Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Crypt, the Ancient Blood, and I'm here to geek out on comic books, manga, manual, light novels, and I don't know, anything else in relation. I'm back. Welcome once more to the second season of Lifeblood. It's been a while, and I've been dying to get back into all the great manga, manual, light novels, and other comic books out there.
Speaker: I know last episode I took things a little bit differently, you know, surprise guests and all. And I hope you guys loved having Radu on the show and look forward to having other surprise guests as well. Who knows, maybe Radu will be back soon. So anyway, in this episode I'll be taking a dive into the first volume of, well, the first three volumes of Yoshiki Tanaka's Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
Speaker: I'm stretching the rules a bit with this one as it's technically a novel but yeah I know it says light novel and cover but yeah I think we can let it slide since as a result of the novel it's become an anime and multiple animes and other stuff and manga adaptations too I think so yeah I think we can make an exception for it
Speaker: Legend of the Galactic Heroes was first published in 1982 by Takuma Shoten Tanaka Sensei went on to release 9 more volumes by 1987 with Viz Media picking up the novel series for English publication in 2015 I think the first 6 or 7 volumes are available now in English, the rest are on their way
Speaker: So obviously I haven't read everything, but I'm getting there. Anyway, I think that's enough background info. It's time for us to dig into the story. So strap into your seats for a cosmic adventure of politics and intrigue. Story Legend of Galactic Heroes takes us to a world in which humanity has expanded far across space. We're introduced to two foreign nations, two sovereign nations.
Speaker: the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance. There's technically a third, but we'll get into that later. The Galactic Empire is a monarchy that has reigned for several hundreds of years. But during the course of the first three books, something happens to change that drastically. There's a civil war and things are turned on its head.
Speaker: The emperor who survives well manages to survive the war becomes a puppet and their nation ends up being ruled by Reinhard von Lohengram, the usurper who just like the father of the empire itself has noble plans and it's left for us to see whether power corrupts him the same way it did his predecessor.
Speaker: On the other side of the galactic pond, we have the Free Planets Alliance, which advocates democracy. And it's even more riddled with corruption. In fact, the contradiction, because apparently the alliance was formed because they felt like the corruption and focus on elitism in the empire was too much.
Speaker: a group of workers, I think they were space miners or something, were able to build a space shuttle in secret and then went on a long voyage and were able to find a part of unexplored space and make it their own. Of course, the contradiction isn't lost on Yang Wenli. Let's just say he's the star military official on the alliances side.
Speaker: who's really smart, but he's our reluctant hero. Hate responsibility, would prefer to just focus on history or his life because he's a nerd like the rest of us. He's also a foster parent to Julian who lost his parents to the war, one of the many wars that you will see mentioned or that would occur in the books. Now, talking about volume one,
Speaker: Like even if you don't, aren't interested in a long space opera, I think you should read the beginning of volume one because it takes us, it does this sort of like a retrospective of the world.
Speaker: how we got to where it is, how the empire was formed, and all of the political machinations. It's really insightful, really in -depth. You could easily assume that it's happened, if not because we haven't actually entered the space race yet, or at least not proper. What I particularly like about it is the wit, the humor. It's the narrator, Tanakasa, and I don't know,
Speaker: whoever we should give credit to is just... There are just so many funny stuff that goes on in this story. And the story hasn't even begun. We haven't even met the characters that we're supposed to follow and we're going through pages of lore, backstory, and you're already engaged, you're already in love. When you now meet the characters, you're just sinking, you melt into it. It's pretty good.
Speaker: plus or minus so starting with the strengths obviously the first would be the writing it's at first let me be honest i was scared i've read a lot of sci -fi and i know that some of them can be a bit boring now i've been seeing legend of galactic heroes for years like like forever but i've never really taken the plunge and i can't really say why i don't know maybe i just felt like it would be too
Speaker: too much of a documentary because I think I've heard people say something like that about the first anime series. They've had maybe two or three since then. I think there's currently a new production going on, all the books again from the beginning, but now they're more like movies. Yeah, movies are not short 24 minute episodes.
Speaker: I do intend to check them out eventually. I know it used to be available on Crunchyroll, at least the old show. I think the new show is also airing on Crunchyroll, but I'm not sure if it's still available. I'll have to confirm for Nigerians to see if it's still available to us, like Africa, but yeah, that's probably the easiest place to find it, at least legally. So back to the strengths. Legend of Galactic Heroes feels like
Speaker: Now, don't quote me on this, but it feels like it inspired some of the more popular sci -fi shows we have today. You know we're talking Star Wars. Of course, we have Dune, but then Dune is like the grandfather of sci -fi or this type of sci -fi.
Speaker: But yeah, it stands on its own. Of course, we do see something like the Death Star as well, which I don't know which came first, whether it was Star Wars or Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but whichever one came first, this one is quite different. I wouldn't say it's too different, but it's quite different from the way it's portrayed in Star Wars. It's a planetary -sized battle station, I guess. That's the best way to describe it.
