Note: I was already spoiled on the major character deaths and the ending by osmosis years ago. I finally got around to this series now that I've run out of interesting anime to watch. I've listed the OVAs below in the order that I watched them.
Sea of Stars
The invisibility shield reminds me of the bubbles around player owned starbases in EVE Online.
A technically impressive OVA and I was interested from beginning to end, though none of the characters resonated with me (besides the two pilots), and there wasn't a story to mule over. It was okay.
Overture to the New War
Now this was good! An emotionally compelling story in Yang/Jean/Jessica. Not sure what the political structure of the Free Planets Alliance is based off of. The guy who summons Yang to the ceremony said "left wing terrorists", but the left-right of one nation is completely different from the left-right of another. Since LoGH was made in Japan, is it a Japanese based left-right? Or a general marxist left? The battle was pretty interesting to follow, though it was disappointing to see that the series seems to lean on the classic trick of making the antagonists stupid to make the heroes' relatively simple tactics look "genius". Would've been more interesting if one the Alliance commanders (besides Yang ofcourse) actually had some brains and countered Reinhard's initial plan of attack, rather than everyone just sitting around to be killed until Yang stepped up. An engaging battle is an ebb and flowing back and forth of plays and counterplays, and the only counter appears until the battle is almost finished. I wish that had more tact with the "promise me you won't die" lines. I don't understand how Yang was able to signal the entire fleet his plan. Is he so well connected to the technicians of the entire fleet that they programmed in his plan to each ship's circuit? Did he upload the program to all of their ships beforehand? Apparently no one on that admiral's ship bothered to even as much as look behind when the order went out to come about.
Golden Wings
REALLY liked the first half, took a nose dive when we went to the Death Star. Reinhard's motivation to save his sister and seek revenge is compelling, but his "ISN'T FEUDALISM TERRIBLE?" speech was preachy and immersion breaking. Why would Reinhard, a boy who grew up in the nobility, be the one with the radical "tear down the aristocracy" mentality? His view might've made sense if the OVA had shown us Reinhard being a victim of the aristocracy beyond what was simply implied. The villain was rather one dimmensional. Kircheis is tied with Yang as my favorite character. I wish that had more tact with the "promise me you won't die" lines.
LoGH
Ah, so the Free Planets Alliance seems to be based off of a communist state.
The show's flashback did a better job of establishing Reinhard's hatred towards the nobility, but it's still a stretch to call them evil for not volunteering to go to the front lines. If we had been shown that there was a draft that the nobility were exempt from, I'd be more inclined to sympathize with Reinhard in this regard.