The series received several reviews in English media, years or even decades before its official release.
The English debut of the novel series in 2016 was described as long-awaited and overdue. Publishers Weekly criticized the David Huddleston's translation of the first novel, Dawn, stating it was "a slog". The novel as-a-whole was criticized for the "shallow" female characters. Also that year, reviewing the same book for the Forbes portal, Ollie Barder was much more positive, noting that the series is "an epic space opera that needs to be read" and "a fascinating novel and essential reading for anyone that enjoys immaculately complex fiction". Rachel S. Cordasco, reviewing the novel series in Locus Magazine in 2020, praised the work as "a remarkable series... a multi-layered, multi-textual work [that] tells different stories on multiple levels", also observing that it is not just a space opera, but also, an "in-depth historiography" of the future military conflict, comparing it to the 18th-century historical work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
In 2017, the 1988-1997 anime finally saw the official English release saw a number of reviews in the English media. Anne Laurenroth of the Anime News Network gave a positive review, stating that despite its length, it has, arranged well in advance, "one of the most satisfying anime endings ever written". Daryl Surat, writing for Otaku Magazine, called the series "anime's greatest sci-fi epic".
The series has been described as "highly influential" in the development of Chinese online literature.