What is your favorite type of sci-fi? For me since Ive always been interested in life in the universe/space exploration, anything regarding that. I love golden age sci-fi and reading what they thought we would do in space back in the 40s and 50s
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Political dialog disguised as sci-fi.
This is mostly the domain of Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), although there's also Yoshiki Tanaka (Legend of the Galactic Heroes), and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5).
Or, if you're not going to deal in politics, then go all the way to the other end of the spectrum: Fashion. This is the territory of Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) and Mamoru Nagano (The Five Star Stories). I'm not here for the story at this point... Kenichi Sonoda and Masanori Ota are incapable of creating believable characters, but their designs are amazing.
Don't be half-in, half-out. Either deal in deep, well thought out scrutiny of the human condition, or go whole hog arthouse futurist. That's why I didn't hate the Alita movie despite it being everything bad about modern writing, because it wasn't afraid to be way the fuck out there visually, on the level of Speed Racer and TRON.
Heinlein is one of my all time favorites. Currently reading Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Loved Babylon 5. Will have to check on the others you mentioned. I do hate how the “it’s always been woke/political” crowd can’t tell the difference between in world politics and a ham fisted diatribe that some fresh gender studies grad writes
I'll give you fair warning...
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a VERY long run. There's ten books. And two animes. The original (OVA) ran for four seasons and the only practical way to get it is downloads. It's also very crude and has some pacing issues.
The REMAKE (called Die Neue These) is incomplete, only covering about half the material so far, although more is on the way. I got Aaron Claery to do a boomer review of the first four episodes, and he thought it was good but not something he'd continue. "It's better than Baldur's Gate 3." -CaptainCapitalism
The overarching MESSAGE of the story though is whether the benevolent, competent dictatorship is better than the incompetent, corrupt democracy. With the implication at the end that constitutional monarchy is probably the best humanity can hope for long term.
Sounds interesting! What does OVA mean?
Original Video Animation. Means it went direct to sale instead of airing on tv.
Here's the quality of the OVA...
And here's OP2 of the remake.
As you can see, there's about 30 years of improvement in animation. But both versions have their merits. The most important thing to bear in mind, is that the battles are always stupid. The author... wanted Napoleonic war in space.