The Narrator, Score & the Historical Record - Legend of the Galactic Heroes

[@soupgirl1864]

_Legend_ isn't an anime. _Legend_ is animated literature.

[@offscreen6578]

I mean literally yeah. It *is* a book adaptation, after all.

[@heinrichkornelius]

I read the novels. And... although I loved them, I find the anime... superior.

[@fuckk-popandtiktok3388]

@@heinrichkornelius watch NGE too man it is the same quality as LOTGH

[@heinrichkornelius]

@@fuckk-popandtiktok3388 What does NGE stand for, please?

[@fuckk-popandtiktok3388]

@@heinrichkornelius neon genesis evangelion , but be warned the anime is pure depression and complex as hell so after finishing the series watch some breakdown/dissection videos .

[@WorthlessWinner]

Surprised you got through this without mentioning the episodes that are just history lectures on the history of the setting which are placed appropriately in the broader series to not be as dry as they sound I love that some of the characters are cited as sources, so you can see the bias of the narration

[@ahumpierrogue137]

I fucking love that we literally get the lore exposited to us as our characters watching in-universe documentaries. It's such a great idea. Or reading records in Reiny-boys case.

[@pugnome]

Those are some of my favorite episodes, but maybe it's because I'm boring and I just love watching documentaries

[@havocbringer2100]

I see a Legend of the Galactic Heroes video, I immediately watch and like. Great job articulating the uniqueness -and timelessness - of that anime, my favorite one.

[@sefatsilverlake3816]

I LOVED Lang scene when the narrator says that. And when the wife pleads for him and kessler is like "he will be judge as a polititian not as a husband" harsh bu truth. In the end nobody is 100% evil or 100% good. Its such a realstic portrayal of human nature.

[@aaronlaluzerne6639]

I was fortunate enough to watch all 110 episodes of Legend of the Galactic Heroes on this site before KZbin took them down. It was truly a once in a lifetime moment that I will never forget. I remember one scene when one guy said no one became famous for doing nothing where then I then replied Have you ever heard of the Kardashians? With another person replying they were erased from the pages of history, it was for the best/better that people didn't know about them.

[@immortalized_onion]

"𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬". I literally can not think of an anime title cooler than this.

[@fuckk-popandtiktok3388]

I asked my friend to watch this , he said that it sounds like a 90s game title lol

[@10Alan17]

Amazing series. I finished it last summer and still constantly think about scenes in this show that may well be forever grained in me. The insight and wise nature of the two lead characters plus the many people around them gave this show an atmosphere unlike any before.

[@ziggymcdougal]

that's one thing I love about LOGH. Aside from like a few key moments that focus on characters more than plot, the story never tries to be deeper than it is or pose abstract philosophical questions to the viewer. It feels like reading a well written history textbook or watching a documentary. It does its best to keep an objective viewpoint on both sides on the conflict partially to match the tone it's going for, but also so the viewers won't be swayed to one side or the other. It's not deep or emotional, but intelligent and focused. This won't work for all stories, nor should it. I don't want to see all shows try for this same type of tone and story. But it's a tone that works perfectly for LOGH and it's great to see how the adaptation took advantage of the benefits of the medium to enhance that tone.

[@EthanKironus8067]

I wouldn't say it's objective when it comes to how it tries to force "Reinhard's incomparable beauty and aura" down your throat. I've been reading the LNs with my mom, and the sheer number of asides about Reinhard's looks are a running joke now.

[@madmantheepic7278]

@@EthanKironus8067 I mean i've only watched the show but its kind of a part of Reinhard's whole character, his "radience" is what attract others to his banner, like he's a war angel - a Valkerie whose hands shouldn't be dirtied.

[@EthanKironus8067]

@@madmantheepic7278 Right, it just feels like it's not quite objective "history" per se.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@EthanKironus8067 But Reinhardt is objectively beautiful and clearly DID have a charisma that drew in the best to him.

[@EthanKironus8067]

@@DIEGhostfish Yeah I know, I just have mixed feelings about LOGH's political messaging.

[@AlejandroSilva-mr7yy]

Ever since seeing Reinhard step forth as the new emperor and hear the people shout "Sieg Kaiser Reinhard(o)" I haven't been able to not get goosebumps hearing Valkyre Ha

[@antonhallergren588]

Don't lie everyone chanted that at the screen.

