Democracy is for losers: It's Legend of the Galactic Heroes!

[Galaxy News Reidio]

I couldn't find a thread dedicated to everyone's favourite Gay Prussians In Space, so here we are. Like LoGH? Hate it? Go nuts.

For those of you who haven't watched it (and it's pretty formidable, I'll grant you), Legend of the Galactic Heroes could be described as anime's War And Peace. A deep and at times harrowing examination of just what a state of conflict can do to nations, families and individual people - and, perhaps worse, what eventual victory and defeat can do to soldiers. I heartily reccommend it, despite its slow pace and cast of hundreds.

[DevRei17]

I've considered watching this. I hear its awesome sauce.

[Ornette]

It is incredibly awesome. The 10-12 minute long space battle in "My Conquest is the Sea of Stars" that's set to Ravel's Bolero is probably the best space battle in all of anime.

[toe mash]

I'd really like to watch it in the future, I've heard nothing but good things about LoGH.

But it has one of the most insufferable fanbases, ever. Seriously, they're even worse than NGE's, and you guys suck. Just kidding

[Xard]

To be honest I too am surprised there was no thread yet for "The Best Anime Ever Made", as it commonly seems to be looked at.

Not that I've yet seen it: I hope to get to it in next January or so with February being the deadline. A lot depends if I watch it or Monster first.

I watched first couple of eps years ago when I was just getting into animu and couldn't get into it because it moved so slowly and art felt weird to my newfaggy eye (hadn't seen 80s stuff before).

@Ornette: I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Noburo Ishiguro is notable anime director for being able to read scores etc. which has always given him possibility to skillful usage of music. This IS the man who directed Macross, after all.

[Hyper Shinchan]

I've watched it this summer, aweseome anime but I have to disagree, democracy is for winners! I really loved Yang Wen-li, just like him I always liked story (and brandy), the anime started disappointing me after

SPOILER: Show

he died

but not just for that even the rhythm changed and for both reason I found the last part less interesting.
Anyway Viva Democracy!

[Galaxy News Reidio]

Sieg Kaiser Reinhardt, alliance scum!

[Hyper Shinchan]

Kaiser Reinhardt was an excellent ruler but you can't know if his successor will be as good as him, better than him or the worst autocrat that history has ever know.
Democracy is a system that has inherently the basis to improve itself (when I heard Wang talking about these things I started to tremble).
I won't deny that Reinhardt had a good charisma but I liked him only until

SPOILER: Show

Siegfried died

.

[Galaxy News Reidio]

I'm not a rabid fanboy or anything, I just enjoy a good in-character argument every now and then.

I'd certainly prefer to live in the Alliance if I had to choose.

[Merridian]

I keep meaning to watch this, but its length continues to look daunting. I half-promised myself to at least start it after I finish Zeta Gundam, but then I also half-promised myself to watch Zeta Gundam after I finished the first series (and that was some eight or nine months ago). Oh well, I'll get to it eventually.

[BrikHaus]

I'd watch this series, but the length scares me. That's what she said.

[Ironfoot]

I have watched this beautiful masterpiece of a space opera twice now. LOGH has unrivaled plot and character development for a science fiction that leaves a very realistic impression on its face, despite a single glaring hole (the lack of alien life forms in the entire galaxy). While there are smaller issues (the earlier episodes had pretty bad animation), the quality of everything else easily makes up for it.

If you have the time and the patience to sit through all 110 episodes, then I definitely recommend experiencing this. It is one of the greatest space operas in all of anime. It is something you will never forget.

The side series (A Hundred Billion Stars, A Hundred Billion Lights & Spiral Labyrinth) are smaller candles to a greater fire, but burn brightly on their own. My Conquest is the Sea of Stars is a must watch movie. The only movie to be wary of is the outsourced "Golden Wings" which takes place during the 5th(?) Iserlohn encounter. The art is noticeably different and the overall quality takes a considerable plunge.

