Ah, Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Definitely one of my all time favorites. Yes, there's a lot to take in from this show. It's not known for its art style, which isn't anything to praise about. It's known for its battle strategies, politics and secret societies. There is character development, but it is usually slow over the 110 episode span.

SPOILER: Show

The soft-spoken, straight-man redheaded offsider of Reinhard (only name i could memorise so far) has "will-die-to-make-the-hero-angst" written all over him.

That would be Kircheis, Sigfried Kircheis. He's one of the main characters.

On another note, this show is known for having a ton of secondary characters, with many of them well explained and in depth. Many episodes are devoted to one or more of these characters entirely. The first couple of times they appear, their name is usually present on the bottom of the screen, so it makes remembering them a little easier.

As for the soundtrack, let me show you how large it really is. Both the FPA and the Empire sides have their own soundtrack boxsets.

http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/ginga/t_side.html
http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/ginga/d_side.html



The Empire side soundtrack is 12 discs long and costs 18,000 yen, which is about $200.



The Free Planets Alliance soundtrack is 10 discs long and also costs around $200, making the entire soundtrack 22 discs long. This is undoubtedly the longest soundtrack I've ever seen. Granted it's full of classical music, but that still doesn't defeat the fact. There are torrents of this available everywhere now.

It is a great series. There are several movies, as well as two OVA's that were made after the main bulk of the series (24 episodes and 28 episodes long). The OVA's deal with the lives of Reinhard and Wenli before the Battle of Astate in the beginning of the series. The sheer number of characters, plus the complexity of all the politics involved is what I love about this series.

Merridian wrote:oh man I keep meaning to get Endless Odyssey. I saw all four vols at a store a few months ago, but for some reason didn't pick them up.

I found vols. 2-4 for real cheap in a shop not long ago, so I caved.
Perhaps it didn't quite live up to my expectations to the very end, but it was an exciting trip anyway.

He also did Metropolis, which was supposedly fun to look at but otherwise a failure of a story. I haven't seen that, though. :(

I guess that was also my impression when I saw it in the theater... I wanted to like it, but ended up finding it didn't quite live up to the hype. I have the DVD though - maybe a rewatch will change my mind...

@Tines: Now I have to find out what this Bantorra thing is... what a curious title.

Legend of Galactic Heroes: I've heard very good things about this series. Must check it out at some point.

Has anyone else been watching both Hellsing Ultimate and Kuroshitsuji?



Speaking of Hellsing, gotta go watch the latest installment...

Ironfoot wrote: It's known for its battle strategies, politics and secret societies.

That's what i'm expecting from it, so it sounds like i won't be disappointed.

making the entire soundtrack 22 discs long.

That's... imposing, to say the least.

SaltyJoe wrote:That's... imposing, to say the least.

Not the only imposing thing about it -- there's the price of the on-going recent Blu-Ray re-issue (box 1 of 4 weighing in at nearly six hundred US dollars).

LiLi wrote:find out what this Bantorra thing is... what a curious title.

From what I have picked up so far, it is made of "Hamyuts Meseta wo korose" and "Everybody dies".

Watching Kenshin. It's really a blast from the past that is very good.

A friend’s loaning me Eureka 7. It kinda blows. I’m 10 eps in and it’s… I dunno… with a premise so bizarre, I’m wondering how they could go wrong, but between the superfluous characters, blatant rip-offs, and (predictably) the melodrama, I’m wondering if I should keep up with it. I feel like I’m watching a train wreck. The art is nice (color palate is strange… wtf is with all the pink?), design is alright, but the actual story’s been really so-so as of yet. He says it gets really trippy weird at the end, though. I’m hopeful.

Meanwhile, Macross Frontier > everything else I’m watching. Even Oniisama E, which has been great. I’m more than halfway thru MF, but just shy of the halfway mark of Oniishama E. These take priority over E7 anyway… hope to finish ‘em this week :)

Just drop E7, it doesn't get any better. It's one of the rare instances where I sat through it all thinking that it would get better, but in the end, I just want all the time I wasted watching it back. I think I gave it a 5, and I can't think of a single positive thing to say about the series.

^:) I watched the raws as well. Too bad I didn't understand a word of it

Ornette wrote: Just drop E7, it doesn't get any better.

