Introduction

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I expected nothing and I was still disappointed. The visual awhile ago looked pretty decent but I still didn’t want to get my hopes up. Although I’ll admit I was excited for this, that quickly washed away.

PV Breakdown

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Going in order of things presented, the narrator actually sounds quite good. I’m pleased with the voice. Hopefully no spoilers like the original.

The CGI ships have gotten a lot of praise, but I must disagree. I think it’s definitely good for CGI, but average CGI sets a very low bar so that doesn’t mean much. They look very out of place, like it was made with a blockbuster space ship in mind rather than a Legend of the Galactic Heroes one. The battle clip was also quite appalling. You could’ve told me that was in absolutely any space anime, or hell, any movie and I would’ve believed you. It’s disappointing to see the stellar, distinct battles from the original turned into generic ones.

If there’s one thing I quite like from this PV, it’s this shot. Most prominently, the holo-globe. They did a good job at upgrading the conception of the future from the 80s/90s to our present time. The chair looks perfectly fit and luxurious for Reinhard, along with the close surroundings. Not to mention the beautifully clear look into the outside space. Not sure what’s going on with everyone awkwardly standing in front of him, though.

Reinhard suffers a lot in his design. While watching the original the first thing I noticed about Reinhard was his beautifully done hair. Now it every other generic MC-kun’s hair. His eyes also seem a bit too slim given he’s German, not Asian, but perhaps that’s just a nitpick. Now, what kind of character can we get from the original design? Looking at the original’s design, we see a high, mighty, luxurious man, but we don’t quite pick up arrogance. To the contrary, when we look at his new design, he looks like the posh pretentious prick from the Harvard Galactic College who doesn’t care about anyone and will gladly tell you to fuck off if you don’t recognize his all-powerful authority. To showcase just how wrong of an impression this is, Kircheis, in one of the prequel films, told two of their crew members that not only him, but Reinhard knew every crew member’s names, after saying said names. Do you get that kind of impression from his new design? Sadly not. Do you get that from his first design? You certainly wouldn’t put it past him or be surprised. There, it fails to properly convey who the character is. His uniform is another subject of the blockbuster problem. They went for the generic “cool” looking sci-fi design. You can at least see some of the original uniform design in there, unlike Yang Wen-li, which I will talk about later. As for his voice, while better than expected, I expected pretty much nothing, so I’m still not quite a fan. All of the VAs in the original was truly perfect and can’t get enough praise, so perhaps it is unfair to compare them.

Yang Wen-li fares worse than Reinhard’s own poor design. He suffers from pretty boy syndrome heavily. I don’t see the idol thing people are saying with Reinhard, but I can totally see this Yang walking off a stage, winking to a random girl and they fall to the ground. If I were to try and infer who he is based on the design, I’d say he’s an 18ish stern calculating prodigy genius. Now, Yang Wen-li is indeed a genius, what’s integral to his character is how laid-back he is. You can see it a little with the one leg hovering a bit behind the other, but not quite, and certainly not in any shots of the PV itself. When you take that away, he comes off completely differently, and incorrectly at that if we are to assume the original anime is true to the books (since I’m only going off that), which many have said. His hair is also black here… hopefully that’s just a lighting thing since his hair could look brown or green at times in the original. I really liked his blue hair and how they managed to make not only his hair color but the more “unrealistic” hair colors look grounded in reality. Meanwhile, his uniform is the absolute worst of the three. They opted for “He’s a main character! Let’s give him a suave and cool jacket thing!” here, rather than trying to create a believable, standard military uniform. Yet another victim of the blockbuster problem, and not the last. I’d expect this in some new shitty sci-fi show that would be forgotten by the next season, which is exactly what I suspect this re-adaptation will be. His voice is mostly in the same situation as Reinhard’s.

Kircheis is easily the worst out of the three. There’s not much to say because he simply is undeniably a different character. I think the other designs are very poor re-designs of the originals, but not to the degree I wouldn’t be able to tell somewhat who they’re re-designing. I would’ve guessed this is some random generic character from a no-name anime, not Kircheis, an utterly amazing character. His hair suffers from the same problem as Reinhard’s but a bit more serve, where they not only boiled it down to make it looks generic but completely changes the style. His hair is supposed to be curly. His face… I’m not sure what to say, just look at the original, then the new, and you can see it’s simply not the same face. His uniform, compared to Reinhard’s, while it shows they’re keeping the basic design the sameish regarding standardization, is quite more different to Reinhard’s than it was in the original. I’m worried about what the other’s uniforms will be, while I want them to be standardized, I certainly don’t want this to be the standard…

There was a distinct lack of classical music in this PV. Like the original art style, the music really completed and solidified the show’s tone and atmosphere, but I guess they’re trying to go as far away from that as possible (slight /s). It made the show feel like a truly timeless epic, whereas again with the blockbuster problem, the blockbuster version of “epic”.

General Thoughts

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In regards to the complaints about the complaints about characters getting fujo’d, with comments like “There’s nothing wrong with them looking pretty!”, all the characters were perfectly attractive in the original. C’mon, gay or not, who the hell wouldn’t want to bang Reinhard? You don’t need to pretty boy nor idolize characters just to make them attractive. When you do that they just come out looking like generic pieces of shit.

The lighting is what changes the feel of the show the most here. It falls in line with the blockbuster problem we’ve already seen quite a bit of. The original was framed as a documentary, so the cinematic vibe doesn’t really fit. It isn’t supposed to be space battle show 4323, it’s supposed to capture but a mere moment of time in the history of their civilization. It looks solid… I guess… but it just doesn’t fit.

Another thing that concerns me is the episode count. A 12 episode season and 4 4 episode length movies are confirmed, for 2018 and 2019 respectively. The PV, besides the re-designs, was pretty much all showing off the ships and some laser shooting, so I suspect they may use the story as a means to further the battles, rather than use the battles as a mean to further the story. Alternatively, it could have just been framed that way in the PV to bring in viewers, which I sure hope so. The best way to adapt this probably is just adapt the first season, or I should say the arcs presented in the first season in that time rather than trying to squeeze in the second season or mix around content. Then, if it does well, throw it in the trash go ahead with season 2, etc. etc.

A surprising amount of people have been saying they don’t care about the art or anything of the like as long as the characters themselves and the story is good. This fails to understand that the animation is as equally important to making the show as a whole. Things like the art style and character designs solidify and make a show. Anime is a visual medium. The best plot can’t wash away annoyances or plain shit visuals (No, Ping Pong did not look shit). Legend of the Galactic Heroes has my favorite visuals of all time, even as old as it is. That’s because of how beautifully detailed everything is, and how well it conveys what the show is all about. If this art conveys what the show is… we’re in for something, and it isn’t something good.

Conclusion

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It seems Production I.G has decided to take the modernization route with The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Sadly, it seems they’ve decided to modernize it to the poor, generic shows we have, not to today’s distinct and masterful shows.