Legend of the Galactic Heroes anime series tracking

[JasonPratt]

For years I've heard about a legendary anime of legends ;) known as Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Never released outside Germany (for which market it was originally made I think?) and Japan (where it has gotten a recent Blu re-release), the magic of the internet occasionally makes it available in illegally distributed but competently subtitled forms which I am not going to link to because illegal. (But it won't be hard to find in one or two places that are safe to watch if anyone is interested.)

It's unlikely that its publishers will ever release it in North America, apparently due to copyright issues involving the wide number of classical music tracks which the series features rather than an originally composed soundtrack of its own. (I've even briefly caught a cue from one of Akira Ifukube's Godzilla scores, which he himself borrowed and neo-classically composed from Japanese classical forms. But most of it is standard German classical music like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., up through Wagner.)

But anyway, about the series itself: LGH is still the longest running OVA (original video animation) in anime history -- not the longest running anime series per se (there are several, including Gundam in a way which I'm also much more legally watching through ;) ) but the longest series released directly to videotape (originally) instead of broadcast. The main story animates all nine novels of the original print version (written by Yoshiki Tanaka); and all the author's prequel short stories and novellas have also been animated, so the full OVA runs somewhere over 160 eps plus a movie or two.

The story is... hm.... how to summarize... it's like Star Wars, but taken much more seriously (in strategic and political senses -- somewhat like Zahn's epic Thrawn sequel trilogy novels) and without magical Force users; also without many fighter ships but with massively huge capital ship battles instead. There's an Empire which rose out of a loose Old Republic, constantly facing many rebellions the largest of which is a new democratic republic Alliance with whom they've been at war now for centuries.

That's where most of the similarities end. The Empire is loosely based on pre-WW1 Prussia (the author is clearly an early-modern German fanboy, and the series seems to have been animated with German as its original spoken language though I'm watching a Japanese language version with English fan subtitles.) So compared to the Alliance they have lots of bling.  :D But while they have a despotic Emperor and often trample on the rights of their citizens, it's more like, you know, Prussia rather than the Nazis; and the Alliance has been around long enough and grown large enough to have its own leadership and bureaucratic problems and abuses.

In fact, at the start of the series (whether in chronological narrative or in production order) the two sides have settled into just living their lives on each side of the loose battle lines with a sort of institutional hobby of fighting one another at the borders -- which is great for the economy on each side, so their citizens all live pretty well according to their opportunities and abilities, and if anyone wants to join the military for any reason, well there's a nice big but not overly threatening 'war' going on all the time to provide jobs and entertainment for people (usually men) so inclined. As far as I've gotten in the plot, there are even subtle hints that the upper leaders on each side have tacitly agreed to keep the situation a zero-sum game, not only for personal political reasons of various sorts but because that way the citizens of each side can live and grow in as much peace as possible. One consequence of this is that each side may have a vested interest in not letting any major military talents on their own sides get too powerful, since (aside from being an internal political threat) that would threaten the leisurely zero-sum situation.

This is the situation the two main characters of the story are growing into: the laid-back, philosophical history buff Yang Wen-Li (for the Alliance) and the amibitiously active Baron Reinhard von Müsel (known later as Reinhard von Lohengramm) for the Empire. Both are moral heroes in an often morally compromised world, but their attitudes and abilities are quite different in a hard/soft way. The Baron is a proactive go-get-em optimist without much of a sense of humor, who along with his childhood BFF Kircheis acts as a team with the long-term goal of rescuing the Baron's older sister (whom Kircheis wants to marry) from her captivity as the Emperor's favorite concubine. In order to do that the Baron has reasonably decided he needs to rise through the military ranks (because his family though noble was poor, which is why he grew up next to the poor Kircheis family and why his dad pimped his sister to the Emperor for cash to pay family debts) until he can overthrow the Emperor, bringing new life to the stale military Empire along the way (and renewed honor and glory to his family).

