Truly incredible series. It's the most mature anime series I've ever seen and I would like to even clarify this because its maturity transcends genres and goes even beyond, it's just that good. Politically it's non biased and accurate vision of what makes democracy and authoritarianism and even monarchy - what they really are. Throughout the series you will see comparisons of political systems and their leadership, flaws, advantages.
Even the vision of the future itself is something really believable, humans look like humans,, not really infested and eventually overshadowed with technology, cities on other planets are not really that different from real cities in real world, I'd say that architecture isn't really sci-fi like. Specifically I mean that this means humans are still working with what's already practical and tested for many many years. Technological advancements are huge yet focused in very limited aspects like exploration of cosmos and military technology. That makes it much more different from science fiction subgenres like cyberpunk.
Interesting addition is that there's no sign of extraterrestrial life, it's not something you would think of while imagining future with galactic scale empires and stuff.
Character development isn't something I was particularly focused on, when I've seen them for the first few episode, they were already fleshed out with their characteristics and direction. Two amazing minds of two systems, Yang and Reinhard, there was so much to differentiate them, from simple life ambition to even way of talking, and that's a detail, Yang wasn't charismatic through way he talked nor he was through his ambitions ( he lacked of it ) however he was charismatic through his actions when he had no other option ( or at least it seemed so ) just like he was charismatic through his knowledge which got him there to fight the battles he fought.
On the other hand Reinhard, I remember him well, with his eager for justice, power hungry ambition, loyalty towards friend like that of upper class towards the state. Genius with everything he needed to have to achieve his goals.
With such a big cast of characters I'd have problems to remember all of their names I have my own quiet wishes to re-watch this excellent series, however time plays a role, not having a lot of time is a big problem, especially with 110 episodes.
I didn't watch the new series, I'd rather watch the old one with classic animation. Music was amazing in that series, anything below is not classy and does not fit for anime like this one.