Speaker: But unlike Star Wars, it really gives you a sense of skill because we're talking about millions of people on this station keeping you running. That staff, we have people making sure that there's food to eat. You have maintenance because it's not just about war now. It's about keeping things running in space and all the other things, all the amenities, utilities that you'd expect a society to run and
Speaker: Remember, we're also talking about planetary size. So it's larger than, say, your tiny country. Trying to imagine the engineering is just mind -boggling. But at the same time, the story is written in such a way that it tries to make it feasible. I think that's the word. Make it feasible. It's possible to pull off this stuff. Now, another strength is the characters.
Speaker: First thing you notice when reading your book, there's a page that lists all the characters in the story. And after I admit, it's kind of daunting. Like you see a bunch of names that might be hard for you to remember. And my advice to people normally in books like this is don't try to memorize the names, just read it.
Speaker: As you're reading the story, you would now start being reminded of some of those characters, some of the things you read. Maybe when you're done, you can go back and read this again. And then by then, the characters are more solid in your mind and can now better put faces to names. So yeah, there are lots of characters in this story. And you could say that Yang Wenli is the main protagonist. But there are so many characters, and they're doing so many things at the same time, simultaneously.
Speaker: that you can't really see there's one major protagonist it's more like several protagonists just pick take your pick because Reinhardt is also set up as this hero like the title says Legend of Galactic Heroes so I guess pick your hero and run with it
Speaker: Characters are really great. After I admit, I didn't read the book per se. I listened to the audio book from Audubon and I did not enjoy some of the characters. Okay, so this is probably a con. I didn't enjoy the voices and accents for some of the characters, but because of the characterization, the dialogue, the personalities behind them, I quickly let that go. I would remember, okay, yeah, I don't like this voice, so I don't like this accent, but that was it.
Speaker: I also like the way you can tell where the nations that certain characters are from based on the accents.
Speaker: listen to the audiobook like I did, but also the names. A lot of the, would I say, Central to Eastern European names, the German, Russian, I think it's German names are more of the empire and then the mix of Chinese, American, like other nations or other nationalities are mixed into their lands.
Speaker: think of this story as World War II. Yeah, I would say World War II in space.
Speaker: hit actually one and humanity spread across the stars and the Third Reich rules like the galaxy and then eventually the rebels splinter from the controlled planets find a planet of their own or planets of their own and establish themselves. What are the pros?
Speaker: The technology too. Because it's sci -fi, definitely we have to talk about technology in a novel. Otherwise you're going to be confusing your readers or your readers would just be left with images in their head that are totally different from what the counterpart readers are imagining.
Speaker: Tanaka Sensei is able to give us insight into the technology that is prevalent in this era without making it boring, without making it too technical, at least for me. I have been known to be a Star Wars fan, a Star Trek fan.
Speaker: I don't think I could call myself a Trekkie, but like, that's a step above. But yeah, I've been a fan at one point in time or the other. And I've never bothered to figure out how exactly a photon pistol works or how... Okay, well, warping is different in a lot of media, but you get my point.
Speaker: I read the tech, how it's done. I think about it for like a second or two, kind of makes sense and I move on. I don't memorize that kind of stuff. But in here, it doesn't even feel like something that you should focus too much on. It's like, okay, we mentioned this thing the same way we would mention a toaster or a mobile phone. We expect that to a large extent, people know how these things work and that's how the story flows and there isn't too much of a problem. In fact, I don't think there's a problem at all.
Speaker: And now we move on to the weaknesses. Now, biggest weakness is that the print in the books, because I did try to read the first book, the physical copy, like I previewed it and the print looked kind of small. Maybe it was a copy I got, I don't know, but it looked kind of small before I now decided to go onto the audio book.
Speaker: And the size of the print explains why the number of pages aren't vastly more than what you'd find in a light novel. So it is longer than a light novel, just doesn't appear to be. It's later on that you realize, oh, okay, no, it's longer. I also believe that.
Speaker: for when the story was written. I really do not have much to say negatively about this story, do I? Okay. Maybe the fact that if you're not a sci -fi fan, I don't think this book would bring you in to sci -fi. Like it shouldn't be your first sci -fi book. I think you need to be interested in sci -fi to read it on like maybe something like Akira that you could just jump in and fall in love and not care about sci -fi. This one, you have to have an interest in the genre.
Speaker: And that might pull it down a bit. Just like Yang, Wenli, I think also it's more suited to those that find history interesting because there's a lot of history in it. Even though it's a fictional world, there's a lot of backstory. And it's not just in the beginning of the story, it's like interspersed within it. Book one had it, book two had bits and pieces, book three had it,
Speaker: So if you prefer to be in active ongoing scenes and not jumping back into the past and being told why this is this and that is that, then you might have a problem with the story. But other than that, I think it's not bad. I really like the story. I like the way it works. And I'm probably the wrongest person you should pick to criticize it. Conclusion. So...
