Legend of Galactic Heroes/Awesome

• Kircheis is met with complete skepticism after he's promoted to rear admiral and assigned to stop a rebellion. He does so in two days with the death of no one but the rebel leader, killed by his own men after refusing to surrender, and gets another promotion as well as his men's respect.
  • • And this was a mission done after the previous admiral had failed, Kircheis did it with a fleet size that was HALF the size of the failed attempt.
  • Defeating the full fleet of Marquis Litterheim with less than a thousand ships.
  • His Heroic Sacrifice repeatedly saving Reinhard from an assassination attempt.
• The 13th Fleet, a ragtag collection of survivors from a previous battle, successfully taking over Iserlohn Fortress. Counts both for Yang for coming up with the plan, and the Rosen-Ritters for improvising after the plan hits a snag and taking over the control room with melee weapons.
• Mittermeyer defeating his former instructor with intimate knowledge of his tactical weakness, followed by him and Reuental seizing an important rebel station and Oberstein using the incident to create suspicion among the rebels.
  • The flashback to his time in prison, where he gets the better of his torturer and also teaches a lesson to the Smug Snake aristocrat who put him there.
• Luring out the Lippstadt rebels into a Curb Stomp Battle counts for Reinhard, Mittermeyer, and all the other Imperial generals involved.
  • Also, Merkatz's Big Damn Heroes to rescue Braunsweig from it.
• Schnieder convincing Merkatz to join the Alliance rather than kill himself at the fall of the Lippstadt conspiracy.
• Ansbach forcibly poisoning Prince Braunsweig after he wimps out of doing it himself.
• Reinhard winning a round of Xanatos Speed Chess against the Phezzan representatives by negotiating free passage through their system using the same arguments they used to sell their plan to him.
  • His speech prior to restarting the war, epically calling out the Alliance government for bringing this situation on themselves and even sending Council Leader Lebello past his Despair Event Horizon.
  • Pretty much all of his scenes in episode 73. He becomes the first emperor to set foot on the Alliance's capital planet, and within days turns the Alliance citizens to his side and officially brings the entire system under control of the Empire, positioning himself as the leader of all of humanity.
  • During the attempted coup on Uruvasi, while cornered by rebels, he responds by walking out in front of his guards and daring them to kill him.
• Yang destroying the coup's last defense by launching chucks of ice at it.
  • "Please don't tell anyone you have my gun - Rear Admiral Murai would only start nagging me about it."
  • Destroying Geiersburg right as it starts a kamikaze attack on Iserlohn.
  • The Kansas City Shuffle to retake Iserlohn Fortress, involving numerous contradictory false orders to thin out the soldiers onboard, luring most of the rest out with a Trojan Horse virus planted as he left the last time disabling the fortress' weapons, then turning those weapons back on as soon as the Imperial forces return.
  • The episodes 78 through 81: the remnant of the Free Planet Alliance have been reduced to a single fortress, they are outmatched ten ships against one, Reinhard is pretty much the Magnificient Bastard Emperor of the Universe To add salt to the gaping wounds, the Alliance's remaining military forces, which included Yang's father figure, has been destroyed in battle. Yang responds by organizing the last armed resistance of the dead Republic and directly leading them in battle against the overwhelming imperial forces and fighting them to a standstill, killing two of Reinhard's top admirals, and nearly killing Mittermeyer as well... Once you've seen it, you realize that the only thing that stopped Yang from curbstomping Reinhard at the very beginning was that it took that long to make him snap.
• Julian Minci's first battle, where he parks himself inches from a cruiser's hull and shoots the missiles it's about to fire, destroying the whole ship and riding the shockwave to safety.
  • Seeing through Muller's plan to trap the Iserlohn forces inside the fortress, and getting onto the bridge of the lead ship as they execute his plan to escape the trap.
  • Taking over a warship during his escape from Phezzan by posing as, well, himself. Followed by his refusal to execute the prisoners despite pressure from the mission's captain.
  • After finding Yang's body, he ends the killers.
  • The Batman Gambit to draw out and decimate Wahlen's forces, the first military strike of his new colony and a rousing success.
  • The diversion to get himself onto Reinhard's ship. Followed by confronting Reinhard while badly injured and forcing himself to stay standing until he collapses, just to avoid the symbolism of the leader of democracy kneeling in front of the leader of autocracy.
• Reuental, wearing only his military uniform, holds his own against the heavily armored Schenkopp in hand to hand combat. And when the fight ends, he immediately admits he was careless to get into a situation where such a fight was necessary.
  • Upon taking a fatal steel beam through his shoulder, he refuses to have surgery and leave his fleet to fend for itself, and spends the next several hours giving calm, rational, and effective orders while under enormous pain.
    • "Stop panicking. I'm the one who is wounded, not you."
  • Killing Job Truniht, then treating the dying man to a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, including berating him for forcing Reuental's last kill to be as dishonorable as shooting an unarmed man he'd called to his office.