[@WorthlessWinner]

Very good and restrained use of dramatic irony in the narrator especially around certain events in the show

[@Nimroc]

I'm not sure how accurate this is but I remember reading somewhere that the reason they went with classical music was simply because they happened to have stack of cassettes with it and it ended up being a cost saving measure, but damn if it wasn't a fitting choice. The lack of classical music might be the main reason I can't bring myself to watch the new version, since I have a hard time imagining the story without it.

[@Rheinhard]

Well, not exactly "a stack of cassettes"... most of the series was production was by Tokuma, which had also released a massive CD collection of great classical music. So Tokuma Productions already had the massive library of the orchestral performance masters available in their archives which they owned and had rights to.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Rheinhard Apparently a bunch of the music track with the timing and stuff got lost shipping back from Canada when the Ocean dub fell through, so it might have gone from Ocean to the literal ocean.

[@fuckk-popandtiktok3388]

One of the best piece of fiction

[@002meow]

The narrator of the work has a close connection to the events and the sequence of the story, and extinguishes an atmosphere of drama and suspense, which makes him a skilled and capable novelist. I do not see his presence as a flaw or rudeness, as he has his place, as do other elements of the work.

[@KatoBeyond]

Great video.

[@TheDistortion93]

There's only one significant flaw I can find with LOGH, and that is entirely based on me being German: 0:11 the title screen literally says "Heldensagen vom Kosmosinsel" which would translate to "Hero Stories of Cosmos Island" and even that does not fit because they also messed up the German grammar which cannot be expressed in English. But: It features a German based Empire and fuck me, that's perfect.

[@Rheinhard]

I actually played a small role in even getting it to that partially ungrammatical state... I got to know the main producer (Yukio Kikukawa) and animation director (Noboru Ishiguro) through their frequent appearances at Anime Expo in Los Angeles over the years, as well as knowing Jan-Scott Frazier (an American anime fan who went to Japan and became an animation supervisor himself, who coordinated production on major parts of the series for Mr. Ishiguro) through fandom. As an American of German extraction, I had told Scott (as he was known then) of my love of the show for all these reasons (the grand fleet battles, historical references, classical music, and yes, Germanic Galactic Empire), but I had complained that the ORIGINAL gothic/Fraktur font script lettering for this title looked more like "Heldensagen vom Kosmosinset", which made no sense at all. I guessed that they were trying to go for "Kosmosinsel" (Cosmic Island) as meaning "Galaxy" (despite the fact that German has a whole other word for galaxy). So Scott passed along my concerns and got the title script modified to what you see today. Better than nothing, I suppose...

[@angeluriel2725]

@@Rheinhard I've always wondered if the people in charge of big works like these go to great lengths to verify that their translation is gramatically correct. But then I look at this and also Steins;Gate, Chaos;Head, and Anonymous;Code type sub texts and realize "no, no they don't" (:

[@EthanKironus8067]

​@@RheinhardYOU WHAT?! I am genuinely jealous (but also happy for you), did you go and meet Tanaka Yoshiki while you were at it?! Did you happen to ask them about any of the changes from the novels? I do respect the anime but I just can't stand what they did with Yang's (first) capture of Iserlohn and Kircheis' suppression of the Kastrop Rebellion. I won't rant about it here but the second one really bugs me.

[@Rheinhard]

