Crunchyroll Legend of the Galactic Heroes remake [Archive]

kuromitsu

2018-03-31, 18:35

Well, well, well... another one dropped early. :heh:

My thoughts...
1. The first 1 minute and its narration are by far the strongest part of the episode. It seriously got my hopes up.

2. Then I had to face reality: as far as visuals go, they just copied the OVA. Aside from a few minor details and updates this is basically the OVA, visually. So boring, so damn disappointing. Coupled with the bland and uninspired character designs and the bland and uninspired BGM, this is pretty much what I'd been afraid of. :(

3. The seiyuu: Miyano Mamoru's Reinhard is basically what I expected from Miyano Mamoru's Reinhard, that is, it's not really Reinhard. He lacks the tension and the anger driving Reinhard, he sounds way too calm. And old. Umehara Yuuichirou fares better, but this Kircheis is definitely not as gentle and warm as one would expect. That might not be a bad thing, though.

4. Pacing is weeeird. Don't they only have 12 episodes? Can they afford to waste so much time? :O If at least they incorporated some more main characters, but no! I wouldn't be surprised if people watching this show with no knowledge of LoGH ended up thinking that Fahrenheit is a much more important character than he actually is!

5. I don't know whose idea that cliffhanger was but it actually made me say "what a stupid cliffhanger!" out loud.

In short: disappointing, but I expected that much based on the previews and whatnot. Will keep watching in hopes that it will improve, also I'm very curious to hear how Umehara handles Kircheis. (Also, is it just me or did they kind of tweak Kircheis' character design to make it fit his voice better? Probably just me...) But the show will have to prove itself to be a lot more ambitious than this if it wants me to like it and not watch it just because it's LoGH and I have to.

RDNexus

2018-03-31, 19:00

Like I said before, I totally welcome the current character design, more visually modern and appealing to me :D

This version of the story seems to be set to 24 episodes, actually. Don't forget the Season2 Movie Trilogy, with 4 episodes of content each.

I've seen the entire original/classic series, but I have to admit...being 110 episodes made me already forget a nice amount of content of the story.
But since I'm not inclined to compare this new series to the classic one, I have no problems with what may be coming up.

About your disappointment of the current version of the story...well, I can't quite comment on how people should feel about something they're a fan of, since I'm kind of a fan of stories like Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball, and still I see myself scratching my head over the current state of both stories :upset:

kuromitsu

2018-03-31, 19:13

About your disappointment of the current version of the story...well, I can't quite comment on how people should feel about something they're a fan of, since I'm kind of a fan of stories like Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball, and still I see myself scratching my head over the current state of both stories :upset:
Just that we're on the same page... I'm disappointed because it's way too similar to the previous anime, instead of trying to do something interesting and new. It seems it's trying to play safe, but what's the point of doing a new adaptation if you just copy-paste what came before? The OVA is immensely huge shoes to fill, and if awkwardly aping it is all this new anime is capable of then that is immensely disappointing. (This is why I kept saying that the new adaptation should be as unlike the OVA as possible, and do its own thing with the novels. Alas...)

I mean... the visuals are just a somewhat touched-up version of the OVA visuals. The chara designs are bland and uninspired. The BGM is bland and uninspired. The voice acting is... not all bland and uninspired, but so far it seems they completely missed the mark with the main character himself. (Again. What is it with recent-ish adaptations of materials I love that they keep messing up the main characters? :heh: ) This is boring, and I think a boring LoGH is a much bigger sin than a LoGH that tries to be new and fresh and doesn't 100% succeed.

As for the story, thing is, the TV series will have 12 episodes as far as I'm aware so even if they plan to pick up the story in the movies they'll have to reach a stopping point in these 12 episodes. And they just wasted an entire episode. :heh:

That first minute was pretty awesome, though. Perhaps unintentionally, but I hope it wasn't a single flash of greatness in a sea of meh, but a sign of what is ahead. (I'm optimistic, dammit! I'm going to try and be positive about this damn show. ...not that it worked last time, with Altair. :heh: )

Hata

2018-04-01, 15:33

The first 1 minute and its narration are by far the strongest part of the episode.
that narration actually reminds me the opening of the movie Dune (1984)

my initial first episode impression

story:
since it is one season that speed up the pace quite a bit, nice details of the novel and old oav were lost, but we don’t get a new adaption to rehash the old thing, I am okay with the first episode so far, let’s see when they get to the political stages of the story how much more parts they have to cut off, I am guessing, a lot more.

BGM and song:
sorry, not epic enough compares to the OAV, I will just give it a passing grade.

character design:
Siegfried is new manga version bad, all other empire side so far are passable.

seiyu:
I actually getting used to the new Reinhard voice, even if it lacks the wildness and youth of the oav one, (yes, about 10 years too old.) Siegfried again is awful, for such important character such non distinguish voice, the one that I like to heard a bit more is Merkatz, the OAV has a very unique sandy voice, this one while not that scratchy, has promise.

ship design:
movable bridge is a nice new idea, actually making it clear the shield and ECM concept instead of the fuzzy OAV version is a plus, the altering look of the ships compares to OAV, while sort of strange, is something I can get used to and it is a good thing, for they are able to add many more small details to the ship compares to the 480 resolution of the OAV DVD.

CG:
this is where the new anime should, and did shine compares to the old one thanks to the advance of technology, the only complain is there is not enough of it.

next week we will have the alliance’s side to go over.

kuromitsu

2018-04-01, 16:18

story:
since it is one season that speed up the pace quite a bit, nice details of the novel and old oav were lost, but we don’t get a new adaption to rehash the old thing, I am okay with the first episode so far, let’s see when they get to the political stages of the story how much more parts they have to cut off, I am guessing, a lot more.
I wonder why you think that the pace was speedy - I thought it was really really slow, especially considering the episode count. And it ended on a cliffhanger! (How far are they planning to get in the TV series, really?)

seiyu:
I actually getting used to the new Reinhard voice, even if it lacks the wildness and youth of the oav one, (yes, about 10 years too old.)
It's not a matter of being similar or not similar to the OVA. IMO a Reinhard who is not young and not simmering with pent-up tension and anger is not Reinhard. Getting used to the voice is one thing, but it's obvious from this episode that Miyano just can't provide some of the absolute key aspects of Reinhard's personality.

Siegfried again is awful, for such important character such non distinguish voice,
Perhaps it's just me but I think Umehara has a very characteristic voice... Due to his voice and style of delivery he can't really do the same Kircheis most people are used to, and it remains to be seen if he can sound warm and gentle enough for the role, but to me his performance was interesting enough to want to hear more of it. Although considering how Miyano's Reinhard sounds, I'm kind of worried that the seiyuu will upset the balance of the Reinhard-Kircheis dynamics. (That is, Kircheis being a tempering force to Reinhard's ambition, anger and drive. A calm Reinhard and hard-edged Kircheis would be... strange.)

xellos2099

2018-04-01, 16:26

I think it turn out better than expected. As for how far, I am guessing it could end after the disaster know as Andrew Fork. Also, should we play a game on who is who in the ending credit?

kuromitsu

2018-04-02, 06:29

Also, should we play a game on who is who in the ending credit?
From left to right, Empire side:
Reinhard, Annerose, Kircheis, the Emperor, Oberstein, Reuenthal, maybe Mecklinger #1, Fahrenheit, Mittermeier, Wittenfeld (it's ridiculous how much he looks like Mittermeier), Müller, maybe Ansbach, maybe Mecklinger #2 (again, why do they have two characters with the exact same character design except for the style of their ponytail?), eyebrow guy I have no idea, shifty-looking old guy is probably Lichtenlade, sideburns guy is probably Braunschweig, Merkatz we've seen already, Reinhard with less shiny blond hair is probably Flegel.

Or maybe shouty ponytail guy is Braunschweig and sideburns guy is Mückenberger. Which would be weird.

FPA side:
Sitolet, probably Bucock #1, Poplin, Konev, dunno, dunno, Dusty, probably Bucock #2, no idea, perhaps Greenhill?, Caselnes looking very differently from his design at the official website, Frederica, Schönkopf, Julian, Yang.

Curiously missing: Hilda (why?!) and Rubinsky.

DragoonKain3

2018-04-04, 00:56

I personally like the action scenes, as something about fleets shooting lasers and launching squadrons makes my blood pumping. How they visualized the battle via HUD was also much better handled, as one of my peeves were the tetris blocks of old when space is 3D lol.

Can't wait for my boy Oberstein. Really REALLY disappointed they haven't announced or even put Hilde, as IMO she's the female character that had the most impact. Then again it's only 12 episodes, so maybe she'll appear next season?

Which yeah, is my biggest downer for the series. I want to get hyped up and be excited, but having only 1 cour really kills the mood. Then again, the original didn't really grip me till like eps 20, so maybe I'll be more excited for the following season lol.

teddychan

2018-04-04, 01:06

>_> no subs >_> yet Tokyo Ghoul re have =_=

How come no love is given with LOGTH

RDNexus

2018-04-04, 02:38

This first episode showed me exactly what I hoped for when I marathoned the entire classic series, how modern fiction conventions and animation plus character design can make this story seem better for nowadays viewers, new and old alike. I sure hope things go on without much problems.

@teddychan:
No subs? It's being simulcast, I just watched it yesterday...
Wait...maybe you watch in a sub language other than english?

Tak

2018-04-04, 10:03

Personally I like the uniform designs, even if they were similar to the original. After all, the Empire is space Prussia, and should have the uniform to match.

Alright, so one minor complaint, Frederica Greenhill looks too young... tch.

- Tak

Kanon

2018-04-04, 11:58

That was better than I expected. For one, I love how modernized the technology is compared to the OVAs, it looks really good. New character designs will take some time to get used to, but they're not bad per say.

I was surprised they're spending so much time on this battle, given how little episodes they have to work with. Could have dealt with it in just one episode. Reinhard seems off to me as well (too calm and composed, that's supposed to be Yang, not him, guys!), but I'm waiting for next week, where he'll be challenged, before handing down judgment.

Obelisk ze Tormentor

2018-04-04, 12:18

It's pretty good. There's nothing here that's offensively bad. I even kinda like the OP & ED. The visuals are nice too. As someone who already watched the OVAs, I'm pleasantly entertained. So yeah, I'll follow this.

And tbh, out of all things, I'm most interested in the stopping point they'll use to end the cour on a good cliffhanging note. This kind of pacing isn't bad at all, but on the other hand, we won't get much out of it, just like in Alderamin. Boy do I wish for a second season for Alderamin since that one also features a Yang Wen Li-ish MC with a taste for MILFs.

Tak

2018-04-04, 12:55

ScrewySquirrel

2018-04-04, 13:34

Ah, yeah... Alderamin entered a scenario I did not expect, and I posted my impressions on the 'other' forum (https://forums.animesuki.com/group.php?groupid=817)... :heh:

As far as new LoGH goes, 12 episodes? Is that right? :twitch:

- Tak
its a Split cour.

12 eps now, then a series of movies that will be split into 12 eps next year. and unlike the OVAs, this will be just the first novel.

Tak

2018-04-04, 14:11

12 eps now, then a series of movies that will be split into 12 eps next year. and unlike the OVAs, this will be just the first novel.

First novel? Really? 12 episodes for the very first novel? Because the first novel gone by really quickly.

- Tak

RDNexus

2018-04-04, 14:16

its a Split cour.

12 eps now, then a series of movies that will be split into 12 eps next year. and unlike the OVAs, this will be just the first novel.
Where the hell did you read/hear about this new version adapting only Vol01? That can't be true.

kuromitsu

2018-04-04, 15:29

its a Split cour.

12 eps now, then a series of movies that will be split into 12 eps next year. and unlike the OVAs, this will be just the first novel.
What? Where did you read this? Until now it was 12 episodes now and 12 episodes' worth of movies later. Also, only volume 1? Huh?

(Even if they want to avoid including the end of volume 2 in the TV anime out of fear that people new to the franchise wouldn't watch the rest, volume 1 only is just... yeah, no way.)

Haak

2018-04-04, 15:36

Speaking as a new viewer, I thought it was a pretty competent premiere. I was actually worried that things were going to be pretty boring if Reinhart curb-stomped the enemy like some overpowered Isekai protagonist but they decided to throw the guy out of his comfort chairzone at the right time. I'm hoping to see Reinhart humbled a bit because I felt like the show was playing him up as an example of The Great Man Theory, which I'm not too keen on (personally I think its popularisation is a factor that has lead us to 21st century strongman leaders). The problem is, I think the writing is also playing up his new rival in a similar manner.

If I had to gripe about something, it would probably be that this story appears to keep perfectly in tradition with anime war dramas in that they always start you in the thick of it and give little context on what these factions are fighting for and why. I hope we get that crucial context sooner rather than later but I'm not bummed about it for now.

Ithekro

2018-04-04, 15:59

Hilde didn't show up until the second half of the first season...during the (first) civil war if I recall correctly.

kuromitsu

2018-04-04, 16:12

I'm hoping to see Reinhart humbled a bit because I felt like the show was playing him up as an example of The Great Man Theory, which I'm not too keen on (personally I think its popularisation is a factor that has lead us to 21st century strongman leaders). The problem is, I think the writing is also playing up his new rival in a similar manner.
It's not really the Great Man Theory in that "history is shaped by individuals", more like, "sometimes people appear who change the course of history, for better or for worse". (That's why, in the end, this is a "legend".) For that matter, one thing that this adaptation has to get right, especially with the limited runtime, is handling Reinhard as a protagonist, to avoid putting him on a pedestal.

Top Sergeant

2018-04-04, 20:07

This first ep was pretty good. Looking forward to more. Lovin' the scope of the space battles!

Tak

2018-04-04, 21:28

I'm hoping to see Reinhart humbled a bit because I felt like the show was playing him up as an example of The Great Man Theory, which I'm not too keen on

He has been humbled throughout the story. Each time proved to be an unpleasant experience.

- Tak

Anh_Minh

2018-04-05, 14:02

Well, it's a lot prettier than I remember. Especially the ships.

But the years (decades?) have made me a lot more impatient with "cleverness" that's really "gross incompetence bordering on the suicidal" or "overwhelming tech superiority". The most egregious example here being the way the Imperial fleet seems invisible until in firing range, while the Union fleets aren't.

Tak

2018-04-06, 12:09

Anh_Minh

2018-04-06, 14:06

Tak

2018-04-06, 15:47

J00 are so boring!

- Tak

kuromitsu

2018-04-06, 15:59

Well, here is a minor thing I am hoping for the new series.

I understand Reinhardt is supposed to be Frederick the Great IN SPACE!, so he gets more than a dozen set of military uniforms to wear every other day, but for crying out loud... give the man some 'other' attire, yeah? He has money!

- Tak
It's Reinhard. If there's someone in the story for whom it would be out of character to have a decent-sized wardrobe, it's him. ("Look at them, Kircheis. Look at them prancing around in their fancy clothes, while outside their peaceful bubble, war is raging! Ridiculous! A perfect example of their arrogance and blah blah blah blah blah blah" "....Yes, Reinhard-sama... sure...")

Reuenthal, though. I wonder if this adaptation will show him in his socialite mode (something the OVA pretty much ignored). I have a feeling they're trying to allude to that with the hair, but the hair is terrible, so I at least want some nice clothes.

Tak

2018-04-06, 16:23

Actually, I expected Reinhardt to don some alternate outfits during his short, but notable out-of-character moments after his rendezvous with Hilde, where he became a frequent audience to operas, balls and other social events. Alas, that was not to be...

- Tak

kuromitsu

2018-04-06, 16:25

"Alternate outfits? Pfeh. I'm a soldier, a uniform is perfectly adequate. (I'm not like those arrogant, decadent fossils who [insert angry and scathing ranting])" - Reinhard, probably

Tak

2018-04-06, 16:43

"Alternate outfits? Pfeh. I'm a soldier, a uniform is perfectly adequate. (I'm not like those arrogant, decadent fossils who [insert angry and scathing ranting])" - Reinhard, probably

Oh please, guy can barely be himself after sharing a night with Hilde. He then embarked on a series of 'social experimentation' that even Annerose would find amusing, and enough to make Kircheis roll in his grave if the latter had known about it.

While the novels omitted any details regarding him dressing differently for various occasions during that time, it is entirely possible.

Yeah, I am only advocating this because I think it'd be funny $h!t.

- Tak (I am thinking Hawaiian shirt)

RDNexus

2018-04-10, 09:50

Now that's the kind of technology I wanted to see in a potential revamping of the classic series.
Now I'm seriously hoping this new series doesn't end up disappointing :D

Anh_Minh

2018-04-10, 10:14

Can someone versed in military history say if Yang's line about that dumbass merry go-round configuration occurring countless times is actually true?

xellos2099

2018-04-10, 20:31

So far most of the female look way better than the original ova counter part. To be fair, most of the female in ova doesn;t look that great beside Annerose, her friend and Karen

DragoonKain3

2018-04-11, 01:45

But the years (decades?) have made me a lot more impatient with "cleverness" that's really "gross incompetence bordering on the suicidal" or "overwhelming tech superiority". The most egregious example here being the way the Imperial fleet seems invisible until in firing range, while the Union fleets aren't.
I personally would just let these things slide. I mean, I can write a lot about these things... actually you know what, I think I will.

1) There is no stealth in space
In episode 1, Reinhardt/Kircheis were talking about that the closest fleet to them is 2200 light seconds away, and they will reach them in 6 hours. Meaning their fleet is moving at ~370 light seconds per hour relative to the other fleet, or 30 million m/s. For reference, that's around 10% of the speed of light (0.1c). Let's say they are going each at that half that speed , so the fleet is moving towards each other at 0.05c each.

Brunhild is 1km long and 250m wide, but no mass has been put in the wiki. A nimitz class aircraft carrier displaces 100k tons, and is about a third smaller (330m long and 70m wide), so let's say Brunhild is about 300k tons. That means it took 8500 megawatt hours of energy to accelerate to 0.05c, equivalent to the energy output of 500 little boy bombs (you know one of the bombs that dropped on Japan). That's a SHIT ton of energy.

(Just one disclaimer, general relativity is beyond me, so these are the lower end of calculations. The faster you are, the more energy you need to increase your speed even more.)

I guess the show handwaves this that they were jamming the enemy ship or something, but comeon, if 40,000 ships started accelerating EVEN more towards you, that's a shit load of energy. If you missed the VERY visible increase in intensity of their exhausts (probably would increase in luminosity of a bright star), there is no way they can hide their signatures suddenly blueshifting. And they had SIX hours to notice this... were all 20k ships all of a sudden sleeping or something?

2) Maneuverablity
Just before the merry go round, you've got Yang's ships letting them through the middle, then performed a maneouvre that had them turn around and follow/shoot their enemy's rear. Assuming the two fleets were going at 0.05c in opposite directions (just like Reinhardt approached the first fleet), that means Yang's fleet had to decelerate 0.05c then accelerate another 0.05c in the same direction for a total 0.1c.

Let's say the anime is the short version of the battle, and that Yang really took an hour to accelerate instead of mere minutes. That means Yang's fleet had an acceleration of 849 Gs (!!!!!!)

To put into perspective, wiki has the record for surviving the highest G acceleration at 214 Gs. Yeah, that's about a quarter of the above amount of acceleration, and the above was sustained for an hour. So yeah pretty preposterous, especially when you considering no one in LoGH is ever strapped to their seats lol.

3) Range
I'm looking at some official numbers, and in LOGH, the longest range cannons were about 40-50 light seconds, or about 38 times the distance between the earth and the moon. Why on earth would they resort to cavalry style charges is completely MIND BOGGGLING.

So yeah, better just suspend your disbelief. LoGH isn't anywhere near what hard scifi space battles look or behave like, especially since fighters in space is already head scratching. Closest anime I know that's closest to hard sci-fi battles was actually Starship Operators, and it is anything but exhilarating lol.

Can someone versed in military history say if Yang's line about that dumbass merry go-round configuration occurring countless times is actually true?
I'm pretty sure it's a relic of real life plane dogfighting. If their thrusters aren't symmetric (as in their forward thrusters are MUCH stronger than their reverse/side thrusters), then this is probably the most realistic part of the show since there's no friction in space.

Have you ever played the game asteroids? If you have any sort of speed, you notice that if you want to turn, your turns are VERY wide. Now imagine two feelts of ships turning trying to get at each other's tails, and you've got a conundrum. If you go faster trying to catch the tail end of the enemy, then your turn will be wider and wider. If you go slower, your turn is tighter, but you risk the enemy behind you catching up to your tail.

