It feels strange to write a Thirty Years Later retrospective for a couple of reasons. The first is that I am not even thirty years old, and the second is that I find thirty to be a less remarkable anniversary celebration year than twenty or twenty-five. But in this year that marks thirty years since the 110-episode Legend of the Galactic Heroes OVA series began, I will make any exception to write about it.
It’s rare for me to write much about works older than me, not because I feel that a person can’t possibly write about someone that existed before they did, but because I simply tend not to gravitate toward material of that age, especially for anime. But like the exceptional exception that Legend of the Galactic Heroes is, it lands firmly in my top 3 anime of all time, with a top 10 otherwise full exclusively of works from the past decade save for the #10 being twenty years old. For something three times the age of my other “oldest” favorites to stand above most of them is my strongest testament to it standing the test of time better than arguably any other anime in history.
As for the matter of thirty years compared to any other multiple of five that people like to have big anniversary celebrations for, 2018 just so happened to be the most important year for Legend of the Galactic Heroes for at least ten, probably twenty years, and possibly even the most important since 1988 itself, at least for North American fans. As I write this, I periodically glance over to the ultimate North American Blu-ray release of the entire 110-episode OVA, all 52 episodes of Gaiden OVAs, and all three classic movies, housed in the most extravagant collector’s edition our fine medium has ever seen. This isn’t just the latest release for the franchise; it is the first time any piece of the anime has been released in any English form, after thirty years. There wasn’t even a way to legally watch it in English until just months prior, when it was added for subscription-based streaming on the young HIDIVE service. 2018 isn’t just an important year for North American fans, though, as the first reboot of the series in those thirty years also began in Japan earlier this year, with the usual simulcasts and quick dubs being made available to audiences in other regions. So even five years ago, the accepted truism would’ve been that “Legend of the Galactic Heroes will never be licensed,” just as it had been for decades prior. In fact, while the new anime adaptation was announced much further ahead of time than most, that twenty-fifth anniversary would’ve still been devoid of any sense that the franchise could receive a resurgence beyond its ever-growing respect among online communities as one of the greatest anime of all time.
From a production standpoint, that original OVA series is one of the most fascinating tales even now. The phrase “110-episode OVA” is baffling; we’re used to OVAs being anywhere from a single episode to perhaps the length of a short TV series, but this fits within the definition of the format while being about three times the length of the next-longest. That’s because, indeed, it did not air on television for its initial release. Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (literally “Galaxy Hero Legend,” which is, incidentally, a string of the three most exciting words possible with no filler) was distributed via a subscription service to fans of its source material, a series of novels by the same name that the always-younger-than-I-expect-him-to-be Yoshiki Tanaka had starting writing in the late 70s and releasing in the early 80s. That world is so distant that it’s hard to even imagine, especially as someone who wasn’t alive during that time, and certainly not in Japan. With that kind of delivery method, it’s amazing to think that it managed to be released consistently for nearly a decade, until it finally reached its conclusion. Perhaps more amazing is that, despite such an unorthodox production process, its staff was able to keep it so consistently fantastic that it is able to persist as such a universally acclaimed masterpiece three decades later.
The entire project was directed by the late legend Noboru Ishiguro, who helmed the series from its first movie in the 80s to its final OVA in the 2000s at Artland, a studio that he founded and continued to lead until his passing a few years ago. Of course Tanaka deserves the ultimate credit for this story, but even with some of Ishiguro’s other directorial achievements surpassing Legend of the Galactic Heroes in fame, the ability to not only direct one of the greatest anime of all time but to do it while leading a team across the span of a decade of highly unusual production instills a bittersweet feeling in me for having watched the entirety of the series not long before he passed. It hurt much more after having just spent over a hundred episodes in his world, but I’m glad I was able to respect his greatness while he was still alive. I’d love nothing more than to lug that giant box set around to some convention to have him sign it, but alas, that prospect wasn’t even close to being a reality.
In case a series of 110 half-hour episodes over the course of a decade wasn’t daunting enough, there is perhaps no series in existence packed with more characters than Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It seems like every episode another handful of characters that are important for at least some time are introduced, complete with their names and often even some background. This OVA has well over 300 seiyuu voicing actual characters, something unmatched by even much longer anime series.
Music is an essential part of film in any form, and while one Japanese composer did contribute original pieces to the score of the OVA, they were complemented by the works of at least twenty of the greatest composers of all time, resulting in a soundtrack of primarily classical music. Some of the finest and most iconic compositions of Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and so many others are used more effectively than in perhaps any other anime since the genesis of the medium.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the true space opera epic of anime. It is simultaneously a masterpiece of thoughtful science fiction, of gripping political intrigue, of clever tactical and strategic warfare, of philosophical dichotomy, and of emotionally resonant character study. It epitomizes the best things about its genre, its medium, its time, and its creative talent through its world-building, execution, and catharses. There’s not much like it, and it seems impossible for another work to match its classic grandeur, even thirty years later. There’s a good reason this series has been lauded as an all-time great for decades on end.
