Being a big fan of the Space Opera genre of storytelling, I had long been interested in seeing this show after reading about it on a list of underrated mecha anime. Long story short; I was absolutely blown away by this show. From its mature, deliberate narrative pacing that takes the time for characters to breathe and undergo more subtle and believable character evolution, to the quality and consistency of the animation. This was really pretty stellar most of the time. Every show has ups and downs, but Layzner seems to my eye to maintain keyframe level details throughout even subtle moments in the show, tosay nothing of the stellar action scenes.

While it cannot be denied that the high quality (strongest in the first 24 episodes) dips in the last handful of episodes as the show was apparently abruptly cut short after one of the producers/backers left the project; the 3rd OVA (which replaces the original final episode as an extended finale and is included in the blu ray set from Discotek Media) served as a proper and quite satisfying ending to the show.

While I *have* seen better, Layzner certainly deserves to be placed among the greats in the Sci-Fi and Mecha pantheons of anime. If you’re a fan of any of classic real robot, space opera, or sci-fi shows like Gundam, VOTOMS, LotGH and their like, check it out. There’s a lot to love.