There's a mid point where you're fast enough not to be caught by the enemy's front side, but slow enough that your turn isn't so wide as to lose the enemy's tail. (assuming similar mass and thrust for the ships) How realistic this is in LoGH is another story (how many Gs of force is that gonna take?), but this is the logic behind this particular formation.

RDNexus

2018-04-11, 03:02

So far most of the female look way better than the original ova counter part. To be fair, most of the female in ova doesn;t look that great beside Annerose, her friend and Karen.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that one too. I'm also digging the females' designs in comparison to the classic series :D

kuromitsu

2018-04-11, 04:22

I personally would just let these things slide. ... So yeah, better just suspend your disbelief. LoGH isn't anywhere near what hard scifi space battles look or behave like, especially since fighters in space is already head scratching.
Especially considering that Tanaka freely admits that he was mostly going for coolness factor. :heh: As per his interviews, he first set out to do research on how battles in space would go, but as he read more and more about the topic he found that none of the publications he read agreed on the specifics (remember, this was back in the early '80s, hot on the heels of Star Wars, and this is a writer with a boner for Chinese lit, not a hard sci-fi guy). So he just said "whatever, it's not like anyone has seen an actual space battle before" and decided to write whatever he thought was cool.

I haven't seen episode 2 yet, but going by the screencaps... I'm really wonder where they're going with this series. Like... are they aware they have only 10 episodes left? With this pace how much ground can they cover in that time?

RDNexus

2018-04-11, 05:02

Maybe they'll rush of skip a few minor things of the plot and focus on the most important? I guess?

kuromitsu

2018-04-11, 05:35

Even so there's a ton of material to cover, and here they're wasting two episodes... Even if they want to make sure to establish the characters and the setting they still could have done it faster and in a more concise way...

RDNexus

2018-04-11, 06:59

Gotta wait and see. They may have done it this way for a reason...a good one, I hope...

kuromitsu

2018-04-11, 07:01

Yeah... let's hope for the best. Certainly 12 episodes should be enough to cover the first two volumes, but with this pace I'm having serious doubts.

RDNexus

2018-04-11, 07:06

Only 2 volumes? I don't know, I'm expecting a more accelerated pacing from here onwards.

AntonKutovoi

2018-04-11, 07:11

Remember, that it serves as a prologue to the movies.

RDNexus

2018-04-11, 07:29

Gotta wonder if they plan to go through all 10 volumes or only through Part1 of the story.

kuromitsu

2018-04-11, 07:43

I don't think they'd go further than the first two volumes in the TV series... definitely not with this pacing. But even without that, the event that happens at the end of this arc and its immediate repercussions are so momentous and heavy that continuing beyond that in a single cour would be seriously anticlimatic.

(Come to think of it, I wonder how this story will handle the Westerland incident. The OVA changed that in a way that didn't really work and didn't feel organic, so I wonder if this new team has the guts for a straight adaptation.)

Remember, that it serves as a prologue to the movies.
Even so this is an entire cour so it has to present a full story. And the movies will have only 12 episodes' worth of time so it's not like they can just take their sweet time now and get to the meat of the story in the movies. (Even if what follows the first arc is the meat of the story, in a way. The first two volumes practically serve as a prologue to volumes 3-10.)

Kanon

2018-04-11, 11:26

So they spent half the episode showing us how things went on the Alliance's side. It felt like a real waste of time given the number of episodes they have to work with. And why did they treat Lao as if he was going to be important? (Attenborough replaced him there in the OVAs) I don't remember him at all. Is his role different in the novels?

Anh_Minh

2018-04-11, 13:16

So yeah, better just suspend your disbelief. LoGH isn't anywhere near what hard scifi space battles look or behave like, especially since fighters in space is already head scratching. Closest anime I know that's closest to hard sci-fi battles was actually Starship Operators, and it is anything but exhilarating lol.

1) I liked Starship Operators, thank you very much.
2) Suspending disbelief would be easier if they all had similar (if improbable) capabilities. Instead, again, the Imperials see everything while the Allied fly blind.

I'm pretty sure it's a relic of real life plane dogfighting. If their thrusters aren't symmetric (as in their forward thrusters are MUCH stronger than their reverse/side thrusters), then this is probably the most realistic part of the show since there's no friction in space.

Have you ever played the game asteroids? If you have any sort of speed, you notice that if you want to turn, your turns are VERY wide. Now imagine two feelts of ships turning trying to get at each other's tails, and you've got a conundrum. If you go faster trying to catch the tail end of the enemy, then your turn will be wider and wider. If you go slower, your turn is tighter, but you risk the enemy behind you catching up to your tail.

There's a mid point where you're fast enough not to be caught by the enemy's front side, but slow enough that your turn isn't so wide as to lose the enemy's tail. (assuming similar mass and thrust for the ships) How realistic this is in LoGH is another story (how many Gs of force is that gonna take?), but this is the logic behind this particular formation.

Except it would be much faster to just pivot your ship. There's no air resistance in space, the axis of your ship doesn't have to correlate to the axis of your motion. In fact, you'd need to pivot to turn anyway, and get your thrusters angled from your trajectory. Unless you just want to decelerate.

Haak

2018-04-11, 16:34

The second episode felt more of the same. Interesting but not quite gripping. The lack of context hurts here, but I'm guessing this was meant to be a "pilot story" of sorts and the real thing starts now.

Kanon

2018-04-11, 18:33

1) I liked Starship Operators, thank you very much.
2) Suspending disbelief would be easier if they all had similar (if improbable) capabilities. Instead, again, the Imperials see everything while the Allied fly blind.

The FPA soldiers see just as much as the Imperials. Only their communications were jammed. They could see the 4th feelt was under attack, but they assumed they could hold the enemy long enough so they still could use their original plan. Instead of regrouping as Yang suggested, the two remaining fleets stayed separated and navigated to different locations, making them easy pickings. It was shown in this episode that the real reasons for this debacle were the incompetence and overconfidence of the people in charge.

leongsh

2018-04-11, 19:12

Except it would be much faster to just pivot your ship. There's no air resistance in space, the axis of your ship doesn't have to correlate to the axis of your motion. In fact, you'd need to pivot to turn anyway, and get your thrusters angled from your trajectory. Unless you just want to decelerate.
Pivoting would be the same mistake that Reinhard mentioned. The ships are narrow and long because they aee designed for front facing shoot-oit battles. The narrower profile makes it a smaller area to target. Pivotting would show the length of the ship and make it a bigger target area to be successfully hit.

In any case, the in-universe space mechanics/physics as it relates to the movements of these space battleships/cruisers/destroyers is similar to our Earth-based naval maneuvers except for availability of the 3rd dimension space to add options. Trying to overanalyse in relation to hard physics will just be counter-productive.

Anh_Minh

2018-04-11, 23:36

The FPA soldiers see just as much as the Imperials. Only their communications were jammed. They could see the 4th feelt was under attack, but they assumed they could hold the enemy long enough so they still could use their original plan. Instead of regrouping as Yang suggested, the two remaining fleets stayed separated and navigated to different locations, making them easy pickings. It was shown in this episode that the real reasons for this debacle were the incompetence and overconfidence of the people in charge.
If that was the case, the Allied would have seen the Imperials coming and all three fleets would have adjusted their trajectories accordingly. Instead, they weren't aware of the Imperials until it was too late.

Pivoting would be the same mistake that Reinhard mentioned. The ships are narrow and long because they aee designed for front facing shoot-oit battles. The narrower profile makes it a smaller area to target. Pivotting would show the length of the ship and make it a bigger target area to be successfully hit.
Yes, but for how long? Because with the merry-go-round, they spend quite a lot of time presenting their rear, and as you said, they should present their front. For that matter, in a real space merry-go-round, you'd still be presenting your flank to turn, unless you have powerful side thrusters.

Heibi

2018-04-12, 08:33

If that was the case, the Allied would have seen the Imperials coming and all three fleets would have adjusted their trajectories accordingly. Instead, they weren't aware of the Imperials until it was too late.

Remember, the admirals on the FPA side were arrogant thinking that no matter what they'd surround and annihilate the enemy like they did over a century before. But Reinhard learned from history and did the unexpected. Also remember, by the time you've detected where the enemy is in space they aren't there anymore at those distances. Everything is predicted by their computer models and they acted on it.

By the time they got the information on the 4th Fleet being attacked via courier shuttles it was far too late to react. And as you noticed both of the admirals restrained their actions to old ways of thinking and loyalty to a fellow admiral thinking he would hold out in a nearly 2 to 1 fight. Yang and Lapp both told their commanders that the timing wouldn't work to save the 4th Fleet.

DragoonKain3

2018-04-12, 09:22

1) I liked Starship Operators, thank you very much.
As a hard sci-fi fantic reader during my younger years, I agree with you very much. I absolutely LOVED Starship Operators.

But I still stand by what I said; realistic space fights would be more like submarine warfare than aerial or battleship warfare, and that is anything but fast paced excitement. XD

2) Suspending disbelief would be easier if they all had similar (if improbable) capabilities. Instead, again, the Imperials see everything while the Allied fly blind.
Yeah, they handwaved it. Not one, BUT two fleets were caught off guard by Reinhardt's aggressive blitz tatics. I almost spat out my drink when it was shown that one of the officers of the second fleet died WHILE eating in the dining hall. Even if one fleet had been surprised (can't really 'ambush' in space), the second/third fleets should have known that the Imperial Navy engaged much earlier than anticipated. As such, they should have been on alert already knowing the Navy's gameplan is to aggressively and swiftly engage them, and should have already anticipated them coming early.

But again, it's your call. I personally largely forgive these somewhat bizarre situations, since realistic space fighting would bore the general audience to tears. (I personally like the suspense, but most people like exciting battles) I understand the need to spice it up a bit, and that's ok for me because I think LoGH's strengths aren't in the battles, but in the politics and the conflict of two different ideologies. If you decide to drop LoGH because of the battles, it's understandable for me, but I stuck around because it is more than just the battles.

Except it would be much faster to just pivot your ship. There's no air resistance in space, the axis of your ship doesn't have to correlate to the axis of your motion. In fact, you'd need to pivot to turn anyway, and get your thrusters angled from your trajectory. Unless you just want to decelerate.
Oh I agree completely (apart from needing pivot to turn; they've shown these ships have reverse and side thrusters). It's like 1000x easier to change the orientation of your ship than it is to change your direction, especially with capital class ships. I'm just telling you the rationale behind the formation, since you specifically asked for historical basis of the merry go round. And the answer, it is inspired by aerial dogfights, and then applied to 'asteroid' mechanics.

"Can someone versed in military history say if Yang's line about that dumbass merry go-round configuration occurring countless times is actually true?"

Anh_Minh

2018-04-12, 15:25

Remember, the admirals on the FPA side were arrogant thinking that no matter what they'd surround and annihilate the enemy like they did over a century before.
Unless they were arrogant enough to order their sensors turned off, that's not enough to explain what happened.

But Reinhard learned from history and did the unexpected. Also remember, by the time you've detected where the enemy is in space they aren't there anymore at those distances. Everything is predicted by their computer models and they acted on it.
They didn't need to know exactly where the Imperials were. They just needed to know they'd accelerated in an unexpected way.

And again, my problem isn't that the Allies were blind. It's that they were blind, while the Imperials weren't. And that the series tried to sell it as Reinhard being a genius.

As a hard sci-fi fantic reader during my younger years, I agree with you very much. I absolutely LOVED Starship Operators.

But I still stand by what I said; realistic space fights would be more like submarine warfare than aerial or battleship warfare, and that is anything but fast paced excitement. XD
It wouldn't be like that either. No stealth in space, as you pointed out. Barring some FTL component, I suspect realistic space fights would be about both sides spending inordinate amounts of effort just to get within firing range of each other.

And submarine fight may not be fast paced, but it's tense!

But really, my complaint isn't about realism. I wouldn't mind if space fights were like antique marine fights and they had to ram and/or board each other to fight it out with swords and axes. It's about consistency. I want both sides to have similar capabilities (or, if there's a disparity, I want them to show it unambiguously) and both sides to use those capabilities with a minimum of competence. Some stupidity is fine, even at the highest levels, but there are limits.

pervypig

2018-04-13, 09:44

I'm pretty sure it's a relic of real life plane dogfighting. If their thrusters aren't symmetric (as in their forward thrusters are MUCH stronger than their reverse/side thrusters), then this is probably the most realistic part of the show since there's no friction in space.

You know, that dumbass formation kinda reminded me of horse archers in Mount & Blade, and yeah, it really is DUMB.

Gan_HOPE326

2018-04-13, 09:56

It wouldn't be like that either. No stealth in space, as you pointed out. Barring some FTL component, I suspect realistic space fights would be about both sides spending inordinate amounts of effort just to get within firing range of each other.

I can think a few potential "stealthy" techniques in space, but they would hardly have many equivalents in other forms of combat. Random ideas, considering that I'd expect most battles to take place inside a star system:

accelerating to speed while very far away, or even just drop into the system at 80% of lightspeed after having accelerated months before in order not to be seen; this would require amazing precision of course, allows for a very short fire window, and can't be used in battles, more like hit-and-run orbital bombardments
accelerate in the shadow of a planet or moon, using gravity from other bodies to fling yourself around and hit the enemy from an unexpected angle
accelerate while putting yourself in between the enemy and a close star, thus letting the radiation behind you mask your own exhaust as noise

Anh_Minh

2018-04-13, 13:32

I can think a few potential "stealthy" techniques in space, but they would hardly have many equivalents in other forms of combat. Random ideas, considering that I'd expect most battles to take place inside a star system:

accelerating to speed while very far away, or even just drop into the system at 80% of lightspeed after having accelerated months before in order not to be seen; this would require amazing precision of course, allows for a very short fire window, and can't be used in battles, more like hit-and-run orbital bombardments
accelerate in the shadow of a planet or moon, using gravity from other bodies to fling yourself around and hit the enemy from an unexpected angle
accelerate while putting yourself in between the enemy and a close star, thus letting the radiation behind you mask your own exhaust as noise

1. Bit of a problem accelerating to that speed. Though if you can do it, I suppose you can just throw rocks at any inconvenient planet. Not sure how well that would work on ships. Or how long they'd have to see you coming.
2. How do you get in the shadow, and how close to the planet does the enemy have to be for your position around that planet to matter?
3. Getting the sun in your back's actually a valid aerial combat tactic (or at least, it was). I don't know how rare the occurrence of such an alignment (star-you-the enemy) would be, or how useful against the sensors of a space faring civilization.

Pen3

2018-04-13, 17:28

Do you find the space battles in Mugen no Ryvius boring?

Eater of All

2018-04-16, 02:35

I see a couple of comments about pacing, but I personally enjoy the pacing so far. The original OVA also took 2 episodes to animate the Battle of Astarte. Certainly the new LoGH won't finish the series at the rate that it's going, but that's fine - I'd rather see what it can get through being done well than to see it get rushed to oblivion. Who knows, the pacing may also pick up after this.

Assuming I haven't missed some news about what will be covered in this 1-cour + 1-cour worth of movies, the only question is whether this pacing will let them get to a good stopping point, and if anime-only viewers in 2018 can stomach such pacing. :heh:

Unless they were arrogant enough to order their sensors turned off, that's not enough to explain what happened.

They didn't need to know exactly where the Imperials were. They just needed to know they'd accelerated in an unexpected way.

And again, my problem isn't that the Allies were blind. It's that they were blind, while the Imperials weren't. And that the series tried to sell it as Reinhard being a genius.

It wouldn't be like that either. No stealth in space, as you pointed out. Barring some FTL component, I suspect realistic space fights would be about both sides spending inordinate amounts of effort just to get within firing range of each other.

And submarine fight may not be fast paced, but it's tense!

But really, my complaint isn't about realism. I wouldn't mind if space fights were like antique marine fights and they had to ram and/or board each other to fight it out with swords and axes. It's about consistency. I want both sides to have similar capabilities (or, if there's a disparity, I want them to show it unambiguously) and both sides to use those capabilities with a minimum of competence. Some stupidity is fine, even at the highest levels, but there are limits.

Going out on a limb, I don't think the imperials have constant vision of the FPA fleets either. Reinhard just happens to be able to predict the enemy fleet trajectories really well. Although that relies on the assumption that, for some unknown reason, it seems to take significant effort (i.e. time, on the order of possibly hours?) to determine the position of the opposing fleet once, and not be able to track them continuously after that.

Top Sergeant

2018-04-17, 06:24

I am enjoying a lot of the aspects of the show regarding the fleets (data nets, etc) but after two episodes just about all we've seen of the main antagonists is them standing around looking calm and cryptic. I'm hoping for a little more life in these guys soon.

Kanon

2018-04-17, 11:36

4th Dimension

2018-04-17, 15:39

Yeeeah. As presented in the new show Reinhard's victory wasn't so much a stroke of brilliance but terminal stupidity by the Republicans (or is it the Alliance? I forget).

First off about the sensors and such. Given one throwaway comment that the scouts have lost the Imperial fleet I'm assuming that it's not so much that there is stealth in space as it is that everyone's sensors suck, and you pretty much can only see what you can shoot, as evidenced by the fact that the Imperials are only spotted once both sides are within basically gun range.

As such it seems fleets rely on screens of scout ships to keep track of the enemy fleets and relay their movements back to the command. So any plot seen in the show, unless it's a plot of a current engagement, where combatants can see each other[1], is probably based on last reported course and heading of the enemy.

So what happened is that Reinhard was able to SOMEHOW give the Alliance scouts the slip, probably by not being where he was. Now this normally should not happen. But let's for the sake of moving on say that this was part him part brilliant action of Imperial counter scouts or something. In any case he did not maintain the course and heading expected of him and was somehow able to use that to get a jump on the central fleet.

The main problem with this is that it should have been one of the possible contingencies what if the enemy jumps one of our separate forces alone. Also the formation as shown in the new show should really have been closing in as they are getting closer to the enemy so they can fall simultaneously from three sides on the enemy. This should have made it impossible for the enemy to just jump one of them without other two fleets "marching to the sound of gunfire" and falling on them from the sides. But the show also gave R ability to jam the enemy long range comms/C&C ability somehow, so let's say that prevented the word getting out.

It still doesn't really make his actions strokes of genius, but more abusing the gross overconfidence of the enemy, whose plan could have really only worked if the enemy stayed on the defensive and waited for them to close in to destroy them.

If we accept the above limitation in keeping tabs on the enemy, the ambush of the left flank also makes sense, since R predicted where they might be given that he roughly knew when the courier left the center to summon reinforcements. The murky bit is the whole finishing off the center and what did that entail. Just destroying crippled ships or finishing off remaints of the center that lost cohesion. Because if it's the later, I wonder where these ships were for the rest of the engagement.

The bit that really I didn't get[3] is Wei's plan to link left and right together. It seemed strange to me to suggest left and right linking up somewhere else, if the enemy is savaging the center. He would kinda be between them and if he kept track of their movement he could still pounce at either.

But then I watched the two original episodes and things made more sense. There the Alliance did not advance in three fleets in a line abreast. There the fleets were coming from ALL sides, roughly 120 degrees apart. This made it even more believable that R could simply jump the gun and rush one of them, and not be where they would expect him to be. But it also made more sense for Wei to suggest two fleets coming from rear left and rear right to link up, because they would both be behind Reinhard.

I'm not entirely sure why did they change the formations compared to the original? It's still not entirely a good plan on the Allied side, but eh.

The main thing I'm probably miffed about here is that even with there advantages, R shouldn't have been wining as decisively as seemingly shown, where only Allied ships explode and Imperials seemingly suffer NO losses before the silly chasey chasey kissy kissy formation. Even with the numbers and C&C out, that's a lot of ships fighting, she should have been shown loosing SOME ships at least.

Finally, these first two episodes seem to roughly coincide with the original two episodes. The original had a bunch more world building bits that weren't necessarily needed for the understanding of the battle, and they weren't really split between Wei and Reinhard episodes.
That being said it seems they aren't going to be just updating the show episode by episode since while I haven't watched the episode 3 of the original show, I skimmed through it, and it showed Alliance side shenanigans not the Imperial side in this show. Given that the next episode seems to be Allied one, it seems they might be trying to have episodes alternate the focus constantly. First one was an Imperial, second one was Allied, third Imperial, fourth Allied and so on?

