Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Second

Episodes 4-5

If you weren't yet aware, the second season of Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These is being released as a series of movies in Japan, borderline-concurrently with these episodic showings Crunchyroll is chopping them up into. I haven't seen the film versions, but it's worth noting here as unless some major editing wizardry is taking place, the tidy run-times and clean subject breaks between episodes seem to make it clear that these were the intended format regardless. That's exceptionally clear heading into these next two episodes, which kick off two separate story arcs for each side of the war, seemingly setting us up to alternate between parts of them as we go.

Episode 16 takes us to the Empire and their incipient civil war. It's heralded by the arrival of another new character, one whom if you didn't already know was important would probably be able to guess. Hildegard von Mariendorf is an immediately endearing presence, not just by being a female character connected to Reinhardt who isn't reduced to a mere motivating plot device the way his sister Annrose is, but because of how quickly she comes off as sharp and entertaining. Hilda gets a solid amount of focus in the opening minutes of this episode, recapping the situation of unrest in the Empire and laying out once again why Reinhardt is the one we're supposed to be rooting for here. Reinhardt's natural leadership abilities have already been commented on, and will continue to be shown, but having this character established as a smart situational judge reiterate how he can feed into the current structure to be more successful sets another clear trajectory for Reinhardt's ambitions. It's not just that he'd be a good leader, as Hilda points out, the Empire is truly in need of reform if it wants to last longer than it already has, and Reinhardt's abilities are exactly what's needed to deliver that to them.

After that overview, the rest of this episode proceeds with a bit of the same ‘historical overview’ style from the previous two episodes hovering over it, but nowhere near to the same degree. There are a lot of moves involving a lot of characters to cover in the run-up to open war between the divided sides of the Empire, and these narrated-between vignettes handle them effectively enough. One of the big movers turns out to be Merkatz, an otherwise-reasonable commander who gets effectively conscripted into calling the tactical shots for the nobles' side. Of several quote-worthy soundbites this episode, he gets to drop the point that 'Privilege is the worst poison of all. It rots away a person's spirit.' That's followed up with a fairly successful show of emotion in him leaving the letter for his wife and children as he heads off to a battle he's fairly certain to lose.

There's more complex conceptual work in the rest of the episode, with Braunschweig's nobles clashing a bit over strategies in dealing with Reinhardt. There's a multi-side consideration of the practicality of taking Reinhardt out via assassination instead of trying to tactically take him head-on, but the prideful head of the nobles can't discard his perception of his own honor to take such a route. The payoff here comes from when a half-assed unauthorized version of the assassination attempt utterly fails anyway, and Reinhardt brings in Streit, it's would-be orchestrator. Reinhardt's handling of the situation and Streit's impressed reaction to the whole affair effectively wraps this episode by demonstrating what Hilda laid out at the beginning: Reinhardt's actual inspirational leadership (manipulative as it is at times) is much more effective than the entitled attempts the nobles are making. Original LOGH author Yoshiki Tanaka earlier demonstrated a lot of political leanings in the Alliance side of the story and his clear distaste for nationalism, but in this section he shows that he has just as little patience for self-absorbed ruling aristocrats.

Don't worry if you missed all those Alliance-based musings though, since we're right back to them in episode 17! The previous episode worked pretty well, but this one turns out to be the show really getting back into its cinematic gear. Unlike the pseudo-montage of interconnected developing events that drew us into the Empire's civil war, this one kicks off by showing a direct, inciting incident. Remember Falk, the commander who got temporarily blinded by the sheer level of his catastrophic failure? He's back and he's a part of the rebels we saw scheming last episode, and his seemingly-spiteful assassination attempt on an official is what sets everything off. It's a pretty interesting transition from the previous episode when you recall that this was just one more angle set in motion by Reinhardt.

This episode does stall a little bit in the middle there, pointedly having Yang and company piddle around with busiwork and a lack of knowledge of what's coming next. It's at least a decent, unnervingly-accurate depiction of dealing day-to-day in a country where you know things are in flux and about to boil over, but you have no way of knowing when or how. And fortunately for the entertainment value but less so for the Yang Gang, the payoff comes sooner rather than later, with a pretty solid surprise for first-time fans: Frederica's father is the leader of the rebels orchestrating the coup in the Alliance. Her reaction is just the start of the effective emotional plays this episode makes for everything.

Before the more characteristic and personal aspects come into play though, the founding ideas of the coup attempt in this episode are worth analyzing. As Bewcock points out, Dwight Greenhill seems like a decent man, not prone to being manipulated by Imperial scheming the way the other upstarts in his crew have been. It makes clear that Reinhardt's plan worked because we can sympathize with the need for reform that's taking place across both sides this episode: We've seen throughout the show so far that the Alliance government really is super-corrupt. But LOGH makes the key point that violent attacks to jump right over fair democracy straight into installing fascism is no answer.

It's repeated several times in episode 17 that Reinhardt had no way of knowing how the coup attempt he orchestrated would actually play out, that that lends an effective atmosphere to the events of the episode itself. There's a strong ‘thriller’ atmosphere as things progress here, as we wonder how the sides will shake out in their successes and what eventual lesson might be learned by the people of the Alliance from all this. To that end, the show effectively touches on a few of the player's in Yang's own team. Getting the story on Frederica's opinion of the situation again calls up that base emotional investment I've been so desperate to see from the show for the last few episodes. But more intensely than that is the discussion between Schönkopf and Yang on the subject of the coup and how to handle it. There's an effective segue into discussing Yang's leadership style and its implicit comparisons with Reinhardt's as covered in the preceding episode. Yang's inherent contradiction as a war expert who hates war is reiterated here, and he remarks on his personal disinterest in being a leader of the people, especially a benevolent dictator as Schönkopf suggests setting him up as. But that's contrasted later with a scene from Julian where it's shown how much faith the notion of Yang's command instills in the people of the Alliance, proceeding to a direction of actions where the fate of that side itself is in Yang's very hands. And through it all there's an actual clash of personalities, a character-based intensity to the interaction between Schönkopf and Yang.

It warms up a lot in episode 16, but the 17th especially feels like LOGH DNT's second season finally starting to fire on all cylinders. There's a ton going on just in terms of the concepts being thrown around and how the writing articulates them, and that's all contained in a section of the plot that's still in the well-known LOGH mold of 'Watching armies prepare to do something they'll get to doing a couple episodes from now”. Episode 16's coverage of the Empire is no slouch either, and if we're going to keep alternating between the sides and stories in this format for the time being, I'm quite excited to keep following both of them.

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Second is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.