Legend of the galactic heroes (Remake + Original OVA)
It's really fucking good
This anime is a sci-fi drama about space politics, there are two main guys, a cool good guy who is just a regular dude in the army that climbs the ranks because he is really good and an evil dictator that runs the enemy empire and shit, however, everything is very morally gray, this isn't as one sided as star wars which has a similar premise
In fact, in order to drive that home, the protagonist for the first 2 chapters (at least for the remake) is not the "good guy" protagonist, but the other guy, at the start, you're supposed to root for the "evil" guy, and then, whenever the other protagonist gets introduced and the shift of the anime changes, you're meant to reconsider who are you rooting for and why, you're forced to think critically about the guy you were just rooting for
Half of the anime are these two protagonist sitting in room and talking, discussing the problems of their respective empires, governments, and what are the plans for defeating their opponent, the actual action scenes aren't too much fluff explosion death look he's so badass, but it's mainly focused on explaining military strategy to the person watching it, kinda like some parts of kingdom
and this just continues on and on since the anime is really fucking long and goes REALLY in depth about some stuff, you can't just overthrow a corrupt government and that's it, you need to ensure that the new government resists the corruption, as the anime explains that politicians doesn't just go "i'm going to be evil" but there are circumstances and a process where a politician get's inducted into corruption
eblf don't read
There is a part where the good guy protagonist makes an independent political movement to try to stop the evil guy, however, he fucking dies, this both shifts the focus from the actual characters to the actual world and circumstance, and forces the members of that movement to make a difficult choice, how do they decide the next leader, which shows very easily how a seemingly democratic system could fall into monarchy or dictatorship real easily
Now, the remake doesn't run forever, and contrary to what seems the consensus online, I enjoy the remake more than the original series, and that is because everything that isn't the actual writing on the original OVA sucks, the art is really bad, like the actual fight scenes are laughable, there isn't much of an ost or sound design and the actual openings are pretty bad
The story is also incredibly dense from start to end, you don't really have breaks, so it can be really hard to watch near the end because you've watched other 100 episodes of what is basically a political debate
still, this anime is very important for a variety of reasons. Nowadays, there is the idea that mediums such as film or video games should only have the goal of being fun, "If it's not fun, why bother". When the director of the last of us 2 said "hey, this game is not meant to be fun", there was backlash, because what is the point of a videogame if it's not fun
That's why stuff like politics or philosophy or whatever are often shamed upon, these are elements that the biggest blockbusters shy away from because they want to appeal to as many people as possible in order to make up for their stupidly high budget
This is an old anime that embraces the least fun elements, and polish them into something amazing, still not the most fun, but after watching it you feel it was worth it. And this is considered one of the greatest anime ever created. Which is great for the medium as a whole
so yeah, good anime, S rank
-----------
next: Annihilation (movie) (Requested by karmine)
still playing half life
It's really fucking good
This anime is a sci-fi drama about space politics, there are two main guys, a cool good guy who is just a regular dude in the army that climbs the ranks because he is really good and an evil dictator that runs the enemy empire and shit, however, everything is very morally gray, this isn't as one sided as star wars which has a similar premise
In fact, in order to drive that home, the protagonist for the first 2 chapters (at least for the remake) is not the "good guy" protagonist, but the other guy, at the start, you're supposed to root for the "evil" guy, and then, whenever the other protagonist gets introduced and the shift of the anime changes, you're meant to reconsider who are you rooting for and why, you're forced to think critically about the guy you were just rooting for
Half of the anime are these two protagonist sitting in room and talking, discussing the problems of their respective empires, governments, and what are the plans for defeating their opponent, the actual action scenes aren't too much fluff explosion death look he's so badass, but it's mainly focused on explaining military strategy to the person watching it, kinda like some parts of kingdom
and this just continues on and on since the anime is really fucking long and goes REALLY in depth about some stuff, you can't just overthrow a corrupt government and that's it, you need to ensure that the new government resists the corruption, as the anime explains that politicians doesn't just go "i'm going to be evil" but there are circumstances and a process where a politician get's inducted into corruption
eblf don't read
There is a part where the good guy protagonist makes an independent political movement to try to stop the evil guy, however, he fucking dies, this both shifts the focus from the actual characters to the actual world and circumstance, and forces the members of that movement to make a difficult choice, how do they decide the next leader, which shows very easily how a seemingly democratic system could fall into monarchy or dictatorship real easily
Now, the remake doesn't run forever, and contrary to what seems the consensus online, I enjoy the remake more than the original series, and that is because everything that isn't the actual writing on the original OVA sucks, the art is really bad, like the actual fight scenes are laughable, there isn't much of an ost or sound design and the actual openings are pretty bad
The story is also incredibly dense from start to end, you don't really have breaks, so it can be really hard to watch near the end because you've watched other 100 episodes of what is basically a political debate
still, this anime is very important for a variety of reasons. Nowadays, there is the idea that mediums such as film or video games should only have the goal of being fun, "If it's not fun, why bother". When the director of the last of us 2 said "hey, this game is not meant to be fun", there was backlash, because what is the point of a videogame if it's not fun
That's why stuff like politics or philosophy or whatever are often shamed upon, these are elements that the biggest blockbusters shy away from because they want to appeal to as many people as possible in order to make up for their stupidly high budget
This is an old anime that embraces the least fun elements, and polish them into something amazing, still not the most fun, but after watching it you feel it was worth it. And this is considered one of the greatest anime ever created. Which is great for the medium as a whole
so yeah, good anime, S rank
-----------
next: Annihilation (movie) (Requested by karmine)
still playing half life