Yang comes from a poor family, too, who has left him in debts, but otherwise he's quite different: unlike the militant Baron he just wants to be a history professor, and only joined the military because that was the only place available to get a history degree for free! He's an easy-going somewhat cynical kind-hearted guy who prefers to stay away from fighting because he doesn't want to die or kill other people, but he's good at judging character and making friends (rather like the Baron in that regard, too, come to think of it), and has a knack for putting his historical analysis to strategic use.

This character difference is well-exemplified in the shape of the first chronological eps (produced as prequels after the end of the main story): Yang's origin story starts as a languid 14-episode trod where he meanders around from place to place, sometimes a little bored though always trying to do his best at whatever he's been assigned, picking at a mystery from Alliance military history of a couple of generations past (involving one of the last big fleet fights between the Empire and the Alliance), just happening along the way to save three million civilians from death or slavery and briefly taking control of a planet. Which is much less exciting than it sounds, not incidentally. The Baron's origin story in its first 8 eps has been full of exciting personal action and drama, but so far he hasn't accomplished as much.

Anyway, the series is known for its character studies, political plots, and grand strategic, operational, and tactical fighting (and for its 600 named characters). I'll keep reporting in new posts as I go along; but here's the main TVTropes page for the series:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes

[JasonPratt]

AN INTERMEDIARY/PRELIMINARY NOTE ON WATCH ORDER:

The production order of the narrative is a little screwed up, but the main nine novels were animated first and then several prequel collections (and a couple of prequel movies) were released afterward. This leaves fans somewhat divided on the best way for new viewers to watch (and where applicable buy) the series.

The majority camp suggests starting with an immediate prequel movie, set soon before the start of the novels, and then going through the novel episodes in order (possibly via a theatrical-upgrade compiled of the first several episodes of the main series); after which the majority camp is divided between skipping all the prequel stories, watching them in production order, or watching them in chronological.

The minority camp suggests watching in chronological order, but there's a division here, too: the chronologically earliest story, introducing Yang, is a slow-paced leisurely tale stretched out over the equivalent of two 2-1/2 hour movies, but it also features more background history of the Alliance/Empire war and sets up (in a subtle way) that idea I mentioned earlier that the leaders on both sides might have a vested interest in ensuring even their own soldiers don't grow too competent and upset the careful balance of the war. So it's important, but slow. The next stories follow the Baron through fast-paced origin tales filled with high adventure and drama; but coming down off those to go back for Yang's origin story kills the momentum. (Neither story so far seems to make much difference about which comes first chronologically, btw, since their events don't overlap so far.)

I've chosen to follow the chronological order starting with Yang, partly for the 'experience' value of it, and partly because I can keep track of characters well (so early starts don't matter as much to me) and I don't have to be sold on the series any further (so the pacing doesn't matter as much to me). I can definitely see why the prequel-first minority would be split on recommending the Baron eps to new viewers first, however, because I'm enjoying it much more so far.

[JasonPratt]

Reporting on SPIRAL LABYRINTH:

This is the slow-paced thoughtful 5 hour origin story for the equally slow-paced thoughtful protagonist Yang -- who reminds me a lot of The Irresponsible Captain Tyler but without the goofy humor or disrespect for authority.

Without spoiling the story, it traces how and why he gets into the Alliance military (to earn a history degree for free), and how he quickly rises to Lieutenant Commander rank by... well... instigating heroic deeds which he doesn't like to take credit for but which make him a propaganda celebrity in his region of the Alliance.

Along the way he spends A LOT OF TIME researching the history of the last group of colorful and competent Alliance military general heroes from about 50 years ago, because someone has been faxing Alliance bases a simple sheet each day for a month saying the lead admiral of the group was murdered in a conspiracy, and his higher-ranking friend from academy days wants to find Yang something to do to pass his time which he might enjoy while he's waiting for the higher-ups to decide where a completely average-ability public hero can be safely assigned.

