Very rarely do I get upset when watching an anime. Regardless of it is bad, I can normally get through it without actually being upset at the decisions made in production. This is one of those exceptions. Having the original OVA being one of my all time favorites, I was already coming into this remake with relatively low expectations based on what I'd heard about it, and even then I was extremely disappointed. This is a poor bastard shadow of the original OVA, and you should not watch this and instead go watch that.
Worldbuilding: 1/10
It is incredibly ironic that this gets such a low score even though its source material is so good. But this anime visually and narratively skips over almost everything interesting in the world, such as political events, narrating every minute detail of the world, as was in the original, instead to purely focus on the conflict between Yang Wen-Li and Reinhardt. Because of that almost all side-plot is completely abandoned. Probably the best example of this is how, even Reinhardt's generals never get an actual introduction and instead just randomly appear one episode. Phezzan literally only has like, one scene of relevance in this entire series.
Broader Plot: 3/10
The broader plot is incredibly rushed. I don't know the exact number but these 12 episodes compress various things from the movies, the 48 episode prequels, and around the first 32ish episodes of the main OVA as well. Needless to say, as a result of this the only thing you get are mindless visuals of battles without any deep thought put into describing strategy beyond its most basic sense. There is no real description of the smaller tactics each individuals make, and the time spent on each battle is compressed so tightly that entire campaigns are only seen in maybe an episode or so. This ruins the stakes, makes things extremely uninteresting, and the only reason why I have this scored higher than a 1 is because its source material is good. The narrator and objective third person perspective that existed in the original OVA are also all but completely missing.
Characters: 1/10
As I mentioned before, the characters in the plot are shadows of their selves in the OVA, there is barely enough time to actually set them up properly, even the main characters Wen-Li, Reinhardt, and Kircheis, do not get much screen time to be introduced. Important Side-Characters such as Reinhardt's admirals, Wen-Li's friends, everyone on phezzan, and anyone of remote political importance outside of the main cast, basically has zero screentime.
Character design is also horrid and removes any differences from characters which makes them visually distinct. Kircheis and Reinhardt have the exact same facial structure with a different hairstyle. Same with Wen-Li. Wen-Li also looses his distinct shade of blue hair and his thoughtful complexion. In order to 'modernize the art' the characters fail to look anything notable and instead are the most generic anime-character art I've seen.
Visual Design: 1/10
This remake is a CGI shitfest. Some of the worst CGI space ships since the God Eater anime was a thing. Speaking of which, even from a technical perspective the space ships look worse than what was made in the 1980 OVA and seem to be created for more flashy designs and sharp edges than actual technical relevance. The designs in the original OVA are much more believable than some of the garbage in this design.
A huge issue exists as well with uniform choice of the Alliance. Instead of the uniform color being green to match their ships and give them distinctness from the grey of the Empire, in this series their uniforms are Blue. This is horrible because it clashes with the green color of the ships, but also, blue is a very similar color to grey and absolutely does not stand out whatsoever.
Animation: 2/10
The animation is also generally awful, only people who get captivated by shiny lights would think it is acceptable. I in particular have the greatest problem with the animation of the CGI ships, which always look terrible. Explosions are extremely generic, and somehow look worse than the 40 year old OVA. The Laser animation during battles cuts corners by having an animated effect in the background which also is cheap because you don't see a laser firing an animation from each ship, whereas the OVA does a better job at creating this effect. Character animation was of a minimal acceptable quality.
Soundtrack: 1/10
The soundtrack is something I absolutely despise. Gone is the classical and romantic music from the soundtrack that I so thoroughly enjoyed and gave the series an air of elegance, replaced instead with something that a highschool freshman probably wrote for their introduction on orchestral composition. Each piece is filled with copy/pasted measures with no creativity, and without the intention of creating something minimalist. I in fact, would've have minded if it was supposed to be minimalist, I am a huge fan of Steve Reich. But it is clear that this was more incompetence than intention.
In summary, this was one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my entire life, and it pisses me off because I loved the original OVA so dearly. This is a bad adaptation on par with the movie made for Ender's Game, or iRobot. Please go watch the original OVA instead of this heaping pile of dogshit, you will have a much more enjoyable experience I guarantee.
Rating: 2/10
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