In any case despite the misgivings, I'm quite enjoying this so far, since it's been TOO LONG since I have seen something Sci-Fi that wasn't a shone in a huge mech with a sword screaming half an episode.

[1] Yeah I know, in any realistic depiction of space engagement, unless the enemy has something fancy and almost physics breaking[2] any fleet in system would know all movements of any other fleet in system (with a light delay).
[2] Or is detecting enemies using something other than radiation, like they use gravwaves in Honorverse.
[3] Well at first I assumed everyone had up to date info about enemy fleet and positions and as such I was confused why the Alliance commanders weren't closing in their formation as the enemy got closer and allowed to be caught with such a wide formation. Well the real answer is that the battle was based on the original one, where the Alliance did not use this formation.

kuromitsu

2018-04-17, 17:33

I don't really care about strategy (I mean, space battles... *shrug* the show is going for a coolness factor there) but I do care about how they're messing up Reinhard.

What's wrong with this Reinhard? Seriously, this is like Reinhard's evil twin who is totally chill, fairly mature, and was never a problem child at all. They're making it seem like he's a kind of hero of justice who rebelled against the unfair system from a young age... except with Reinhard that was always kind of just a byproduct of a constantly simmering anger and dissatisfaction stemming from his background, all the pain and humiliation he went through in his childhood. Sure, he did grow to care about the system being rotten to the core, but he didn't start out like that, and even later on he always priorized his individual sense of "justice" and "right". Why aren't they showing this? Especially as they had Annerose pointing out how Kircheis is effectively keeping Reinhard in check by having a tempering effect on him, but so far we haven't seen any of that actually happen because this Reinhard is just so chill and noble and has himself all together. :heh:

(Thinking about it, they totally cut Annerose's warning that the day Reinhard stops listening to Kircheis will be his end. Whyyyyy.)

And on the Oberstein end of things, Suwabe Junichi is trying to do a Shiozawa Kaneto impression, and unsurprisingly he sounds terrible. :/ That seriously hurt to listen to. Partly because trying to emulate Shiozawa Kaneto is like... why would someone even try? :heh: That's like trying to emulate Wakamoto Norio. And partly because why can't they just do their own damn thing and give this Oberstein his own voice and style? I seriously don't understand this show.

On the plus side, though, Kircheis sounded a lot better in this episode than before. Still with an edge, but more Kircheis-like. I think he's going to be fine.

RDNexus

2018-04-17, 18:27

Dear goodness, can you chill out a little?
This isn't the line-by-line adaptation of old, so there's stuff here and there bound to be cut.
And still, they seem to be taking their sweet time. Are they really hellbent on giving this version a long-time adaption as well?

kuromitsu

2018-04-17, 18:40

Cuts are fine. Streamlining is (would be) fine. Getting creative is (would be) awesome. Not "getting" the main character is not fine. Reinhard is a great character but he's great because he's a complex person with significant flaws. If you take that away from him and try to whitewash him, he ceases to be an interesting character. Not to mention it upsets his dynamics with other characters (namely Kircheis and Oberstein).

RDNexus

2018-04-17, 18:50

They may get to it later on, be a little patient, ok?

kuromitsu

2018-04-17, 18:59

We just had the parts that set up these characters, flashbacks included, but hey, sure, they might just revisit the exact same plot points to add details they didn't add now...

Kanon

2018-04-17, 20:47

I enjoyed that the beginning of the episode gave us some backstory on the Empire and FPA's creation, even if it was very heavily trimmed. Gave us some context. In the original, we had to wait 50 or so episodes to learn any of that stuff, but they went over it in details as a trade-off (2 whole episodes).

Yep, they're screwing up Reinhard's character. The only part that felt right was showing him seething with rage after learning his sister was to be taken away, but it would have been better if they had properly established just how much his sister means to him beforehand. The Kircheis x Annerose scenes were good though.

I still think they can fix Reinhard though, and in fact need to for his friendship with Kircheis to be meaningful.

bakato

2018-04-17, 21:03

Cadets get to practice with laser rifles? I'm sold.

AntonKutovoi

2018-04-17, 23:20

I agree, however, about Suwabe being pretty bad as Oberstein. There are voice actors, who can sound like Kaneto Shiozawa, like Hideyuki Tanaka among veterans, or Tomohisa Hashizume among new voice actors, but Suwabe, sadly, just sounds very flat, like he is really struggling with the role, to the point that it reminded me of that scene in English from Subete ga F ni naru. Not to mention that there's no point in imitating someone's voice acting, unless you're a direct replacement...

kuromitsu

2018-04-18, 08:39

I still think they can fix Reinhard though, and in fact need to for his friendship with Kircheis to be meaningful.
I very much hope, although going by what we've seen until now I'm very sceptical. I hope I'm wrong but I have a feeling that they're going to present Oberstein as "corrupting" Reinhard (which would be immensely stupid and wrong on all levels...).

I agree, however, about Suwabe being pretty bad as Oberstein. There are voice actors, who can sound like Kaneto Shiozawa, like Hideyuki Tanaka among veterans, or Tomohisa Hashizume among new voice actors, but Suwabe, sadly, just sounds very flat, like he is really struggling with the role, to the point that it reminded me of that scene in English from Subete ga F ni naru. Not to mention that there's no point in imitating someone's voice acting, unless you're a direct replacement...
The whole idea to imitate Shiozawa as Oberstein is just so utterly misguided and stupid. For one, it's Shiozawa Kaneto, I mean really? It feels kind of disrespectful, but mainly completely pointless because you aren't Shiozawa and Oberstein isn't Shiozawa either, so why not just do your own take on the character instead of slavishly trying to emulate someone else's acting? (Especially if you're going to suck at it.) Just sit down and figure out who this guy is and what makes him tick, that's what you do as an actor, no? Why they went with Suwabe Junichi for Oberstein, I'll never understand. He's just so completely wrong for the role...

pervypig

2018-04-18, 12:21

Holley shat - "Reinhard, please make the universe your own"

Obelisk ze Tormentor

2018-04-20, 22:52

In any case despite the misgivings, I'm quite enjoying this so far, since it's been TOO LONG since I have seen something Sci-Fi that wasn't a shonen in a huge mech with a sword screaming half an episode.Too long? You aren't following the current Space Battleship Yamato?

4th Dimension

2018-04-21, 07:39

No. That sounds to me as something faar too long and faar too pulpy for me to get into at this point.

Haak

2018-04-21, 08:24

I quite enjoyed this recent episode. We quickly get to see what drives Reinhart and we get some context for the war (though it's mostly info-dumped). It's rather unfortunate timing that this episode airs close enough to a another very similar background story that is way more complex (Gundam The Origin) but on it's own its very good.

Obelisk ze Tormentor

2018-04-21, 08:59

No. That sounds to me as something faar too long and faar too pulpy for me to get into at this point.Good news for you. They remade SBY for the millennium audience called Space Battleship Yamato 2199. It is newbie-friendly and has reasonable length (26 episodes). The sequel series (Yamato 2022) is still airing.

It's rather unfortunate timing that this episode airs close enough to a another very similar background story that is way more complex (Gundam The Origin) but on it's own its very good.Speaking of Gundam, is it just me, or are they trying to make Reinhard as smooth as Char/Casval? :confused:

Dextro

2018-04-21, 13:40

Obelisk ze Tormentor

2018-04-21, 13:47

Little sidenote: this has been bothering me for a while now but does anyone else feel like the OP sounds suspiciously close to the song Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wnwNniYQ9E)?Indeed. The OP borrowed some notes from that oldies song. Whenever the OP playes, I always want to break into that famous Mannequin soundtrack. It reminds me of Evangelion's Decisive Battle score borrowing some notes from From Russia with Love.

Dextro

2018-04-21, 14:11

Indeed. The OP borrowed some notes from that oldies song. Whenever the OP playes, I always want to break into that famous Mannequin soundtrack. It reminds me of Evangelion's Decisive Battle score borrowing some notes from From Russia with Love.

Really? Wasn't aware of that Eva connection. But it's good to know I'm not going crazy. :heh:

Kanon

2018-04-24, 12:08

An entire episode dedicated to Yang's past, most of which wasn't covered in the main OVA series. So disturbed by Cazerne's design, he couldn't look more different than in the OVAs. So young, too!

Next episode will be another FPA ep.

BloodyKitty

2018-04-24, 12:36

As a newbie to the series, I personally quite enjoy this show. It has such great world building and the story is very mature. I've heard of the OVAs for a very long time but can't find time to watch it all, so after the remake I'll get the motivation to watch the OVAs.

So far I really like Yang. While Reinhard's story is intense and interesting to follow, Yang is just a laid-back guy who wanted to be a historian but got robed into military strategy after being noticed by the higher-ups. As a person he's quite a likable man whom I would want to befriend.

Eater of All

2018-04-24, 23:05

So far I really like Yang. While Reinhard's story is intense and interesting to follow, Yang is just a laid-back guy who wanted to be a historian but got robed into military strategy after being noticed by the higher-ups. As a person he's quite a likable man whom I would want to befriend.

Indeed, I've always thought of Yang as a great guy to have beer with and listen to stories from. :D

Tenzen12

2018-04-25, 02:31

His causal bros over hoes is big plus too. Friends like that are trully rare.

Little sidenote: this has been bothering me for a while now but does anyone else feel like the OP sounds suspiciously close to the song Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wnwNniYQ9E)?

I knew I know that song from somewhere, but I didn't figured it was this one:heh:

Appropriate song to use indeed.

Haak

2018-04-25, 13:18

Anh_Minh

2018-04-25, 14:06

TheForsaken

2018-04-25, 20:49

So Yang's savviness in strategy comes from his intense interest in history. If only he was savvy in another area because then he would've seen that gigantic deathflag flying over his friend. XP
Death flag or not, he already died in episode 1/2 :heh:

Gan_HOPE326

2018-04-26, 01:50

Episode 4

Wow, and here I thought this show was playing up the Great Man theory so imagine my pleasant surprise when Yang makes it painfully clear about what he thinks of strongman dictators, the people who support them and even the people who do nothing. He's even harsher than I am.

I didn't get that feel from Episode 3, it was made painfully clear that Rudolf isn't very well regarded by the show - and hints suggest that even the Empire itself chilled the fuck out since his times, despite being more authoritarian than the FPA. Basically, what he founded as totalitarian autocracy probably became something more like a traditionalist oligarchy. Reinhardt is ambitious and apparently gunning for the Emperor's throne, but that fits his character perfectly. It's well possible that it would be an improvement for the Empire - he seems capable, clever, and not a monster like Rudolf - but of course it remains to be seen if that could possibly be worth the civil strife, OR if he could ensure succession or better, transition to a more democratic form of government. He's still probably doing it mostly for himself.

The one thing I am bothered a bit by in this show is how much of the genius of these two is "tell, don't show". Because every time we are shown it's something extremely simplistic like the two examples seen in this episode.

Also it's sort of weird that you'd get named a "hero" for orchestrating an escape which uses one of yours as a decoy, even a cowardly one :heh:.

Heibi

2018-04-26, 08:35

I didn't get that feel from Episode 3, it was made painfully clear that Rudolf isn't very well regarded by the show - and hints suggest that even the Empire itself chilled the fuck out since his times, despite being more authoritarian than the FPA. Basically, what he founded as totalitarian autocracy probably became something more like a traditionalist oligarchy. Reinhardt is ambitious and apparently gunning for the Emperor's throne, but that fits his character perfectly. It's well possible that it would be an improvement for the Empire - he seems capable, clever, and not a monster like Rudolf - but of course it remains to be seen if that could possibly be worth the civil strife, OR if he could ensure succession or better, transition to a more democratic form of government. He's still probably doing it mostly for himself.

The one thing I am bothered a bit by in this show is how much of the genius of these two is "tell, don't show". Because every time we are shown it's something extremely simplistic like the two examples seen in this episode.

Also it's sort of weird that you'd get named a "hero" for orchestrating an escape which uses one of yours as a decoy, even a cowardly one :heh:.

The Gaiden goes into great detail on what happened. Yang knew that the admiral was going to abandon millions of civilians to the Empire, along with the military left behind. He used all the civilian ships and went the opposite direction of the Alliance Fleet. Yang, as many know, does not condone soldiers harming civilians, much less abandoning them. He was also assigned to evacuate them(not covered in the episode very well). He did his duty.
One quick side note: the admiral was actually going to use the civilians as a decoy himself. His mind was only on escape. Not covered in the episode - see the Gaidens.

BloodyKitty

2018-05-01, 10:15

Episode 5

Wow that BS speech just hit too close to home. I salute Yang for his bravery in not standing up and clapping, though because of that he made himself a lot of enemies. I hope nothing happens to Jessica though it seems unlikely.

I lost it at the wack sprinkler, twice :heh:

RDNexus

2018-05-01, 10:44

Now I can really say I'm quite enjoying this new version of the Novels' adaptation.
The modern animation and update of everything, from technology to wardrobe and scenery, seems way more fitting to the kind of futuristic story that it is.

Also, it seems to me they're actually planning to have this new version go for as long as the original series...

kuromitsu

2018-05-01, 15:25

Personally I'm the opposite, the show is completely losing me. It's not that it's bad - aside of whatever it is that they're doing with Reinhard (I hope to god they'll pull themselves together), and the performances by Miyano and Suwabe, the show is perfectly serviceable. If it resonates well with newcomers to the story that's great (although I'm kind of worried how they'll end up seeing Reinhard if this keeps up).

But for someone like me who has been with this story for ages and is familiar with most of its incarnations so far (I never played the games), it's almost worse than if it was bad, it's kind of... well, boring, which is a terrible thing for LoGH to be. It's not bringing anything new or exciting to the table, aside of the updated visuals, and those have always been pretty low on my personal list of priorities, but also they're not very interesting to look at. The Empire is basically just the OVA with a new coat of paint and bland chara designs. The FPA fares a bit better (and the character designs work much better for the FPA characters than for the Empire cast, for some reason) but it's nothing particularly fresh or interesting. Episode 4 had some nice bits with Yang's backstory but that was pretty much it, so far. I'll keep watching because eh, it's LoGH, but it's such a frustrating experience...

I'd be probably more forgiving if it weren't for the pacing, but at this point I'd like to point out that with the speed they seem to be going, the TV show and the upcoming movies are going to cover about a quarter of the story - and they're going to cut off just when it gets really good. (And that's probably going to be it because if this sells well enough to warrant creating any more I'm going to eat my hat.) This show seems to be trying to be something like the spiritual successor to the OVA in this aspect as well, but... The OVA could afford to be slow as molasses, because a) those were different times, and b) it was an OVA, c) specifically designed for existing fans of the novels. They were deliberately doing a very detailed, expanded adaptation, stretching out a story of some 2000 pages to 2200 minutes. But this show is just being slow for no good reason at all. I mentioned liking episode 4 - but even so, it was unnecessary to go into such detail over something that could have been conveyed much more effectively. (There's this misconception out there that a slow pace is the only way to cover LoGH, but if someone reads the novels they'll see that in fact they're not slow-moving or even all that detail-packed. They're pretty tightly written.)

Also, about the English translation, I'm wondering, where the hell are they getting the name localizations from? "Cazerne"'s name is Caselnes, has always been, hell, that's how it's written on the official website (http://gineiden-anime.com/character-fpdf.html)! Wtf? (If they'll call Poplin "Poplan" I'm going to flip a table.)

Kanon

2018-05-01, 17:47

With a title like that, I wasn't expecting the episode's pace to be this slow. The birth of Yang's fleet was announced at the very end of the ep. We all thought this adaptation would rush through the material before it started, but the opposite is happening. Maybe they've already planned to adapt the whole thing and they just haven't announced there'll be more after the movies? Would be extremely surprising, unless they're sure the series is going to sell... I'm not.

Anyway, aside from Reinhard's characterization, I have nothing to complain about so far. The FPA episodes have been great, and I'm loving the updated technology. I'm slowly getting used to the character design as well.

kuromitsu

2018-05-02, 03:30

We all thought this adaptation would rush through the material before it started, but the opposite is happening. Maybe they've already planned to adapt the whole thing and they just haven't announced there'll be more after the movies? Would be extremely surprising, unless they're sure the series is going to sell... I'm not.
Yeah, it's the different extreme than I'd feared prior the show airing. My pet conspiracy theory is that if they don't speed things significantly up in the remaining episodes that means they're not actually planning to continue beyond the first arc. (Which would be a serious bummer, because while the first arc of the story is good, LoGH gets really good, and reaches the heights which make it deserve all the critical acclaim, in what follows.)

pervypig

2018-05-02, 11:11

Let's face it LoGH deserves a proper Remake, and squeezing 100+ep into 24 just don't cut it.

4th Dimension

2018-05-02, 11:17

I personally as someone who hasn't seen the original past the first two episodes am liking this so far. I have some problems with how some tactics seem obvious and such.
And the bit with ordering a hit on someone hours after they failed to stand up, is a bit much, but it's fun and interesting.

On the other hand I'm not feeling much for the Imperial side. So I am not hype that the next episode will be from their PoV. I much prefer the messy Republican side and Yang.

pervypig

2018-05-02, 11:43

For all his rhapsody with "dictators are made by the people, so the people should take responsibility", Yang doesn't quite practice what he preaches, since he just let those on top push him around when he could have kicked their butt like reinhard.

kuromitsu

2018-05-02, 12:55

Let's face it LoGH deserves a proper Remake, and squeezing 100+ep into 24 just don't cut it.
They wouldn't be squeezing "100+ ep" into anything. LoGH is a novel, this is ostensibly an adaptation of the novel, not a remake of the previous anime adaptation, although to be fair that's what it more and more looks like and what I find really disappointing. And as I mentioned above, you don't need 110 episodes to adapt the novel. The OVA did that because they followed a concept that worked with their business model and the anime-watching habits of the time. Aside from adapting the book almost word-by-word, the OVA also goes into details about stuff that's barely even mentioned in the novel, naming and showing battles that the novel only alluded to, incorporating outside materials, etc. A LoGH adaptation doesn't have to be 110 episodes. Seriously, the whole story is barely 2000 pages long. Also, if they're doing this I'd like to see some sort of assurance that they're going to finish the story, not cut it off after the first arc... :/

For all his rhapsody with "dictators are made by the people, so the people should take responsibility", Yang doesn't quite practice what he preaches, since he just let those on top push him around when he could have kicked their butt like reinhard.
He does practice it, that's pretty much his entire point (and arguably one of his main flaws). "The people", not "a person who thinks he knows better".

RDNexus

2018-05-02, 13:03

kuromitsu

2018-05-02, 13:15

So...wait...the Original Series went beyond what was actually necessary? Why? JUST WHY?!! There were times it was a total borefest.
And you still complain about this new version not offering anything new, when the previous one did more than what might have been needed.
I don't entirely follow, but the OVA is what you get when you do what lots of fans demand and adapt something basically word-by-word. And it's an interesting case because it actually does that well. I'm not complaining about the OVA because it followed its concepts and goals really well (most of the time), with great sense of... well, pretty much everything. This show seems like it's trying to be a spiritual successor of the OVA, aping it in many ways, except it's not working, well, not for me.

When nowadays we have more than enough examples of what rushed adaptations of Novels end up becoming, now I came to know that LoGH was an equally less than good example but on the opposite spectrum :(
No, the OVA is a perfectly good adaptation IMO. Even the changes and additions they did work really well (Dusty's expanded role, for example, or hell, Admiral the cat, and they even used that cat really well instead of just randomly plopping it into the background), at least most of the time, because some things are downplayed, and there's one change that I think was a huge misstep - I'm curious how Die Neue These will handle that. It's a great adaptation, just not a very accessible one, and I wouldn't fault anyone who feels like they don't want to sit through 110 episodes of it. If you enjoy the new show, that's great, be happy with it. I wish I could recommend the English translation of the novels instead, but... yeah. I'd rather not.

pervypig

2018-05-02, 14:58

Seriously, the whole story is barely 2000 pages long. Also, if they're doing this I'd like to see some sort of assurance that they're going to finish the story, not cut it off after the first arc... :/

Gee, I never did got around to hitting the LN since it's so frigging long time ago, so i don't know. But i did watch the old version, so it is nostalgic to me and i do want it to finish.

He does practice it, that's pretty much his entire point (and arguably one of his main flaws). "The people", not "a person who thinks he knows better".