This gives the story an opportunity to fill the viewer in on some of the history of the story, and provides a lot of characterization for Yang and his growing group of friends (who may or may not come back later to help him in his career ;) ). It also introduces the first two fleet battles the series is justly famous for, the smallest of which has more than 1000 capital ships on each side (and is explicitly regarded as a small battle!) As you might expect, such battles proceed at a stately pace (backed by classical German music), and the animators do a good job trying to show the viewer what's happening in the overall picture (and why it's important) since even in the 'small' battle the fleets are so large that they're too big for the 'camera' to effectively see and comprehend. (Cap ships in the foreground shooting, lots of ships in battle lines in the background shooting. A nice effect is introduced where a fleet group moves into an area looking at long distance like a slowly growing star, giving an idea of just how big even the small battles are.)

It also, I fully expect, gives the viewer a taste of how slowly paced parts of the main story may be: I was literally using these episodes to put myself to sleep at night by distracting myself from thinking about more interesting things! So while this isn't the most gripping way to get into the story, it functions nicely as an introductory test: if you can make it through these FIVE HOURS and still care about going on, you'll probably be good to go. ;)

That being said, given an opportunity I'd personally trim this story down to one 2-1/2 movie instead of (what amounts to) two.

[JasonPratt]

Reporting on SILVER-WHITE VALLEY:

Note: these are English translations of Japanese translations from German (or something), and unofficial English translations at that; so there are variations of how they're found in English.

This four-episode story gives the origin story for Baron Reinhard and his more-or-less vassal Siegfried Kircheis, partly through Kircheis's flashbacks, explaining why they're in the military and their long-term goals: to save Reinhard's sister Annerose from being enslaved as the Emperor's (current) favorite concubine, which Reinhard hopes will also result in renewed glory for his family (and for the Empire at large as he reinvigorates it), and which Kircheis hopes will result in being married to Annerose whom he has a crush on and thinks might love him back if they could just get together again.

Unfortunately, Annerose (now the Countessa Grunwald) has a jealous enemy at court, the Marichioness Benemunde, the now-middle-aging previous favorite concubine of the Empress (the Emperor has a thing for starting early with young girls  :P ). She can't strike out directly at Annerose, so has decided to work the system to kill off Reinhard by direct or indirect means, in order to hurt Annerose as much as possible (maybe even killing her in grief).

The immediate result is that Team Baron (as I've decided to call the Dynamic Duo) gets posted at an arctic mining planet where the Alliance and the Empire have been handing the planet back and forth to each other for, like, ever. It's a dead-end job for the local Empire commander, and when he's contacted by agents of the Marichioness he and his second-in-command jump at the chance to save their careers -- which means soon Team Baron are stuck by themselves in a recon tank without fuel near the enemy in a blizzard.

This, to the Baron, is an excellent opportunity.

Much cleverness, high drama, and butt-kicking ensues. There's more packed into these four eps than all fourteen of SPIRAL LABYRINTH, and for early hook purposes I'd definitely recommend watching these and the next stories first before SpiLab. Just be aware there'll be a huge drop in pacing for around five hours once Team Baron's intro stories are done.

[JasonPratt]

Reporting on THE MUTINEER:

These next four eps continue the next story of Team Baron as they're assigned their first spacefleet duties, replacing the wounded chief navigator (Reinhard) and security chief (Kircheis) on an old destroyer, where noble vs. commoner class problems quickly surface, though not by Team Baron's intentional fault. This may or may not involve one or more mutinies, who knows? ;)

It certainly involves some low-level fleet combat adventures, and some high-tension Star Trekkish set pieces as the destroyer crew works hard to escape its deadly peril. This story does a good job spotlighting the hard-science fiction of the series (around 4.5 on the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness), which up until now has been mostly a background element (e.g. conspiratorial nobles trotting along in a 19th century horse-drawn carriage while a secretary accesses the internet on a laptop computer) but which results, for this story, in things like having to rotate a ship near a star to protect crewmembers walking along its surface under a slowly deteriorating metal heat shield so one of several key thrusters can be repaired.

