My favorite Animoo is Legend of the Galactic Heroes. The general outline: Prussian
SPACE monarchy versus
SPACE democracy. Young admiral Reinhard von Lohengram and brilliant but lazy strategist Yang Wenli battle to see whose ideology will stand the test of time. Main show lasts 110 episodes full of political philosophy, occasional battles, and too many awesome characters to remember. Their names will helpfully appear if they haven't ever been on screen for three consecutive episodes, spent some time off-camera, or just when the producers felt like putting it there. Even minor character who never show up again have a name, but you REALLY need to keep an eye on anyone whose middle name shows up. One reason to watch this show is the music design, which was micro-managed to line up perfectly with the action. This wasn't sound-engineered, it was
choreographed.
Aside from the main show, there are two movies (one which does not exist in the same continuity, another which was released prior to and explains the events leading up to episode 1 of the show), two ~30-episode side-series, and a musical.
Originally, the episodes were funded by fans of the novels, who would get a VHS with an episode on it each time they had the money to produce them. The show enjoyed enough popularity in Japan that it was released on Blu-Ray when the format was not yet standard, and so such re-releases for older series unusual. The books are finally coming out in English (first one came out last Tuesday), and while the show has been licensed in France for years, only now is it being brought to the United States. Fortunately, for those of us who do not understand moonspeak or French, there's a great fansub project which was finally completed in 2011 after over half a decade's hard labor.
There's a reboot in the works, set to come out in Q1 or 2 of 2017. No news aside from
a small sitelaunched about a year and a half ago, but we're all holding our breath, hoping it's at least half as good as the original.
If you're ready to lay your heart down upon the sea of the stars:
It's hard to get clips without spoiling things, but then again the narrator does that very well without my help.
