Legend of the Galactic Heroes anime series tracking

[JasonPratt]

Report on MY CONQUEST IS THE SEA OF STARS (aka "The Beginning", referring to the direct rivalry between Yang and Rein):

Amazingly, no one important (or even unimportant, where they had dialogue) died off in this story, which I suppose is a sign the main story cometh.

This one hour theatrical movie, essentially a three-ep story presented all at once, goes back to Iserlohn and its fortress for a while, but only to set up the 4th Battle of Tiamat (one of the corridors to the Iserlohn area).

Team Baron starts collecting some under-admirals to help Reinhardt (or rather by the time the movie starts they're already collected); and Rein acquits himself in two large space battles, one of them as a recon fleet in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant planet (where an Allied probe fleet was trying to sneak up on Iserlohn. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense.)

Wang, now an operations-advising commodore to one of the more important fleet admirals, a blustery aggressive nit, manages to save their ship in the first battle (kind of by 'accident') and then volunteers in the second vastly much larger battle (well animated with a film budget btw) for an apparently suicidal sacrifice mission which he turns around through... well, a bit of plot cheating to be honest... into a way to save most of the Alliance fleet from being trapped allowing an honorable retreat. Rein, by comparison and contrast, starts that battle by accepting a suicidal sacrifice mission which he turns into the opportunity to encircle the Allied fleet, so that's a nice plot chiasm.

By the end, each genius has directly recognized the existence and name of the other, and each takes that threat seriously -- though Rein is in much better position to do something about it. (Kircheis is around but doesn't do much other than stand nearby and offer some advice and plot dump.) The Alliance technically lost, but in terms of men and material the battle appears to have been a close draw, so even the Alliance leadership can angulate it around to being a successful defense against Imperial aggression (though it wasn't, the Alliance was attacking). The Alliance pilot team introduced back near the end of the long Billion Lights story makes an extended cameo (and Yang meets them directly, making a good impression); and crew on each side bring up a theme I hadn't heard in the series since near the beginning: the suspicion that leaders on each side are manipulating the war so that real progress will never be made much less a final victory.

The animation models for the characters, although technically better with the film budget, look oddly off model: strangely bulgy except for Reinhardt. But it's still clearly the same style as in the OVA series, unlike that Golden Wings film a while earlier.

While not particularly plotty, the action is nicely paced, as are the tactical and strategic developments, even if Yang's final plan to save himself and his friends (and the fleet more generally) smacks of haxoring the Matrix to plot-teleport into a position the story has clearly shown he has no feasible ability to be in. ;)

Up next, the final prequel story before the main series starts.

[JasonPratt]

Report on DISHONOR:

I came into this four-part story having gotten a bit of a bad impression on it somehow from when I was researching the plot order. I guess I can see why: it's a Kircheis-goes-on-vacation story which doesn't have much action and unlike the carefully tight continuity of the other prequels (despite being produced out of order?) this one seems to jank continuity around by implying nothing was happening with Reinhardt (or Kirch for that matter) while Rein was waiting to be confirmed as the new Count Von Lohengramm. Which seems to happen at the end of the first battle of the main story (coming up soon) instead, but which the theatrical version of the main story also seems to indicate has already happened before that battle (since the Emperor himself already regards Rein as the new Count).

Then again, the theatrical film "Golden Wings" indicated that Rein's aid in defending Iserlohn, though relatively small, directly resulted in him being given the Lohengramm title. So, eh. The series isn't overly clear when that happened anyway.

Anyway, Kirch, while bored on vacation at a Las Vegas-y resort area, gets involved lending aid to the local police in dealing with a military drug smuggling operation, which is less exciting than it sounds despite him Katoing the absolute hell out of a group of mercenaries at least once (in a wonderful action set piece). Mostly it's an introspective plot designed to question, by analogy, whether Rein and Kirch are being reckless in their loving attempts to free Rein's sister (and whether Kirch is in danger of similar recklessness in loving Rein in however-the-viewer-wants-to-interpret-that. ;) )

It seems quite skippable, in order to move along with the direct chain of events that have been leading into the start of the main series, but I enjoyed it once I adjusted for the slower pace.

With this story, all prequel eps are finished, at about 1/3 of the way through the whole series.

