The epic science fiction showdown

Space battles involving thousands of starships with realistic tactics…
Factional politicking with enough chain stratagems and Just-as-Planned to keep your head spinning…
Some of the most awesome and intellectually witty leaders ever…
Deep storyline that references major events from thousands of years of human history…

There are many reasons to watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which is one of the few series that I claim to be one of the best anime series ever produced, regardless of subjective interests. Matter of fact I believe its enjoyment rises with your intellectual knowledge and, by the time you’re done, you’d feel that even the intimidating number of 110 episodes weren’t enough.

But Galactic Heroes also had its flaws and shortcomings, many of which inherited from its scifi Space Opera sub-genre. Personally, Galactic Heroes could have improved greatly if it took a few more elements from its sibling subgenre: Military Scifi, which is best represented in the animeverse by Banner of the Stars, arguably also the closest thing to Galactic Heroes insofar as epic scifi anime goes. If you enjoyed one, you’ll love the other.

Some would argue that the melodramatic LOGH is also a Military Scifi; after all, isn’t the entire LOGH story about an extended war to unify mankind? Yes, but there’s more than just that in the subgenre. Space Opera focuses mostly on the main storyline and its characters, where setting elements are usually only explained when necessary; meanwhile in Military Scifi, setting elements are recognized as the foundation of war, where a multitude of factors, from sociology to technology to nation doctrine, are built up in order to propel the war story. Hence, it could be said that ‘setting’ is both Military Scifi’s greatest strength and one of the more notable weaknesses in Space Opera.

Here are the examples to elaborate:

1. Universal Construction

What separates a poor plot device from a useful scifi setting element is the presence of a logical explanation. It doesn’t have to be 100% scientifically accurate as long as the average viewer gets an idea of why something is. Banner made it clear on how their ‘hyperspace gates’ worked to affect universal colonization and conquest. While the Phezzan and Iserlohn choke-points are vital elements to the LOGH story, one of me and my friends’ earliest questions is “why are there two choke-points in space?” The LOGH series pretty much fed us the “Snorlax blocking the road” explanation and left it at that. Do I really have to find that map up there (not in the anime) before I can even get a clue of the why?

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2. Imperial Society

The republic is ran ‘by the people’, the Empire is run by the bigwigs; but that doesn’t mean the Empire isn’t a society with its own quirks. Imperial society remains one of the biggest mysteries in Galactic Heroes, since while they covered both the lower and higher ranks within the Republic, the story was completely focused on the top officers within the Empire. Reinhard turned Imperial society upside down with his sweeping reforms, yet we have little idea of what this meant exactly (other than popular support) because we never see the average Joe and how they feel marching off to war. It seems even worse when compared against Banner, where Imperial society, from the genetics engineering debate to the unique psychology of the Abh race, is one of the most creative and well-developed elements in the series.

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Tactical maps from Banner are self-explanatory

3. Military Mechanics

Galactic Heroes gave its audience a good idea of how wars were waged, but we have little details on how  battles are fought. What kind of weapons are there? What roles does each LOGH ship class accomplish? How does ‘combined arms’ work here? Personally, I couldn’t really follow the battles within Galactic Heroes because I had little clue on how those starships and their fleets worked, which is a real shame given how much they emphasized on the tactical details from a leadership level.

This was one of Banner’s finest points. By showing us (rather than explaining), we quickly learn how guard ships, assault ships, patrol ships, and battleships functioned; how their weaponry complemented one another; how shifting formations between these units changed the flow of combat. Even though Banner battles were often gave shorter explanations, we have a far better grasp of what was happening because the foundations were solid.

Guided missile destroyer: the bane of strikefighters. Poplan would be dead if he met one of these.

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4. Technological Detail

What makes science fiction? The presence of futuristic technology. While we don’t necessarily need Hard Scifi and its technophilic details, it’s always a good idea to figure out exactly what grade of technology we’re dealing with. What techology era are we in? What form of FTL/normal propulsion are we using? These are some of the basic questions a scifi fan could expect answers to. Space travel and stellar war was built upon Banner’s use of the gates that link normal space to (hyper) planar space. But in Galactic Heroes? Aside from the occasionally ‘warp’ term being used, I have no clue how it mixes in with everything. I don’t even need to go into the other details, or the complete lack of a proper arms race that comes with every war.

