The recently announced Legend of the Galactic Heroes anime is set to make some controversial changes. Most notably the decision to change it’s predominately male cast to women.

Toshiki Narumi, 2nd Key Animator on the show, leaked the following details via Twitter:

“We are not only changing the character’s gender, but also their age. Enjoy seeing your favorite thirty year old tacticians a 14 year old school girls.”

When asked if similar changes would be made to the small female portion of the cast, Narumi stated that it would “defeat the purpose of changing them all to little girls”.

This will not be the first time the characters have been portrayed by women. The all female troupe Takarazuka Revue starred in a stage adaptation of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, once again proving that Japan will take any opportunity to see women kiss.

Illustrious mangaka Ume Aoki (Hidamari Sketch, Madoka Magica) has been put in charge of the new character designs. Aoki expressed confidence in reimagining Naoyuki Kato’s original character designs. “The original designs were much too ugly. I’ll make sure to capture just how cute Oberstein, Kircheis, and Walter von Schenkopp really are.”

Voice actress Aya Hirano (Haruhi Suzumiya, Mina Roshan) has been signed on to play the part of Yang Wen-li. Hirano spoke about her role briefly with Anime Maru, “Yang is much like my previous role as Konata Izumi. They’re both lazy tacticians who could get a lot farther in life if they just had drive. Much like how Konata shifts her works onto Kagami, Yang does the same to Julian. I think I’ll be very comfortable playing Yang Wen-li.”

While this change has seemed unpopular with older fans, there are those that seem to be receiving it more positively.

“I never watched the original series.” a young anime fan says, “It’s so old. But when I saw how moe Reinhard von Lohengramm looked, I just knew I had to watch this new series.”

Yoshiki Tanaka was displeased with these drastic changes to his story, citing it as proof of a decline in Japanese culture. Otaku remain unfazed.

Share this: Facebook

Reddit

Twitter

Email