Yeah, I’ll drop it then. That sucks.

---------
Eleven reasons to watch Oniisama E/Brother, Dear Brother (spoilered for image size, not for content)
Dezaki is friggin fantastic look at those colors! And that composition! 'tis beauty to behold!

EDIT
Finished Macross Frontier.


...yes, I DO remember love.

Left a full review on MAL that can be found here. :)

Merridian wrote:Finished Macross Frontier.


...yes, I DO remember love.

Left a full review on MAL that can be found here. :)

Excellent review and obviously I agree with the judgement. There's one factual error which you could quickly fix tho'

The soundtrack is easily one of the series’ highlights (though it shouldn’t be said that it is its best feature, considering how utterly well-done the series as a whole is). Yoko Kanno provides the perfect musical accompaniment to the lovely vocals of Megumi Nakajima and Aya Endo.

Megumi Nakajima (mai 3DPD waifu, hands off )did both the acting and vocals for Ranka (immeaditly becoming second best singer-seyuu - christ there are dozens of these - after THE Maaya Sakamoto. No one gets even close to her...) but with Sheryl duties were split.

Seyuu: Aya Endo
Vocals: May'n

Final episode is easily in my top five eps of anything ever of all time. It's all the reasons why I love anime distilled into 25 minutes of epic win

>...yes, I DO remember love.

Ep 24's ending scene is...spellbinding to say the least. Mesmerizing, beautiful and yet sad and terrifying

:) thanks! When I started the series I didn't intend on writing a review, but by the time I finished I just couldn't help myself. What started as a PM got tweaked into 'professionalism' and I figured, what the hell? Might as well share it.

Xard wrote:There's one factual error which you could quickly fix tho'

Oh man, glad you caught that! Thanks, it's been edited.

Xard wrote: Ep 24's ending scene is...spellbinding to say the least. Mesmerizing, beautiful and yet sad and terrifying

Ep 24  SPOILER: Show

obviously the greatest of all Frontier subversions of SDF Macross. Ai Oboete Imasuka used to doom humanity? Loveliest of all metafictional ironies...

You're not kidding! I would have been laughing at the irony if I hadn't been so caught up in how fuckin awesome/sad/badass it was. Now I see why this show warrants “foaming-at-the-mouth-awesome” status!

Full Metal Alchemist
6.5/10

This rating also includes the movie at the end. My first impression of this anime was that the art looked a lot like the art in Naruto, and for me that's a BAD thing. (Naruto is the anime I hate the MOST.) But the story of FMA was a tad darker than I had expected from the art style given to the show, so I kept watching.

The show really had a lot of potential. It was an interesting premise, and the characters seemed to have promise. But when all was said and done, I wasn't impressed.

I really couldn't connect with the character Ed, or a whole lot of other characters for that matter. I mean, they had their moments where I would sympathize with them, but they weren't often.

The budget seemed to flex a lot. It started off with some really stiff animation. As the series progressed, the animation became better. And by the final episodes the animation became really impressive. But then the story took an unexpected left turn. Don't get me wrong, I love twists at the end of stories. (I can think of very few people who don't.) But this one didn't seem to be in-congruent with the rest of the world established throughout the series, and rather stuck me as a studio's attempt at finishing off something too early.

The film continues from where the series left off. The animation was brilliant, and the story had many great moments and was very well handled. But since it continued what struck me as a bad idea at the end of the series, I can't say that I'm too crazy about the film either. Separated from the rest of the series, I might have thought the film to be anywhere between a 7/10 to even a 9/10. But the proceeding series made it feel like the writers had simply painted themselves in a corner they couldn't get out of, so I'll never really know what I would have rated that film if it was detached from the rest of the series.

For the most part, FMA didn't strike me as a bad anime. It was just one I couldn't really connect with. And the ending wandered too much.

SIDE NOTE: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood looks promising. From what little I've seen, the production quality seems better. Almost reminiscent of season one of Gunslinger Girl (which, being my other absolute favorite TV anime of all time, is always a plus!), which obviously means that the art didn't remind me of Naruto. And the studio is sticking to the manga, which I hear is better anyway. So I do anticipate seeing that one soon.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:And by the final episodes the animation became really impressive. But then the story took an unexpected left turn. Don't get me wrong, I love twists at the end of stories. (I can think of very few people who don't.) But this one didn't seem to be in-congruent with the rest of the world established throughout the series, and rather stuck me as a studio's attempt at finishing off something too early.

