This Week in Anime

What is Legend of the Galactic Heroes About Anyway?

Nick D
I'd say I'm around a Sitting On The Desk Of The Enemy Base You Just Effortlessly Took Over

Yang is a cat in human form, that's how. He's smarter than every other person in the room, but he's too lazy to give a fuck, spends half of his life napping, and constantly sits on stuff he's not supposed to.

Paradoxically though, he also has zero chill.

Yep, we're taking a look at Production I.G's fancy pants reboot of the infamously eternal LoGH, and I'm actually pretty excited to get into it! I've always felt intimidated by the sheer length (and anecdotal dryness) of this particular title, so it's been interesting dipping my toes into the new remake.

Technology has finally given us the power to render the same CG model hundreds if not thousands of times and we're gonna use it dammit.

But yeah, DNT's production is decidedly polished in the way you'd expect from Production I.G It's not huge on animation set-pieces, but there's a lot of effort put into making it always look Nice, including the lengthy segments of faceless spaceships firing color-coded lasers at other equally faceless spaceships. At least that was my impression after the first couple episodes. Frankly, I was more hankering for a Ken Burns-style documentary series detailing this enormous galactic war instead of the more conventional structure, but DNT has turned out surprisingly compelling since then.

I'm a total newbie so I can't really comment on that, but I can assume that originally the backstory of this tiny bisexual ketchup packet wasn't in the 3rd episode?

Ah. I kinda thought the show had been adding more stuff with Reinhard and Car Keys to keep them relevant, since so much time had been spent with Yang, but I guess it's the other way around. Either way, I've appreciated LoGH taking its time to develop the human element of its setting. Its reputation and introduction had me expecting a more sterile history lesson with lasers, but I was pleasantly surprised when the bulk of DNT was spent establishing the motivations and daily lives of its cast.

I was very relieved when he started calling bullshit.

Anti-war narratives that are also 100% about the spectacle of battle are nothing new (hi, Gundam) but LoGH is refreshing in that instead of grounding that message in abject human suffering, Yang is up front about war ultimately being a tool of the state, emphasizing constantly that the pageantry of warfare just exists to make it palatable.

Yang's a pretty fantastic protagonist honestly. For one thing, he's an adult rather than the genre's typical plucky teenager. He's been around the block and has come to terms with his role as a soldier, taking steps to handle that power responsibly without being tortured by it. Which is a pretty drastic contrast to our deuteragonist(?) Reinhard, who is decidedly less considered in his perspective.

And it's already pretty apparent that Reinhard is cool with calling a lot of shots. Directly into the bodies of his enemies. Like the series starts off with him stonecold obliterating 1.5 million enemy soldiers in order to climb the ranks for his plan to take the throne. That kind of determination is frankly unsettling.

And of course he has his supportive/codependent Good Friend there to back him up in this questionable quest.

That day, Reinhard was amazed to discover that when Kircheis was saying "the universe", what he meant was, "my heart".

This is definitely Love At First Sight if ever I've seen it.

But at the same time, the show has taken pains to show us that Reinhard is not a walking ball of ruthless fascism. Deep down, he's an angry kid who saw his family torn apart by people born into more power than him, and he wants to rectify that even if it means killing a whole lot of enemies (or possibly allies) to get it.

I hesitate to call him wholly sympathetic, but LoGH is careful to show us that Reinhard is as much a product of the system he's trying to overthrow. He's acting on his desires in the way his entire culture has taught him to, by feeding the Empire War Machine.

It's also interesting to me how matter-of-fact LoGH is about all this. Like one of the most quietly uncomfortable moments in the show is this totally relaxed conversation about a law the Alliance set up to essentially conscript war orphans as future soldiers.

It's a terrifying concept born from balatant war mongering but it's just a fact of life in a society that's been at constant war for over a century. It's presented with all the dramatic flair of a history lecture, but that honestly makes it even more unsettling. And that's kind of LoGH in a nutshell. It's a story set in a world that's already been consumed by war—but not by destruction. It's a fascinating portrait of two distinct but incrementally similar societies that are built around warfare as a tenet of everyday life. It clearly doesn't approve of that, but it also seems fascinated with picking apart how those systems function and perpetuate. It's really fuckin nerdy is what I'm saying.

Well, if Die Neue These's opening monologue is anything to go by...

I certainly was skeptical going into it. But if folks are willing to be patient, I think they'll find a lot to sink their teeth into with LoGH. For all of its heavy topics, it still manages to ground itself with interesting characters with endearing perspectives.

And it's not afraid to be silly sometimes, like when the Patriotism Police show up on Yang's front lawn and his solution is to turn the sprinklers on them like unwanted Christmas Carolers.

Though I do have one slight nitpick for the show. Did they really have to name a military officer...this?