For one LotGH had a score that was entirely classical musical (with no exception except the endings and openings). They had a classical piece for almost every scene and it was all appropriate. It never felt forced or pretentious either.
Instead Die Neue These has its own score and it's really boring and at times awkward. One of the major appeals of this show is the music and it got ruined.
Also the character designs were changed severely. It seems like the demographic of this remake is for girls and that they turned it into a fujoshi version of LotGH.
For one, they made Kircheis a Chad with a deep voice and a really intimidating ultra serious almost robotic person. In the OVAs Kircheis was a big softie and a sperg and very gentle. This new Kircheis is like a terminator in comparison to him. Also Kircheis always looked like a sperg and awkward in the OVA but they made him way too cool in this one (and thus boring).
Since the episodes are a lot less they condensed a lot of events and much is missing. For someone who didn't see the original nothing will seem rushed to you (the story flows smoothly) but having known what was cut it's really unacceptable to me.
For example the massive fleet battles instead of showing all of the destruction it's pretty much just some talking scenes and a few key battles between specific officers (but not the massive fleet warfare you would see in the original).
The art style of the Empire is ruined because they went for a medieval theme when it's supposed to be 1800s/early 1900s Prussian. The Imperial palace of Neue Sanssouci isn't a palace at all anymore but instead a really tall castle which clashes with the Prussian uniforms the characters wear.
Fraulein Mariendorf is also ruined because in the original she was portrayed as a very awkward woman but now she looks like a typical OL you'd find in any anime.
Frederica Greenhill is cute in this but looks kind of generic and they made her tackle a member of the Rosenritter (the strongest ground forces in the entire series (one of these men is worth 15 regular ground soldiers in combat)) after he sexually harassed her. This scene was really out of place and never existed in the books or the OVAs and she's not the kind of person to get violent with someone on her side. She's supposed to be really mousey not throwing giant muscular men over her shoulder. It seemed like blatant feminism inserted.
The Empire this time around is extremely boring while the FPA is interesting because they have new scenes of the civilian life on Heinessen. It's cool seeing Yang Wenli in his car and walking on the sidewalk. The scenes with Julian (his adopted son) at his house are way more detailed. In fact there's probably an entire arc of Yang Wenli's home life.
As a fan of the original series which didn't really have such scenes (they were there but not as indepth) it was kind of cool. But slow scenes like this that are dialogue heavy and are "slice of life" will make it really boring in a rewatch (the original is extremely rewatchable because of the lack of these "slide of life" scenes that pretty much all modern anime are about now).
The battles are really boring because of how condensed they are now with how few episodes they had for what they had to cover.
The CGI is also awful. Sure it's really shiny but shiny and flashy is a cheap way to make the graphics seem impressive.
The original series was way more impressive with how detailed it was considering it was all hand drawn. So seeing lots of strobe lights and spinning stuff on the ships doesn't impress me compared to how beautifully drawn the ones in the original were.
Also the Alliance uniforms are not as good. Instead of Green bomber jackets, white khaki pants, black boots, berets, and white scarves they now wear these pea coats (traditional navy coat I know) that look like they're made out of polyester.
I don't like the blue. I preferred the greenish black bomber jackets from the original and the scarves. The original had more of an Air Force theme to the FPA while this new one went more Navy.
Aside from that the FPA new character designs aren't that bad. Yang got a little softened up but he's still recognizeable. Schenkopp also looks 10 or even 20 years younger but I like his personality more in this adaptation. Cazellnu is different (way more of a sarcastic jerk) but the change is also welcome (not because it's better but it's not necessarily worse), he at least stands out more now.
I also liked the way they handled the Iserlohn infiltration in this series. In the original Schenkopp blew it halfway through and they had to end up fighting dozens of soldiers before they could secure Iserlohn after the lockdown was initiated after they siezed the bridge. In this series Schenkopp killed the soldier who would've activated the lockdown prior to him pushing the button as he was reaching for it.
They did it for time reasons (since it would've took another episode to cover getting the lock down reversed by resetting the Iserlohn main reactor and fighting their way to there) but in the end it made Schenkopp seem cooler with how smoother this infiltration went.
However we lost one of my favorite scenes in the process, when Schenkopp while grappling down the reactor plunged nearly to his death and ended up hanging above a woman in the civilian city within the center of Iserlohn who looked up and smiled at him and he smiled back before activating his grappel which zipped him back to the reactor level. The city itself was beautiful and extremely well animated. In this new series you wouldn't know that Iserlohn housed a civilian population.
It's worth watching even for someone who watched the original but you would really be cheating yourself if you watched this instead of the original.
Perhaps for someone new to the series it would be a good start but they should instead watch the original first.
I feel bad giving it 5/10 because it does bear the Legend of the Galactic Heroes name so I will give it 6/10 (which is the score I would give this series if it was its own standalone anime).