My own history with the franchise began shamefully late, even for my age. Although I had been diving deeper and deeper into anime every year from first grade to senior year, it wasn’t until college about seven years ago that I finally noticed the proliferation of a certain very long, very unavailable, and quite old OVA series among lists of highest rated anime and realized that I was clearly missing out on something that I needed to experience. In my defense, I do try to avoid unofficial means of media consumption at all costs, so its lack of an English release was a deterrent more due to ethics than inconvenience. But I’m no saint, and once I understood that everyone had been convinced that there would never be an official release for decades, I caved and joined the crowd.
Fitting in as many episodes as I could every day until completion, I was blown away and immediately found a respectable spot for it on my top 10, which it has only gone up consistently in the years since then. Even with a cheap little setup to play the fan subs in the middle of a rambunctious dorm, I felt the scope and impact of the work that Ishiguro et al. had been crafting even before my time. If I wasn’t writing this article, I would absolutely be seeing how much more amazing it could become from the official English-subtitled Blu-rays played on my lovely home theater in the peace and comfort of my home.
Although I said that 2018 is certainly the most important year for Legend of the Galactic Heroes in the past decade or two, the single most important day, specifically for English-speaking fans in North America, had to be July 2, 2015. Anime Expo is always an exciting time whether you’re there or not, because there are so many announcements throughout the weekend that there are bound to be some that interest any anime fan. But as I waited for the news to come in on the first day of Anime Expo 2015, I could’ve never anticipated that the novel series and the anime of one of the most lauded classics of all time, which hadn’t received any English license in over thirty and over twenty-five years respectively, would both be announced by unrelated American companies within a couple of hours of each other. There hadn’t been the slightest hint of hope for that possibility right up until that day; any of us still would’ve told you that “it will never be licensed” until the moment our collective jaws hit the floor. What a way to kick off that convention.
Viz has been releasing the novels fairly quietly, and they remain high on my list of things to get. But the anime, especially the main OVA series, was what everyone was really waiting for, and news was slow for a while. Many people inquired at Sentai panels and online over the years, and while this rarely revealed much, they would occasionally let a tidbit slip that we could really grasp onto. It was essential that they would be releasing all 110 episodes, but eventually it seemed that they had even more than that, perhaps the majority of the classic animated franchise.
Given the sheer volume of content, the effort required to create official subtitles for all of it, and the fear of a passionate fan base ready to rip them apart for any imperfections in its treatment, it was a given that Sentai would need to take a while with the series, especially if they had in fact just signed for it before its announcement, as they had implied. Still, when it gets to be two years with no real update, people will start to wonder what’s going on. Surely they could’ve at least given some information on the first set by now. It’s a miracle that they somehow got this license after all this time, but a 110-episode series from the 80s without much name recognition outside of its small hardcore contingent is a hard sell in the age of dozens of shiny new simulcasts every few months, so I had accepted that we would probably get four bare-bones releases, each with the episodes from one of the four original chunks of the series, and perhaps a movie collection and/or a Gaiden release or two, depending on what they had actually licensed. My biggest hope at that point was that the main series would be released on Blu-ray instead of just DVD, which I wasn’t fully optimistic about. In my fantasies I imagined, in addition to the four standard edition releases, an ultimate collection of the entire series on Blu-ray in some amazing box big enough to house it all, which I would pay any amount of money for. But as I mentioned before, this isn’t the kind of series that can warrant that kind of expenditure, and releasing 110 episodes in one set would be pretty insane no matter what it was. At any rate, we had to get that “Part 1” soon, right?
Around that two-year mark, while we had no word on a physical release, it was clear that Sentai hadn’t just been sitting on the series since licensing it. The streaming service HIDIVE was launched to replace the Anime Network Online, and what better way to entice new subscribers than by making it the first and at that point the exclusive official English-language home of the masterpiece we had been awaiting for years, some people for decades? Plenty of people certainly continued to wait for the physical release we knew we’d be getting, but the fact that these episodes were ready to begin a fairly brisk streaming schedule indicated that they had to be most of the way through the production process, so hopefully we’d be hearing something about some physical releases very shortly.
Even as the episodes continued to be released regularly, many more months passed without a word regarding the next stage. Then Anime Boston 2018 came along. Anime Boston isn’t the biggest convention, but it’s still one with a strong industry presence, and we’ve gotten plenty of solid announcements out of it over the years. I had grown somewhat impatient by that point, as we were a quarter of the way into the thirtieth anniversary year, Crunchyroll and Funimation had announced their respective roles for the brand-new series that would begin two days after the con ended, and we still had nothing about a physical release of the series we cared the most about. I think I was literally saying that “Sentai better have something to say about it before the new show starts” as I was preparing for the convention, although I was far from convinced that anything would happen by that point.