@@EthanKironus8067 My first reaction: “Wait, huh? What comment is this about? … Ohhhhh… He’s responding to a comment from over a YEAR ago?!” 😆 My main reaction: Sadly, no, I have never had the chance to meet Tanaka-sensei. This is mainly because of the (terrible, IMHO) oversight that, to the best of my knowledge, he has never been invited as a guest to an American anime convention! Years ago I had the notion that some enterprising American literary sci-fi con (such as my hometown con, Philcon, the oldest sci-fi con in America and possibly the world, having started in 1937) should invite a few Japanese SF and light novel authors as guests. This would have 2 advantages: First, it would probably attract some DESPERATELY needed new, young blood into the attendee pool, as younger anime fans interested in the anime adaptations of their works might attend the con (assuming it was advertised in the right way). (Most of these old-line literary SF cons are quite literally dying off, as they are not making much effort to attract new attendees, and the old ones are literally dying - the average attendee age at Philcon has got be nearing 70 years old by this point!) Second, this would have an advantage for the anime fans who might attend, because they’d probably have a chance to interact much more with the guest than they could ever have at a modern American anime con - since most of these established cons regular get attendance numbers in the tens of thousands and are running out of places big enough to even hold them, the most the attendees get to see of some guests is their one panel appearance, and then the guest is whisked away by security! I didn’t ask Mr Kikukawa or Mr. Ishiguro (or the first producer of LoGH, Masatoshi Tahara from Kitty Animation) anything about the novels because they were attending Anime Expo LOOOOONG before the novels were ever available in English translation! Mr. Tahara was a guest of AX 1993, and the Ishiguro-Kikukawa road show was at AX from sometime in the mid-90s through the mid-aughts or so. I myself stopped attending AX well over a decade ago, as it was just getting too insane to be fun anymore. As an unrelated aside, allow me to relate my favorite interactions with these two esteemed gentlemen: In 2000, the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) was going to be held in my hometown of Philadelphia, making Philcon that year also the Millennium Worldcon. At that time, my former college roommate and another friend were among the officers of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (which hosted it). Now I had been saying for YEARS before this (remember that for decades LoGH had only been available in VHS fansubs, and was not at all well known in anime fandom), that the natural audience for LoGH in the USA was not to be found among anime fans, but instead among literary sci-fi fans (it is, as you know, based on a series of Japanese SF novels)! I realized that this would probably be the only time that I’d have personal friends on the con committee of a Worldcon, so NOW was the time to make my LoGH pitch! Since AX always took place over July 4, but Philcon wasn’t until the fall sometime, at that summer’s AX I asked Mr. Tanaka (though his translator Takayuki Karahashi, also an old acquaintance through old time otakudom) whether he might be willing and able to send me any sort of materials with which I might make this pitch at a panel at Worldcon? Well he did WAY better… since he personally (along with several other Japanese anime production staffers) planned to attend the con because he was a member of the Japan 2007 bid committee! (Worldcon is held in a different city every year, and each Worldcon the attendees vote on where it should be like 5 years hence, so groups in different cities that want to host it in future hold “bid parties” at Worldcons and other SF cons around the country advertising the benefits of coming to their particular city!). He brought with him an English subtitled FILM print of the pilot movie (“The Stars, My Conquest”) and joined me on a panel I did at the con, as well as some showings in the video room. He and his cohorts (including Taka, as well as one of the producers of “Tenchi Muyo” and other anime) hosted the best single bid party I’ve ever been to! (Which won in the end, of course, because foreign bids to host Worldcon ALWAYS win…). But sadly nothing much ever came of all this. But it was their room party that really gave me the “invite light novel authors” idea, because their party included a table at the front with piles of the wraparound covers for various light novels, all of which were recongnizable as anime (Dirty Pair, Crusher Joe, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, etc etc). I could fill pages of stories about the generosity and good humor of Noboru Ishiguro, but the pinnacle for me (in what is undoubtedly the second greatest moment of my otaku life), was the chance to visit him at his studio, ARTland, in Tokyo in December 2010 during my first ever trip to Japan (mainly organized to go see the theatrical premiere of the live-action “Space Battleship Yamato” movie)! While planning this trip the idea was suggested by another Japanese translator friend and former AX staffer, Hiromi Hasegawa, and communicated through the auspices of Takayuki Karahashi again. I thankfully secured the assistance of another American otaku expat working for years in Japan, Ardith Carlton, to help translate and also to navigate the Japanese train system (which I would certainly have gotten lost on without her help) to get there! We went just a few hours after seeing the screening of the Yamato movie, and Ardith had with her the film program book (Japanese movie theaters always sell these beautiful glossy collector booklets for all movies they show), which she got to show off to Ishiguro (who had not seen the film yet) while we were there! (It was passing strange, I thought, that these two Americans were giving the actual ANIMATION DIRECTOR for the classic Yamato anime his first look at the production of the live action film!). We got to have an extended chat in the Artland conference room which had an amazing wall of merch-filled shelves (including much LoGH crap, natch, plus stuff from other shows they had worked on, such as Mushishi, and including their main contract work at that time, Hitman Reborn!) The biggest surprise was looking up and seeing mounted above the golden record of “Oboeteimasuka” from the Macross 1984 movie “Do You Remember Love?” (Which Ishiguro also directed!) If you care to read more details about this visit, including pictures, you can look up the article I wrote about it on Tim Eldred’s “Space Battleship Yamato” website, ourstarblazers.com!