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5. Admiral Spoor

…and about to attack her with overwhelming numbers

Not really a Space Opera vs Military Scifi trait as much as a product of Banner’s creative setting and one of the top 10 reasons to watch it. How many other commanders, real or fictional, has the decisiveness and speed of Rommel Mittermeier, the demoralizing shock-tactics to match Wittenfeld’s Schwartz Lanzenritters, enough wits and humor to joke and flirt as she dives into superior enemy numbers, and lastly, delay far superior enemy forces for hours merely by teasing them through wordplay?

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I don’t think I’d get to see those LOGH light novels translated, but I sure hope the international distribution of the next LOGH game will clear up some of these details.

As a hobbyist worldforger, Lelangiric’s post and Eternal’s continuation on how the mechanics/setting of anime tends to fall short of expectations actually ticks me off a little bit. Not quite because of their viewpoints, but because modern Japanese animation, and much of recent scifi/fantasy in general, are a rather poor gauge on measuring the literary values of setting creativity. But then, that’s also partially our fault as the viewers…

Exposition start: activate lecture mode! (and who remembers this old yet remarkable anime?)

By and most in today’s series, we don’t have ‘setting’. More precisely, we have a very much watered down version of ‘setting’ which is far better entitled ‘premise’. The difference between these two? A setting attempts to round out the details behind all the primary concepts and mechanics it introduce. It goes beyond just those two initial lines of conceptual explanations and seeks to reflect the cast’s understanding of their World to the audience, without inhibitions or convenient cutouts. On the other hand, a premise is a set of concepts and mechanics simply handed to the audience with minimum scrutiny, and the viewer is expected to accept it in order to make the story work. ‘Premises’ can be upgraded to ‘setting’ through storytelling, but without intricate detailing and/or in-depth analysis, it will always remain what is it: merely a premise, a set of ideas and foundations, not a World.

How does one tell if it is a ‘setting’ rather than a ‘premise’? Look upon this universe in which the characters reside in, and ask oneself if there are any major concepts that the characters conveniently brush aside and ignore as if it were an accepted norm. See if there are any topics hidden behind that brief explanation akin to “there’s a sleeping Snorlax on the road and you can’t get pass it”.

True, all those supernatural elements and pseudo-magic doesn’t necessarily have to make sense. After all, the explanation for magic is pretty much — magic. But there are things that do stay the same, be it sociology or strategy or the human curiosity for knowledge and exploration. People don’t just accept the existence of a strange element without altering their thinking patterns or investigating it. This, is where the differences between setting and premise broadens: characters question the mechanics within a ‘setting’ like how Newton stares at his apple tree.

This is also one of the foremost reasons for stories placed in creative settings: character development, as the cast retains their human (or pseudo-human) nature within the foreign World, trying to figure out why their gravity works the way it does and how to respond to a society properly ‘weighed down’ by gravity. Obviously, you lose most of this potential within a ‘premise’, as people simply don’t change if they never think about the World that envelops them.

I don’t think I need to discuss the issue of consistency. If we start violating physics, something’s wrong. If a setting violates its own rules, something’s wrong. Simple as that. The exception is when the cast realizes said law being violated and starts a shitstorm — then it’s fine. The exception to the exception is when too many laws are being violated… exception to exception to exception — this is like freaking chemistry.

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Examples, Examples: the Good, the Bad

A few critical points of failure in popular modern scifi/fantasy animes:

• Shakugan no Shana: What’s up with that Crimson Realm anyways? Why is the cast still attending school instead of actively solving problems, by planeswalking or destroying gateways to stop conflicts preemptively?
• Index/Railgun: For a series with remarkable similarities to X-men, all the social implications of having super-humans are just… missing. Seriously, the Accelerator represents military power to threaten 1st world nations.
• Evangelion: The military never properly explored that convenient AT-Field which made them useless. The World never seriously considered or investigated the origin and implications of those angels.
• Anything Sunrise: Too obvious here. How many times did Code Geass make everyone go WTF!? How the fuck does that work? or Why hasn’t anyone noticed this? Same can be said for most of their other series.

I’m actually having trouble thinking of recent series that managed an exceptional job in constructing the ‘setting’. It may simply be that I watched the wrong series but…

Recent science fiction anime never seem to stand up to the scrutiny of a traditional scifi fan. New concepts are given little explanatory exposure (what’s up space aids curing), and new races are always cursed by simplistic psychology. Of course Ranka easily subverts all the Zentradi in Macross Frontier, there’s like zero individualism between them unless they’re at least a notable character.