The way Yang is practicing his freedom is far too passive to be considered as "taking responsibility for demo-crazy", I'm not saying that he should take up the mantle like batman or start a rival political party, but merely sitting it out and letting hooligans who don't even know what you're capable of vandalize your house? Nobody needs that kind of free-speech now, do they?

Wandering Soul

2018-05-02, 17:19

Got to say that those were some incredible powerful sprinklers. They were more like mini water cannons.

Dextro

2018-05-02, 17:19

Honestly I never got around to watching the original OVA but I just read the first novel a couple of months ago and I must say that this adaptation so far is absolutely fantastic in my book. There are some casting choices I had to get used to (the two main characters mostly) but overall the pacing is spot on and the minor changes it seems to have done have expanded just enough to be interesting.

They've been faithful almost to a fault so far. I'm enjoying it. I'm just going to be sad if this doesn't get greenlit for enough sequels to cover everything.

Kanon

2018-05-02, 18:33

4th Dimension

2018-05-03, 01:56

The way Yang is practicing his freedom is far too passive to be considered as "taking responsibility for demo-crazy", I'm not saying that he should take up the mantle like batman or start a rival political party, but merely sitting it out and letting hooligans who don't even know what you're capable of vandalize your house? Nobody needs that kind of free-speech now, do they?

What is he capable of in your eyes :confused:?!?

Because one thing he is not is action fighter. He is in a way a stuffy historian given command position.

As such even as much as he did, indicating his displeasure passively by not cheering to a speech he doesn't agree with, is plenty. I wouldn't expect him to interrupt the politico and start arguing him or anything, because THAT would be making a scene. And one might argue he in his position as a military officer shouldn't argue in public with their civilian overseer on matters of politics and diplomacy.

On the other hand he wasn't ordered to cheer so he can use that to not cheer.

If you want a man of ACTION, that would probably be Reinhard, given Imperial aristocratic background. They probably operate that way, by appointing supposedly capable people to places where their powers are extensive and autocratic and trusting them to make things work using ANY MEANS possible.
But that's not how the democratic political system works.

And since I think the show will likely cover more on this contrast, I won't say more on the subject.

Got to say that those were some incredible powerful sprinklers. They were more like mini water cannons.
Yeah. Somebody DEFINITELY added couple zeros more than necessary in the design sheet. Then again I MIGHT head cannon it as them being designed for nonlethal defence of property in a pinch, but if so it's not a common feature given the suprise in the hooligans.

Sheba

2018-05-03, 04:15

When nowadays we have more than enough examples of what rushed adaptations of Novels end up becoming, now I came to know that LoGH was an equally less than good example but on the opposite spectrum :(

.

I dont want whatever you are smoking. I watched the original OAV in a semi-marathon mode, as in 5 episodes a day. And it was quite good. I am of the school that you need the small details that matters in a story as epic in scope as LoGH was. Heck, I'd still recommend it to people who wanted a story like GoT series but were repelled by the sexposition.

RDNexus

2018-05-03, 04:47

Thankfully, I don't drink nor smoke.
There are those who mind the smallest of details, those who want to be spoonfed about every little thing, and those who prefer a "Show, Don't Tell" approach.

pervypig

2018-05-03, 05:33

What do you think he should have done? He actually fought back with the sprinklers.

I expect him to creep out of the house and film those guys, especially that guy who got his mask flushed away, and publicize them so as for demons they are. Surely, if he can do something like spray them with water guns, he can take some videos and post them on youtube or future-tube something? Hey, that's how democratic societies work right?

Saying you are responsible as a citizen for your leaders and then just letting things be... sorry, I don't buy that at all.

4th Dimension

2018-05-03, 05:51

pervypig

2018-05-03, 06:14

You mean sneak out of the house they have surrounded and have already been shown to be perfectly capable of throwing HAND GRENADES into. o_0
He goes out, he is just going to get himself lynched.

Also given that the house system already has a camera component, there is nothing to say that it's NOT recording things already.

Also he had much better thing to do, and that is get them to go away or both him and kid might not survive being made an example of.

Oh and this bit has nothing to do with democracy or anything. These guys are criminals, weather or politically sponsored or not. And they are already known to the government and public. So stopping them is more of a problem of justice system rather than the political system.

Oh, and besides, if he wasn't playing with the sprinklers that guy wouldn't have lost his mask.

There are definitely multitude of ways to fight back against hooligans, politically motivated or otherwise. Since you have already highlighted the criminal nature of these attacks, the obvious thing would be to associate them to the politicians who back them with a smear campaign. Taking into consideration that Yang himself is now a 'war hero', there's no way his testimony won't have effect.

If you don't find that form of resistance attractive, a really wise man would just go with the flow, a.k.a. stand and clap when told to and avoid trouble. He can then work from within and gain as much allies as he can within the military so that his 'ideal' is practical. As it is, Yang is all talk about his 'responsibility', which I don't buy at all.

I don't like bringing real life examples, but there are more than one example where crappy leaders get voted into office by democratic societies because people like Yang just can't be bothered, or are too scared to do anything.

P.S: The LN was written rather long ago before youtube or even the internet become popular, so I guess the author probably didn't figure that into his novel, but even in the days before internet, one can hold press-conferences and affiliate himself with one or another political belief. There isn't a need to fight alone, as Yang himself said 'a small force does not fight against many' normally. Which is what make this behavior of his so unacceptable, now that I think back on it (me = wee kid when LoGH 1st came out).

Heibi

2018-05-03, 08:42

Got to say that those were some incredible powerful sprinklers. They were more like mini water cannons.

Probably a way to help extinguish fires faster while awaiting the fire department. Think of the automation happening these days and you can visualize the concept of dual purpose sprinklers.

4th Dimension

2018-05-03, 09:02

There are definitely multitude of ways to fight back against hooligans, politically motivated or otherwise. Since you have already highlighted the criminal nature of these attacks, the obvious thing would be to associate them to the politicians who back them with a smear campaign. Taking into consideration that Yang himself is now a 'war hero', there's no way his testimony won't have effect.

If you don't find that form of resistance attractive, a really wise man would just go with the flow, a.k.a. stand and clap when told to and avoid trouble. He can then work from within and gain as much allies as he can within the military so that his 'ideal' is practical. As it is, Yang is all talk about his 'responsibility', which I don't buy at all.

I don't like bringing real life examples, but there are more than one example where crappy leaders get voted into office by democratic societies because people like Yang just can't be bothered, or are too scared to do anything.

P.S: The LN was written rather long ago before youtube or even the internet become popular, so I guess the author probably didn't figure that into his novel, but even in the days before internet, one can hold press-conferences and affiliate himself with one or another political belief. There isn't a need to fight alone, as Yang himself said 'a small force does not fight against many' normally. Which is what make this behavior of his so unacceptable, now that I think back on it (me = wee kid when LoGH 1st came out).
You are missing one point though. In democratic system, military should not be the one to be involved in politics. Military is the sword of the state, no matter who the general public elects to power. That is the only way the system can work without it devolving to a situation where the military basically appoints those in power.

This does not prevent the enlisted to participate in politics by supporting those they think share common beliefs with them via voting, which is how change is supposed to be made in a democratic system. Hell they aren't forbidden from running for office, but doing so while enlisted and on duty is a bit of a faux pas, which you should be able to imagine why it might be problematic if the solder being ordered to do something and the representative of the civilian government (and therefore the people) ordering them to do it are in different parties and have been squabbling before.

Kanon

2018-05-03, 11:07

I expect him to creep out of the house and film those guys, especially that guy who got his mask flushed away, and publicize them so as for demons they are. Surely, if he can do something like spray them with water guns, he can take some videos and post them on youtube or future-tube something? Hey, that's how democratic societies work right?

Saying you are responsible as a citizen for your leaders and then just letting things be... sorry, I don't buy that at all.

He could (and may) have done that, but it wouldn't have accomplished much. Maybe a few of them would have been arrested, but they are numerous and I doubt their activities could be traced back to Trunicht. From the looks of it, everybody is aware of the PKC's existence anyway. They simply have no proof Trunicht is behind them.

Anyway, you're not really wrong. Yang's belief that he shouldn't get involved with politics (for the reasons 4th dimension stated) is probably his biggest character flaw. One thing the show has left out during its info dump is that Rudolf was an accomplished military man, and it was thanks to these accomplishments he managed to get elected and eventually become a dictator. And as a historian, Yang is surely aware of the other countless examples throughout history. This is most likely the reason he believes a soldier, and one hailed as a hero to boot, should stay as far away from politics as possible and simply obey orders.

I can't say more without spoiling future events. Just know that the story is aware of the contradictions, and Yang's character will be explored deeply... if this adaptation ever gets this far.

Tenzen12

2018-05-03, 11:49

Trunicht was legitimitely elected can do his stuff only with mandate of people. As long as democratic system work properly (and we don't have reason believe otherwise), Yang giving his vote someone else is enough fulfil his responsibities. Trunich is not dictator, at least not yet. Someone should investigate his ilegal activities, but that in other hand is not Yangs responsibility.

kuromitsu

2018-05-03, 12:07

Anyway, you're not really wrong. Yang's belief that he shouldn't get involved with politics (for the reasons 4th dimension stated) is probably his biggest character flaw. One thing the show has left out during its info dump is that Rudolf was an accomplished military man, and it was thanks to these accomplishments he managed to get elected and eventually become a dictator. And as a historian, Yang is surely aware of the other countless examples throughout history. This is most likely the reason he believes a soldier, and one hailed as a hero to boot, should stay as far away from politics as possible and simply obey orders.
It's not even that he's a soldier, really, it's more like that one, he's simply not the type of person to get involved in politics, period; and two, is that he doesn't believe that individuals trying to force their way through is the democratic way of doing things, even if one such individual happens to be right about something (then again, what is "right"). I think his flaw is not quite that he doesn't want to get involved with politics as such, more like that he sticks to his principles to a fault. Leaving it to the population to sort itself out usually doesn't work out very well, and from Yang's position he can nudge things along only so far.

Haak

2018-05-03, 12:42

Episode 5

Roflmao. Chief Sithole. :heh:

I wasn't a fan of this episode if I'm honest. The weird reactions of the Republic's politics just seemed a bit too removed from reality at times. If it were real life, i doubt Jessica would've managed to stay in the spotlight for as long as she had. Also pretty weird how Yang managed to get to her before guards despite the guards literally being right there.

It's also weird how blase Yang, Rebecca and the kid are about everything. Yang and Rebecca are nearly assassinated in broad daylight and they just part ways like nothing happened when at that point they should either be running to the police or consider going on the run. Instead they just talk about war casualties (and for the record I thought Yang's response to Rebecca's commentary was ridiculously banal and weirdly contradictory to what he was thinking during that politicians speech). No discussion takes place on what just happened and the repercussions thereafter despite the severity of the event. They just part ways and Yang goes home to eat dinner like it's an everyday occurrence. And it doesn't stop there either: Then we get treated to a hilariously toothless attempt at a mob lynching that is dispersed with a few high pressure water sprinklers (with seemingly laser guided accuracy) and Yang and the kid once again treat it like it's no big deal despite the damage they caused. No attempted report to the police or anything. Just business as usual. You're a shite guardian Yang. You shouldn't be looking after anyone.

What is this bizarre authoritarian political atmosphere that allows groups to be powerful enough to orchestrate attempted assassinations through car accidents and yet at the same time toothless enough to be foiled by water guns? And what is with these characters just not giving a shit? If it was just Yang then that would be one thing but it isn't even just him.

I don't want to keep making comparisons to Gundam The Origin but at least that show goes through the effort to show the effects persistent political harassment can have on people's lives.

kuromitsu

2018-05-03, 13:52

What is this bizarre authoritarian political atmosphere that allows groups to be powerful enough to orchestrate attempted assassinations through car accidents and yet at the same time toothless enough to be foiled by water guns? And what is with these characters just not giving a shit? If it was just Yang then that would be one thing but it isn't even just him.
Bizarre? Well yes, it is. Unrealistic? If only. That is the political atmosphere we have in my country, for example. Over here by now the government (deeply corrupt and at this point almost openly fascist) are doing things a lot more openly than Trunicht's faction - in rhetorics, intimidation of citizens and use of force against people who oppose them, and yet most people continue to "not give a shit". Either because they're afraid to speak up (things reached the point where having the wrong opinion may very well cost you your job) or because they genuinely don't care. They have their day to day lives to live, they say you should just keep a low profile and do what you're told you'll be OK, they say the government may step out of the line "every now and then" but at least they "keep the order" and "protect the people"... a lot of them are barely even aware what's really happening because they avoid politics, or consume government-sanctioned media that is of course pure propaganda. And so the government keeps getting re-elected and keeps getting (and giving itself) more and more power. (Really, this would be almost fascinating to watch if it wasn't the country I happen to live in. In a way it still is.)

I don't want to keep making comparisons to Gundam The Origin but at least that show goes through the effort to show the effects persistent political harassment can have on people's lives.
Different cultures and individual decisions aside, for the most part, persistent political harrassment may very well make the population apathetic. It definitely does so over here. Because most of the time the system is made so that you can't win, or if you do they'll make you pay in other ways; and after getting slapped down for the nth time most people lose the will to jump back into the fray. And in the meanwhile it's not like terrible things happen constantly (or rather, in a way that you realize) - you have your daily life to live, job to do, salary to earn, rent to pay, family and friends to take care of. Most people don't have the strength or even the will to struggle constantly, and after a long enough time even the most persistent ones tend to give up. Reality is not always as dramatic as one would perhaps like it to be.

Haak

2018-05-03, 14:04

Sorry but I don't think any of that applies to Yang et al. He's not trying keeping his head down - he's doing the exact opposite. Rebecca is the same.

And moreover it's much easier to not give a shit when you haven't been targeted. Again, that kind of apathy doesn't quite apply to Yang et al who have already gone through what would be traumatic stuff for anyone else and are themselves pretty political already.

And even if they decided that they should just keep their heads down, the story still presents it like it's nothing worth grieving over. Yang, Rebecca and the kid are seemingly totally unfazed by it all. That's still abnormal.

And even then I still just find it weird how this group can go from flagrant assassination through a traffic accident to being foiled by water guns.

But I am sorry to hear about your country's state of affairs. That sounds rough.

kuromitsu

2018-05-03, 14:07

Yang et al are giving a shit, but what do you expect them to do at this point? They could be panicking, I guess, but none are the type, so... (It's Jessica, btw.)

(Thanks - we're trying to do something about it, but as I wrote above... :/ )

Haak

2018-05-03, 14:12

(It's Jessica, btw.)

Crap, you saw that before I could edit it. Now I must live with the shame.

4th Dimension

2018-05-03, 19:04

It's down to what kind of personality Yang has. He is DEFINITELY not the force of personality, take charge, tilt at windmills type of guy. If asked, he will not back down from his views, and if you want him he can give you a nice lecture on history of democracy and how they slide into totalitarianism one step at a time, but he is simply not the kind of person to start fights both intellectual or physical.

Which you even see in the previous episodes. He is pretty certain that if they don't change their approach, their fleet will get clobbered. And he does politelly propose alternative scenario to what is being used. Once he is turned down, he doesn't get emotional, he doesn't simply keep on pushing his views on others and like. He accepts that those above him have made their decision and that he has done his duty in warning them and plans what to do if his dire predictions do happen.

As I say, at the end of the day, he is a university history professor at heart, who just got basically peer and superior pressured into command track.

As for the "accident", yeah he is blazee seemingly about it. But I don't think we are told that he didn't report it. Allthough given how automated their transportation is, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't automatic, since even the highway knew something strange was happening.
And in this case if powers that be want to cover it up, it will just be a case of drunk irresponsable driver doing something, an accident. After all, who would target the new hero on the day of the mourning really.

And the kid does give him shit if I remember about standing out and such. But decides to support him anyway.

pervypig

2018-05-04, 11:39

If Reinhart had changed places with Yang in the FPA, it is not hard to imagine what kind of ending the novel might have had. Even if Reinhart isn't as well-versed in history as Yang, he at least won't take any shit from politicians, elected by the people or otherwise. And Yang, being the passive dude he is, probably won't ever make it to the top of the empire... or any place of authority, for that matter.

Well, I know i'm not supposed to spoil it all for people who haven't watched the 1st LoGH adaptation or read the book, but Reinhart's ideals aren't that far off from Yang's in that he didn't wish to reign as a dictator, but only to set some order to the universe - so that crap like having your sister send off as a concubine of the emperor with you having no say at all doesn't have to happen again.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-04, 13:53

If Reinhart had changed places with Yang in the FPA, it is not hard to imagine what kind of ending the novel might have had.
Reinhart gets impatient with the slow, bureaucratic FPA, does something stupid, and dies before accomplishing anything?

Tenzen12

2018-05-04, 13:57

4th Dimension

2018-05-04, 15:25

he at least won't take any shit from politicians, elected by the people or otherwise.
See, what you are describing is not the rule of the people on which democracy is based, but autocracy.

Yang's in that he didn't wish to reign as a dictator, but only to set some order to the universe
And that is how autocracy and dictatorship starts. Things are tough at that moment, people are scared, the system as is seems to not be working, and then some charismatic and seemingly smart or popular guy appears and promisses that he'll solve the ills of the society if they just let him do as he pleases.

Which is what Yang pretty much talks about in the last? episode. Basically no dictatorship ever started without at least tacit and often pretty strong support from the people at the time.

Dextro

2018-05-04, 16:58

And that is how autocracy and dictatorship starts. Things are tough at that moment, people are scared, the system as is seems to not be working, and then some charismatic and seemingly smart or popular guy appears and promisses that he'll solve the ills of the society if they just let him do as he pleases.

Which is exactly how the original emperor got to power :)

Kanon

2018-05-04, 18:44

If Reinhard had been born in the FPA, he would have believed in democracy and done nothing because his sister would have never been sold to some powerful old fart. What happened to his sister and all the injustices the people suffer from in the Empire are what gave birth to his thirst for power. Both Reinhard and Yang were shaped by the societies they grew up in. You can't just switch them around.

4th Dimension

2018-05-04, 18:53

Which is exactly how the original emperor got to power :)
Which is the point I was making ;)

pervypig

2018-05-05, 01:20

Reinhart gets impatient with the slow, bureaucratic FPA, does something stupid, and dies before accomplishing anything?

With his insane luck? Nah. Guy escaped assassination attempt umpteenth time before even becoming a captain for the imperial navy. It isn't in this series, but go check it out.

If Reinhart changed place with Yang, he would change democratic state (if nationalistic, which is pretty common during war) into totality. In what way that would be good thing?

Reinhart did NOT want to be an autocrat; Watch the last ep of the 1st LoGH to find out. Besides, if you can condone extremism for democratic states during war-time, I don't see why you can't do the same for benevolent tyranny during war-time too.

See, what you are describing is not the rule of the people on which democracy is based, but autocracy.

And that is how autocracy and dictatorship starts. Things are tough at that moment, people are scared, the system as is seems to not be working, and then some charismatic and seemingly smart or popular guy appears and promisses that he'll solve the ills of the society if they just let him do as he pleases.

Which is what Yang pretty much talks about in the last? episode. Basically no dictatorship ever started without at least tacit and often pretty strong support from the people at the time.

Before we begin, let's get one thing straight: I have NEVER in any of my posts advocated autocracy for Yang or Reinhard. What I have been trying to point out is that no matter which society they were living in, Yang would have remained passively stating his opinion in the name of an unrealistic 'ideal' of democracy, which doesn't exist any where in the universe, whereas Reinhart is the go-getter, who one way or another would get things done.

To begin with, let's take a look at what Yang and Reinhard had experienced respectively just from the current show so far:

Yang - Enrolled into military academy cos he needed to pay school fees. Rose in rank because of achievements. Made friends while in military, fell in love with fiancee of friend but kept quiet about it. Said friend died in a war through the ineptness of the commander. (Here here's the part that I had the most gripes about) Disapprove of warmongering politician's speech by not clapping, EXPLICITLY refusing to stand and clap when told to do so. Friend's fiancee made a statement against said politician, he got involved by pulling her away - shortly after BOTH of them are targeted for attack, and then war factions attack his house after - respond by giving them a shower. (To be fair, we aren't shown anything else, but that's about it in summary)

Reinhard - Born in noble house, made friends with Kircheis who is a commoner (which shows that he doesn't really care about status), sister gets "sold" off to be a concubine of the emperor, vows to bring the system down, spend the next decade or so proving himself through the corrupt and decadent imperial army that he can make it to the top through his merit alone.

