Category: Reviews

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Part 1: Ambition

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Random warning: Never watch the previews, NEVER, they are full of spoilers. And so are the episode titles, so never look at them, NEVER.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes can be one of the most intimidating series to start in all of anime with 110 episodes in the main OVA series, several movies,  and 52 OVA side story episodes it can seem like madness. But this is the definitive space opera inside or outside of anime.

There are dozen of reasons to watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes: the complex politics, the epic space battles, and just the overall maturity of the the whole production. But the only reason any of that matters is because the characters are so compelling that they make you care about everything that happens. This is why I never cared for Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series despite how good it might be it never connected me to the characters.

I had considered starting Legend of the Galactic Heroes on my own several times but thankfully Narutaki and my roommate decided to join me in watching this series once a week otherwise I would be watching this at a much slower pace. Even if you have to brave it alone know that it few series will reward for your effort and dedication. This review is for the first arc of the series with 26 episodes.

So perhaps you don’t know anything about Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Well, let me tell you, it’s infamously epic and quite long. And no we didn’t write that wrong, it is a 110 episode OVA.

You might be saying to yourself, well 110 episodes sounds long but compared to many a shonen fighting show it’s not too crazy. But this isn’t a shonen fighting show, these 110 episodes are a dramatic, political, and strategic running narrative with a cast that swells with significant characters.

But don’t worry, as the title implies, you can quite easily break the show into parts. You can even take a break between parts, but I promise you won’t want to. That is what makes it so amazing! Space opera has never been done better than Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

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Unprecedented Game (aka Dazzle), It’s the pleasure of all men to be inconvenienced by beautiful women.

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This review is part on a little push I wanted to start on the blog. I wanted us to review more shojo anime. Not a lot of it gets made and I feel we hardly review it enough on the blog and I think all genres of anime and manga should be examined on the blog. How much this title counts is a matter of opinion. Unprecedented Game aka Hatenko Yugi aka Dazzle has an unusual history as a manga that makes classifying the anime a bit tricky. The manga started out in Square Enix’s shonen anthology GFantasy but after book 3 it switches to Ichijinsha’s shoujo magazine Comic Zero-Sum. But the most important thing we should get out of this is it is a story that can appeal to both genders quite well. It is a show with a nice mixture of seemingly hard to mix elements: action, romance, drama, comedy and horror. A pot luck that really blends well together.

Why is this called Dazzle in the TokyoPop release anyway? It gives absolutely no clue as to what the story might be. Maybe it refers to Rahzel’s magic powers? Baroqueheat’s tricks? Alzeid’s good looks? Well, whatever, still seems like a silly name. I also didn’t realize for a while that Dazzle and this anime were one in the same. I had watched a bit of this show sometime ago, found it amusing, and then promptly got distracted.

Rahzel’s life is turned upside down when her father throws her out of the house an declares that she must learn to fend for herself. Not long after leaving on her forced journey she meets a handsome albino named Alzeid. She vows that she will travel along side the dour man until she can inject some joy and adventure into his life. They are soon joined by Alzeid’s friend Baroqueheat from the military who falls in head over heals in lust with Rahzel.  They head out on the road using their spell casting and fighting skills to survive while taking odd jobs to make money. While most of their jobs start off simple they often take a sinister twist.

The format of the series is going to be love it or hate it with its episodic and roaming nature. Besides the first episode where characters meet, the order of the episodes is unimportant and could be random. However, the mystery solving slant of the show lends itself to the format and doesn’t feel particularly jarring. Though I had to laugh as a one point I realized it reminded me of Scooby-Doo, especially when they all of a sudden in a snowy area and have new winter outfits. The tone is more a mixture of Slayers and a little Kino’s Journey thrown in. There are plenty of laughs but ultimately they usually learn a sad secret or truth behind whatever it is they have stumbled upon.

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It’s Otaku Mech Up Time!

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In case you were unaware Tim Maughan recently asked if anyone could do some guests posts on his blog while he is on vacation in Thailand. We answered the call with An Absolute Beginners Guide to Mecha which helps fans start to explore mecha and also doubles as a guide for mecha fans to recruit allies as well.

Mecha can be one of the most intimidating genres of anime to randomly try to wander into. There always seems to be a sizable number of anime fans that refuse to give it a chance. We made this guide to give people a gentle road map that will educate them as well as entertain them. We did not pick the best mecha shows or the most popular necessarily but instead focused on shows that are accessible to people who have no innate affinity for robots but are curious to learn. The guide gives has six different types of beginner shows (complete with a robot level ratings!), then a selection of intermediate anime, and finally a short paragraph about great mecha shows, even revered ones, that maybe be too much for just starting into the genre. The ultimate goal is probably after watching some of these selections, by the end you might not have someone who loves mecha but you will have someone who does not run away from a show the second they see a robot. If we create some new mecha fans in the process, well, that is just icing.

We also did this article a little differently than we do here on our own blog, rather than a back and forth, it was a team effort, just to spice things up!

Guest post: Rocket Punching Straight to Your Heart
An Absolute Beginners Guide to Mecha