Again, merely in its own four episode arc, there's more packed in than for Yang's whole 14 ep introduction.  :P

[JasonPratt]

Reporting on THE DUELIST:

Still with Team Baron for another 4 eps, the Empire rewards Reinhardt by giving him what they think any young aristocrat wants: a boring desk job safe far away from combat. In an effort to relieve the tedium (and possibly to impress a young baroness who likes to flirt with 16 year old boys), Rein gets involved in a mining rights dispute. Did I mention the duels? Because there are duels. :)

Gearing back down in pace after the previous 8 episodes, this story gives Team Baron more experience navigating treacherous Imperial political waters, and gives the show's artists a chance to work on 19th century bling more than in previous eps, while the author gets to geek out over 19th century dueling forms. Also, Kircheis gets to Kato someone's tendons out of his arm! So a good time is had by all.

(I declare "Kato" to be a real verb.)

The next entry may be a bit delayed until I can decide whether to include or ignore the film Golden Wings, which many fans hate for reasons I haven't been able to clarify yet, and which I'm told is at best redundant to information given elsewhere in the story, but which in chronology comes next (while still flashbacking a lot to recap Rein's origin story).

[JasonPratt]

Reporting on GOLDEN WINGS:

I still don't know what's so objectionable about it, aside from the slightly ramped up suggestions of romantic affection by Rein toward Kircheis; but apart from some touching of the hair that's as far as it goes, it's just two guys who grew up as virtual brothers and have strong brotherly love for one another.

Anyway. Team Baron has finally caught up with Yang at the rank of Lt. Commander (Kircheis is still a Lt.JG), and have been assigned as the captain and xo of a destroyer just as the 5th Battle of Iserlohn is ramping up.

Oh, and Iserlohn is nothing other or less than a Death Star. Because it is.  8) (Trenches, surface tower guns, big wave motion gun, the whole nine yards.) (Updated to add: subsequent eps seem to indicate Iserlohn is an ocean planet with Imperial hqs under the water, with the Iserlohn Fortress being "Odin". Not sure the planet itself shows up in this movie, but for "Iserlohn" below read "Odin".)

Every once in a while the "rebel" Alliance {cough} launches a new fleet attack against Iserlohn, and each time they've been beaten back. This time however, Yang's teacher from the academy is one of the fleet admirals, and he has convinced his fellow admirals to use a new strategy suggested by Yang -- even though Yang still doesn't believe it's possible to defeat Iserlohn this way, despite having the largest fleet in Alliance history so far (50,000 capital ships!)

Because this is a theatrical film and the producers can't just assume everyone watching knows why the Baron is fighting and how he came to be teamed up with that red-haired guy, the first 18:30 of the movie is an expanded remake of the Rein/Kircheis origin story, adding a few more details such as why Rein and Anna's mother never seemed to be around.

But most of the hour-long movie (which for all practical purposes is 3 eps sewn together) follows Team Baron, as they quickly earn the respect of their new crew while fending off an Imperial inquisitor sent by Benemunde to assassinate Rein, before and during the 5th Battle of Iserlohn. (The next part of the OVA proper definitely starts a few months after this battle.)

As a (short) theatrical film, it comes with its own original soundtrack, and a new art style more heavily drawing from the manga adaptation of the novels -- which among other things means all the ship designs are totally different, but everything is also rather more detailed. (It's also, incidentally, a little bloodier.)

Personally I liked it: I understand why the screenwriters thought they had to replay the childhood years of Rein and Kirch at the beginning, for the benefit of a wider audience who hadn't been buying installation episodes on tape for years, and the replay does add a few worthy (even if unnecessary) details; whereas the main story fills in a gap of Rein and Yang's two stories where they happen to be present for a great battle but don't end up contributing much personally. Kirch gets to Kato the living hell out of several people, and the pacing and fleet battle itself kept my interest easily. My opinion of its merits may change when I get to the transition between the 2nd and 3rd "seasons" (many many eps from now), where the events here may be flashbacked in preparation for the 6th Battle of Isenlohn (unless I miss my guess), but for now I'd recommend including it here in its chronological playthrough -- though if watching it through with a newcomer I might skip the first 18:30 as redundant material we've mostly seen already not long ago.

