LoGH is about a space war, but it's about people, politics, history: everything that the war involves. LoGH's heart is very human, very sentimental (there is indeed a part where a character remarks that they wouldn't be in this situation if people on both sides weren't so ridiculously sentimental). The larger conflict is between the Empire and the Alliance. On a personal level, it is a battle between two major rivals: the Empire's Reinhard Von Lohengramm and the Alliance's Yang Wenli.
If you had to narrow LoGH down to a single central figure, it would certainly have to be Reinhard. The son of a poor noble family, Reinhard and best friend Siegfried Kircheis work their way to the top of the Empire through distinguished military service, cunning plots, and sheer balls. Reinhard is a military and political genius, but at heart he's a bit proud and childish, a hotheaded knight-type who rolls in the front line every battle to set an example. To offset this, he surrounds himself with cool-headed advisors: Sieg in particular is the only person who can talk him down. Everybody talks about Reinhard in such glowing terms, at all times, that you'd hate him for it if he wasn't so goddamn charismatic.
Reinhard's prime motivations are his odd relationships with his sister Annerose and Siegfried. The event that set Reinhard's military ambitions into motion was his father's decision (to be fair, when the Emperor wants your daughter, "decision" isn't quite the word) to sell Annerose to the Imperial Kaiser. Now Reinhard is the kind of guy who don't take nothin' from nobody, so he and Sieg (keeping his boyhood promise to Annerose to "take care of my little brother") begin their military careers with their sights set on the very top. By the beginning of the story they are already a ways up the hierarchy: the Gaiden prequels cover the start of their careers. Watch Gaiden after the main series, though: much of their enjoyment comes from knowing the future.
And on the other side is Yang Wenli (family name first), who wasn't even supposed to be here today. Reinhard is endearing because he's so regal and smooth: Yang is endearing because he's such a humble dork. In quiet moments Yang admits that he just wanted to be a historian, and that what he's looking forward to most in his military career is retirement. Nonetheless, the man is a brilliant tactician, taking the chronically outgunned Alliance to victory against progressively crazier odds, over and over again. Time and again, democracy, politicians, bureaucrats, and his superiors in general screw Yang over, but he fights for them anyway, under the belief that the worst democracy is superior to the greatest autocracy. Poor guy's really got it rough.
Like Reinhard, Yang is pretty inept with other human beings, which is why he's raising a war orphan. Julian Minci (seen here delivering a jump kick out of god damned nowhere) is, I dunno, I've heard him compared to Star Trek's Wesley Crusher. While he isn't constantly saving everyone (LoGH does not do a lot of "saving everyone") he's a little too good at everything. He takes care of Yang, who can't take care of himself. He's smart, he's even-handed and he nails every military endeavor he gets his hands on-- fighter piloting, hand-to-hand combat, large-scale tactics. While it's stressed he's no Yang Wenli-- but nobody is-- the only thing he's ever shown to be bad at is chatting up girls. And in LoGH, there are only two or three guys with this apparently-mythical skill.
There are too many people working under and around Yang and Reinhard to talk about all of them. One of the benefits of LoGH being so long is that each of these characters is as well-defined as anybody else, many getting episodes to themselves. You're never left hanging on the fate of a character, or on where their character development is going. By the end of the show, everybody's everything is tied together, cleaned up and satisfying. I will indulge myself to let you know that my favorite is Walter von Schenkopp, the brawler and womanizer who is consistently the coolest guy in the room. His lovable-asshole swagger is much of the reason that LoGH's close-quarters battles are so much fun to watch. That and the brutality.
While I'm talking about the characters, I might as well footnote the show's yaoi appeal, because even a straight dude can see it. One thing all the LoGH guys have in common is that while most of them have strong romantic relationships with women, it often seems that their deepest emotion pours out in relation to their comrades. It's very bros-before-hoes (though there is never a point at which a woman comes between a male friendship, as in the classical use of that phrase): bromantic, even.
Reinhard and Sieg's friendship is so unusually deep that a fangirl-aimed OVA called Golden Wings was released (this screen is not from Golden Wings, but would fit in just fine). The character designs were moved to a more typical pretty-boy look, and Annerose is made really plain-looking so that Sieg doesn't get any ideas. Reinhard and Sieg are played by Hikaru Midorikawa and Takehito Koyasu, respectively: go-to guys for pretty-boys-in-love kinda roles. You get the idea, right? This, like the end of the Gaiden stories, is only available Hong Kong-subbed, so I haven't watched it in its entirety. I predict a lot of "I'll be by your side forever, Lord Reinhard!" and "Never leave me, Kricheis!" Chicks love that stuff, I heard.
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