[@heinrichkornelius]

"We're making a revolution out of foppery and whim. Get it?"

[@tcc5750]

I love LOGH, this video is excellent at explaining various reasons that it's so great.

[@ariyellsalot8961]

When I tried to watch neu thesis, but I couldn't almost entirely because of the score and the connection I have to the score of the original.

[@kiryusannagi5171]

It's None other than Copyright issue.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@kiryusannagi5171 I mean the songs *Themselves* are out of copyright but need to be re-recorded with a new orchestra. Which is pricey. Because the original *Recordings* have their own copyright, are owned by another studio, and oh yeah, are somewhere at the bottom of the fucking pacific because they got lost being shipped back from Canada after the Ocean Dub fell through.

[@FarCritical]

I love the narrator in LoGH as well but sometimes he just spoils too much

[@NoOne-kn6em]

Haha, I exactly know what you are referring too

[@SwungCookie]

@@NoOne-kn6em what was it

[@NoOne-kn6em]

@@SwungCookie I won't spoil the series for you, but I will tell give you a hint if you have finished it?

[@SwungCookie]

@@NoOne-kn6em yeah I've finished it.

[@NoOne-kn6em]

@@SwungCookie the Yang parts around ep 70-80, where you know towards the end of the previous episode, the narrator tells us of what will happen in the next episode. And you know what happens in the next ep.

[@antonhallergren588]

This show has one issue. It stomps basically anything in comparison. Science fiction wise it is in a leauge with kubricks 2001 and tarkovskys stalker. For a show to be in a leauge like that is insaley impressive considering most shows faulter at sone point due to the sheer anount they need to include while still delivering their message.

[@marezzelda7785]

Logh just shows life.

[@DIEGhostfish]

The fact that the LoGH separate score soundtrack tapes apparently *Fell off the damned boat* on the way back from a sadly failed dubbing project in Canada (The Ocean dub pilots are on youtube last I checked) is a tragedy.

[@shkpotter9844]

I'll come back to this video after watching this

[@arnoldfreeman2885]

Great video, but if I’m being honest, I always felt that the final lines about Lang being a good father, husband and community member as he’s being arrested were just a little too on the nose. “He was a righteous man, but also he was evil incarnate. OH, THE DUAL NATURE OF HUMANITY!”

[@bachelorsensei9437]

Timeless classic : Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu

[@Fernandohe111]

Valkyrie Ha, phone's ringtone.

[@natsrome]

I love LOGH so much haha

[@Black_pearl_adrift]

I cant find this series anywhere online, might have to buy a physical version

[@Rheinhard]

Good luck with that... the only official domestic release (assuming you're in the USA) with English subtitles was the big deluxe box set from Sentai Filmworks, which has by now sold out its limited print run.

[@thomasffrench3639]

It’s on hidive I believe

[@realityisascam]

dude its so easy to find it...

[@Baamthe25th]

Riberty stands for fleadom ♫

[@soupgirl1864]

all hair the beru thaa sets us flee

[@grantpate1932]

I have never clicked a video so fast

[@atlashellfire6486]

My Top 3 best story of all time

[@samrudhijagdale1879]

I personally think they should use Planets by Holst because of how galactic the music and the remake series is

[@Sargonarhes]

I would seem to me most of the music in the series is actually Mahler. The music I've come to think of as the Imperial theme is Mahler's 3rd symphony 1st movement. I can point to a few other moments where the music is Mahler like the battle within Geithburg fortress against Ovlesser is Mahler's 6th symphony 2nd movement. I think most of us just remember the more obvious works by Beethoven and Mussorsky more as most know their music very well.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Sargonarhes There's some well used Ravel in the first movie. And of course Dvorak.

[@VonikaBall1987]

I sub just found your channel it kind of reminds of gundam just without the robots

[@redemissarium]

What I dont like in the TNT is the downscale of battle, its no gigantic scale thousands of ships battle. The original feel more grandiose

[@patrickeid1689]

Is the new version any good? I haven’t seen anything about the series but I am quite interested.