Tell me honestly, who do you root for? It isn't even about the society that they are brought up in any more, but their character. And the point I had been trying to drive was that, IF Reinhard was the guy who got his friend killed in FPA's army and his fiancee's life put to risk, his house vandalized, you bet he would have made some guys cry bloody tears - all within the system of democracy he is in.

Naturally, there will be people who would disagree and say that:"But that ain't democratic, no?". Arguably, the FPA in the period we are talking about now is in a war-mongering phase when civil-rights and liberties are not exactly all quite there - Yang's instructor pretty much even told him: "The Navy won't let you go no matter what you do.", which you can also take with multiple meanings. In this situation, isn't Yang's passivity too far a cry from his stated:"people are responsible for the tyrants they put above themselves"?

If Reinhard had been born in the FPA, he would have believed in democracy and done nothing because his sister would have never been sold to some powerful old fart. What happened to his sister and all the injustices the people suffer from in the Empire are what gave birth to his thirst for power. Both Reinhard and Yang were shaped by the societies they grew up in. You can't just switch them around.

This is the only statement that I agree with, but even so, not completely, because even in democratic societies, crap still happens (in fact majority of the time you see it reported, it is in democratic ones). So Reinhard might get his sister kidnapped sold off to some senator as a plaything? I don't know if it plays out like that, but the result would definitely be very different from what Yang would have done.

Tenzen12

2018-05-05, 02:17

Reinhart did NOT want to be an autocrat; Watch the last ep of the 1st LoGH to find out. Besides, if you can condone extremism for democratic states during war-time, I don't see why you can't do the same for benevolent tyranny during war-time too.

I don't condone extremism. I was talking about nationalistic moods not extremist actions, even if it's related. Mind you, that extremist actions were completely ilegal and not sanctioned. If Trunicht were autocrat he wouldn't even have to hide it and he would be imune any kind of eventual punishment.

Which is another thing. All that's needed to remove Trunich from his place is not elect him again, or just wait until police or secret services find proof conecting him to extremist groups, but I dare you, try remove tyrant, benevolent or not.

pervypig

2018-05-05, 02:42

I don't condone extremism. I was talking about nationalistic moods not extremist actions, even if it's related. Mind you, that extremist actions were completely ilegal and not sanctioned. If Trunicht were autocrat he wouldn't even have to hide it and he would be imune any kind of eventual punishment.

Which is another thing. All that's needed to remove Trunich from his place is not elect him again, or just wait until police or secret services find proof conecting him to extremist groups, but I dare you, try remove tyrant, benevolent or not.

The same could be said of wartime democracies which give politicians overarching authorities to deal with "subversive" activities in the name of national security. We can go on and on about this, which is why I have already stated that this had nothing to do with the societies they are in, but how they react to it.

And the way Yang is reacting isn't really very representative of what he claims as his ideal; since like you said, Trunich is a leader the people voted in, why isn't Yang actively lobbying for his resignation, putting his war hero status to good use? I'm no less unaware of the complications in trying to get things done in a bureaucracy, but smear campaign costs only money and backing (oh, I forgot, yangs a beggar, guess he must go seduce some rich broad then)

You can compare him with Reinhard who, despite being a noble himself, choose to work his arse upthe corrupt imperial system. Who is more active?

Tenzen12

2018-05-05, 02:48

Exactly, but that's not what happens here. Trunich isn't trying became dictator (at least not yet) and put lot of effort keep his popularity to get elected again. But as long as he doesn't try usurp powerm using power against him is wrong choice, neither citizens nor soldiers should be allowed take law into own hands.

pervypig

2018-05-05, 04:57

Somehow, I'm getting some batsman vs super man vibe from this discussion, where one denies the existence of the other over equally valid reasons... well, I still think that Reinhard would have made a better leader for the FPA without resorting to converting it into a dictatorship anyway.

Tenzen12

2018-05-05, 06:54

that's possible. Of course it's also because Yang is not leader in first place. In other hand I doubt Reinhardt is half as good historian.

4th Dimension

2018-05-05, 16:49

Before we begin, let's get one thing straight: I have NEVER in any of my posts advocated autocracy for Yang or Reinhard. What I have been trying to point out is that no matter which society they were living in, Yang would have remained passively stating his opinion in the name of an unrealistic 'ideal' of democracy, which doesn't exist any where in the universe, whereas Reinhart is the go-getter, who one way or another would get things done.
Well, that's just Yang for you. He is not that type of "go-getter"because history teaches him what happens ALL TOO OFTEN with the ones that are effective. He on the other hand, seems to be a believer that society should right it's wrongs rather than to expect some great leader fix all that for them.

This talk of action is starting to remind me of a similar militaristic "man of action" from Foundation...

And for one I LIKE Yang for that. He does not have the "solution" for society's wrongs of an angry teenager, but takes the long view from the stuffy chair of history. And still, despite all the examples of failures of democracy, including the "recent" one (which calls itself Empire now) he is still a believer in it's ideals. And that informs his actions.

Tell me honestly, who do you root for? It isn't even about the society that they are brought up in any more, but their character. And the point I had been trying to drive was that, IF Reinhard was the guy who got his friend killed in FPA's army and his fiancee's life put to risk, his house vandalized, you bet he would have made some guys cry bloody tears - all within the system of democracy he is in.
Except you can't do that within democratic system, without breaking it's implied or official rules. For one anyone to blame for the fiasco of the battle, meaning people in command, is probably dead. And even were they alive, it's not up to some lower level officer, even if he is the hero to pass judgement on his superiors. The way system works is that the HQ will do an inquiry, Yang will give his statement about what happened, there will be deliberations and eventual punishment, if there is any, will be down to the HQ.

The same goes for other things. There are services and sections of government that should be in charge of those actions. Also, I'm still not sure how is Yang supposed to "make them cry bloody tears" to a dozen lynchers, most of which seem to have military training. I guess a "go-geter" could "go-get" himself clubbed and his house torched. And no, depending on how their law is structured, Yang might not even be allowed to just attack them for "trespassing".

Naturally, there will be people who would disagree and say that:"But that ain't democratic, no?". Arguably, the FPA in the period we are talking about now is in a war-mongering phase when civil-rights and liberties are not exactly all quite there - Yang's instructor pretty much even told him: "The Navy won't let you go no matter what you do.", which you can also take with multiple meanings.
What he told him is not really about breaking the right and liberties. It's the normal you giving an oath, and military coming to collect on it in the case of war.

In this situation, isn't Yang's passivity too far a cry from his stated:"people are responsible for the tyrants they put above themselves"?
The key word here is PEOPLE. Not individuals. The entire society. There are political opponents Mr. T has, and to stop him it just takes enough people voting against him.

That being said, have you considered that Mr. T might also consider himself in the RIGHT? That he too might have a convenient sob-story about, let's say, his planet being done bad things by the Imperials, and now he is gonna make sure "they cry tears of blood". And therefore he will do EVERYTHING in his power so that the lily livered politicians which might be up for a peace or a cease fire with the Empire never do something that "cowardly". So he is "getting things done" by carefully cracking down on those who are obvious traitors to their freedoms and is riling up the people for what's really at stake, freedom for all subjects of the Empire, weather they like it or not.

Also it's quite possible that the majority quite likes what he is saying, and even might at least tacitly support or turn blind eye to groups of "concerned citizens" dealing with "cowards and traitors". Which means, until the masses wake up to the issues there is really no way to remove T because he IS the will of the people. And no Yang is simply not a politico to fight that kind of fight. He is there to defend the Alliance from EXTERNAL enemies, not internal issues.

pervypig

2018-05-05, 19:44

Except you can't do that within democratic system, without breaking it's implied or official rules. For one anyone to blame for the fiasco of the battle, meaning people in command, is probably dead. And even were they alive, it's not up to some lower level officer, even if he is the hero to pass judgement on his superiors. The way system works is that the HQ will do an inquiry, Yang will give his statement about what happened, there will be deliberations and eventual punishment, if there is any, will be down to the HQ.

The same goes for other things. There are services and sections of government that should be in charge of those actions. Also, I'm still not sure how is Yang supposed to "make them cry bloody tears" to a dozen lynchers, most of which seem to have military training. I guess a "go-geter" could "go-get" himself clubbed and his house torched. And no, depending on how their law is structured, Yang might not even be allowed to just attack them for "trespassing".

The key word here is PEOPLE. Not individuals. The entire society. There are political opponents Mr. T has, and to stop him it just takes enough people voting against him.

Overall, not much that I disagree with, except your assumption that there is nothing within the democratic system that a go-getter can do. Majority of the civil rights that we can see today had been hard fought over by leaders within the democratic systems of the past - including woman's sufferage and equal rights for other races. Lobbying is long and hard, but they succeeded despite the odds, (not to mention sometimes illegal)

You have highlighted mostly the technicalities of difficulties imposed by the bueracratic system, but fact is there ARE actual things that Yang could actually have done, but we are not shown. Since I haven't read the book, I can't really cast rock on him right now, but I maintain my stance that Reinhard would probably have done so much more aggressively in his place.

4th Dimension

2018-05-06, 13:19

Overall, not much that I disagree with, except your assumption that there is nothing within the democratic system that a go-getter can do. Majority of the civil rights that we can see today had been hard fought over by leaders within the democratic systems of the past - including woman's sufferage and equal rights for other races. Lobbying is long and hard, but they succeeded despite the odds, (not to mention sometimes illegal)

You have highlighted mostly the technicalities of difficulties imposed by the bueracratic system, but fact is there ARE actual things that Yang could actually have done, but we are not shown. Since I haven't read the book, I can't really cast rock on him right now, but I maintain my stance that Reinhard would probably have done so much more aggressively in his place.
Yes, but these are all things politicians are supposed to do. Yang is not one, and shouldn't be one as long as he is on active duty. Politics and military aren't supposed to mix. Their relationship should be strictly People > Politicians > Military.

Ithekro

2018-05-06, 14:18

How are the ships and combat compared to the original?

4th Dimension

2018-05-08, 07:01

How are the ships and combat compared to the original?

Based on the sample of the combat in first two episodes compared to the new one, the combat is kinda flashier and slicker. Also ship designs are kinda even more stylised. While in the original there was some streamlining in Imperial designs and BOXINES in Allied ones, both looked quite machiney and rugged. Now nearly all Imperial ships look as aerodynamic as Reinhard's ship if not more (his new one too is kinda fancy). Allied ships are METAL BWAKESES.

So so far so good. The bad is that some of the large scale overview of what is going on is lost because the camera tends to be closer on the ships. And with the new fancier animations the combat bits kinda eat into other things.

Also new maps kinda tend to be overly fancy and maybe even less clear. Tactics are roughly the same as in the original but there are some changes. In battle of Astarte most notably Alliance advances in a line abreast in new version while in the old they are falling on Reinhard from all sides.

For me as someone new it's fine, although I am annoyed sometimes by the overly fancy displays.

pervypig

2018-05-08, 13:16

Lol? Yang should really change class from historian to comedian! How is it possible tat a girl who gave him coffee 8yrs ago have a better memory than him?!? What happened to all those dates and locations and names he need to memorise for history class?

Anh_Minh

2018-05-08, 14:13

Wow, Schönkopf's been bishified. But then, with a name like his... (Pretty Head in German.)

Lol? Yang should really change class from historian to comedian! How is it possible tat a girl who gave him coffee 8yrs ago have a better memory than him?!? What happened to all those dates and locations and names he need to memorise for history class?

She was just a girl among thousands whose life he saved. He was the great hero who saved her life. Of course she remembers it better than he does. It's not quite a "But for me, it was Tuesday" situation (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButForMeItwasTuesday), but he certainly had other concerns at the time.

kuromitsu

2018-05-08, 16:29

As I expected, Miki Shinichirou is just absolutely not working as Schönkopf. I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around this casting. Nor Suwabe as Oberstein... (And whoever OK'd Suwabe's acting as Oberstein. There could have been so many ways for Suwabe to be at least serviceable in the role, but this... is still painful.)

Dextro

2018-05-08, 17:05

On the other hand Endou Aya as Frederica just makes me like the character even more. She was already one of my favourite characters in the novel and with that voice and design... :love:

Kanon

2018-05-08, 17:27

I don't know which was more faithful to the novels, but I liked the way the Rosenritters were introduced in the OVAs better. They came across as real dicks here. I certainly wasn't expecting Frederica to easily own one of them either. I don't recall ever seeing her fight, for that matter, so that was really surprising.

DragoonKain3

2018-05-08, 19:14

I don't care about what other say, but OBERSTEIN! <3

And yeah, Yang must be very happy to have Sheryl Nome as his adjutant. XD

Tenzen12

2018-05-09, 11:44

Another proof Aliance is much better place to live. Empire hero get dissapeared blood related sister. Aliance hero can choose between well mantained widow and Sheryl Nome. Life is not fair. Thank goodness:heh:

Lol? Yang should really change class from historian to comedian! How is it possible tat a girl who gave him coffee 8yrs ago have a better memory than him?!? What happened to all those dates and locations and names he need to memorise for history class?

Being historian is hardly guarantee of having eidetic memory. Even if Yang has wast knowledge drilled into his head, it's entirely possible any random gall out there can remember all these things with much less effort and with much less need refresh these memories in long run. That's difference between geniuses and peasants.

kuromitsu

2018-05-09, 15:51

Finally got around watching the latest episode (I was interrupted before) and echoing others, what the hell was that Rosenritter introduction? Who thought it was necessary? Frederica doesn't need this sort of propping up, this is not her role. And it was equally showing the Rosenritter in a terrible light. They might be a rowdy bunch but they're not complete idiot meathead bros. Hell, if the writers want badass girls and rowdy fighters why not add some female Rosenritters, and be done with it, instead of doing this manufactured and pointless drama... taking up time that could have been better spent on other things.

Also, I continue to wonder where the translator is getting the name localizations for a bunch of these characters. Cazerne, Sithole, Bewcock... yes, these exist and have been already deemed wrong by canon itself. (It's Caselnes, Sitolet, Bucock, etc.) I mean OK, I don't expect the translator to buy the Encyclopedia, but there's the whole internet, or the English language release of the novel (which has numerous problems but it follows the official name localizations), the Japanese Wikipedia, and oh, the official website of this very anime...

RDNexus

2018-05-09, 16:36

As far as I came to know (namely, from a ANN article), simulcast translators tend to have very little time in hands to translate one episode of a series.
They seem to be handed a script in japanese, and most surely it doesn't offer any official names for the characters.
I know, it sucks, but given said circunstances I don't let such cringe get to me. I get nothing from being like that...

Regarding the Rosenritter moment, it seemed to me Schonkopf stated his men were testing Yang & Frederica's mettle or something, and taking it a bit too far.
I actually liked the moment and didn't make me dislike them, but it may simply be due to already knowing about them and their future endeavors.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-09, 17:20

"Cazerne" looks and sounds like a French name. "Caselnes" I'm not so sure about.

Jerseykid

2018-05-09, 21:53

I knew I heard Urahara!

Cloudedmind

2018-05-10, 00:01

So I wonder who they will get to replace Umehara? And how many episodes he may have already recorded. It's always unfortunate when an actor gets severally sick and has to take time off.

kuromitsu

2018-05-10, 03:11

So I wonder who they will get to replace Umehara? And how many episodes he may have already recorded. It's always unfortunate when an actor gets severally sick and has to take time off.
It's such a bummer, his Kircheis was one of the few things I was genuinely looking forward to, I liked where his acting was going. I think if he had finished recording the staff would have announced it, but I think it's very likely that he's going to be replaced. Dammit. Poor guy, I hope he gets better soon. This is a pretty serious illness, and it's so unfair that he has to go on an indefinite hiatus right now when he's so busy and has so many main/lead roles. (He's in so many things I like, too!)

"Cazerne" looks and sounds like a French name. "Caselnes" I'm not so sure about.
And yet Caselnes is officially his name. Same with Sitolet, etc.

As far as I came to know (namely, from a ANN article), simulcast translators tend to have very little time in hands to translate one episode of a series.
They seem to be handed a script in japanese, and most surely it doesn't offer any official names for the characters.
I know, it sucks, but given said circunstances I don't let such cringe get to me. I get nothing from being like that...
Just because you don't have much time to translate doesn't mean you don't have time to prepare when you accept a job. I wouldn't be so annoyed if the correct localizations weren't available on the official website, in the officially released English translation of the novel, on Wikipedia, etc.

Regarding the Rosenritter moment, it seemed to me Schonkopf stated his men were testing Yang & Frederica's mettle or something, and taking it a bit too far.
That would work in a different type of story, but not here. It was immensely out of character for Frederica to use physical violence; it was immensely out of character for Schönkopf to allow something like this to happen in the first place. (Also it was ridiculous for the writing to think that Frederica needed this moment. She doesn't. She's not a physical fighter.) The Rosenritter may be a rowdy bunch but they're still a professional military group.

Tenzen12

2018-05-10, 04:20

kuromitsu

2018-05-10, 04:40

You can't act out of character when it's not established yet. And this episode did exactly that established characters of Frederica and Schönkopf. Unless anime will try go against their own characterisation in future there is no problem neither is taking some liberties from over thirty years old anime and even older novels.
How is the age of the novel relevant here? If they're trying to do a faithful adaptation (that by all accounts they are trying to do) then it is being out of charcter compared to how the characters are supposed to be. And unless they'll keep writing in original scenes where the characters act like how they did here, I don't see how any of this is going to be relevant and in character for them later.

RDNexus

2018-05-10, 04:47

Dear goodness, how much of a fanboy can you be? Why can't you just wait a bit to see how things will fare?
Who tells you these small liberties aren't being taken into consideration by the author himself? Just enjoy the ride, like I'm doing :D

Tenzen12

2018-05-10, 04:51

kuromitsu

2018-05-10, 05:18

If they were trying to be completely faithfull, they would keep ships designs, they also wouldn't put that scene you complain about in. Establishing Frederica as strong woman equal to any man hardly hurt her characterisation. LoGH didn't aged badly, but it still wouldn't work with just better animation alone.
Huh? The novel has no set ship designs, and the various adaptations during the years came up with their own mech/etc. designs, even in cases when they drew inspiration from Katou Naoyuki. Also, I'm really rolling my eyes at this being an idea of a "strong woman equal to any man". I mean really, a woman can't be a strong character unless she can beat up a guy? And the only way to show that is having her being harrassed by a guy? (Tastelessness aside, just how cliché is this?) Frederica is plenty strong without having to resort to a show of physical force. It should be apparent from the importance of the position she holds and the way the story goes later on. If they want to establish her as a strong female character or whatever then give her scenes where she's even more effective at her actual job, and can hold her own in what is her actual field of expertise and strength... and doesn't show some of the other iimportant characters in a bad light.

Tenzen12

2018-05-10, 05:33

Of course she doesn't need to be able beat guys to be strong person, but doing so is pretty simple and effective way to show she is (also you are making it sound like Frederica never used violence in original, which is not true).

As for being "harassed", well it would be weirder if she wasn't. Rosen Ritters are tough guys, every single of them has more testosteron then all boy bends on the world combined. That someone would try flirt was obvious from moment she set her feets into camp. It wouldn't be that different in RL either.

Gan_HOPE326

2018-05-10, 07:43

Finally got around watching the latest episode (I was interrupted before) and echoing others, what the hell was that Rosenritter introduction? Who thought it was necessary? Frederica doesn't need this sort of propping up, this is not her role. And it was equally showing the Rosenritter in a terrible light. They might be a rowdy bunch but they're not complete idiot meathead bros. Hell, if the writers want badass girls and rowdy fighters why not add some female Rosenritters, and be done with it, instead of doing this manufactured and pointless drama... taking up time that could have been better spent on other things.

Even without knowing them, I must admit I found them quite unbelievable. An Admiral with his assistant walks in, and the first thing they do is not even salute, ignore the Admiral, and begin sexually harassing the assistant? How have these people not been all court-martialed already :rolleyes:? Especially considering how they're Imperial defectors and refugees, and thus you'd expect them to be doubly careful not to get on anyone's bad side or give them good reason to doubt their loyalties... it was a very trope-y scene with little credibility.

