Western fans have been waiting a long time for Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Created over the course of twelve years, the series' lengthy anime adaptation has never received a western release, in spite of garnering consistent praise from fans. It's not hard to guess why; the complete OVA series includes 110 distinct episodes, in a style of dry space opera drama that's somewhat gone out of fashion in recent years. But as with the long-awaited Kizumonogatari, it appears that the Legend of Galactic Heroes drought is ending all at once; not only has the OVA series been licensed for western release, but even the original novels are receiving an official translation. So after all this anticipation, does the material actually live up to the series' reputation?

Well, more or less. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is certainly a story with the scale of an epic. It focuses primarily on two young military geniuses - Reinhard von Lohengramm, an ambitious upstart within the Galactic Empire, and Yang Wen-li, an unwilling soldier in the Free Planets Alliance. Reinhard is as driven as he is brilliant; surveying the decay of the empire over its five hundred years, he feels that what is needed is a benevolent ruler like himself to set everything right. In contrast, Yang Wen-li only really wants to be a historian, but his natural talent for tactics keeps getting him accidentally promoted. The two clash and retreat and fight anew over the course of a story that challenges the role of government and the necessity of war, all leading towards a much greater conflict than either of them could anticipate.

The first volume of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is unabashedly a prologue; in spite of featuring several major battles and tallying a death toll numbering in the high millions, it ends with Yang and Reinhard still staring at each other across the void of space, having consolidated their various powers as the governments around them fall into ruin. Each of them have their motives clearly sketched in this volume, and each of them accumulate a reliable collection of subordinates. Yang Wen-li's hopes of a quiet retirement are dashed by the obligations of his consistent victories, and Reinhard's goal of total rule moves ever closer. As an overall narrative, Legend of Galactic Heroes' first novel isn't so much an arc as it is a slow march up a steep hill.

In spite of that, the book is definitely enjoyable as a page-turner. A lot of that comes down to the appeal of Yang Wen-li; his fatigued responses to the idiocy of war, and his general wit in the face of an absurd universe, make him a very likable protagonist. The book itself shares most of Yang's opinions, and given the way war is generally framed, the series' flowery title seems intended to contain at least a hint of irony. War isn't some grand stage where true men prove the mettle of their spirit; war is a place where people die so that other people can feel strong or win medals or be reelected.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes seething anger is its most consistent and compelling quality. Early on, Yang's superiors speak grandly about the ignominy of retreat, and the necessity of meeting your opponents with valor; by the end of that battle, Yang bitterly reflects that in truth, “war is about effectively spending the lives of your companions.” Time and again, flowery speech and the necessities of honor send men to die pointless deaths, while Yang retreats into brandy and Reinhard surrenders his humanity. The book is written with urgency and anger, and touches on a wide number of ever-relevant political quagmires. The jingoist rhetoric of the military inspires civilian groups to attack those deemed “outsiders” or insufficiently patriotic. The foolhardy nature of an invasion plan is underlined by the theory that the invaders will be greeted as liberators by the planets they are engulfing. The overconfidence and complacency of age is reflected both in the flagging vitality of senior commanders and the slow decline of both the empire and the Free Planets Alliance.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes' points are sometimes a bit too obviously framed, but they all hit home. The book's anger at the unquestioned celebration of military conquest, and at the political profiteering it represents, reflects a fundamental and deeply compelling humanism. War is framed as inevitable, but not because it is the only way to seek justice. War is inevitable because humanity is shortsighted and violent and too eager for glory to look backwards and learn. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is not subtle in its messages, but that's something of the point. The book is shaking its audience by the shoulders, demanding they see sense or humility before more lives are lost.

The book's writing is significantly less inspired than its message. On the level of base prose, the language is often extremely stiff, with sentences wandering in awkward circles or simply not sounding like natural speech. Sentences will blankly describe things that can already be inferred, and paragraphs will be staggered in an awkward way. Here's a representative example of the book's prose issues from the second chapter:

“Both had been looking on at that scene through the screens of their respective flagships. In the words of one was a cry of hopelessness and panic; the words of the other mocked, with all the confidence that comes of a comfortable margin. The difference in those two voices was at the same time the difference between the circumstances of their respective forces.”

That paragraph is attempting to draw a grim parallel between two separate commanders facing victory and defeat, but the comparison is so labored that it ends up coming across as simultaneously over-described and confusing. Issues of awkward writing like that are common throughout the book, be it due to the nature of the translation or the fundamentally ungainly nature of the original prose. The book occasionally has lines that live up to the dry wit of the author's worldview (“along with fire, humanity's great friend down through the ages had been gossip”), but more often is stuck with prose that is either stilted or too on-the-nose to be effective (“he could smell the stench of men who had become arrogant in their privilege”).

In addition to the base-level prose, the book's overall plotting is also not particularly inspired. As I mentioned at the beginning, the novel doesn't really have a dramatic arc - it feels more like the prologue of a history text, detailing the steady rise of two renowned generals. There isn't much intrigue on the personal level, and all the characters fill conventional roles in conventional ways. At one point, the man who will become Reinhard's Head of Dirty Business essentially walks into Reinhard's office and says “you need a guy who will do your dirty work, and I'm a dirty work-doing guy.” Legend of the Galactic Heroes is sharp and entertaining, but few would accuse it of being graceful.

In spite of those issues, the first volume of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an enjoyable time. A great part of this comes down to its sympathetic and well-illustrated politics - in spite of focusing on a series of major battles, the book demonstrates a deep and well-illustrated distrust of military action, and of the motives that inspire it. It touches on not just the tragedy of war, but the manipulative nature of political speech, the awkward connections between military and civil institutions, and the cyclical decline of all aging governments. And the fact that its writing is so direct and unvarnished actually helps it as a page-turner; it may lack in beauty of plotting or prose, but it certainly hits its narrative beats fast. The book is a blunt instrument, but when you're building a barricade against human atrocity, blunt instruments can be just what you need. Its black sense of humor seems like the only humane response to its ugly truths; spinning between the bloodlust of victory and the temporary reflection of defeat, it places us all in the eyes of Yang Wen-li, sighing at the violence of it all and pouring just a bit more brandy into his tea.