[JasonPratt]

Report on THE RETRIEVER:

Team Baron's story continues in another 4 episode block (roughly a 1-1/2 hour movie), picking up about 6 months after the events from Golden Wings and referencing some of them directly -- although Reinhardt is still "von Musel" and not, as the movie indicated, "von Lohengrinn" yet. Still, thanks to his contribution (relatively small though it was) to the events depicted in the film, he has been promoted to full Commander and given the captaincy of an actual cruiser. (Kircheis still retains his Lt.jg rank, so can't be the XO, but can still be chief of security which allows him to bodyguard and that's what he wants anyway.)

As with his other story blocks so far, this story is paced well with interesting action and drama, as the Baron is asked to volunteer for a secret mission over the Alliance border alone (in his cruiser with his crew). Along the way he makes a few more contacts who will likely show up later in the 'main' storyline several more years down the line; and LGH's version of Stormtroopers show up because they had a Death Star in the last story so why not?

Consequently, Kircheis starts the story KATOING THE ABSOLUTE HELL out of Reinhardt's men while leading an assault on the bridge.  :o There are perfectly good plot reasons for this, which I won't spoil for those who may look up the series; but I will mention here that in LoGH Stormtroopers use battle-axes more than blasters -- also for perfectly good plot reasons, but also because Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers are (for the most part) the laughingstock of geeks everywhere. No one laughs at LoGH Stormtroopers i.e. the Panzer-Grenadiers. NO ONE!

The previous plot entry, Golden Wings, featured very different spaceship designs, being based on the manga rather than the anime; but I much prefer the ones created for the OVA: blocky and functional, like ships in space most likely would be, the Imperial ships also feature some flourishes which make them look like 19th century dueling pistols -- no doubt very intentionally in-story! Despite the 'Stormtroopers', this was another story which felt more like Star Trek than Star Wars, and I mean that as a compliment: there are tactical and strategic problems to overcome, and (much as in a good episode of most Gundam series) the writers and designers take some time to think out how humans would operate in space. This story also ties up a loose end from The Duelist, and reveals a further political angle which may or may not come back into play later when the Baron makes his run at being Emperor. (I'm not being coy this time, I really don't know, but I can imagine how it might.)

Altogether, still a fine entry -- not quite at the level of The Mutineer, which remains my favorite story arc so far, but still high caliber. (And with a cruiser that looks like a dueling pistol, REALLY high caliber!  8) )

[JasonPratt]

For the past few weeks I've been catching up on Gundam (SEED, Destiny, and 00), and playing as Ethiopia in World War 1, so I haven't been watching LGH in proportion. While waiting on a missing Gundam00 disc to arrive, though, I snuck in a story arc.

Report on DREAMS OF THE MORNING, SONGS OF THE NIGHT:

I'm more than a little fuzzy about what the title is supposed to refer to in-story, so let us say no more about it.

This is the next Team Baron four-parter. After the James-Bond-with-a-space-cruiser-shaped-like-a-pistol previous entry, this one is much more laid back. The Baron has been promoted to captain not long after the events of The Retriever (for which he couldn't be promoted because of the secrecy), and for unexplained bureaucracy reasons (lightly explained as political hasslement because of his sister) he's in between ship assignments along with Kato (er, Kircheis, now full Lieutenant, who lampshades that Reinhardt is a little foolish to assume they'll always be teamed up by the administration.) Rather than put him in command of a higher profile cruiser, he and Kirk are assigned duty at the military police station near the university they graduated from two years ago -- with a secondary duty of observing classes there to inspire the students or something. It's a wimpy justification to have them around for the plot of the story, but at least Rein calls affronted attention to the wimpy justification as a convenient plot device in-story!

Anyway. Without going into spoilers, someone commits a serious crime or two, and Team Baron gets on the case to figure out whodunnit and why. While that's the main plot of the story, and it isn't overly important for Rein's own life or career (the crime isn't against him), the author tries hard to make this relevant to Rein's disdain of Imperial genetic purity practices -- and of people who take petty advantage of those practices. Oh, and there's some kind of running artistic in-joke by the animators about the statue in front of the school which shifts position regularly and glares out the corner of its eye at happy little butterflies fluttering by. And there's a tragic death in the Baron's family that he goes out of his way to not make much of, which contributes to a third (and thematic) plotline.

The art is still as good as usual, but without much interesting to draw in the background the artists focus on the characters, primarily the two main protagonists.