Cloudedmind

2018-05-10, 09:02

It's such a bummer, his Kircheis was one of the few things I was genuinely looking forward to, I liked where his acting was going. I think if he had finished recording the staff would have announced it, but I think it's very likely that he's going to be replaced. Dammit. Poor guy, I hope he gets better soon. This is a pretty serious illness, and it's so unfair that he has to go on an indefinite hiatus right now when he's so busy and has so many main/lead roles. (He's in so many things I like, too!)

So many shows! Half the anime production studios and staff are probably scrambling to find a replacement for him. OK even saying half might be an exaggeration, but I doubt by much. It certainly feels like he has a role in ever other show. I rather like him as Pin in Tada Never Falls in Love, partly because he was finally getting to do something really different from his most recent roles.

Anyway to get back on topic, as someone who hasn't read the novels or watched the OVA's, I'm enjoying what I've seen so far. The scene with the Rosenritters did feel dated and cliche, but I won't be holding it against the show.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-10, 09:07

Huh? The novel has no set ship designs, and the various adaptations during the years came up with their own mech/etc. designs, even in cases when they drew inspiration from Katou Naoyuki. Also, I'm really rolling my eyes at this being an idea of a "strong woman equal to any man". I mean really, a woman can't be a strong character unless she can beat up a guy? And the only way to show that is having her being harrassed by a guy? (Tastelessness aside, just how cliché is this?) Frederica is plenty strong without having to resort to a show of physical force. It should be apparent from the importance of the position she holds and the way the story goes later on. If they want to establish her as a strong female character or whatever then give her scenes where she's even more effective at her actual job, and can hold her own in what is her actual field of expertise and strength... and doesn't show some of the other iimportant characters in a bad light.

Yeah. Faithfulness aside, I agree that it wasn't a good moment for Frederica or the Rosenritters. Or even for the FPA navy in general, when added to the earlier scene of junior officers badmouthing a fleet commander without consequences.

4th Dimension

2018-05-10, 15:45

Even without knowing them, I must admit I found them quite unbelievable. An Admiral with his assistant walks in, and the first thing they do is not even salute, ignore the Admiral, and begin sexually harassing the assistant? How have these people not been all court-martialed already :rolleyes:? Especially considering how they're Imperial defectors and refugees, and thus you'd expect them to be doubly careful not to get on anyone's bad side or give them good reason to doubt their loyalties... it was a very trope-y scene with little credibility.
Yeah. I don't know the original and I also found them tasteless and stupid. You might have a rivalry with another branch, but you DO NOT pull this kind of shit in front of someone so higher in rank than you. Someone who will be deciding into which meat grinder he will throw you. This is not a fight you can win. And it reflects bad on the unit AND on the commanding officer that he seemingly can't restrain his troops even with him present there.

RDNexus

2018-05-10, 17:13

While I did say before that I had no problem with that moment of the episode, now that you guys talked about the military hierarchy and stuff, I can see that the moment was handled poorly due to those reasons :upset:

Tenzen12

2018-05-10, 23:51

Ok, I guess it really could be pretty big issue. So I admit my mistake too.

Heibi

2018-05-11, 08:30

Even without knowing them, I must admit I found them quite unbelievable. An Admiral with his assistant walks in, and the first thing they do is not even salute, ignore the Admiral, and begin sexually harassing the assistant? How have these people not been all court-martialed already :rolleyes:? Especially considering how they're Imperial defectors and refugees, and thus you'd expect them to be doubly careful not to get on anyone's bad side or give them good reason to doubt their loyalties... it was a very trope-y scene with little credibility.

The Rosenritter only respect strength. They show it to commanders who deserve it. They were testing Yang. They already knew who he was. As soon as Frederica surprised them they quit their play. Had Yang come in like some commander yelling at them and calling them disgraces and how they should be grateful they would have had their answer as to what kind of man Yang is. Instead he stood there and reasoned with them without raising his voice. Notice, they all showed the proper respect after the initial impression.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-11, 08:39

The Rosenritter only respect strength. They show it to commanders who deserve it. They were testing Yang. They already knew who he was. As soon as Frederica surprised them they quit their play. Had Yang come in like some commander yelling at them and calling them disgraces and how they should be grateful they would have had their answer as to what kind of man Yang is. Instead he stood there and reasoned with them without raising his voice. Notice, they all showed the proper respect after the initial impression.

It's called being insubordinate. Assaulting a superior officer the way that goon did? It's a court martial worthy offense. Again, that does not speak well for the FPA military in general and the Rosenritters in particular that they're so undisciplined.

It might make sense in a Conan the Barbarian type setting for officers to need to prove their mettle in such a way, but not in what is ostensibly a modern army.

Tenzen12

2018-05-11, 09:28

Well, you would need rather tigh criteria to call it "assault" though as none of knight used violence. You would have much better case with sexuall harasshment.

Gan_HOPE326

2018-05-11, 09:51

Well, you would need rather tigh criteria to call it "assault" though as none of knight used violence. You would have much better case with sexuall harasshment.

Yeah, though really, he laid a hand on her without permission, and that alone would have been quite enough. Mostly, I think it's also weird because we never got the impression that Yang is intrinsically looked down or considered a weakling unworthy of his position. He's fresh of an amazing last-moment rescue which prevented the complete destruction of an entire fleet. Eight years ago, he was called the hero of El Facil for his fundamental contribution in evacuating the planet. He doesn't have the reputation of someone you should just go and fuck with - if anything, I'd imagine people be underwhelmed after meeting him and seeing how meek and peaceful he is after building him up in their minds as some kind of indomitable warrior :heh:.

BloodyKitty

2018-05-11, 12:15

From what I heard from novel readers, the introduction of Rosen Ritter in the OVA and 2018 remake are both anime original, while the novel just goes straight to the conversation between Yang and Schonkopf. So yeah, the remake handled this badly. Even I think that scene was kinda unnecessary, and Yang having zero reaction to his subordinate being harassed is kinda weird too.

John117xCortana

2018-05-11, 18:39

Sheba

2018-05-12, 02:37

Anyone get the feeling that Aya Endo playing the love interest of the main protagonist in this story is a reference to Macross Frontier? Especially when this year is the 10th anniversary of Macross Frontier?

In that case, Yuuichi Nakamura would have been the one voicing Wen Li. If they wanted to play up that dynamics down to seiyuu level, I think they should have cast Maaya Sakamoto as Frederica, since her and Suzumura are married irl.

Kanon

2018-05-12, 11:16

Anyone get the feeling that Aya Endo playing the love interest of the main protagonist in this story is a reference to Macross Frontier? Especially when this year is the 10th anniversary of Macross Frontier?

No, since she's a pretty active seiyuu. And Yang isn't the main protagonist, though I understand why you'd think that.

Heibi

2018-05-12, 12:17

It's called being insubordinate. Assaulting a superior officer the way that goon did? It's a court martial worthy offense. Again, that does not speak well for the FPA military in general and the Rosenritters in particular that they're so undisciplined.

It might make sense in a Conan the Barbarian type setting for officers to need to prove their mettle in such a way, but not in what is ostensibly a modern army.

Insubordinate as it may have been, they wanted to see Yang's reaction. They are generally treated poorly and with suspicion by the general command structure in the FPA. Plus you can't use our standards of conduct in the military today as a comparison since writers tend to ignore consequences for the sake of writing. Federica made them knock it off pretty quickly. Her actions and Yang's calm reaction earned their trust.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-12, 13:37

Insubordinate as it may have been, they wanted to see Yang's reaction. They are generally treated poorly and with suspicion by the general command structure in the FPA. Plus you can't use our standards of conduct in the military today as a comparison since writers tend to ignore consequences for the sake of writing. Jessica made them knock it off pretty quickly. Her actions and Yang's calm reaction earned their trust.

"The sake of writing" is meaningless. The point is, that scene didn't make them look badass, it didn't make them look downtrodden, it didn't make Yang cool and collected. It made them look like unreliable thugs with no place in a military and Yang like a helpless weakling. Jessica came out looking like an action girl, which could have been ok, if incredibly cliché... but too bad, because that's not what she is.

drawr

2018-05-12, 14:09

Heibi

2018-05-12, 15:44

Wouldn't argue it's not insubordination but the locker room scene didn't seem that unrealistic to me, at least in regards to their reaction to a beautiful woman appearing. It's common in military up to modern times and other organizations for that kind of harassment to happen to women(hell, guys too) regardless of rank.

BTW, I'm a retired air force officer. And you are correct. Usually, if you want to compare this to our military, women do not enter men's locker rooms and vice versa. This is the future and a different military attitude. Not to mention it is written from a Japanese person's point of view. They have different attitudes to military discipline and women(in uniform).

Also, I've watched all of the original series(and subtitled it - Central Anime). The Rosenritter were known to be hard to control. No commander wanted them around. And this current story line is following in that genre. The are very close to the original series, except for this particular meeting in the locker room.
Frederica in the original series was not a badass, true, but she could still fight/shoot better than Yang. Also, she went through military training so this is not a surprise that they added the angle of her knowing hand to hand combat. Every soldier learns some.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-12, 15:51

BTW, I'm a retired air force officer. And you are correct. Usually, if you want to compare this to our military, women do not enter men's locker rooms and vice versa. This is the future and a different military attitude. Not to mention it is written from a Japanese person's point of view. They have different attitudes to military discipline and women(in uniform).
What, so they'll physically harass the aide of an admiral right in front of that admiral? Ok.

Also, I've watched all of the original series(and subtitled it - Central Anime). The Rosenritter were known to be hard to control. No commander wanted them around. And this current story line is following in that genre. The are very close to the original series, except for this particular meeting in the locker room.

Jessica in the original series was not a badass, true, but she could still fight/shoot better than Yang. Also, she went through military training so this is not a surprise that they added the angle of her knowing hand to hand combat. Every soldier learns some.

But not, apparently, the Rosenritter who touched her.

Heibi

2018-05-12, 16:44

What, so they'll physically harass the aide of an admiral right in front of that admiral? Ok.

But not, apparently, the Rosenritter who touched her.

Surprise is part of martial arts, is it not? She did the unexpected and he was taken off guard. By the time he could have reacted she already had him past the point of countering - I've seen that move in real life.

And she was voicing the limits they were reaching at that moment. Walter stepped in after it was about to go too far. And then he showed the proper respect as did the others. Also, he wasn't in the picture from any angle, so he could have come in at the right moment. He also admonished his man for taking it too far. And the Rosenritter are flamboyant(as Walter demonstrates), coming from Imperial lineage.

Anyway, this is an anime, and the writer is trying to make a point with these actions. i.e. Yang is the only one who can ultimately control these guys.

Kanon

2018-05-12, 18:55

Just want to point out it's Frederica, not Jessica.

Heibi

2018-05-13, 00:33

Just want to point out it's Frederica, not Jessica.

Lol! No idea why I was using Jessica!

Heibi

2018-05-13, 00:36

"Cazerne" looks and sounds like a French name. "Caselnes" I'm not so sure about.

The original spelling on the Laser Disks was Cazellnu.

Kanon

2018-05-15, 11:54

The capture of Iserlohn looked really easy compared to the OVA. Not that the OVA version was perfect, but at least you understood why only the Rosenritters could accomplish this mission.

On the plus side, I liked Schonkopf's flashback, the inside of the fortress looks pretty cool and they did justice to Thor's hammer.

Klashikari

2018-05-15, 16:43

I personally thought the gambit was more realistic in the remake: not only they had to go through the ID check which failed, but it has shown a more compelling reason why Stockhausen surrendered: not only he was afraid for his life, but he also saw how Schonkpf could stand his grounds, implying he could very turn the operation into a suicide mission if needed.

Meanwhile, I thought the original OVA was kind of inconsistent with the alarm being triggered but still captured nevertheless. That soldier triggered some kind of shelter alert, instead of a code red or something. In fact, it just made the capture even easier.
I agree the remake made the Rosenritters less impressive with the use of the sleeping gas instead of going full force, but that was seriously something I couldn't really take seriously in the original OVA.

That said, I'm not exactly fond of Yang being totally calm when he heard about the "heart of warrior". This is something that was supposed to trigger him -really- hard back then.
Hell, I'm not sure why they changed the "trap" setup and made Yang deliberately bait the empire fleet to go within Thor's hammer range for some free kills before the surrender call. This was kind of out of character.

Kanon

2018-05-15, 17:51

It's probably more realistic in the remake, yes, but they made the whole thing feel too easy, to the point you wonder how the hell they never managed to capture that fortress before now. The OVA knew the plan was flimsy in the first place, so they decided to go full ham to cover this up. Worked better on me.

Forgot to comment on Rubinsky's first appearance. For a second there I thought he had hair, and I actually wish he did because that beard on the sides of his face just looks horrible :heh:

bakato

2018-05-15, 21:18

Wandering Soul

2018-05-15, 21:46

As someone who hasnot watched the OVA, I'll say that taking over the fortress did come off as sort of easy here. When Yang walked into the command room, I was honestly surprised that the takeover was nearly complete.

I assume that the reason the Rosen Ritters were needed for this plan was because they were the only group that could make convincing Empire spies and they were the only ones ballsy enough to pull off this operation.

Skaddix

2018-05-16, 03:44

Aren't they also like Navy Seal level elite combat fighters? Although I am sure the Imperial Knowledge helps.

I think mainly it irons in the point that most of the higher ups are incompetents. Although that is usually the case in series about to Super Brains duking it out.

As for the surrender call he has to fire some shots doesn't he or otherwise why would they believe the base is compromised and the Alliance has full access?

Anh_Minh

2018-05-16, 04:43

pervypig

2018-05-16, 08:13

Eh, I'm more afraid that the remake won't be able to cover many battles at the rate it is burning time through the episodes. 24ep won't cut it

Skaddix

2018-05-16, 08:27

I'm reminded of an article about Star Trek vs Star Wars, the salient point of which was that taking the control room wouldn't result in taking over a huge installation. It shouldn't have been possible for Schönkopf to pump gas into all the rooms (where did that gas even come from? Did the Imperials build such a system into the station in case a rando ever needed to defeat half a million men, or did the Rosenritter bring it in their ships and gained access to life support with enough canisters for, again, half a million soldiers?) What the Imperials should have been able to do is just sacrifice the control room and its occupants if necessary and switch to a spare.

Also, why didn't they do their debrief in an office or a meeting room? I'm willing to accept that the briefcase was some super-spy gear that defeated the Imperial sensors to appear full of papers or whatever, but there was no reason to being the guys into the control room.

Well sure but a control room switch should require an override? Who give the override code? Since the Admiral was captured and the other one was off base?

I assume they brought the canisters with them in their ship. They certainly didn't bring in their briefcase. Although seems they could have just filled that briefcase with whatever gas they used and then had the strike team take some sort of antidote beforehand.

I assume they did it in the control room cause they were prepping for an incoming attack.

Dextro

2018-05-16, 14:52

Anh_Minh

2018-05-16, 16:03

Well sure but a control room switch should require an override? Who give the override code?
The admiral's direct subordinates. The other admiral's absence is irrelevant. Different chain of command. But they have to be able to function if the admiral drops dead for some reason.

Since the Admiral was captured and the other one was off base?

I assume they brought the canisters with them in their ship. They certainly didn't bring in their briefcase. Although seems they could have just filled that briefcase with whatever gas they used and then had the strike team take some sort of antidote beforehand.

Then the question is, "why did Iserlohn's security let them unload those canisters, transport them to some inexplicably centralized life support, and pump their contents into the air?"

I assume they did it in the control room cause they were prepping for an incoming attack.
All the more reason not to have a distraction in the control room.

If I remember it right on the novel the Rosen Ritten were chosen in part because, being imperial defectors, they would have proper knowledge of imperial customs and (if I'm not mistaken) had the proper accents to pass as imperials. But I may be misremembering. But I agree, the take over came out as far too easy this episode.

I assumed it was for the accent, yeah. The customs I'm more dubious about - none of them went to Imperial boot camp, after all.

Kanon

2018-05-16, 18:43

If I remember it right on the novel the Rosen Ritten were chosen in part because, being imperial defectors, they would have proper knowledge of imperial customs and (if I'm not mistaken) had the proper accents to pass as imperials. But I may be misremembering. But I agree, the take over came out as far too easy this episode.

Given that one of them was a second generation refugee and the other couldn't remember the Empire at all, that seems odd. None of them even knew about tattoos being forbidden, and I doubt they would have an accent since they were raised in the FPA.

RDNexus

2018-05-16, 18:56

Not sure if this may interest anyone here...
ANN - LoGH Novel/OVA/Series Differences (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2018-05-16/legend-of-the-galactic-differences/.131625)

bakato

2018-05-16, 21:14

What's the age difference between Frederica and Yang?

Jerseykid

2018-05-16, 21:38

They started going back and forth between the two sides now it's just Yang, where's my blonde prince!?

4th Dimension

2018-05-17, 03:05

Given the after the credits next episode name and logo, I'm guessing we will be going back to him handling some sort of rebellion?

Haak

2018-05-17, 06:59

Given that one of them was a second generation refugee and the other couldn't remember the Empire at all, that seems odd. None of them even knew about tattoos being forbidden, and I doubt they would have an accent since they were raised in the FPA.

You can still have the accent if you're taught by your parents (who have an accent) at an early age. Though it does seem weird that the whole point in the Rosenritters being the only guys for the job is somewhat undermined when two of the three agents have no memory and one of them only upto the age of six. This FPA needs a better intelligence department. :heh:

We're probably gonna find all sorts of stuff that we could pick apart mercilessly with this show as we go on. It's kind of shame because this kind of stuff they could probably get away with back when it was first written but now thanks to "The Information Age" and an increasingly savvy audience, it just doesn't work. People watching the OVA series could've turned a blind eye to it given its airing date but this adaptation doesn't have that excuse.

Dextro

2018-05-17, 14:19

Given that one of them was a second generation refugee and the other couldn't remember the Empire at all, that seems odd. None of them even knew about tattoos being forbidden, and I doubt they would have an accent since they were raised in the FPA.

I don't have the novel with me (it's a bit far away, I only have vol 2 with me now) but I don't remember any of those things being there. I believe those were changes made for the anime. But my memory isn't anywhere near trustworthy on this, other novel readers will probably correct me in no time :heh:

Eater of All

2018-05-20, 00:07

We're probably gonna find all sorts of stuff that we could pick apart mercilessly with this show as we go on. It's kind of shame because this kind of stuff they could probably get away with back when it was first written but now thanks to "The Information Age" and an increasingly savvy audience, it just doesn't work. People watching the OVA series could've turned a blind eye to it given its airing date but this adaptation doesn't have that excuse.

I'm sure if people really wanted to, they could've picked apart the novels or the OVA too (or maybe they did, I was not around 30 years ago to witness :heh:). It's easy to sit in the audience chair and point out holes when the medium cannot argue back, and it's especially easy with a story like LoGH, which features sci-fi _and_ war strategy, so people who know (or think they know) a bit of both have a lot to nitpick. It's not necessarily counterproductive, since through debate we might learn something new or gain some more appreciation for details of the story (disregarding people who have an explicit agenda to hate on a show). But in the end I think for LoGH, it's the depth of the characters, the philosophical musings, and the storytelling that makes the show, so it'd only be a shame if arguments about technical inconsistencies somehow dominate all conversations.

4th Dimension

2018-05-22, 12:13

Man the visualization/holograms that are supposed to be showing what's happening are again letting the show down, or what they did in the recent battle didn't make too much sense.

As far as I can make sense, the following happened:

First they surround the bigger force, silly but fine, then they leave one opening for the enemy to leave, fine. Then they trap a seemingly SMALL part of enemy fleet in.
At first I thought that they trapped the bit where the enemy commander was and that they were going to threathen him, but no, he smartly was not in the rearguard.
Then Redhead's Ace Custom Battleship (RED 'UNS GO FASTAH!) executes a microjump or something in front of the enemy battleship. And gives the entire speech about how they didn't sink any enemy whips which was ehhhhhh.

Even given the amnesty for his subordinates, the following reasoning didn't make much sense. From what we see there is only a SMALL segment of the enemy fleet trapped in the pocket, and even FPA commanders would consider it fine to leave them to fend for themselves as they fall on the rest of the rather dispersed enemy and annihilate them.
So the "commander should die for his men, didn't really strike me as appropriate".

What DID make it more consumable was that they in parting/offhandedly mention that none of the Castorp's allies seem to have come to his aid. So I'm thinking he got his forces to fight by promising they will get allies and have a more general rebellion. But since he has been abandoned by them, even if they beat the enemy now, Empire will just send a bigger fleet and without allies they can't fight the entire Empire.

