Legend of the Galactic Heroes S1E1: “In the Eternal Night”

This review was commissioned by @Lupercal.


We've seen the first two episodes of Legend of the "Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These." Now it's time to roll back the rock to the late nineteen eighties and see the first anime adaptation of that same material. Aside from cheaper animation and cheesier music, I'm not sure what kind of differences I should expect between Die Neu These and the OVA. The former was well made, but didn't particularly grab me. The OVA may score better or worse overall.


Intro is...exactly as I predicted. Cheaper, more SatAm style animation. Very "eighties anime" looking versions of Reinhard and his supporting cast silhouetted against a starfield full of Imperial ships. The song is cheesier, and also gayer, than the remake's, which is really saying something on both counts. Interestingly, no sign of Wen-Li and Co. Do Reinhard and Wen-Li each get their own intros depending on whose POV the episode focuses on? That could be kinda cool.

The voice over that sets the stage is longer and way the hell less focused than the equivalent backstory exposition that starts DNT. Which, from what I've been told, is illustrative of the two series as a whole. In the OVA, he goes off on this rambling, poorly translated philosophical tangent about human insignificance and the apathy of the universe and stuff. While showing us some Mesopotamian ruins in turn with the starfields and planetary orbital views.

If by "maybe fated to someday vanish" you mean "the second law of thermodynamics is a thing" then
sure. Or...I dunno, maybe Newton's Laws were disproved in the 29th century or something.

The one interesting thing about this pointlessly long, meandering speech is that it's spoken from a far future perspective. As in, when the narrator mentions the big galactic war, he makes it sound like it happened a very long time ago. Implying that generals Wen-Li and Reinhard literally do become "legendary heroes" generations after their deaths, thus justifying the title in a way that DNT didn't off the bat. So, that's a positive.

Then he starts giving us a breakdown of the astropolitics, and doesn't do as good a job as DNT's orientation speech did in terms of either detail or drama. Also, there's some very, very questionable localization going on here:

Again, this is probably just down to DNT having better translation. If the actual Japanese script of the OVA is referring to a spacefaring polity of even minor importance as a "city state" then fucking lol.

...unless its a dyson shell or something, I guess, but I doubt that that's it.

We start the actual story with an external shot of Reinhard's gaudy silver flagship, the Brunhild, as shuttles bearing his fleet officers arrive. Presumably so they can whine at him about the coming battle, as per DNT. Unlike DNT, which doesn't seem to take sides between the Alliance and the Empire (aside from the unavoidable connotations of their names and aesthetics), the OVA wants us to know from the beginning that we're supposed to hate the Empire. The music and camera angles as the Imperial officers assemble aboard the ship and are saluted by the hangar crew are pretty close to how Star Wars did it.

From there, we jump to Reinhard and his redheaded sidekick Siegried, having their stargazing session before the meeting. The dialogue between them is more unfocused and vapidly pseudo-philosophical than I remember, and mostly just retreads the same groanworthy ground as the voiceover intro. The voice acting is also less engaging. Finally, they get to the point and start talking about the Alliance flanking maneuver coming up ahead of their fleet.

It may be another localization bug, but Reinhard also comes across as much less likeable right off the bat here. Before we (or he) even hear about the officers' misgivings, he's dismissing them all as a bunch of doddering old cowards. Pretty much acting exactly like the cocky, callous, entitled political appointment that they believe him to be.

On one hand, I didn't like how in DNT the admirals were all these cartoonish oafs who existed just to be in the wrong and highlight their commander's genius. But, if Reinhard remains someone who we're meant to root for, this is going too far in the opposite direction. Again, this could just be down to some nuances being lost in the translation.

Also, unlike DNT, the OVA interrupts the Imperial strategy talk with a cut to the surface of planet Phezzan. You know, the city state. In contrast with the nostalgic pseudo-agrarian aesthetic of the Imperial homeworld (assuming it looks the same way in both adaptations, of course), what we see of Phezzan looks very modern. Like, its capital could pass for a late twentieth/early twenty-first century western city. Inside a government building, an important Phezzan official named Adrian Rubinsky is looking over the latest war reports and predicting an eventual Alliance victory. Phezzan's been doing well economically during this long conflict, and it sounds like this guy is coming up with a plan to keep that boom going after it finishes too.

This guy sounds like a competent, forward-thinking leader. But he's saying it all in a slow, scheming gloat while making a supervillain face.

If his evil plan is to guide his people into profiting off of peace instead of profiting off of war, I'm not really sure I can fault him. Either a) he's being facetious, b) he's a scifi Lord Blackforest, or c) the translation is so bad that the subtitles are saying the opposite of what they're supposed to. I really hope it's b).

Back to the bridge of the Brunhild. In DNT, Reinhard explained the plan as best he could before getting frustrated and dismissing them with a wry "well, that's still the plan." Here, he barely explains himself at all, and threatens them with insubordination charges if they don't go back to their ships right this instant. Lovely. I'm not sure which of these takes is truer to the books, but the differences are no longer attributable to mere translation. This time, when the officers depart from the bridge (via powered walkway rather than tram in this version) and complain about Reinhard, the viewer is inclined to take their side. Despite their earlier villain framing. After they've left, Siegried reminds Reinhard that it's his sister's birthday today. Reinhard says that he'll just dedicate this coming victory to her as a present, then. I'm sure it's just what she's always wanted.