This occurred when the series caught up to the manga and the writers for the show had to start coming up with things on their own.

CorporalChaos wrote:

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:And by the final episodes the animation became really impressive. But then the story took an unexpected left turn. Don't get me wrong, I love twists at the end of stories. (I can think of very few people who don't.) But this one didn't seem to be in-congruent with the rest of the world established throughout the series, and rather stuck me as a studio's attempt at finishing off something too early.

This occurred when the series caught up to the manga and the writers for the show had to start coming up with things on their own.

That figures.

I just watched the OVA Video Girl Ai. It was short, yes, but it was really enjoyable and had one of the most creative endings I had ever seen for its genre. In fact, I watched the final episode again, just to really soak it in.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood looks promising. From what little I've seen, the production quality seems better.

Yes, while the animation is much nicer, the story's more of an action series (not saying that's a bad thing) than the previous one.

Other than that, while I do really like FMA, I agree with your thoughts on the series though...

Merridian wrote:Dezaki is friggin fantastic look at those colors! And that composition! 'tis beauty to behold!

Aaah, those screencaps reminded me of the reason why I must rewatch it all! See, that's why you might want to watch RoV as well...

E7: I thought I was missing out on something great, but it sounds like E7 isn't such a masterpiece after all...

I've been considering watching MF, but it seems so reminiscient of the ole Macross, it feels weird to me... Since from what I hear it has some nice surprises in store, I'll try it.

Meanwhile, I've been catching up on some GITS/SAC stuff I'd missed... I'm currently watching The Individual Eleven. Watching raws, I can't quite tell whether GITS-verse uses particularly complicated technobabble language, or I'm just rusty.

LiLi wrote: I've been considering watching MF, but it's so reminiscient of the ole Macross, it feels weird to me...

Macross Frontier will troll the hell out of you if you’re expecting a mere updated SDF-Macross. I think its impact is felt more by folks who have already SEEN SDF-Macross (glad I waited to watch it until after I’d finished Macross myself thank you Xard!), since Frontier effectively builds off of those expectations before subverting the bejezus out of them. Kicks off with “oh my, this is all very familiar territory” before diving into “ZOMGWTF WHERE IS THIS IN THE SCRIPT” (in a good way), as well as some rather important character differences (aka Ranka =/= Minmay bitchiness, Sheryl =/= Hayase’s sullen ‘perfect underappreciated girlfriend’ syndrome, etc)—and that’s not even going into how it pretty much uses every single cliché in the book to tell a story that’s lampooning, glorifying, and elevating said clichés all at the same time. It really is “new school SDF-Macross” on steroids. I even rated it higher than SDF-Macross, actually.

Not to mention a friggin killer soundtrack by Ms. Midas Touch. :)

GitS:SAC is awesome. I haven’t seen Individual Eleven, though; I almost picked it up one day but I figured it’d be redundant since I already own 2nd Gig on DVD. I also already own Laughing Man, and I wasn’t too impressed by that TBH.

LiLi wrote: Watching raws, I can't quite tell whether GITS-verse uses particularly complicated technobabble language, or I'm just rusty.

There’s a lotta wordiness in SAC, but that’s a trait shared by just about all Kenji Kamiyama projects. Moribito didn’t have as much (though it was still present), but Eden of the East had its fair share of long expositions. SAC takes the cake, though. But I like it anyway.

I also would suggest watching Macross Zero before Frontier as well.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Full Metal Alchemist
6.5/10

I really couldn't connect with the character Ed, or a whole lot of other characters for that matter. I mean, they had their moments where I would sympathize with them, but they weren't often.

That's a shame, the characters of Ed and Al were what really made the series for me, with fate constantly shitting on them and their unbreakable bond to each other making for compelling viewing. Parts of the story were a bit off but I felt the emotions were dealt with very well, something missing from the early episodes of 'Brotherhood', although the action is good, and the consequences of each action doesn't result in three episodes of LOL ANGST.

Shamballa was just silly though...

In other news I've just received my new copy of Ghost in the Shell 2.0, and wondering how much of a difference the shiny new CGI's going to make.