You may be able to tell I think this is the weakest Baron entry so far, though it's still miles better paced than the glacial Yang origin story. While it isn't offensively bad, or really 'bad' at all, it's so mediocre that this is the first Baron story I'd say could be feasibly skipped -- they do talk about a guy who was once an honorable military police officer, which seems likely to be setting him to show up in the main plot (once that starts) as one of the Baron's allies, but I can't imagine anything happening here mattering later.

Next up, a 12 part story that I'm kind of dreading since the last story that length (Yang's origin) was terribly paced.

[JasonPratt]

First of two reports on ONE HUNDRED BILLION STARS, ONE HUNDRED BILLION LIGHTS:

I was somewhat dreading this entry as a 12-parter after the fatally slow 14-parter which served as Yang's origin story (and aside from a brief cameo in the Golden Wings movie, his only story so far). But fortunately it's about Team Baron again.

Even then I crept through the eps at a glacial pace, not because of the eps themselves but because I've been watching and playing other things. I'm still not finished with this miniseries now (thus first of two reports), but having finished the first six episode I'm able to try a catchup post at last.

As might be expected from a six-ep Team Baron story, a ton of action and plotting is crammed into it. Really these 6 eps form their own story arc and I have no idea where the story is supposed to go now for the second 6 eps!

Rein has been promoted (with Kircheis still XO at full Lieutenant finally) to Commodore (commander of a task force but not yet a rear admiral) under the pleasantly dotty Rear Admiral Grimmselhausen, a coutier-officer so old he has trouble focusing on what's happening anymore. Rein fumes about this for a while but comes to respect him more along the way. Much more problematically the other Commodores under the Admiral jockey one another for position, and the worst is Commodore Hermann von Luneberg, a former Alliance commander (of their Rosenritter Rose-Knight elite regiment of stormtroopers) who defected to the Empire because he thought he wasn't being given enough respect. The middle-aged (but still highly axe-skilled) Luneberg chafes that Rein is already a Commodore; Rein chafes that he has been formally assigned under Luneberg's command despite being equal in rank.

Matters come to a head during a large-scale battle at a solar system of no importance (Van Fleet) other than it happens to be between Imperial and Alliance territory and makes a great place to have one of their occasional fights to keep the war going. (I was expecting Yang to return to the plot here, but he doesn't.) Reinhardt is naturally more skilled at ship and fleet command but his Admiral is regarded as practically useless by the nearby upper brass, so Rein is stuck in low gear for a while as he watches the useless waste of lives and material being thrown away in battle elsewhere. His Admiral happens to be well-liked by the Emperor, though, and this plus jealousy from other Admirals leads via some political finagling to putting him a little farther forward where he might be disgraced or killed in action.

Sure enough the battle turns that direction and suddenly the old Admiral and his fleet find that their most sensible option is to invade the polar region of a nearby planet where the Alliance has set up a not-overly-important rear line supply depot (no longer rear-line at the moment).

Stationed at this depot happens to be (by sheer plot coincidence this time, I think) a few remaining squads of some of Luneberg's former Rosenritters (the regiment having been bureaucratically destroyed after his defection, thus explaining why some were assigned rear-line duty at this base). Their leader is Lt. Colonel Schenkopp, a truly noble low-grade nobleman who leads and commands with flair and who is essentially Luneberg's main opponent for this story (and Rein's by extension) despite not being the base commander (who is entirely competent at his actual logistic job but terrible at organizing combat).

Various things happen for a while, and clearly this story is intended to be not so much about Team Baron as being an origin story for two key opponents, Schenkopp in the Alliance and Luneberg in the Empire -- a man so loathsome that when he returns home he psychologically and physically torments (casually raping) the poor trophy wife whose fiancee he arranged a murder for so he could claim her for himself. Yet this being LotGH, even Luneberg is granted many shades of characterization, including some moments of wry self-critical reflection toward the end of the arc.

Thus ends the first half of this large miniseries among the prequel stories. Will the second half measure up to the first? Someone I was sure would be a main villain henceforth has already been quickly killed from the story (more than one or two such people actually), so while LB looks like he's being set up as a key Team Baron enemy he might be scheduled to exit by the end of it. Hmmm...

