Legend Of The Galactic Heroes episodes 1-110 (complete) + the
My Conquest Is The Sea Of Stars &
Overture To A New War movies + the 24-ep.
A Hundred Billion Stars, A Hundred Billion Lights & 28-ep.
Spiral Labyrinth side-OVA's (...whew!
):
Wow. Yes, this was quite a journey (one that took me several months to complete)-- but man, was it ever worth it!
Now, as most of you probably know at this point
, I grew up on sci-fi, and thus have always dearly loved the genre (indeed, to this day many of my favorite books and shows happen to either be set entirely in or use elements of it); so that, combined with how fantastic literally everyone I've ever heard talk about LOGH says it is, *plus* a direct recommendation of it to me from you guys, as well
, made me quite excited to finally experience this classic for myself. And it was indeed every bit as epic and awesome as everyone has said!
That said, in full disclosure, I actually didn't really warm up to the series until the characters started getting fleshed out in episode 3 (in fact, those first two episodes were my least favorite ones of the entire series), but then it started to get real awesome, real fast-- and only kept on getting even better and better from there!
The characterization in this series is fantastic. From often-hilariously-snarky Alliance personnel, to scheming Imperials, to opportunistic Phezzani, to slimy politicians (or even just various citizens) of all sides-- whether they're honorable, terrible, idiotic, brilliant, or any number of shades in-between, and whether you love them, hate them, pity them, or are just simply intrigued by them-- all of the characters are interesting.
Also (and this is not a spoiler-- I mean, it's a show about a war, and features countless characters' deaths within it; you shouldn't assume that anyone's immune here), this series has a remarkable gift of making certain quite-
expected deaths quite-
unexpected in their timing/circumstances. (All I can say there is wow...
)
And that's just the characters. The main thrust of this show is about the conflict of beliefs-- specifically, autocracy vs. democracy. That said, both types of governments are very realistically corrupt, and the ideals and flaws of both systems are examined in detail. What's even more interesting is that there is no real conclusion on which system is (and various elements thereof are) better, even by people like Yang-- which provides quite a bit of food for thought.
And then there's the fighting itself-- ranging from hand-to-hand combat to full-on massive-scale fleet battles, real strategy and tactics (including factors such as supply lines, troop morale, fleet positioning, and etc.) are not only employed but are vital.
Indeed, the sheer realism, detail, and depth of all the politics, strategy, tactics, and etc. in this series is incredible. (In fact, it doesn't even matter if the entire episode is just dialogue {though obviously there's plenty of action as well}-- every single ep. is completely fascinating!)
On another note, I both found it interesting and also quite liked the fact that while the intelligence/plans/etc. of many of the military leaders are very intriguing, and rightfully held as brilliant-- and while Reinhard himself is, as the series describes, "a man of the battlefield," and is at his most happy/interesting when working against an opponent-- war/fighting itself is not glorified at all (more like the opposite, in fact). I think it's pretty darn impressive that a series which is basically devoted to war-- and which (both plot-wise and character-wise) derives a lot of its appeal from how fascinating the resultant politics/strategy/tactics are-- actually doesn't glorify it (or its effects) whatsoever.
And then, to top it off, all of this is set to a backdrop of classical music-- each piece perfectly chosen for its respective scene.
SPOILER: Highlight text to read: Including one particularly magnificent moment in the finale, which featured one of the best uses of the Moonlight Sonata I've seen in any media to date. It can't get much better than that.
As for the
My Conquest Is The Sea Of Stars and
Overture To A New War movies, it was great to see certain people again; all of the new, extra characterization (especially in the latter film) was excellent; and I was both pleasantly surprised and also quite impressed by how
Overture somehow took my two least-favorite episodes of the original series and actually turned them into one of my favorite parts.
And then the two side-series served to flesh out both a few previously-referenced events as well as a whole bunch of backstory ( + even *more* character development-- which I didn't realize was even possible at this point, LOL!
) on certain characters. They were really great additions to the saga, and I quite enjoyed them. (Oh, and it was neat how the end of the second side-series kinda makes you want to go rewatch the entire original series/etc. all over again, too...
)
So, yeah, TL;DR: Everyone should watch this. It's awesome.