This series is very different from the other anime series I have seen so far (admittedly it's not a huge number). As the other reviewers have stated it follows the struggle of two main protagonists on galactic scale, one fighting for a "good" dictatorship and the other for a flawed democracy. The main strength of the series is definitely its well developed characters.
There is back story, there is character development and complexity.
You sympathize with a lot of characters on both sides of the struggle (in fact there are more sides than two) and can see things from different perspectives. There are no "right" answers or right courses of actions in many situations for a lot of the characters and a lot of things are not black and white. People often face thorny ethical issues where every decision has a cost, often a big one.
The show is also not afraid to kill off important characters when the story calls for it. This is not uncommon in anime but rather rare in western TV.
There are a number of flaws however and there is much here that can be improved upon. I have not seen the recent remake (only just finished watching the original) but I hope it addresses some of them. First, animation is quite poor. I don't know the reason for this ( perhaps lack of money?) but the low quality of animation is quite grating, particularly when showing space battles. Next, despite a number of characters being complex and well developed there are also quite a few which are cartoonishly simplistic. I would not expect to see stereotypical cartoon villains in a series like this, yet there are quite a few. There are also a number of situations where many characters (usually secondary ones but still) act as such complete idiots it strains suspension of disbelief beyond breaking point. This also applies to many political situations which is particularly bad as it's one of the main topics the show investigates.
Next, there is a bit too much pontificating at times. I prefer "show, don't tell" in movies. This series often seem to follow a different adage: "show and tell, and tell, and then tell some more".
Lastly, the show is quite dated, sometimes hilariously so. I understand that one must make allowances given the show's age but still. It's SciFi so one would expect the writers to put some thought into depicting life and technology 1000 years in the future. Yet, apart from videophones and self driving cars a lot of things look pretty much as they did in the late 80s. People write letters by hand on paper using ink pens, laptops look like they did around 1990, computers use floppy drives (!), and interstellar communication is done by, I kid you not, telegraph (!!).
Some of the above issues are less pronounced in seasons 3 and 4 but you have to watch a lot of episodes to get there.
Overall, an interesting series, worth a watch, particularly to see a different type of anime series than most series out there.
There are a number of flaws however and there is much here that can be improved upon. I have not seen the recent remake (only just finished watching the original) but I hope it addresses some of them. First, animation is quite poor. I don't know the reason for this ( perhaps lack of money?) but the low quality of animation is quite grating, particularly when showing space battles. Next, despite a number of characters being complex and well developed there are also quite a few which are cartoonishly simplistic. I would not expect to see stereotypical cartoon villains in a series like this, yet there are quite a few. There are also a number of situations where many characters (usually secondary ones but still) act as such complete idiots it strains suspension of disbelief beyond breaking point. This also applies to many political situations which is particularly bad as it's one of the main topics the show investigates.
Next, there is a bit too much pontificating at times. I prefer "show, don't tell" in movies. This series often seem to follow a different adage: "show and tell, and tell, and then tell some more".
Lastly, the show is quite dated, sometimes hilariously so. I understand that one must make allowances given the show's age but still. It's SciFi so one would expect the writers to put some thought into depicting life and technology 1000 years in the future. Yet, apart from videophones and self driving cars a lot of things look pretty much as they did in the late 80s. People write letters by hand on paper using ink pens, laptops look like they did around 1990, computers use floppy drives (!), and interstellar communication is done by, I kid you not, telegraph (!!).
Some of the above issues are less pronounced in seasons 3 and 4 but you have to watch a lot of episodes to get there.
Overall, an interesting series, worth a watch, particularly to see a different type of anime series than most series out there.