[GDS_Starfury]

I've always liked the different ship designs from the series.
and you can buy them here:
http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljlist?GenreCode2=Sci&Word=Legend+of+the+Galactic+Heroes&x=24&y=20

[JasonPratt]

Ooooooo... sweet!



Here's a slightly more typical set:

[JasonPratt]

Imagine what it must be like, to be a person whose job description is "Drafting up detailed schematics for kick-ass animated mechanized vehicles."  8)

[JasonPratt]

Second of two reports on ONE HUNDRED BILLION STARS, ONE HUNDRED BILLION LIGHTS:


Took me a while to get back to this after working through some other things. Bullet points.

* I was worried the second half might drag more than the first, and technically this is true -- about half the eps are spent back at the Imperial home planet taking a rest and doing some political maneuvering. The latter is okay, the former is boring but possibly meant to be that way.

* The second half, though it shares some key characters, is (as I expected) not all that related to the first half. And 2/3 of those key characters are dead by the end, including Luneberg who won't be a main antagonist for Team Baron after all. I can't say I like this habit of introducing interesting villains and then soon afterward killing them off; maybe that's an artifact of basing story arcs on prequel-novel material? I knew from pre-reading that Schoenkopp would survive to be a foe later on the Alliance side; but since this half-arc mainly deals with rest/politics and then a giant fleet battle, he and his Alliance team of Marine Stormtroopers don't get to do much other than awesomely taunt Luneberg into a duel.

* Yang returns to the plot, at long last, after something like six years of obscurity (in story time); but sine he's only a captain assigned to help a higher-ranking friend (I forget which one, both of his only friends kind of look alike) deal with supply issues, which in turn don't affect the battle much other than dictating when the Alliance has to consider withdrawal. But he does submit some general plans through a Rear Admiral who respects him, some of which have enough impact that Reinhardt suspects someone may be out there who can give him a strategic challenge. (Rein's contributions to the battle are, of course, more flashy, and so signal clearly not only to Yang but to everyone else there's a "smartass" new Rear Admiral in the Empire.)

* Oh, and Rein levels up to Rear Admiral before the fight, and expects to get Vice Admiral after the fight. Yang, thanks to his helpful contributions compared to the disastrous plans of his superiors, is expected to get Commodore but he's still way behind (as would be expected, since unlike Reinhardt he doesn't seek out advancement.)

* The battle ending the story arc is the 6th Battle of Iserlohn, that planet with the Imperial base under an ocean of mercury or something. Thor's Hammer is still around, but based under the metal sea (and focused through satellites) rather than orbiting the planet like a Death Star. Not sure which version is canonical to the books, but the one under the ocean seems like it should have been more avoidable since even if some kind of dark matter spatial danger (the plot is unclear) prevents wider maneuvering, the Alliance fleet had clear room to tactically maneuver away from the gun-side of the planet. To be fair to the series I didn't think about that until after the arc was over.

* Some small-fighter ship action on both sides, mostly focusing on a team of four Alliance aces whom I will suppose will be part of Team Yang later. Future Team Baron members seem to be introduced occasionally, too, during this fight. LGH fighters are awesomely designed for space combat and fit well into the general realism of the series.

* Rein and Kirch, despite contributing signally to a serious defensive victory leading to enemy casualties around 8 to 3, regard the battle as a travesty and a failure because 300,000 Imperial citizens died for practically nothing. They revow to take over the Empire in order to bring about a day when the aristocracy won't play with the lives of common people again like this.

* The arc's title comes from the final thing said by the narrator, in reply to Team Baron's noble ambitions: "In this galaxy, there are one hundred billion stars, radiating one hundred billion lights; and then there is one ambition, radiating one single light." (The final ep is titled "One Hundred Billion Stars, One Ambition." Ep titles, by the way, never show up until the end, right before the standard credits; or after the credits if the plot is running a bit long under the credits.)