The Sentai panel was right at the beginning of the first day, starting before even Opening Ceremonies. I actually deliberated which to go to somewhat, but I figured that the chances of something worthwhile coming out of the former was slightly more likely. So I sat there, front and center, suddenly much more engaged once the possibility of a Legend of the Galactic Heroes announcement was teased at the beginning. Some time passed, and eventually they returned to that topic. I wish there was a recording of my face as I watched the slides progress and heard the descriptions of what they showed. The absolute 0% chance of my perfect release for the best anime that I couldn’t yet own was being presented to me, and it was even more incredible than I could’ve even dreamed up. Not only the entire 110-episode series but all the movies, all the extra OVAs – everything that was that franchise by the people who carried it throughout those years, until the hard reboot by none of the same people that was to begin days later – all of it was included, all of it on Blu-ray, all in one single collection the likes of which we had never seen, even for Japanese releases. It had dozens of discs housed within four individual Digipak cases (the best kind of packaging, by the way), each with its own gorgeous chipboard box, all housed within a magnificent monolith that looks like nothing else on the market. It even had my favorite kind of physical extra, a hardcover book with 200 pages of art, information, and more, plus some other fancy goodies inside. The only thing I love more than great anime is extravagant anime releases, and this was the absolute best of both worlds. I felt like they had a picture of me on their wall while they were planning it. It was unquestionably the ideal release for me, and with a limit of 1000 individually numbered copies, it was as exclusive as it was premium.
With all of that, it was obvious that it would have a price tag that far surpassed anything Sentai had released. As it turns out, it far surpassed anything any company had released, including imports, which the next highest all were up to that point. Even the closest contender, the Japanese Gurren Lagann Blu-ray box that was sold stateside for $550, didn’t come close to the $800 price of this behemoth. Exclusive to ordering from Sentai themselves, there was no way this was getting any kind of discount, and they even charge you up front. Fortunately, I had already committed myself fully to “any amount of money” for a far less ambitious vision of this release, so it was only a matter of pulling out my phone after the panel concluded, refreshing Sentai’s online shop for a few minutes, and placing my order the moment the pre-order was available. I did this while in line for the Dealer’s Room, wherein I rushed straight to Sentai’s booth to be the first to see the mock-up of the outer box that I now hold in my hands.
I couldn’t be happier that my dreams somehow manifested into reality and this box set actually exists. However, the most startling part of that announcement and the questions that followed was that this absurdly extravagant collector’s edition was to be the only release of the franchise. How true that will remain if/when the thousand copies are all gone and the reasons why if it does remain true are matters we can only speculate at present. But as much as that exclusivity makes owning this box even more special, I can take no pleasure in the average fan – hell, the average human being – being deprived of owning this masterpiece because they weren’t one of the 1000 insane fanatics like me willing to drop $800 on a box of anime discs at this particular span of months until it’s all sold out anyway.
Thankfully, no matter what happens, the series is fully available on HIDIVE, and it continues to be the best reason to subscribe to that service. “Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes for less than $800” should be their slogan. No, there’s not a dub. The materials don’t have voice tracks separated from music and effects, which is neither surprising nor disappointing. These have been the voices of these characters for thirty years, and hopefully not too many people are still against watching anime in Japanese enough for that to deter them. Even if it does get re-released in smaller and more affordable sets down the line, I doubt it will ever be on DVD, and I really hope everyone can accept that by now.
Oh yeah, and that new series Die Neue These came and went in Japanese and English, to be followed by a movie trilogy in the coming years. This isn’t an article about that series, and frankly it didn’t live up to its name enough to warrant any greater acknowledgment than that it exists and hopefully the story can be fully adapted and can prove a little more worthwhile once that happens. Both in Japan and North America, the production of this reboot involved none of the same companies or people. It reunited the team behind Kuroko’s Basketball of all things, fully recast the seiyuu lineup, and was dubbed by Funimation’s studios for an inevitable release by them thanks to their partnership with Crunchyroll, who licensed it. For all intents and purposes, it is its own entity, fully disconnected from the all-time great so many have loved for so long.
Few anime have had such a compelling history without any English release for thirty years, but like I said, Legend of the Galactic Heroes circa 1988-1997 is always the exception, always exceptional, always breaks the rules, and has mastered its realm so expertly that nothing else can compare to it, even its own direct remake. I haven’t been waiting nearly as long as many other people, but I’m still thrilled to have one of my three favorite anime of all time in the most spectacular anime release of all time, and I’m tentatively content with it being available for a fairly low subscription fee online for the time being. I hope to see further developments for a wider availability on more formats, and I hope even more that it doesn’t take another thirty years. It’s been a pleasure to reminisce on my small window of exposure to the rich history of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and the best part is that I’m done with this and can start watching those Blu-rays tomorrow. Until then:
I look above; the stars are bright…
