commands until the very end of the series. It does not work like that.
Mentioning other flaws that many picky viewers have pointed out such as the two dimensional plane battles would be pointless since everyone has mentioned them already. It is also apparent that many viewers have picked up on the similarities between this and George Lucas’ Star Wars, and some have called out LoGH’s narrative as being wasted potential. Mentioning these points would be pointless, since they have already been mentioned to death. Also, just because there is a story about a war that takes place in space, does not make that story a Star Wars rip-off.
Now that we are done with all the ups and downs this series has, let us get into the technicalities part of the Anime. The audiovisuals are half-memorable. When I say half-memorable, I am only referring to the musical part of the technicalities, and not to the animation part. The music is of course, you guessed it, well known classical music and orchestral pieces. From Beethoven to Mozart to Chopin, every classical piece is included. It is a treat to listen to the soundtrack of this Anime, especially due to the fact that the orchestral pieces fit in perfectly with the scenes that they are placed in. The openings are much better than the soundtrack part as well, especially is the case with the memorable second opening. As for the animation, it is flappy and inconsistent as well, but that really isn’t something the producers had control over at the end of the day. It is old, and it should be excused as such, and even when there were better produced works at the time, those works were rather short and needed the high budget due to the action they contained. Galactic Heroes is a dialogue heavy series, it doesn’t have any action, so it doesn’t need a high budget. When Galactic Heroes showcases action scenes, the animation alone becomes strong enough to carry the gore and those scenes. The strongest aspect though, when it comes to LoGH’s technicalities, is none other than the facial features and the way both the characters and the ships are drawn in. The characters look human, from the realistic hair colors that the producers chose, to the realistic facial features and expressions that the characters exhibit, and it helps with the serious tone that the OVA was striving for.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes, at the end of the day, as I have stated in my introductory statement, feels more like a book rather than an Anime. It is inflated with many details and contains way too much dialogue for it’s own good. On a positive side though, this helps the Anime achieve the sense of realism that it was striving for, but on the negative side, it makes it boring to watch for those who are unwilling to go through the mental torture of reading twenty minutes of dialogue spanning over a hundred and ten episodes.
I can see why many people would sing praises to Galactic Heroes as being a bold masterpiece, and I can see where others are coming from when they would call it average or even give it fairly low ratings. It has many positives, but also has negatives that some people tend to overlook. As for me? Galactic Heroes feels like the epitome of a passion project. It struggled with gaining fame, it struggled with studio switches and many more issues, yet the producers gave it their all to producing a hundred and ten episodes of the highest caliber they could produce. Is it perfect? No, but it does deserve some of the praise it receives, regardless of the flaws it contains.
