
I finally finished this anime.
I guess the 'just watch it' tactic of watching anime really does work out, eh. Turns out I had more time than I thought I did. I haven't binge watched 100 episoders in quite a bit.
I need to point out the negatives first just to sweep them out of the way: The Engrish (and Germish) is still quite jarring sometimes when an important scene is supposed to happen. I guess it was a time before the interwebs, but still, for all its high budget anime production companies seem quite unwilling to go the extra mile in making proper translation efforts. They're otherwise so insanely effecient and push themselves to the limit to get stuff done, I just don't understand how it happens haha.
Another frustrating bit may be more personal in that some of the antagonists seemed to be half-gods in how their machinations were so effective despite it being an age of space where investigative tools should've been available to at least make such things extremely difficult, but ah well.
Otherwise this is a masterpiece. Yeaup, it's up there. I don't even really want to give it a number rating or anything. All I know is that it got me in the feels in all sorts of ranges, and it engaged me, and it amazed me, and it awed and inspired me.
The first episode alone blows a lot of anime out of the water: In theory the set pieces, that is the characters and plot that are introduced there tell you the whole story. It just begs to develop in a certain direction. You understand the entire premise of the anime, who the main protagonists are and what you can expect from future episodes.
As something that isn't shounen, I'm amazed that the arcs came seamlessly one after another. This anime has so much to praise from a technical standpoint that I could write for miles on that alone, but that'd be a disservice to the most important bit of it in my opinion: The narrative.
It's such a quintessential space opera, with the omniscient narrator who escorts you the viewer throughout the story, delivering interesting facts, vague information (mentions what historians thought of an event rather than just telling you) or chilling lines about some potential doom. The surprising moments of humour got to me too, and I laughed out loud three times while watching the anime. It's such a good show, so rich in story and characterization.
The action was intense too. In the later episodes, I have a feeling the directors definitely did some research on what war is really like because that gore was quite visceral. They used the 'soldier crying out for mom' troupe twice and that was odd, otherwise it showed the brutality and epicness of space battle quite well. Melee combat with axes in space. Laser pistols, ship to ship battles, heroism, cowardice, you name it.
I finish this show quite satisfied, so satisfied in fact that I'm ashamed that it took so long to just pick it up and check it out. There must be other anime that I've done the same with, and I can't allow that to stand.
If you ever have the time please, please check this out.