This was by far the longest remaining prequel arc (or arcs) of the series. Only three more arcs remain before the 'official' start of the series; and the first is a two episode "3rd Battle of Tiamat" which I've heard fans typically enjoy a lot.

[JasonPratt]

Arise, O thread of the epic story!

Yep, last time I caught up with LGH was early September last year; at which time I finished the second half of the goliath "Hundred Billion" story. Having somewhat stalled while watching that, I made a point of switching over full time to finishing Turn-A Gundam (which I also eventually stalled on), and my new collection of 1st and 2nd Doctor Who eps.

Having then recently done that and also gotten through the 3rd Doctor's first season, I had to think about what to work on until (or if) I picked up his second season (with the introduction of the Doctor's chief single enemy the Master) or go back-or-on to something else. Then I recalled I still had this whole series to work on, and that the "100 Billion" grind was done. (Though overall I had in fact liked that story, it just seemed padded.)

All of which is to say that tonight I snipped off and ate the shortest prequel arc of LGH, "The 3rd Battle of Tiamat", at only two eps.

Yang Wenli from the Alliance has leveled up to young Commodore (28 years old if I recall correctly...?), a largely ceremonial rank, and barely intersects the plot long enough to remind us he's there somewhere; but as usual that's because he isn't ambitious like Baron Reinhardt Musel, who at 19 has been promoted to Vice Admiral after his aid in turning back the Alliance at the 6th Battle of Isenlohn.

With the Emperor's 30th anniversary of ascension to the throne, he and his fleet chiefs are looking for a quick decisive attack to give the people back home something to cheer about and to give the Alliance a reminder that they can't just keep wandering around in Imperial space launching attacks without expecting some reprisal; so they mount up 35,400 ships and assault the Tiamat system. Team Baron is super-annoyed at this strategically foolish waste, and most of the two eps involves Kircheis barely holding Rein's temper in check as he watches from the rear guard for a chance to exploit a foolishly ambitious Alliance Vice Admiral's attempts at gaining and surpassing the acclaim of the Admiral Ashbey, the last true Allied strategic and tactical genius from 50+ years ago who died in the 2nd Battle of Tiamat.

Fortunately the story doesn't spread out over 4 eps of strategic and tactical philosophizing. Some Alliance admirals who will probably be important allies for Yang later engage in a bit of clever thinning of the reckless Admiral Holland from their ranks (though with grief over the loss of the servicemen in his command); Rein swats down in four minutes with two arty barrages a foe who had been running rampant over the Imperial forward elements for four hours, thus assuring his promotion to full Admiral at last; the Emperor gets his political victory because technically his fleet won; but the Alliance forces an Imperial retreat when they come back with reinforcements.

Though the story doesn't draw attention to this detail (at all, which surprised me), anyone who remembers being awake waaaaaaay back in the first prequel story, "Spiral Labyrinth", might see that Ashbey succeeded not only due to his own creative genius but because he had built up a Doc Savage team of expert friends he could rely on to help him win his battles. Holland didn't give a crap about actually working with anyone, seeking his own personal glory instead, and was mowed down despite his talent. (Though Team Baron observes that Holland wasn't truly creative, just good at ignoring standard theories and taking advantage of people being unable to adjust for that.) Rein and Kirch worry among themselves that pretty soon now they're going to have to start building up a team of their own -- though this battle gives them no leads along that line -- while two or three more potential Yang Team members are in action over on the Alliance side.

Anyway, Rein is rewarded with ceremonial duties but also with an experimental flagship, the Brunhilde, which I imagine will be used a lot in the few remaining prequel stories (a prequel theatrical film and a final arc) and then into the main story. The narrator may be getting tired of the prequels, too, as he reminds the audience that THE REAL STORY WILL BE STARTING SOON WITH THE NEXT FIGHT  ::) which promises to show the first direct confrontation between the quiet unambitious Wang and the epic hardcharging hero Rein.

Since I'm trying to hold back on buying new videos for a while, I expect I'll chew along on this series a bit before meandering to something else (I have an utter ton of silent sf/fantasy/war movies still to watch from a binge collecting spree a couple of years ago for example) -- at least polish off the remaining prequel stories.