• Rubinsky defeating his Smug Snake son before escaping the Imperial occupation force. Welcome to the Magnificent Bastard designation.
• Episode 52 has five: Julian figuring out Reinhard's strategy, Poplan tricking two fighters into crashing into a cruiser and destroying all three ships, Yang drawing Reinhard out into the middle of his forces, Muller's Big Damn Heroes saving Reinhard from that last one, and Yang forcing Muller to leave the battle to get another shot at Reinhard.
• Hildegard von Mariendorf coming up with the plan to attack the Alliance's capital city, effectively ending the whole war.
• Admiral Bucock's What the Hell, Hero? speech after Truniht's surrender about how the Alliance deserves this defeat for betraying the ideals it was founded on.
  • Luring one part of the Imperial fleet into an asteroid field, then slipping around behind the rest and making a pincer attack on them.
  • Mar-Adetta, full stop.
• For the series' first half Frederica Greenhill appears to be nothing but a Faux Action Girl. But when Yang is arrested, she trades her housewife clothes for her military uniform and a gun, teams up with the Rosenritter, and finally breaks into the prison and shoots Yang's executioner in the head.
• Schenkopp is pretty much a walking CMOA, but particularly stands out during the mission to rescue Yang from prison. He escapes the police with some timely assistance from the rest of the Rosenritter, then kidnaps the Alliance Council Leader Lebello on the highway by blowing up his entire escort. He then demands that Yang be set free in exchange for Lebello's life...along with a hundred bottles of wine. All while leaking the conversation to all the Imperial forces so the government won't be able to cover it up. Finally, after the government proves willing to let Lebello die, he breaks into the prison in "half a nick of time" and gives one of his men a chance for his own CMOA, shouting the group's identity to the prison guards and making them run away instantly.
  • In one of his first battles after taking command of the Rosenritter, He leads his troops into storming and taking over ship after ship, each time taking several minutes to sing challenges over every Imperial channel to a traitorous former commander he knows is somewhere in the enemy fleet.
  • After getting a fatal wound with an ax in the back, he doesn't retaliate against the man who did it and acknowledges that he was beaten. After killing two more people as the gaping wound gets worse, he then looks at the other Imperial soldiers still standing, and asks which of them wants the honor of being the last person he kills. They understandably all get out of his way, and he walks up the stairs just so he'll die looking down at something rather than up.
• Julian, Poplan, and Mashengo's escape from the Earth Cult base, particularly the beginning with Julian's flying kick to a guard and Poplan ruthlessly killing a doctor who refuses to give them any information.
• Mashengo gets one of his own during the second conquest of Iserlohn Fortress, braving a hallway full of arrows to throw a tree trunk at the crossbowmen.
• Lutz and Muller protecting Reinhard during the coup on Uruvasi, with special mention of Lutz's cry of "Seig Kaiser!" before raising his gun against seemingly impossible odds, followed by his Heroic Sacrifice buying time for Reinhard and the others to escape, taking quite a few of the mutineers with him.
• Kesler stopping Mittermeyer from murdering Lang, keeping him from becoming a criminal by convincing him to let Lang be dealt with legally. And he doesn't mention he already has the evidence to do just that, forcing Mittermeyer to agree with him purely because he's right, without the promise of satisfaction against Lang.
  • Saving Hilda and Annerose during the Terraists' attack on the Imperial Phezzan residence, involving jumping through a window into a burning building and shooting two attackers in the heart while in midair.
    • This also nets Kesler both a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and another moment of awesome, as Hilda's handmaid takes a fancy to him, and a brief voice-over states that he marries her several years later.
• Poplan and Katerose von Kreutzer tag teaming Wahlen's forces, with some of the show's best and most fluid battle animation to boot.
• Wahlen's flagship taking a hit and him being nonchalant about getting his prostethic arm blown off: "Losing something I lost before does not inconvenience me at all".
  • Him quelling a huge riot just by giving both sides a Death Glare.
• Annerose gets one during the attack on the Imperial Phezzan residence when she throws a statue at a Terraist and whacks him in the face, then shields Hilda from the falling glass his resulting wild shot causes.
• Mecklinger's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Grillpalzer.
• Reinhard: "There is only one Reinhard von Lohengramm, and there is only one man whose name will be remembered for killing him. Who wants to be that man?"
• Paul von Oberstein managing to completely invert Honor Before Reason by simply pointing out that the so-called "honorable" path would cause millions of unnecessary deaths, while his more dishonorable tactic would save them. In the process, without breaking a sweat, he also verbally browbeats two of the Empire's greatest geniuses. And Bittenfeld.
• The first half of the season two finale, dedicated entirely to Yang and Reinhard meeting face to face for the only time in the series. They simply have a civil conversation comparing their opposing idealogies, each with complete respect for the other as a Worthy Opponent, and the scene never feels slow at all despite its unusual length.