Speaker: The Legend of Galactic Heroes It's a space opera that I think fans of Gondam would love but then if you're going in looking for giant mechs then you're solely mistaken because it's not that kind of show, it's not that kind of book, it's not that kind of series.
Speaker: So, Gundam fans, I feel like there's too much competition. Don't worry, this isn't competing for the same space. But I do think that the aesthetic, especially if you're interested in the original Gundam, maybe the first two or three Gundam movies and shows, then this is straight up your alley.
Speaker: Even the tech feels kind of similar, but that's probably just because of the visuals, especially if you've seen the first anime. I keep on saying how much I like it, but maybe I should give some context. I mentioned earlier that I felt it might be a daunting task to read it, and I cannot emphasize that fact enough. I really was scared that it might be too much for me to cover for the show,
Speaker: It might take too long for me to read. I might find it boring and I would have spent too much time on it. Of course, I could have just read a review or watch the anime or something and that would help. That would be less time spent and easier to come up with a verdict to determine whether I want to spend all that time reading. But I'm glad that I went in blind because if I hadn't, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. And I think that's how
Speaker: everyone should read it. If you're not a sci -fi fan then I wouldn't recommend it but if you are going blind don't try to learn too much. I know I've talked about spoilers in the past and I'm supposed to be adding a bit more spoilers to try and convince you to read the books I cover but yeah my
Speaker: nature will not allow me to spoil it. So I'm still probably forever going to be trying to weasel my way around giving spoilers, but also telling you what happens in the stories. The few characters I mentioned are just a handful. In fact, not even a handful. I think I just mentioned like two or three and they are way more. And a lot of them are interesting. I think most of them are interesting.
Speaker: I think you're going to like some that I hate and hate some that I like and that's the good thing about having a huge cast of characters. You get to pick and choose and have fun and share stories with people and see their own opinions of these characters and why they feel the way they feel about them. I can see some really fun discussions coming from this and maybe I'll have a guest on the show one day to do that. But all I can say for now is Legend of Galactic Heroes, two thumbs up.
Speaker: Probably my tools as well. I'll probably revisit the book in future episodes where I can actually say more about the first three books and a little about book four to six. So let's space it out. Hopefully after that, then we can do the next three books if they ever do come out in English, but our faith, our faith. Reading list. Okay. So.
Speaker: reading list recommendations for manga sci -fi fans. I would recommend... Okay, I like this, of course. I would recommend any of the published Gundam manga.
Speaker: Now I'm not telling you to read them because you're going to have characters jumping into mechs but the early Gondar manga seem to have this aesthetic that blends into what Tanaka sensei did with this and I think reading them will help you appreciate this more. Yes they won't be mechs and yes you probably miss the mechs
Speaker: But I still think that you're going to enjoy it. Or if you've read this already and you're going into Gundam and you don't have an interest in mechs, I think Gundam could push you into that realm. It could get you there. You would probably have fun. So I'm not going to call any specific titles, but any manga based on the first couple of manga series, sorry, Gundam series, pick them up.
Speaker: Then another one to consider. Okay, I think I've done genocidal organ. So we're talking about sci -fi with space type stuff. So, okay, let's go with military science fiction, Yukikaze. The title of the light novel, Yukikaze by Chohie Kambayashi.
Speaker: In this one, humanity is fighting a war against an enigmatic alien host, which of course, nothing new. And it revolves around the second Lieutenant Ray Foucault, who is on a recon mission to a strange planet nicknamed Fairy. Yes. Sounds interesting already, right? It has, it's already giving you, well, to give you maybe some fancy vibes, but anyway.
Speaker: his companion is the fighter plane that he uses which is sort of sentient and its call sign is you guessed it ikikaze so yeah this is another one you should check out it's quite different from
Speaker: Legend of Galactic Heroes. So I wouldn't say it's for people that don't like Legend of Galactic Heroes, but I think it's for those that want something vastly different. Still space, but then we're talking about the fighter jet pilot or fighter space jet. You get what I'm saying? We also have aliens, which for the first three books of Legend of Galactic Heroes, we don't see aliens, but who knows? Maybe we'll see further down the line.
Speaker: So yeah, those are my two recommendations. Who knows? Could be covering them on issue 2 and 2. And that brings us to the end of this episode. I hope you guys had fun. I did. After binge reading three books or listening to three books in the series, I'll probably be dropping Legend of Galactic Heroes for a bit to return at a later date.
Speaker: I will not be giving you any hints in the next episode. Who knows, maybe it would be a guest this time. We just have to wait and see. This is Old Man Crypt signing out. Hope you had fun again. Keep reading the things you love, support your local comic book scene, and see you in the next one. Oh yeah, and the theme song is Dreams by Ruede.
