It's amazing nobody had posted a review for this series before. Oh well, first time for everything, right?
The Five Star Stories (FSS) is a epic space opera by Nagano Mamoru. In this case, I mean epic as in comparable to such giants as Heinlein's Future History, Star Wars or Lensmen, or a bit closer to home, series like Tytania, Terra e and Legend of Galactic Heroes. It also happens to be one of the shortest, at a rather compact 12 volumes after over 20 years of serialization.
However, its length belies its scale; the story is written almost in an anthology format where little vignettes are woven into a sprawling history that spans millenia - much of which has yet to be written, but is extensively covered by generous 'databooks' and other supplementary material.
This series is different from most others in that these supplementary sources are quite necessary to make sense of the intricacies of the world that Nagano has created, and even then, there are enough inconsistencies in details to make bookkeeping a nightmare - or if one wants to look at it positively, create the illusion of a true history where there is generally no definitive source.
The art is gorgeous, the story is fantastic (in the literal and superlative sense), but only if one is really into the series. This manga is definitely not for the casual reader; it takes a true fanatic to obsessively make sense of every last detail. There is no grey area for FSS: you are either a fan, or you're not. And if you are, you follow it to the dot.
It's a pity FSS receives so little press. It definitely deserves more.
A classic for the ages.