Recent fantasy shows? It feels like the characters are always stuck in the middle of their own little microcosm, segregated from the rest of the world by either space-time defying bounding boxes (Nanoha, Shana) or some invisible veil of secrecy. Either that or the entire setting is generic as hell (Zero no Tsukaima).

Those who know the header picture probably knows which series I’d present as having a remarkably well-established setting: The Twelve Kingdoms introduced an entire new world and separate social structure, which the story struggled to explain to the viewer. They never quite managed it, as after all, their Mandate of Heaven is quite literally magic. But that didn’t stop its cast from tackling the mechanics from every philosophical perspective, attempting to answer the ‘why’ and probing for possible mechanical loopholes to exploit. Crest/Banner of the Stars is another series which deserves pride in its setting, explained in detail and explored in width, from the tactical implications of planar space combat to the social views on the Abh Empire’s genetic manipulation and unique psychology. (Although, since I don’t enjoy linguistics, that ‘Klingon’ language of theirs annoys me).

Out of the notable recent series, Fullmetal Alchemist deserves quite the praise on its ‘setting’. Yes, their alchemy is pseudo-science that doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny, but at the moment it’s also not holding up so well to the cast. That’s the notable part: Edward and co are actually reacting like real human beings to the mechanics of this strange World they live in. They seek pursue the quest for knowledge, to find out why their World works the way it does. Well, look at how much it changed them along the way, and how many story opportunities it opened.

Good settings tend to be a little on the aging side as far as anime goes, and not always the most popular around…

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Why is poor setting partially our fault?

Because many of us don’t appreciate good settings enough. Because we can be appeased by less. Because by and most, the attention span of today’s viewers suck.

Setting takes time to develop. To use ‘setting’ to mold character development and storyboard progression you have to explain the details of the mechanics, be it through a long exposition or periodic breaks from the main story to tackle the information. Unfortunately, pacing the exposition to a scifi/fantasy setting is quite tricky. Give out too much information and the viewer is bored, give out not enough and they’re confused. Script writers aren’t perfect, and people will mess up (by varying degrees) in one direction or the other. There’s a trend going around and I doubt it took long for producers to notice: less detailing is often forgiven, for otherwise Sunrise would have gone bankrupt by now. On the other hand, more detailing is often responded by people dropping out as modernized attention spans expire. Well, I know which risk I’ll be taking if I wanted to make money from serialized productions, especially when those extra minutes the explanations will take is costing precious air-time.

Ever since I dropped out from Gundam 00 because its ‘politics’ and ‘tactics’ were killing my brain cells, I’ve began adapting a less serious attitude towards most anime: don’t over-analyze how it works, just accept that it works. True, it’s done well in letting me enjoy a lot more anime than I would otherwise. But at the same time, this is the kind of attitude that pushes studios to lean more towards ‘premise’ and move further away from ‘setting’.

So what am I complaining about? That you can’t have both halves of the pie here. Deux Ex will always find their way into high-paced exciting storylines. If you want your mechanics to make sense and applied to full potential, then you’re going to have to risk a few infodumps.

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Setting-Driven

This is more of a post-note, but I think there are some who probably aren’t so aware of the fact: there are setting-driven fans. Actually, a lot of science-fiction and fantasy fans love ‘setting’ as much as they enjoy storylines or characters. Not exactly the most common bunch, but they exist, and they’re the type who can actually enjoy shows like Nanoha Strikers because it opened the doorway to a whole new world of creative thinking. So yeah, some of those in-universe jargon and crazy concepts are also designated for this audience.

Hence why there are soft science fiction and hard science fiction: the soft with only commonly used principles that are easy to understand, and the hardcore which can only be understood and enjoyed by a technophile (I have no clue what those books are talking about sometimes).

At the same time, worldforgers also take a particular pride for their setting design. It’s like how daddy Maes Hughes is proud of his daughter, really, and he just can’t hold back from showing it off. So excuse the authors if some of those infodumps went into something slightly irrelevant: they are just showing off and having fun. Of course, at some point it steps over the line to being unprofessional…

(Author’s rambling: I discovered I needed a separate category for this kind of serious posting, and hence begins the Crossvision category)