[@RainingSaturn]

When the next monogatari video coming? Btw nais video

[@skullsquad900]

Atleast the Kizu movies, they were Beautiful!

[@LoveFor298Yen]

James VerHulst kizu really took away much from the actual ‘Monogatari’ feel of the series; little to no narration The entire series is great and the last SS arc’s narrator deserves a series by itself

[@EthanKironus8067]

Good video, I just think you should have included a clip of Yara Yuusaku. You really can't get the point across without him. Thank you--the loss of the historic narrative feel is my main peeve with Die Neue These, all its virtues notwithstanding. I never really knew how to articulate that until now.

[@alexanderzippel8809]

I am not sure if it’s right but I think the title says: „Heldensagen vom Cosmosinsel.“

[@oliverebbing6637]

I really miss Dvorak in the remake. Just using the original Soundtrack wouldn't fit either but a bit more of that orchestral epic and old symphonies would be great

[@txmm246]

how do you even watch this, just the 110 episode ova or the movies ? there are also prequel movies for the ova

[@txmm246]

@WaddleSenpai just the two ?

[@ASpectrethatishauntingEurope]

yes, those are what could be considered the "main" series. The rest are prequels or remakes.

[@soupgirl1864]

@@txmm246 Honestly, you don't need to watch Conquest. It fleshes out the characters a bit, but personally I recommend you start with the first two episodes about the battle of Astate, and start the show how it was intended to begin. The prequels are good to watch after you've finished the show. Golden Wings is not really worth watching.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@soupgirl1864 A friend said he'd turned people off the series by starting with the movies so I feel bad for him there.

[@Rheinhard]

Wish I'd come across this video sooner! KZbin recommends so much useless crap to me, but waits two years to recommend an LoGH commentary?! As an old who was first sucked into anime fandom in 1979 thanks to the American production of "Star Blazers", your insertion of the Space Battleship Yamato theme over the LoGH battle here knocked me for six. An apt choice, though, because not only are both shows classic anime space operas, but both were in fact directed by the same gentleman (Noboru Ishiguro), and shared many voice actors (such as Kei Tomiyama, who voiced both Yang Wen-Li and Yamato's Susumu Kodai, and Goro Naya, who voiced both Admiral Merkatz and Captain Juzo Okita). I would disagree, however, that Yamato's music can't EVER work with LoGH... I offer in evidence one of the very first videos I ever put up on KZbin, over 15 years ago (!), after I stumbled upon the fact that the Yamato theme "Gathering the Fleet" syncs almost PERFECTLY with the Fortress Iserlohn docking sequence from the pilot movie, "My Conquest is the Sea of Stars": kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKbInIp6n5mDbM0

[@Napoleon1180]

Anybody know where I can buy these series ?

[@LoveFor298Yen]

1:16 never heard this. Always heard it was the elitist anime

[@Александр-р9ч8в]

Stop watching Gigguk and grow out of your normie phase

[@fuckk-popandtiktok3388]

@@Александр-р9ч8в yeah gigguk is one of the worst when it comes to reviewing anime

[@Rheinhard]

@@fuckk-popandtiktok3388 As an old, I am only slightly aware of these people. "gigguk" is one of the Trash Taste people? I don't follow them at all, but if they have done an LoGH commentary, I'd like to check it out (even knowing in advance I'll probably hate it). Do you know which episode # it is, or have a URL link?

[@MisterCreeper97]

Die, Kaiser!

[@reinhardvonloengram8020]

Why What did I do?

[@showmicr]

@@reinhardvonloengram8020did you forget about a particular nuking?

[@reinhardvonloengram8020]

@@showmicr Yes I did. Hilda helped me forget that.

[@showmicr]

@@reinhardvonloengram8020 lol that woman knows her ways.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@showmicr No, the empire speaks German, he's just saying "The Kaiser."

[@u.npeacekeeperball432]

LoGh also doesn't necessarily glorify war. It doesn't make war beautiful. Rather, It shows the brutality of politics, the effects of war, and the normalization of war over generations.

[@Kuudere-Kun]

The old version's use of PD music is part of why I'll never watch it. And has nothing to do with why it feel "historical" the best historical movies, the ones that make me feel like I'm watching history unfold, are ones with original scores not PD music.

[@murasame5071]

THE BEST ANIME THE BEST MOVIE Period.