Cut to the Imperial homeworld, and a woman named Annerose who I assume is the sister in question. Different surname, so it's hard to be sure, but the timing of the cut and the similar bright blond hair to Reinhard's suggests that that's who she is. She's lounging around in an idyllic Prussian riverside gazebo while classical music plays and a page in a ridiculous 19th century uniform reads a war report from the Astarte front.

And, it turns out that the old man the page is reading it to, specifically, is the Space Kaiser himself. This fairy tale gazebo is presumably somewhere in the royal complex, then. It looks like his majesty Friedrich IV is establishing himself as more of a character from the beginning in this version.

Also, while he doesn't quite project kingliness, he's still somewhat more charismatic than the glimpse we caught of his DNT incarnation. Of course, not knowing his role in the story yet, I can't say which of the two is more effective for it.

If nothing else, the Kaiser doesn't seem to have too much confidence in Reinhard in this situation. Though granted, with a numerical disadvantage like the one being described I doubt he'd have much confidence regardless of who commanded their fleet. He's probably expecting Reinhard to turn tail and avoid engagement, as his own underlings are advising him to do.

Then it cuts to this weird flashback tidbit, where a younger looking Annerose is sending a younger looking Reinhard off with instructions to take care of her brother in battle. I guess Siegfried and Reinhard have been working together for quite a long time, and that the former is a family friend or retainer or something like that.

And then we go back to Reinhard and Siegfried in the present. Reinhard still being confident in his strategy, but then his face darkening when he thinks of the possibility of "that soldier," the one they call the hero of El Facil, being part of the enemy force. Cut immediately to the Alliance fleet, for the scene of Wen-Li's plan being rejected by his superiors that DNT started its second episode with.

I find Reinhard going out of his way to mention this one random enemy officer who isn't even flag rank as a possible threat to his plan, before they've even crossed swords before, just a leeeettle bit unconvincing. :/

So, the Alliance subfleet command ship Patorakles. As in the later adaptation, it's uglier and more utilitarian looking, with sort of a world war 2 submarine aesthetic. Notably, the Alliance's musical motif sounds very British in this version. Interesting. In DNT they felt more like a space America than anything else. As before, Vice Admiral Paeta dismisses Wen-Li's proposal as overly cautious. Unlike before, the two of them aren't alone in a room for this exchange.

The admirals dismiss him, but say that his overly cautious plan is still "no reason to give up on him just yet." Even moreso than last time, I feel like Wen-Li's on thin ice for some unseen previous incident.

Wen-Li leaves and has a condensed version of his meeting with the staff officer, who he already seems to know in this version. Then we flash to some Imperial fortress called Iserlohn where some other uniformed randos are discussing the same tactical situation that we've seen discussed three times already. And also seemingly rooting for their own forces to lose, just so that Reinhard gets humiliated. There's also some vague discussion about a situation involving Siegfried.

Then we cut to...somewhere else, I think the mess hall of one of Reinhard's ships...where some of his officers are also talking about weird politics surrounding Siegfried, Reinhard, and the Kaiser.

Oh yeah, and all these new characters repeating the same information and showing only a little bit of their own personalities, positions, or agendas have name captions that appear under them. Implying that I'm expected to remember all these people. Or, like. Care.

Then we cut to some random-ass planet where footage from one of the ships is being displayed live on an outdoor TV screen for everyone on the street to watch. Communications tech is more advanced than I'd realized in this setting. Also, why are we wasting fucking time on this?

Maybe this is to communicate that the war has become an ongoing spectacle and source of entertainment for at least part of the galactic public. Certainly, the crowd isn't reacting as if this is a serious engagement with stakes. But like, seriously, was it important to show this right now?

External view of the imperial fleet. Dramatic music plays. It's starting to feel really inappropriate, because this is actually one of the least exciting anime episodes I've seen in the last year.

And...oh wow.

Speaking of not at all dramatic, this...holy fuck I could write an entire post about everything wrong with this next scene.

Reinhard gives the order to turn and engage one of the flanking Alliance fleets.

Then, it jumps immediately to the Alliance commander panicking, shouting in stunned disbelief at this turn of events.

No details of how the maneuvers are being done. No drama or tension with ships failing to show up on Alliance sensors when expected leading to the realization of what the Imperial commander must have done. No moment of uncertainty on Reinhard's end before they manage to slip the noose and successfully intercept one of the flanking groups ahead of schedule. No tense music leading into the first bloody battle. Just, a quick cut with minimal music and comical overacting.

And then it cuts immediately from Admiral Jackass chewing the scenery to Wen-Li and his staff officer friend discussing the situation. And when I say "discussing," I mean the two of them standing around talking about it in bored voices, like a couple of high schoolers gossiping about a friend of theirs doing something embarrassing. Or like, complaining about the weather.

