WARNING: We assume that you have watched the first season of Legend of the Galactic Heroes (the first 26 episodes) before reading this. We will not spoil anything major in the second season but everything and anything in first season is fair game.

With the first season over it is clear that the story of the Legend of the Galactic Heroes has just started. Both protagonists have faced numerous challenges from within and without. Reinhard and Yang are now both famous and infamous with everyone in the galaxy and have become key figures in their respective sides. Both men have made great gains but have lost someone they cared for. Both sides have been irrecoverably transformed and the winds of change still blow strongly in this troubled galaxy.  So we continue with part 2 of our review of Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

After a “season” of Legend of the Galactic Heroes there is just no way to really slow down or take a break. The idea that it is broken into parts is really for discussion only and not as an indicator of stopping points. The politics, relationships, and battles only become more complex and grandiose as the series flows ever forward; add on top of that the kinship you start to feel with the characters and it should be obvious why it becomes an addiction. Thus we started episodes 27-54 with both fervent curiosity and heavy hearts.

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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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