(CR) Legend of the Galactic Heroes remake [2018] Anticipation

[kuromitsu]

Nice and all but it makes me shake my head at the Reinhard & Kircheis casting even more. :/ I wonder what they'll do with the secondary main cast on both sides... (the ones who might get more than two lines of dialogue, heh)

[AntonKutovoi]

More cast members and designs:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...embers/.128453

None of the cast members would be my first choices, but they all could work, I guess,

[kuromitsu]

I mean, at least they gave Reuenthal to Nakamura as I had hoped, instead of Tomokazu or Nakai. But...

Junichi Suwabe as Paul von Oberstein

This, as the very first one... as the very first one... I mean, Suwabe is a good actor when he puts his mind to it and the role is right, but this is not that role. This is about as tone-deaf as Umehara as Kircheis. (Hell, even the reverse would have worked better!) Why cast someone who is good at emoting and has a warm, expressive voice by nature, as someone who needs the exact opposite of that? I suppose Suwabe will do his best but this really should have gone to someone else.

I'm fine with:
Nakamura as Reuenthal - he was my hope for this role since Umehara had been taken, so I'm pretty fine with this. But they managed to ruin poor Reuenthal in other ways... *looks at that hair and weeps and weeps and weeps* Whose idea was that hair? Who do I have to punch?

Will be OK:
-OnoD as Mittermeier... I guess, why not? I would have preferred him as Attenborough or Poplin or Caselnes, though.
-Kaji... plays the shota again. But he'll be fine.
-Kawashima as Caselnes, sure, why not.

Why? Dear god, WHY?!:
-Suwabe as Oberstein
-Miki Shinichirou as Schönkopf - again, WHY? Why not at least Midorikawa Hikaru or something?! Hell, Miki Shinichirou would have been better as Oberstein!
... What's next, Ishida Akira as Wittenfeld?

Well, this will be interesting, seiyuu-wise. And who knows, maybe some of the cast will surprise me.

But to be honest I'm the most upset about Reuenthal's hair. Why did they have to do that?! (Also, what part of that color is "brown so dark it's almost black"?) I would have been OK with these designs, but then they went and ruined him.

[AntonKutovoi]

I don’t see any problem with Miki there. I can’t give you a link right now, but search Sanada Yukimura from Nioh on YouTube. I think he’ll use this voice.

[kuromitsu]

Oh, I know that voice, but I don't think that's a good voice for Schönkopf in particular. Miki is good and he'll do his best with the role but I don't think he was the right choice.

(I'm looking at Twitter comments btw, and lol'ing at the reactions to Reuenthal's design. Pretty much echo mine!)

[AntonKutovoi]

Frederica will be voices by Aya Endo. She should do a good job.

[Kanon]

Frederica looks almost completely different. I liked her OVA design but this isn't a bad change.

[kuromitsu]

Yeah, the design is nice, and Endou Aya will be fine. I'm more curious of who is going to voice Hilda, though. (Hilda is I think a much more fun role than Frederica, at least in the first half of the story.)

[kuromitsu]

Well, well, well... another one dropped early.

My thoughts...

Spoiler for episode 1 reactions:

1. The first 1 minute and its narration are by far the strongest part of the episode. It seriously got my hopes up.

2. Then I had to face reality: as far as visuals go, they just copied the OVA. Aside from a few minor details and updates this is basically the OVA, visually. So boring, so damn disappointing. Coupled with the bland and uninspired character designs and the bland and uninspired BGM, this is pretty much what I'd been afraid of.

3. The seiyuu: Miyano Mamoru's Reinhard is basically what I expected from Miyano Mamoru's Reinhard, that is, it's not really Reinhard. He lacks the tension and the anger driving Reinhard, he sounds way too calm. And old. Umehara Yuuichirou fares better, but this Kircheis is definitely not as gentle and warm as one would expect. That might not be a bad thing, though.

4. Pacing is weeeird. Don't they only have 12 episodes? Can they afford to waste so much time? :O If at least they incorporated some more main characters, but no! I wouldn't be surprised if people watching this show with no knowledge of LoGH ended up thinking that Fahrenheit is a much more important character than he actually is!

5. I don't know whose idea that cliffhanger was but it actually made me say "what a stupid cliffhanger!" out loud.

In short: disappointing, but I expected that much based on the previews and whatnot. Will keep watching in hopes that it will improve, also I'm very curious to hear how Umehara handles Kircheis. (Also, is it just me or did they kind of tweak Kircheis' character design to make it fit his voice better? Probably just me...) But the show will have to prove itself to be a lot more ambitious than this if it wants me to like it and not watch it just because it's LoGH and I have to.

[RDNexus]

Like I said before, I totally welcome the current character design, more visually modern and appealing to me

This version of the story seems to be set to 24 episodes, actually. Don't forget the Season2 Movie Trilogy, with 4 episodes of content each.

I've seen the entire original/classic series, but I have to admit...being 110 episodes made me already forget a nice amount of content of the story.
But since I'm not inclined to compare this new series to the classic one, I have no problems with what may be coming up.

About your disappointment of the current version of the story...well, I can't quite comment on how people should feel about something they're a fan of, since I'm kind of a fan of stories like Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball, and still I see myself scratching my head over the current state of both stories

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by xrick

About your disappointment of the current version of the story...well, I can't quite comment on how people should feel about something they're a fan of, since I'm kind of a fan of stories like Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball, and still I see myself scratching my head over the current state of both stories

Just that we're on the same page... I'm disappointed because it's way too similar to the previous anime, instead of trying to do something interesting and new. It seems it's trying to play safe, but what's the point of doing a new adaptation if you just copy-paste what came before? The OVA is immensely huge shoes to fill, and if awkwardly aping it is all this new anime is capable of then that is immensely disappointing. (This is why I kept saying that the new adaptation should be as unlike the OVA as possible, and do its own thing with the novels. Alas...)

I mean... the visuals are just a somewhat touched-up version of the OVA visuals. The chara designs are bland and uninspired. The BGM is bland and uninspired. The voice acting is... not all bland and uninspired, but so far it seems they completely missed the mark with the main character himself. (Again. What is it with recent-ish adaptations of materials I love that they keep messing up the main characters? ) This is boring, and I think a boring LoGH is a much bigger sin than a LoGH that tries to be new and fresh and doesn't 100% succeed.

As for the story, thing is, the TV series will have 12 episodes as far as I'm aware so even if they plan to pick up the story in the movies they'll have to reach a stopping point in these 12 episodes. And they just wasted an entire episode.

That first minute was pretty awesome, though. Perhaps unintentionally, but I hope it wasn't a single flash of greatness in a sea of meh, but a sign of what is ahead. (I'm optimistic, dammit! I'm going to try and be positive about this damn show. ...not that it worked last time, with Altair. )