the beginner's guide to Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu

A thread:

In short, LOGH is made up of:
1) 110 episodes of main OVA series which is the very heart and the meat of the series, referred to as "Legend of the Galactic Heroes." It is based on the orignial 10 volume novels by Tanaka Yoshiki.

2) 52 episodes of Gaiden (back story that happens before 110 episodes) referred to as "Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden."

3) Full length films (in chronological order):

Golden Wings (be warned that this is drawn differently and is extremely poor - feel free to skip)

My Conquest is the Sea of Stars

Overture to a New War (an expanded retelling of the first two episodes of the main OVA series)

There are several ways to watch, but I agree with this following guide as well as fellow fans that this is the best order to watch (4& 5 Means Gaiden as a whole) :

The incomplete list of characters you will frequent:

Main Starships:

What you will need to understand what it means when they say, "the Black Lancers are to attack from the rear while the Brunhilde retreats etc."

Starship sheets:

Full chart if you REALLY want to know.

The badges

The Dos & Don'ts of LOGH

Don't read spoilers!
Don't watch episode previews
Don't google (or you will find spoilers)
Don't quit before episode 26
Don't expect to understand everything Yang Wenli said in one go, (we don't - you're not alone)

Don't feel bad about not remembering your history lessons (we don't either)
Don't contradict Paul Von Oberstein (he's never wrong)
Don't feel stupid when you don't understand battle formations
Don't expect to finish this in one go and understand everything

Don't be put off by its length. After 162 episodes you will not have enough.
Don't be put off by its old animation. It would be the studpidest mistake you ever do in your life.
Do read subtitles without blinking

The above is what I call LOGH for dummies which is enough to get you through 110 without being totally lost, if you need to understand LOGH on a Yang Wenli's level (in order to fully understand what he's saying at any given point in time), visit http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Portal:Main

where you will be given a full history of the Galactic Empire and the Free Planet Alliance (among other things) which includes politics, foreign policy, economy, society etc. as well as which battle takes place where in which UC and in which corridor, and also a full list of

imperial and Alliance Citizens (i.e. http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Category:Imperial_citizens).

hope this thread helped ^_^

The galaxy Cheat Sheets:

sorry i forgot about this

Starship sheets:

Full chart if you REALLY want to know.

Other image was cut in half.