Did nobody tell the voice actors that their characters are supposed to both be afraid they're about to die?

Cue ships shooting at each other, intercut with more people on both sides repetitively updating us on the same developments. We're told fewer nonsensical details about what ships can and can't do with regards to jamming, turning, fighter launch, etc than in DNT, but we hear each of them at least two or three times. I'll take the former any day.

There is one nice thing that didn't appear in DNT. When Paeta wants to go rescue the doomed fleet that there's no way they can reach in time because a friend of his is aboard one of those ships, Wen-Li counters him by telling Paeta that he has friends in both of the other fleets, and that for him it's a choice between losing half of them and losing all of them. Also, Wen-Li also sounds like he actually has emotions in this bit, unlike the previous conversation with him. This is something that would have helped make DNT a little stronger, but here it's not enough to make up for the many surrounding blunders.

Anyway, Reinhard beats the first group and moves on to the second. Like in DNT, he tells his underlings not to waste time picking off crippled Alliance ships, and to just move on so that the other two groups don't have time to converge. Unlike in DNT, this is portrayed as a purely pragmatic gesture, with no indications of mercy, and no onscreen promises to accept a surrender.

Again, I don't know which version of Reinhard is closer to the literary source material. But so far, the OVA version of him hasn't given me anything to like.

There are four hours until interception with the next group. You can use that kind of travel time to build tension and expectation for the next engagement. Or, you could spend it on artless, low-energy sequences of people arguing emotionlessly over the situation over meals or calmly repeating things that both we and they already know to each other. I'll leave it to your imaginations which approach the OVA decided to go with. Wen-Li tries to get another officer to talk sense into Paeta over dinner, and fails. People name a million family members of theirs that I can't keep track of and don't have enough detail for me to even try to care about.

The only highlight being Reinhard ordering his men to take an early shift so that the specialists will all be fresh for the next battle. The episode takes this opportunity to give us a look at what life aboard a Galactic Kaiserreich battleship is like for the common crewmen as a group of them gratefully turn in for a quick nap before the next engagement. They see the wounded being borne off to sickbay on stasis-stretchers, and murmur to themselves about how it's a good thing nobody actually dies in battle these days unless the ship they're on gets totaled. Though granted, if the ship DOES get totaled, the loss of life is great.

This isn't one of those scifi settings where everything except biggatons and space travel is functionally the same as in the author's time, then. Medical technology is such that any ship with a functioning sickbay and cybernetics facility can restore anything short of a completely splattered human body to life, and seemingly in large numbers. That's good worldbuilding. I appreciate that.

As they talk about old wounds and new casualties, the soldiers retire to a rack of isolation pods. These pods let you get the benefits of eight hours of sleep in a single hour, which makes them invaluable for warships. The cost, in addition to any longterm side effects we aren't told about, is that you don't dream while resting in a pod. Though on the other hand:

"The state literally takes your dreams away to make you a more efficient soldier" is a pretty nightmarish concept. But, on the other hand, "the state takes pains to ensure that as few soldiers die as possible and splurges on quality medical cybernetics" is a hell of a lot better than how the actual Prussian Empire treated its common soldiers for much of its history.

Anyway, both adaptations showed glimpses of pilots, gunners, crewmen, etc panicking and struggling to survive as the ships took hits and fighters made perilous maneuvers, but the OVA goes further in giving them speaking roles. That's good. I like that. Unfortunately, it also feeds into the already pretty frustrating problems of slow pace, character overlorad, and lack of narrative focus. If it weren't for the OVA already doing so much pointless jumping around, this lower decks scene would be purely beneficial to the work. As it is, the effects are much more mixed.

Reinhard engages the second fleet. The Alliance commander somehow gets lifted off his feet by a pillar of deformed metal when his ship gets hit and pressed against the ceiling by it. And somehow is able to bid farewell to some girlfriend or wife of his that I have no reason to care about before dying.

Miniature lungs inside of his head, etc.

As Reinhard closes in for the third engagement, his men are in high spirits. He warns them not to get cocky; it's not over until it's over, and anything could happen before then. That's...kind of ironic, coming from Reinhard. Earlier he was going on about how he's got this, seriously u gais, nothing to worry about, I promise I'll win this battle.

Fleet closes on other fleet. End.


I liked the extra bits of worldbuilding that the OVA managed to fit in, as well as spending a little more time on the grunts. Unfortunately, it's still one step forward and ten back when weighed against the merits and flaws of Die Neue These.

What's really eyebrow-raising for me is how, despite the OVA having twenty million more episodes' worth of space to fill than DNT, it's pilot feels so damned rushed. Like it's scrambling to introduce all of these characters and plot threads with no time to spare. The effect of the pilot showing so many different things in so many different places is that it's not actually about any of them. Almost nobody gets enough screentime to make an impression, and the few exceptions are unlikable. Unlikable in the bland way, not the fun antihero way. And then there's the lack of tension, the terrible voice direction in what's supposed to be pivotal moments, the misapplied music...

Even without the difference in production values, this would be no contest. DNT is hands down the superior pilot. The OVA has a chance to make up for this in the next episode, but I'm not optimistic.