But still, that should have been the argument. You will die no matter what you do now, so surrender for your followers's sake. Not for the sake of the tiny bit of your entire fleet.

That being said, does Empire regulary send under strength forces to deal with rebellions. Even taking into account politicking, one would assume they'd want to make example of futility of such actions by sending overwhelming forces.

The following politicking bit was more interesting.

PS: I actually chuckled at the fact that the Castorp, replied to any report by subordinate by punching. You'd think that after a while they'll learn and start delivering them from outside the punching range :D

kuromitsu

2018-05-22, 17:42

The Kastropf rebellion is not one of my favorite incidents so I'm kind of glad it's out of the way...

I still don't really know what to make of Umehara's Kircheis! He's definitely got an edge and has a much stronger presence than I would have expected of Kircheis, who is supposed to be more soft-spoken and unassuming. (In some ways Kircheis is kind of like Yang on the Empire side.) But still, it's an interesting approach to the character that works, and when he's with Reinhard and/or Annerose he does switch into a gentler, warmer mode. Too bad that I don't really feel much chemistry between this Reinhard and this Kircheis. The words are there, the actions are there, but somehow it's just... not convincing to me. I'd say it's mostly Reinhard's/Miyano's fault, but this stronger, edgier Kircheis doesn't really help with the characters' dynamics. (I wonder if they ever tested the chemistry between the actors during casting, or just went "Miyano and Umehara, one is crazy popular, the other is a rising star, they're just what we need." That is, if either of them even auditioned in the first place.)

In any case, I'm pleased that it's still Umehara voicing Kircheis. I wonder how far he got with recording before he was hospitalized. Checking Twitter now I see no announcement of a replacement, or even mention of it, so perhaps they actually managed to finish? That would be great.

As expected, Nakamura Yuuichi fits Reuenthal to a T, too bad that he's most likely not going to get the opportunity to sink his teeth into the role. I think Reuenthal is one of the most charismatic and complex LoGH characters, and I'd been really looking forward to seeing a new version of him, even with his terrible character design... but, well, I don't see much of a chance now. (I mean, currently the anime is still not finished with volume 1 of the novel. Just let that sink in. They're wasting an entire cour on less than 250 pages. And if it garners enough interest and/or makes enough money to continue beyond volume 2 after the movies I'll eat my hat. Who the hell thought that this pacing would be a good idea... although considering how uninspired this adaptation is, perhaps it's for the best.)

(And the least said of Suwabe's Oberstein the better. One day I'll find out who was responsible for this, and write them a very angry letter, or something.)

Kanon

2018-05-22, 17:54

4th Dimension

2018-05-22, 19:18

I too think Kircheis's argument was pretty weak. His speech could have been better. It feels like it only worked because the noble was a real dickhead.

The rest of the episode was far more interesting. Oberstein GET, and some screentime for the Emperor who actually seems pretty wise.

His speech lacked a STICK. For this to work you need to provide a stick.

"I have this stick here I can clobber you with and then go on my merry way to extract Empire's vengeance on your rebellious world.
OR we could do the other thing.
Since your struggle is futile anyway (allies failed to materialize), so stand down, turn over your lord (or have him turn himself in) and you will be treated fairly."

Instead he goes:

"I got your pinky finger while you have a club in your other hand to club me with. Now how about you do MY job for me and pack up your lord you swore an oath to and present him to me with a bow, and I swear I'll treat you honestly HONEST! Also the entire me faillling to make a dent against your fleet was just... it was just me showing my GENEROSITY. Not because I have inadequate forces and couldn't do shit against you.
OH also as a sign of my (desperation) good will, here have my flagship at convenient location for it's destruction. "

Yeah Emperor is interesting.

But also what he is saying is basically the common garden supremacist doctrine about SUPERIOR people/beings/nations/system should rule/dominate since they are better. And sees a potential disastrous civil war as a valid contest to determine supremacy.

HunterSeeker

2018-05-22, 23:44

His speech lacked a STICK. For this to work you need to provide a stick.

"I have this stick here I can clobber you with and then go on my merry way to extract Empire's vengeance on your rebellious world.
OR we could do the other thing.
Since your struggle is futile anyway (allies failed to materialize), so stand down, turn over your lord (or have him turn himself in) and you will be treated fairly."

Instead he goes:

"I got your pinky finger while you have a club in your other hand to club me with. Now how about you do MY job for me and pack up your lord you swore an oath to and present him to me with a bow, and I swear I'll treat you honestly HONEST! Also the entire me faillling to make a dent against your fleet was just... it was just me showing my GENEROSITY. Not because I have inadequate forces and couldn't do shit against you.
OH also as a sign of my (desperation) good will, here have my flagship at convenient location for it's destruction. "

Yeah Emperor is interesting.

But also what he is saying is basically the common garden supremacist doctrine about SUPERIOR people/beings/nations/system should rule/dominate since they are better. And sees a potential disastrous civil war as a valid contest to determine supremacy.
I would say the OVA original (ala Artemis' Necklace) do it better, at least he DOES prove him can beat up his forces by just laying moving is finger.
But seriously this episode doesn't even act out how Kircheis lay siege on the rebel forces, or how he fully utilizes his fleet in an ambush. This episode is by far the worst episode in the remake IMO. (Well, save for Oberstein's part since he get longer talking time than the OVA)

Anh_Minh

2018-05-23, 01:00

His speech lacked a STICK. For this to work you need to provide a stick.

"I have this stick here I can clobber you with and then go on my merry way to extract Empire's vengeance on your rebellious world.
OR we could do the other thing.
Since your struggle is futile anyway (allies failed to materialize), so stand down, turn over your lord (or have him turn himself in) and you will be treated fairly."

Instead he goes:

"I got your pinky finger while you have a club in your other hand to club me with. Now how about you do MY job for me and pack up your lord you swore an oath to and present him to me with a bow, and I swear I'll treat you honestly HONEST! Also the entire me faillling to make a dent against your fleet was just... it was just me showing my GENEROSITY. Not because I have inadequate forces and couldn't do shit against you.
OH also as a sign of my (desperation) good will, here have my flagship at convenient location for it's destruction. "

Yeah Emperor is interesting.

But also what he is saying is basically the common garden supremacist doctrine about SUPERIOR people/beings/nations/system should rule/dominate since they are better. And sees a potential disastrous civil war as a valid contest to determine supremacy.

I think the argument really is "You think you're committed to total war with the massive Galactic Empire, but really, you're not. If you chose to give up now, while in a position of strength, you can keep your lives and maybe more. If you destroy me, they'll just send a bigger fleet next time, with more strongly worded orders."

The only question is how Kastrop even started his rebellion in the first place. Why would anyone betray the Empire for him?

pervypig

2018-05-23, 01:46

OBERSTEIN!!! OMFG! That's my favorite character from the original as well; Same goals, different circumstances from Reinhard, and far less scrupulous.

I find this new series literally cut to the bone of the tale and spare more time for flashy special effects. Well, I still find it too short. BTW, Astartes is NOT the first time Reinhard encountered Yang...

HunterSeeker

2018-05-23, 02:45

I think the argument really is "You think you're committed to total war with the massive Galactic Empire, but really, you're not. If you chose to give up now, while in a position of strength, you can keep your lives and maybe more. If you destroy me, they'll just send a bigger fleet next time, with more strongly worded orders."

The only question is how Kastrop even started his rebellion in the first place. Why would anyone betray the Empire for him?
The Empire is a vast place, and the local nobles pretty much act as federal lords on their planet(s). And when a leader is a bit full of himself, well......
At least most of the nobles are loyal to the throne no matter what.

4th Dimension

2018-05-23, 04:14

I would say the OVA original (ala Artemis' Necklace) do it better, at least he DOES prove him can beat up his forces by just laying moving is finger.
But seriously this episode doesn't even act out how Kircheis lay siege on the rebel forces, or how he fully utilizes his fleet in an ambush. This episode is by far the worst episode in the remake IMO. (Well, save for Oberstein's part since he get longer talking time than the OVA)
So what happens in the original OVA if you don't mind me asking, or do you know which episodes of the original OVA covered this bit?

I think the argument really is "You think you're committed to total war with the massive Galactic Empire, but really, you're not. If you chose to give up now, while in a position of strength, you can keep your lives and maybe more. If you destroy me, they'll just send a bigger fleet next time, with more strongly worded orders."

The only question is how Kastrop even started his rebellion in the first place. Why would anyone betray the Empire for him?
I think that OFFHANDED mention of no allies coming to back them up is telling. Except they mention it in the passing while it should be the MAIN bit.
One, the Empire for some reason seems to be run a la Fedual Monarchy system where local feudal lords have absolute power and their own levies. Meaning that local lords probably directly own a significant chunk of the Empire's military or even majority of it, and are letting the Empire have it via feudal contract.
I thought the Empire took a page from later Absolutist Monarchies where the influence of nobles on the crown was SEVERELY curtailed and their private armies SERIOUSLY reduced or forbidden.
I guess it might be that Kastorp built all those 10 000 ships in secret somehow? Or was he really allowed to have that big a feudal levy.

In any case the commanders were supposed to be his subjects, and not DIRECTLY subjects of the Emperor (that's how feudal system worked, and why a often a lowly serf that was Emperor's direct subject might be someone not even low nobles want to mess with).

IN any case, what he probably said, after punching anyone that raised any objections was that due to his vast wealth and (probably imagined connections) due to his dad, if he raised a flag of rebellion other nobles would flock to his banner, probably under the pretense of defending their noble rights or some such. He might not be able to fight the Empire alone, but a more general uprising might garner enough attention for some sort of deal to be struck.

But then no allies materialized.

Kanon

2018-05-23, 11:21

So what happens in the original OVA if you don't mind me asking, or do you know which episodes of the original OVA covered this bit?

In the OVA, Kastrop has no fleet or the likes, but a system called the Artemis necklace that is also protecting planet Heinessen and is reputed to be invincible. It's basically giant satellites spread around the planet that automatically open fire on enemies. I forgot why exactly but they couldn't be destroyed by ordinary means. He thought himself safe thanks to that, but Kircheis effortlessly destroyed the satellites by spreading Seffle particles in the area, which made them all explode as soon as they fired.

pervypig

2018-05-23, 11:48

The way Reinhard combed Kirchies' hair at the end of this episode literally fired up my fudanshi heart. I've no idea Kirchies is that much taller than Reinhard. Figure Yang would have his BL moments with Julian soon too.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-23, 12:41

So what happens in the original OVA if you don't mind me asking, or do you know which episodes of the original OVA covered this bit?

I think that OFFHANDED mention of no allies coming to back them up is telling. Except they mention it in the passing while it should be the MAIN bit.
One, the Empire for some reason seems to be run a la Fedual Monarchy system where local feudal lords have absolute power and their own levies. Meaning that local lords probably directly own a significant chunk of the Empire's military or even majority of it, and are letting the Empire have it via feudal contract.
I thought the Empire took a page from later Absolutist Monarchies where the influence of nobles on the crown was SEVERELY curtailed and their private armies SERIOUSLY reduced or forbidden.
I guess it might be that Kastorp built all those 10 000 ships in secret somehow? Or was he really allowed to have that big a feudal levy.

In any case the commanders were supposed to be his subjects, and not DIRECTLY subjects of the Emperor (that's how feudal system worked, and why a often a lowly serf that was Emperor's direct subject might be someone not even low nobles want to mess with).

IN any case, what he probably said, after punching anyone that raised any objections was that due to his vast wealth and (probably imagined connections) due to his dad, if he raised a flag of rebellion other nobles would flock to his banner, probably under the pretense of defending their noble rights or some such. He might not be able to fight the Empire alone, but a more general uprising might garner enough attention for some sort of deal to be struck.

But then no allies materialized.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities, neither of which makes sense. The first is that the Emperor, rather than an autocrat, is merely the top dog of a coalition of warlords who all have their own powerful fleets. That is not at all how the empire's been presented so far, but an autocrat would never let a local noble have its own fleet like that. What would he even use it for except civil strife?

The other is that the 10.000 ships are the local element of the Imperial fleet, that he somehow subverted. Which brings us back to my question of why anyone would betray the Empire for him, supposed allies or not. (I don't see why they'd believe allies would be coming either.)

I mean, betraying the Empire for Reinhardt is understandable. (Less understandable: why Reinhardt would trust Oberstein so fast.) Reinhart looks like he might eventually win, and he's the type who treats his subordinate well as long as they're loyal to him and competent. Kastrop? It never was possible for his rebellion to succeed, and even if he did, what did his closest subordinates have to hope for except punches in the face?

HunterSeeker

2018-05-23, 14:15

In the OVA, Kastrop has no fleet or the likes, but a system called the Artemis necklace that is also protecting planet Heinessen and is reputed to be invincible. It's basically giant satellites spread around the planet that automatically open fire on enemies. I forgot why exactly but they couldn't be destroyed by ordinary means. He thought himself safe thanks to that, but Kircheis effortlessly destroyed the satellites by spreading Seffle particles in the area, which made them all explode as soon as they fired.
There're no proof that the necklace is invincible without using ordinary means to attack against, but the cost of a direct attack is too costly as they can be coordinated to defend a multi-side attack and take in place with satellites lost. The last fleet sent to suppress the rebellion is basically wasted to a last ship before Kircheis destroyed the necklace without a single casualty. Well, one for the Ring Leader.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities, neither of which makes sense. The first is that the Emperor, rather than an autocrat, is merely the top dog of a coalition of warlords who all have their own powerful fleets. That is not at all how the empire's been presented so far, but an autocrat would never let a local noble have its own fleet like that. What would he even use it for except civil strife?

The other is that the 10.000 ships are the local element of the Imperial fleet, that he somehow subverted. Which brings us back to my question of why anyone would betray the Empire for him, supposed allies or not. (I don't see why they'd believe allies would be coming either.)

I mean, betraying the Empire for Reinhardt is understandable. (Less understandable: why Reinhardt would trust Oberstein so fast.) Reinhart looks like he might eventually win, and he's the type who treats his subordinate well as long as they're loyal to him and competent. Kastrop? It never was possible for his rebellion to succeed, and even if he did, what did his closest subordinates have to hope for except punches in the face?
The Empire is a federal one at the very least, as later on we're shown some of the highest nobles can have a limited fleet of their own (or rather, fleets for their affiliated admirals). As for why rebellions can take place, well, ask the Emprah from 40K lol. (Jokes aside, it's hinted the Empire isn't that good on the financial side as most of the economy are being controlled by the nobles, while court strifes between different parties are common, so they try to gather armed support from the military......well, you get the picture. Even Reinhard was being scouted before. Kastrop will not succeed in the long run yes, but you may earn a bargaining process in between if you have a big stick.)
As for the issue from Oberstein, aside from being on the same boat of trying to topple the old Empire, it's more for Reinhard's personal benefit. It's not like he trust Oberstein at this point but to get more potential allies within the military: he'll be court martialed anyway, but by pulling him into his camp first, he'll prevent others to do the same favour.

4th Dimension

2018-05-23, 15:39

In the OVA, Kastrop has no fleet or the likes, but a system called the Artemis necklace that is also protecting planet Heinessen and is reputed to be invincible. It's basically giant satellites spread around the planet that automatically open fire on enemies. I forgot why exactly but they couldn't be destroyed by ordinary means. He thought himself safe thanks to that, but Kircheis effortlessly destroyed the satellites by spreading Seffle particles in the area, which made them all explode as soon as they fired.
That actually sounds quite a lot more interesting than what we got. Especially since it's much more open to writter fiat gift wrapping victory to Kircheis without it looking silly. I wonder why they went with this. Probably wanted to get their money's due out of those warship models.

The way Reinhard combed Kirchies' hair at the end of this episode literally fired up my fudanshi heart. I've no idea Kirchies is that much taller than Reinhard. Figure Yang would have his BL moments with Julian soon too.
I was wondering how many viewers of that prefference quit the episode at that point and went to furiously write fanfiction :D

The way I see it, there are two possibilities, neither of which makes sense. The first is that the Emperor, rather than an autocrat, is merely the top dog of a coalition of warlords who all have their own powerful fleets. That is not at all how the empire's been presented so far, but an autocrat would never let a local noble have its own fleet like that. What would he even use it for except civil strife?
It does seem out of place doesn't it? But given the architecture and everything, the first Emperor had a massive man crush on most unstable of middle age government systems.

The other is that the 10.000 ships are the local element of the Imperial fleet, that he somehow subverted. Which brings us back to my question of why anyone would betray the Empire for him, supposed allies or not. (I don't see why they'd believe allies would be coming either.)

Well they did say that he was their liege. So that does suggest he somehow managed to build a 10k strong fleet. And yeah, that big a fleet is nothing but trouble. You don't need 10k ships to keep order on your planet. If you need ships, ONE is enough to sling rocks on any potential problem.

There're no proof that the necklace is invincible without using ordinary means to attack against, but the cost of a direct attack is too costly as they can be coordinated to defend a multi-side attack and take in place with satellites lost. The last fleet sent to suppress the rebellion is basically wasted to a last ship before Kircheis destroyed the necklace without a single casualty. Well, one for the Ring Leader.

The Empire is a federal one at the very least, as later on we're shown some of the highest nobles can have a limited fleet of their own (or rather, fleets for their affiliated admirals). As for why rebellions can take place, well, ask the Emprah from 40K lol. (Jokes aside, it's hinted the Empire isn't that good on the financial side as most of the economy are being controlled by the nobles, while court strifes between different parties are common, so they try to gather armed support from the military......well, you get the picture. Even Reinhard was being scouted before. Kastrop will not succeed in the long run yes, but you may earn a bargaining process in between if you have a big stick.)
So they are using a more feudal system. That is just asking for trouble. Then again if the thinking of the current Emperor was shared by his predecessors, that would make some sense. They might think a "healthy competition" (between nobles, commoners that get squashed when giants collide are probably considered) is good for the Empire.

kuromitsu

2018-05-23, 18:12

So what happens in the original OVA if you don't mind me asking, or do you know which episodes of the original OVA covered this bit?
In the original novel this whole thing takes up only like a couple of pages. Old Man Kastropf abused the system and amassed a huge wealth mostly due to corruption and bribery. After he dies the Empire tries to make an example of him and collect the money by the way of launching an investigation that is expected to uncover the illegal sources of the money. Maximilian, a stupid young man who can't really grasp the consequences of his actions says "lol no dis mine" and kicks the investigators out, multiple times. He's summoned to the court, he gets scared for his life/freedom. Instead of listening to his relatives trying to reason with him, he decides to use his private security forces to put together a rebellion because clearly that's the solution to the situation. He even attacks a relative of his, a certain Count Mariendorf (whose daughter is a very important character who should have been at least mentioned in Die Neue Thesis already) who calls to the throne for help.

This is where Kircheis comes into the picture. He first pretends to aid Mariendorf, except in the last minute he takes a sharp turn to towards Kastropf's home base instead. Kastropf takes the bait and rushes his fleet home to battle Kircheis. Except Kircheis, having hidden his fleet in an asteroid field (whatever, don't ask) surprises him by attacking his unprotected rear end of Kastropf's fleet, destroying it. Kastropf is then murdered by his own men in hopes that it will lighten their punishment. The End.

The OVA (which continues not to be "the original") pretty much did its own thing with this story, mostly for filler purposes and to develop Kircheis a bit to prepare the ground for Oberstein, I think. If DNT was trying to do the same thing it kind of failed because as I pointed out a few times already, this Kircheis... is not really that Kircheis. Anyway, this is not supposed to be some grand battle with deep meaning and whatnot. The only points we should get from it is that 1. Kircheis is not just someone coasting along on Reinhard's talent and proving his own mettle and place in the army, and 2. providing another success for Reinhard which eventually leads to Oberstein coming into the picture.

And about that...

Less understandable: why Reinhardt would trust Oberstein so fast.
Exactly because Oberstein is so shamelessly open about who he is and what he wants and why. Reinhard knows who Obe is, knows what he's trying to avoid and achieve. At this point Obe has everything to lose and Reinhard lots and lots to gain from saving him.

It's not like Reinhard trusts Obe as such, he knows that as long as he's doing what Obe expects him to do he will have Obe's loyalty and support. Obe pretty much says "Look, you need a man to do your dirty business. Kircheis is unsuited for it. If you help me out I'll be that man because I like what you're doing and where you're taking all this." And Reinhard, who at this point has been really wanting someone like this, says "sure, fine, let's see how this works out."

