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delta_ass

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes

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As far as sheer scope and ambition and world building go, it's hard to find anything to match the anime LOGH. Based on a series of acclaimed novels by... some Japanese guy, the four season, 110 episode run of the main anime series (there are supplementary side stories that add another 52 episodes to the total count) was painstakingly released over a period of 9 years, from 1988 to 1997. While ostensibly about a bunch of Admirals fighting space battles with huge fleets, it's really just a canvas to allow for a meditation upon the nature of democracy versus authoritarianism, and questions whether a poorly-led and corrupt democracy is actually favorable to a well-led, meritocratic dictatorship. This is some heavy stuff, and you might question whether it comes off as ham-handed or preachy in the course of the show. Well, I think it's a fair question, and you'd be right to be skeptical if these themes were introduced over the course of a two hour movie. It might indeed end up feeling incredibly blunt and inorganic. Yet since LOGH has the entire breadth of 110 episodes to deliver and develop on its ideas, they end up being carefully woven into the fabric of the show to where it feels mostly natural and unobtrusive.

One of the LOGH movies is titled "My Conquest is the Sea of Stars." If this were used in some franchises, it'd probably come off as pretentious and overblown, yet it feels completely appropriate in LOGH. The overarching plot unfolds across vast empires and with a cast of over a hundred named characters. The truly immense interstellar battles do indeed feel like they take place over a sea of stars. Fleets of thousands of starships fill out the vast canvas of space like tiny pinholes in the curtain of night. While there are some actiony Star Wars-esque scenes from time to time of individual fightercraft dueling one another in the lonely void between larger warships, the emphasis is clearly on the macro view of the battle, with thoughtful admirals manipulating wings of a thousand ships at a time with the tranquil wave of a hand. The show is a vast departure if you're used to something like Star Trek, where a single ship can make a difference and often seems like the entire universe, with every corridor and engineering room memorized like the back of one's hand. In LOGH, there's simply too much to show to dwell on the layout of a single battleship.

Like a jigsaw, the individual pieces are somewhat baffling and might not connote much importance, yet slowing piecing them together gradually reveals the masterwork. This is the attitude you have to take with LOGH, which is completely worth the 110 episode investment, but individual episodes start slowly and bring in characters whose importance might not be felt until 15-20 episodes down the line. This grand approach to the universe requires patience and dedication, but also gives it a nuanced scope and scale that other series may never match. Just be ready for a slow burn, the first 5 episodes are especially plodding in their pacing.

What I really enjoy about LOGH is that it tries to stay away from a lot of the awful tropes of other animes. There isn't a young teenage boy who's the central hero. The main protagonist here is an actual adult. Sure, he's still a really young admiral, but hey... he's an adult. Later in the series, they slightly go back on this, but for the most part you won't feel perplexed by watching a series where all the important characters are teenagers trying to act like elite soldiers. There also aren't any ridiculous samurai robots with lightsabers or interdimensional starships transforming into giant robots or little school girls singing about love. The LOGH starships are very utilitarian looking and fire lots of lasers in straight volleys, old school naval style. It feels hard sci-fi, at least to a certain extent.

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