[LeoXiao]

I'm torrenting this. My subs suck but it's okay since my version also comes with a mandarin dub which clears up anything the subs miss. LOGH is pretty good, but it so far it seems like everything's going too easily for the protagonists (hopefully we'll have some twists later), and somehow the political intrigue seems too scripted and clean to be realistic, though it's still enjoyable.

[Dr. Nick]

My subs suck but it's okay since my version also comes with a mandarin dub which clears up anything the subs miss.

There's absolutely no reason to watch badly-subbed LOGH because there are really good Central Anime subs available. I strongly suggest deleting whatever HK crap version you're currently watching and torrenting the CA batch. This show deserves the best.

[LeoXiao]

Cool, I'll look into that.

EDIT: By the way, LOGH isn't licensed outside Japan is it? I heard that copyright laws in Germany are strict and I don't want to get fined

[symbv]

I don't like the topic title, but LoGH is fascinating. I would not say I saw the anime, because I only watched a couple of episodes. But I also read some of the novels and read quite a bit of writings about it. Personally the animation style is not really my cup of tea, but granted it was from the 80s, I guess it can't be helped. When it first came out, no one thought the whole novels (10 vol of them, not including the spinoff) would be animated, the exploding cult popularity had a lot to do with its success.

This work is epic in every sense -- it is the longest series that have ever come out in OVA form. All 110 episodes were on OVA and not first aired TV. The whole series took 4 seasons and 9 years to finish. After the 110 episodes, there are still another 52 episodes of OVA and 3 movies of side stories to go (covering another 5 volumes of novel). And it used so many seiyuu (particularly male ones) almost without repetition that in Japan it has a nickname "Legend of Seiyuu Galaxy". It used a very innovative sales strategy nicknamed "weekly video" in which anyone who paid for the OVA series in advance got every week a VCR (we were talking about pre-DVD pre-Internet age) that lasted 1 minute or so about latest update of the anime. This helped to cement the loyalty of the fans and encouraged more to reserve OVA in advance.

The story is also epic, there were >3000 years of pre-Imperial history and then almost 400 years of Imperial history lasting 30-something emperors. In the whole series not fewer than 30 major battles were described in details. Gigantic battles could involve tens of thousands of space ships (the biggest one >100,000) and casualty figures reached hundreds of thousands (some >1,000,000). And most of them accompanied by grand and rousing late Romantic classical pieces like Mahler. I am not particularly fascinated by the military side because too many seem to be a copy of some famous battles in the past like Cannae or Guagamela, so I don't really see how "genious" those legendary generals are, but that's just me. The court intrigue is a mixture of the east (some look like Chinese dynasty succession - particularly how a relative of a beloved concubine managed to exploit that to power) and the west (the democracy ideology is one; the uprising of the feudal lords is another). The story necessarily move slow because there is so much to cover. Animation is adequate, but I would not advise anybody to watch it for the space battles.

[Dark doom]

Cant say I've heard of it......Oh, my....

[BornIn1142]

It's not quite one of my absolute favorites, but I would call it one of the best anime ever. Me and a friend of mine concurrently marathoned it in the summer of '09, doing five episodes a day for 22 days straight. It was an unforgettable experience, really. As I was watching, individual plot points bugged me quite a bit, but in hindsight, I have nothing but appreciation for the idealogical complexities and the epic battles. (Though the mostly pathetic female characters still kind of bug me...)

I'd certainly prefer to live in the Alliance if I had to choose.

Actually, it kind of seemed like the Empire was keeping the general level of technology available to the citizenry down, didn't it? We never got a very good look, but I got the impression that some planets were literally forced to live in quasi-19th century conditions, and not just regarding fashion and architecture.

[slothen]

second favorite anime of all time. Its awesome. Epic in the correct sense of the word. Required viewing. Seen it twice.

[MasonFighter]

I just watched episode 26. A single manly tear was shed.

SPOILER: Show

Many bitch tears will be shed when Yang dies, though.