[JasonPratt]

Report on OVERTURE TO A NEW WAR:

This is a theatrical upgrade to the first three episodes of the main series. As such it looks great (even if I occasionally suspected I was seeing frames zoomed in too far to create a widescreen effect out of 4:3 footage!), even better than previous theatrical releases of the series since the animation never looks off-model (being simply touched up from existing material).

Despite the expectations, we still aren't quite at a Team Baron vs Team Wang straight-up fight: Wang is still only a commodore, and only gets to recover from a disaster for the Alliance at the last moment, but as a result gets promoted to something more effective. The fleet battle scenes are great as usual, and Reinhardt ends having officially received the title (from a dead family of old Imperial honor, currently unused) of Count Von Lohengramm. Whereas Team Yang actually takes a step backward if anything (for plot reasons I won't spoil) despite his coming promotion!

After seeing much the same plot from two out of the three previous stories, though, I did think we might be running a bit thin on treading the same ground over and over -- almost literally the same ground, as once again the fight involves an approach to Iserlohn. Then again, props to the plot for lampshading this directly: we see our strongest confirmation to date that the war is being manipulated by high rankers on both sides (including a war profiteering middle-man who seems a lot like Lex Luthor!) to constantly stalemate. So naturally the same areas get fought over again and again.

But high ranking Alliance admirals with a better opinion of Yang are now in a position to hand him his first command mission, and boy it's a doozy in context of what we've seen in the prequels: finally take Iserlohn! -- something Yang himself previously thought was impossible, in standard ways at least, and which Rein previously indicated he thinks is entirely possible for a crushing Alliance victory if they ever did it right.

So the re-treading of the plot actually plays into the overarching storyline nicely, despite and even because of its re-treading flavor: can Yang make ACTUAL DANG PROGRESS for the war now? Or since Rein himself suspects a fatal weakness in the fortress planet's defense, will he foil the attempt but then finally have the political clout to try a real and successful hit at the Alliance?

Those who have already watched the series will know the answer, but I don't! -- so I'm interested to see where and how the next eps go.

[JasonPratt]

Report on MAIN SERIES EP 4 (I can't recall the title offhand, they only print it at the end of the ep):

God knows I sure don't plan to report on every main series episode individually! -- but this is a special case situation because there's a legitimate question about whether to watch the film version of eps 1-3 and then this, or just watch eps 1-3.

If, like myself, you go that route, then ep 4 fleshes out material presented as part of the denouement of the film, at least on Team Yang's side (which makes me wonder if a future ep will do the same for Team Baron soon). Yang hasn't been promoted to Rear Admiral yet, until the very end of the ep, and the context of that promotion and his assignment to beat Iserlohn is more clear: it's probably meant as political punishment for defying the Defense Minister in several ways (who is agitating for continuing to fight against the Empire, and seems to be using that as a plank for either a coming presidential campaign or maybe just having the de facto greatest Alliance authority since the point is made several times that the Alliance has been geared for total war so long that their system is just as oriented for that as the Empire though superficially the two systems look different.)

Yang does have allies in the upper ranks who want him to succeed, and they're who pass down the orders; but clearly they aren't the one initiating the orders because Yang is given a ludicrously small fleet (not much more than 6000 ships, which by LGH standards is a pittance) to conquer Iserlohn with! -- something his allies wouldn't do, but which fits Yang's public criticism of the Minister (from back in ep 1 or the movie) not providing Alliance fleets enough ships to seriously win.

Oh, and there are Klanesque thugs working for the Defense Minister who attack Yang's One True Love when she speaks out against the political manipulation. This being Team Yang, the thugs are simply fire hosed, not crippled or executed. ;) Still, those scenes are well-staged, with a lot of tension because after all this IS Team Yang, who can't be expected to swashbuckle and Kato the hell out of the miscreants. That'll no doubt change once the Rosenritters catch back up with the plot on Team Yang's side.


Anyway, I needed a bit of adjustment to the backplotting of this episode after watching the movie version, so I figured I ought to warn anyone reading this who is thinking of watching the series, it's okay (so far) to do the higher quality film version of the first three eps but expect some plot overlap when transitioning back to the episodes themselves. Which is better than plot gaps! -- but still, you'll be less confused if you know what to expect ahead of time.