Glass no Kantai

 One of the relatively obscure mid 2000s Space Opera that i gave a try a while ago and it was rather different experience. To put it simply Glass no Kantai is a victorian renaissance style drama with a space setting and it probably had rather ambitious vision at its time. The main premise of Glass no Kantai is the intertwining fate between three different individuals which will decide the destiny of the Galaxy they lived. The main protagonist Michel Volban served as the focal point as he leads the revolutionary army to overthrow oppressive Empire regime and his destiny soon changed as he encountered the legendary glass battleship.



 Glass no Kantai tried to do many things at once which end up overstretching itself. The series might have some interesting story but the pace only begin to pick up by the middle of the series and there is one major issue that makes it difficult to stomach this series until that point. By far margin the Aesthetics choice for Glass no Kantai is the worst one i have seen for a space opera. The over the top renaissance costume design combined with spaceships shooting cannons makes it hard to take the series seriously. Also the long horse-face shojo style for the character design doesn't make things any better. Nevertheless the series have some interesting story and the ending of the series that conclude with the Antagonist redemption is somewhat satisfying.

 Glass no Kantai in some vein probably attempted to emulate Legend of Galactic Heroes which is known to be a series for a epic scale Space Opera. However with a TV series budget, it simply won't work something similar to Tytania i suppose. The rivalry of Reinhard and Yang Wenli in Legend of Galactic Heroes works really well because the struggle of two men worthy to bear the title of Hero is indeed capable to shape the fate of their world. Vetti might serve as somewhat passable expies of Reinhard's archetype but Cleo's character is too lacking to make him a worthy rival for Vetti. On one side you have a Charismatic and Manipulative Military leader who controls majority of military forces in his world. Then on the other side you have somewhat autistic hotblooded ship captain of a rather powerful battleship. The disparity of the character will obviously have to resort plot armor and asspulls in order to make Cleo have the same footing with Vetti therefore making a Space Opera series end up as generic Shonen anime.

If you can stomach the aesthetics of the series, Glass no Kantai might prove some of its value but there are still other Space Opera series that outmatch it by far margin.