(At one point later in the story Oberstein calls Reuenthal a leashed beast, but I think that analogy fits him better...)

Kanon

2018-05-23, 19:21

Exactly because Oberstein is so shamelessly open about who he is and what he wants and why. Reinhard knows who Obe is, knows what he's trying to avoid and achieve. At this point Obe has everything to lose and Reinhard lots and lots to gain from saving him.

It's not like Reinhard trusts Obe as such, he knows that as long as he's doing what Obe expects him to do he will have Obe's loyalty and support. Obe pretty much says "Look, you need a man to do your dirty business. Kircheis is unsuited for it. If you help me out I'll be that man because I like what you're doing and where you're taking all this." And Reinhard, who at this point has been really wanting someone like this, says "sure, fine, let's see how this works out."

(At one point later in the story Oberstein calls Reuenthal a leashed beast, but I think that analogy fits him better...)

This is all true, but I would add that another reason Reinhard accepted Oberstein into his ranks was that he passed his little test. Reinhard pretended to arrest him for treason to see how he would react. He held his ground proving he meant what he said and his analysis of Kircheis was spot on, demonstrating he could be useful.

Regarding the differences between the original and the adaptations, the more I find out about it, the more it seems to me that the OVA improved upon the original material with its changes and additions, while this adaptation is trying to be more faithful but still makes smaller changes that always end up being for the worst.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-24, 00:33

Exactly because Oberstein is so shamelessly open about who he is and what he wants and why. Reinhard knows who Obe is, knows what he's trying to avoid and achieve. At this point Obe has everything to lose and Reinhard lots and lots to gain from saving him.

It's not like Reinhard trusts Obe as such, he knows that as long as he's doing what Obe expects him to do he will have Obe's loyalty and support. Obe pretty much says "Look, you need a man to do your dirty business. Kircheis is unsuited for it. If you help me out I'll be that man because I like what you're doing and where you're taking all this." And Reinhard, who at this point has been really wanting someone like this, says "sure, fine, let's see how this works out."

I'm just saying, if you live in a dictature, and someone you've never met and barely heard of waltzes into your office saying "Death to the tyrant, am I right? *wink wink nudge nudge*", not denouncing him takes a lot of trust. You have to not only trust he's not from the secret police or something, you have to trust he won't open his mouth to the wrong people when he's just demonstrated what a mouth he has on him.

Eater of All

2018-05-24, 01:07

First they surround the bigger force, silly but fine, then they leave one opening for the enemy to leave, fine. Then they trap a seemingly SMALL part of enemy fleet in.
At first I thought that they trapped the bit where the enemy commander was and that they were going to threathen him, but no, he smartly was not in the rearguard.
Then Redhead's Ace Custom Battleship (RED 'UNS GO FASTAH!) executes a microjump or something in front of the enemy battleship. And gives the entire speech about how they didn't sink any enemy whips which was ehhhhhh.

I think that small part _is_ where the enemy commander is. The way they drew the battle map makes it look pretty important, at least.

https://i.imgur.com/24B9p9L.png

I don't know why the commander ship is all the way in the rear. Chalk it up to the idiocy/hubris of Castrop? :heh:

4th Dimension

2018-05-24, 01:15

I'm just saying, if you live in a dictature, and someone you've never met and barely heard of waltzes into your office saying "Death to the tyrant, am I right? *wink wink nudge nudge*", not denouncing him takes a lot of trust. You have to not only trust he's not from the secret police or something, you have to trust he won't open his mouth to the wrong people when he's just demonstrated what a mouth he has on him.
Yeeah. To me it still sounded like something an agent provocateur/infiltrator might try to pull. It's HIGH risk, but it's also HIGH reward, and the risk is a lot lower if he judged his mark properly.

I think that small part _is_ where the enemy commander is. The way they drew the battle map makes it look pretty important, at least.

https://i.imgur.com/24B9p9L.png

I don't know why the commander ship is all the way in the rear. Chalk it up to the idiocy/hubris of Castrop? :heh:
Except when K contacts the fleet he is not threatening Castorp. In fact the supposed keystone of the situation is that Castorp is not willing to surrender/die for a (SMALL) portion of his subjects.

If it was otherwise, I'd expect him to address C DIRECTLY, and lay out to him that he has already personally lost. Because even if his fleet destroys K's, K's will ANNIHILATE Castorp long before they go down themselves. So he can surrender and probably get exiled or something. Or DIE.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-24, 01:22

Yeeah. To me it still sounded like something an agent provocateur/infiltrator might try to pull. It's HIGH risk, but it's also HIGH reward, and the risk is a lot lower if he judged his mark properly.

He even has a motive: he might have made a deal to avoid the death penalty in his upcoming court martial.

kuromitsu

2018-05-24, 03:14

Regarding the differences between the original and the adaptations, the more I find out about it, the more it seems to me that the OVA improved upon the original material with its changes and additions, while this adaptation is trying to be more faithful but still makes smaller changes that always end up being for the worst.
The OVA didn't necessarily improve on the novel, more like it adapted it in a way that fit its own concept (a very slow, somewhat documentary-like presentation that is, and this is important, aimed at people already familiar with the novel), with a mostly sure hand and very good sense of what this world is like and what these characters are like, and what sort of story it is. It has some changes and additions that I really like, some that I think don't work at all and come across as very awkward/not realistic, but most of them have to do with filling in the time by expanding on things in the novel, as a sort of fanservice, kind of like the reverse of when a movie gets a novelization.

The problem with DNT (well, one of the problems) is that it's trying to be like the OVA without having the OVA's circumstances and concept, and it doesn't seem to really understand why the OVA's method of adaptation worked. Plus the writing is far inferior when it comes to changes and original material. So where the OVA had a slow, deliberate pacing that nevertheless was engaging, DNT just feels slow and dragged out, with changes/etc. that are just kind of there and have no particular weight or consequence in the story. Things happen that shouldn't happen in such a setting; characters who are not really important in the long run get a lot of screentime; some characters who are going to be very important, or are just kind of iconic, are barely even mentioned (hello, Rubinsky, Reuenthal, Hilda, Poplin, should I go on...).

For the record, the OVA's version of the Kastropf story is one that I didn't think really worked, or at least didn't work as much as it could have. It's nice that they introduced the necklace, and also to give this extended screentime to Kircheis as a reminder of the kind of person he is, and to give more weight of Oberstein's assessment of him. But eh, the Kastropf's Roman Theme Park setting and the Julius Caesar thing was really cheesy and distracting, and had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Still, it worked better than DNT where I'm really not sure what we're even supposed to take away from this story. In the novel the points are as I mentioned previously (btw I just checked, it's not even two pages! it's like, three paragraphs). In the OVA you are reminded, in case you forgot, that Kircheis is a very talented person who is nevertheless very gentle and would rather avoid bloodshed, which is important both to present Obe as a sort of anti-Kircheis, and also to see how Kircheis works as a balancing force to Reinhard. In DNT we get... what exactly? This Kircheis is not the OVA's Kircheis (or the novel's, for that matter). The writers tried to somehow mix the OVA and the novel together, without seemingly having a clear idea of what they were trying to get at.

I'm just saying, if you live in a dictature, and someone you've never met and barely heard of waltzes into your office saying "Death to the tyrant, am I right? *wink wink nudge nudge*", not denouncing him takes a lot of trust. You have to not only trust he's not from the secret police or something, you have to trust he won't open his mouth to the wrong people when he's just demonstrated what a mouth he has on him.
That's not really what happened, though. That is, I don't remember what happened in the actual episode because I kind of tuned out the moment Obe opened his mouth (ugh, the secondhand embarrassment) but this dialogue between Reinhard and Obe is supposed to have an arc. It's not like Obe comes in and says "Death to the tyrant!", and in fact when he does say that, Reinhard has the appropriate reaction: he moves to arrest him. And it's only when Reinhard assesses Obe's reaction to this and understands that Obe is being serious, that he starts coming around, and understand the sort of man Oberstein is, and why he's not a threat to him.

He even has a motive: he might have made a deal to avoid the death penalty in his upcoming court martial.
At this point Reinhard is not (yet) enough of a threat for Lichtenlade & Co. to pull this kind of trick, not to mention what if Reinhard doesn't react in the expected manner? (And again, note that he doesn't, he immediately orders Kircheis to pull his gun on Obe.) It's too much of a potential mess for something that can be arranged in much easier ways if Lichtenlade thinks it's necessary.

I mean... everyone might have a motive. Who's to say Kircheis can't make a deal behind Reinhard's back for whatever reason? Who's to say Oberstein is not a two-headed alien from Betelgeuse? At one point you have to start trusting your instincts and hope for the best. :heh:

Skaddix

2018-05-24, 03:49

pervypig

2018-05-24, 03:56

^ It's explained before: Guy didn't originally have 10k fleet, but got a super defense system that makes more sense since he ain't some imperial fleet commander. The new adaptation made it so for simplicity sake.

RDNexus

2018-05-24, 04:01

On that point, it sure sucked. It made the whole event rather inconsistent.

pervypig

2018-05-24, 04:04

Well, they've only got 24 episodes to cover the whole fuggin' saga... that's 1/4 of the OVA (1/6 if you count the prequels), they are trying their best...

4th Dimension

2018-05-24, 05:25

I don't get how this guy got 10,000 Ships...he has no charisma and doesn't seem to be a genius and given the way he is abusing his men he doesn't seem to be paying them well...

Is the Empire suppose to be a Feudal System where every major noble has his own fleet?
Aparently so. Allthoug this one was really excessive. But it seems that nobles snapping at each other is a thing that happens. And so yeah, they are more feudal than absolutist.

^ It's explained before: Guy didn't originally have 10k fleet, but got a super defense system that makes more sense since he ain't some imperial fleet commander. The new adaptation made it so for simplicity sake.
Acually, going by what others have said, there are three different versions of the events and all of them are rather different.

Novel: It basically boils down to K ambushing Kastorpf's fleet as it's racing for home.

OVA: Super-duper defence system.

Here: Just a huge fleet K outfights SOMEHOW.

kuromitsu

2018-05-24, 06:31

Well, they've only got 24 episodes to cover the whole fuggin' saga... that's 1/4 of the OVA (1/6 if you count the prequels), they are trying their best...
They're trying their best by... wasting 12 episodes on the first novel only? :heh:

They're obviously not trying to cover the entire story, at this point it's clear that these 24 episodes (TV series + 3 movies) won't cover more than the first two volumes of the novel series. That's one of the reasons why I'm so disappointed.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-24, 13:28

That's not really what happened, though. That is, I don't remember what happened in the actual episode because I kind of tuned out the moment Obe opened his mouth (ugh, the secondhand embarrassment) but this dialogue between Reinhard and Obe is supposed to have an arc. It's not like Obe comes in and says "Death to the tyrant!", and in fact when he does say that, Reinhard has the appropriate reaction: he moves to arrest him. And it's only when Reinhard assesses Obe's reaction to this and understands that Obe is being serious, that he starts coming around, and understand the sort of man Oberstein is, and why he's not a threat to him.
A few minutes of conversation shouldn't make an appreciable difference on the trust-o-meter. Not for something like this.

At this point Reinhard is not (yet) enough of a threat for Lichtenlade & Co. to pull this kind of trick, not to mention what if Reinhard doesn't react in the expected manner? (And again, note that he doesn't, he immediately orders Kircheis to pull his gun on Obe.) It's too much of a potential mess for something that can be arranged in much easier ways if Lichtenlade thinks it's necessary.
Anyone can see Reinhardt will be a problem. If not for the emperor, then for any of career minded noble officer who doesn't want to kowtow to what they see as an upstart. And to more besides. It's not like he doesn't already have enemies.

Besides, one doesn't need to be an actual threat to fall afoul of a secret police in a dictature. It happens to random school teachers, it can certainly happen to fleet admirals.

I mean... everyone might have a motive. Who's to say Kircheis can't make a deal behind Reinhard's back for whatever reason? Who's to say Oberstein is not a two-headed alien from Betelgeuse? At one point you have to start trusting your instincts and hope for the best. :heh:
There is a huge difference between trusting an inseparable friend since childhood and trusting a complete stranger. What could anyone even offer Kircheis to make him betray Reinhardt? Whereas for Oberstein, it's obvious what he might want, and on the contrary, what reasons would he have not to throw Reinhardt under the bus? He straight up boasted about not being afraid to dirty his hands.

OVA: Super-duper defence system.

That's defeated by magic, because how else would you get space dust to cover a bunch of satellites?

Here: Just a huge fleet K outfights SOMEHOW.
He didn't outfight them. He hit them at weak point, which was the lack of loyalty between Kastrop and his men. It's like bribing the other sides' mercenaries.

kuromitsu

2018-05-24, 18:26

A few minutes of conversation shouldn't make an appreciable difference on the trust-o-meter. Not for something like this.
And yet it did. Even IRL people make very serious decisions going by pure intuition, and this is fiction. At one point you either accept that Reinhard is the sort of person who does in fact take this chance even if you personally think it's madness, and puts his trust in being a very good judge of character (which is a trait he demonstrates throughout the story) and having very good intuitions (same); or well, you keep complaining every time he does something like this. Both are valid choices.

Anyone can see Reinhardt will be a problem. If not for the emperor, then for any of career minded noble officer who doesn't want to kowtow to what they see as an upstart. And to more besides. It's not like he doesn't already have enemies.
Reinhard is already a problem, but not enough of a problem for anyone sane to go through such a convoluted and potentially dangerous plan with someone who is clearly highly favored by the emperor. I mean what if it doesn't work? What if Reinhard arrests Oberstein who spills the beans about having been set up? What then? A plan like this is way too problematic to even worth trying.

Besides, one doesn't need to be an actual threat to fall afoul of a secret police in a dictature. It happens to random school teachers, it can certainly happen to fleet admirals.
This is not a dictatorship as such, though, it's a monarchy, where the high aristocracy has enough power not to allow power over themselves. They would never do something that could serve as a precedent that can be used against them, or hell anything that could turn back and bite them in the ass. (Even when they wanted to take Kastropf's wealth they went about it in a roundabout way.)

I don't know why you expect the secret police - perhaps DNT hasn't made this clear so far, but the emperor doesn't give a damn at this point. He's barely lucid most of the time anyway, and he'd made perfectly clear that he doesn't care about Reinhard's ambitions. Reinhard's enemies are Lichtenlade and company, the high aristocracy. But also, they're not stupid and understand that they have to be very careful when dealing with him, both because of his special position at the court, and because he's not stupid either.

There is a huge difference between trusting an inseparable friend since childhood and trusting a complete stranger. What could anyone even offer Kircheis to make him betray Reinhardt?
Annerose, for starters. But there's a million ways to plant doubt even in the most loyal heart, if anyone so wanted. Or hell, get their hands on Kircheis, make him talk with some sort of drug or whatever about what Reinhard keeps talking about him in private, push him into a corner. Etc. It's just that they don't want to do it because getting at Kircheis would be so damn difficult and potentially dangerous it's just basically not worth the effort.

Whereas for Oberstein, it's obvious what he might want, and on the contrary, what reasons would he have not to throw Reinhardt under the bus? He straight up boasted about not being afraid to dirty his hands.
I'm not sure you understand Oberstein's character. He's not an amoral psychopath who would betray anyone at the drop of a hat, that's not what he meant by dirtying his hands, at all. He would have literally nothing to gain by throwing Reinhard under the bus. He approached Reinhard in the first place (before the whole Iserlohn business) because he saw his talent, and felt he had a good hunch as to the kind of person Reinhard is, and the kind of ambitions he has - the sort of ambitions that resonate with Oberstein's ideals. Destroying Reinhard would mean destroying the chance to make these ideals come true. It would also mean that even if Oberstein gets to go free in exchange, he'd live the rest of his life in disgrace (as he'd still be the scapegoat for the fall of Iserlohn), with even less power and zero opportunities to do anything but watch incompetent people flounder and mess up while the rot spreads even further along.

For Obe this was a gamble as much as it is for Reinhard. Is Reinhard the sort of man he thought he was? Can he prove that he has what it takes to go where Oberstein wants him to? Oberstein took this gamble not simply to save himself but also because Reinhard is the only one available through whose talent and skills Obe can carry out the changes he wants to see. Being free but having no agency is not something Oberstein would prefer.

Anh_Minh

2018-05-25, 01:38

And yet it did. Even IRL people make very serious decisions going by pure intuition, and this is fiction. At one point you either accept that Reinhard is the sort of person who does in fact take this chance even if you personally think it's madness, and puts his trust in being a very good judge of character (which is a trait he demonstrates throughout the story) and having very good intuitions (same); or well, you keep complaining every time he does something like this. Both are valid choices.

Reinhard is already a problem, but not enough of a problem for anyone sane to go through such a convoluted and potentially dangerous plan with someone who is clearly highly favored by the emperor. I mean what if it doesn't work? What if Reinhard arrests Oberstein who spills the beans about having been set up? What then? A plan like this is way too problematic to even worth trying.
Yes, what if it doesn't work? Absolutely nothing, that's what. They lose a worthless pawn, maybe some of his handler get implicated but the only evidence against them is testimony of an already disgraced officer who made treasonous statements.

This is not a dictatorship as such, though, it's a monarchy, where the high aristocracy has enough power not to allow power over themselves. They would never do something that could serve as a precedent that can be used against them, or hell anything that could turn back and bite them in the ass. (Even when they wanted to take Kastropf's wealth they went about it in a roundabout way.)

I don't know why you expect the secret police - perhaps DNT hasn't made this clear so far, but the emperor doesn't give a damn at this point. He's barely lucid most of the time anyway, and he'd made perfectly clear that he doesn't care about Reinhard's ambitions. Reinhard's enemies are Lichtenlade and company, the high aristocracy. But also, they're not stupid and understand that they have to be very careful when dealing with him, both because of his special position at the court, and because he's not stupid either.

Annerose, for starters.
They'd have to be in a position to give her to him in a significant way.

But there's a million ways to plant doubt even in the most loyal heart, if anyone so wanted. Or hell, get their hands on Kircheis, make him talk with some sort of drug or whatever about what Reinhard keeps talking about him in private, push him into a corner. Etc. It's just that they don't want to do it because getting at Kircheis would be so damn difficult and potentially dangerous it's just basically not worth the effort.

I'm not sure you understand Oberstein's character.
The problem isn't my understanding of Oberstein's character. It's how little Reinhardt had to go by to judge him. All I'm saying is, Reinhardt trusted him a lot based on very little. It's not a matter of liking or disliking it. This is a thing that happened.

He's not an amoral psychopath who would betray anyone at the drop of a hat, that's not what he meant by dirtying his hands, at all. He would have literally nothing to gain by throwing Reinhard under the bus. He approached Reinhard in the first place (before the whole Iserlohn business) because he saw his talent, and felt he had a good hunch as to the kind of person Reinhard is, and the kind of ambitions he has - the sort of ambitions that resonate with Oberstein's ideals. Destroying Reinhard would mean destroying the chance to make these ideals come true. It would also mean that even if Oberstein gets to go free in exchange, he'd live the rest of his life in disgrace (as he'd still be the scapegoat for the fall of Iserlohn), with even less power and zero opportunities to do anything but watch incompetent people flounder and mess up while the rot spreads even further along.

For Obe this was a gamble as much as it is for Reinhard. Is Reinhard the sort of man he thought he was? Can he prove that he has what it takes to go where Oberstein wants him to? Oberstein took this gamble not simply to save himself but also because Reinhard is the only one available through whose talent and skills Obe can carry out the changes he wants to see. Being free but having no agency is not something Oberstein would prefer.

Oberstein had very little to lose at that point, and Reinhardt a whole lot.

kuromitsu

2018-05-25, 11:37

Yes, what if it doesn't work? Absolutely nothing, that's what. They lose a worthless pawn, maybe some of his handler get implicated but the only evidence against them is testimony of an already disgraced officer who made treasonous statements.
You seriously think that there would be no trail and Reinhard wouldn't be able to connect the dots? Really?

They'd have to be in a position to give her to him in a significant way.
Look at the emperor. Look at his general health/mental state, and Annerose's position being dependent on the emperor's favor and Reinhard's own power.. Look at Lichtenlade/etc. being in a position of pretty damn huge power. Yeah.

The problem isn't my understanding of Oberstein's character. It's how little Reinhardt had to go by to judge him. All I'm saying is, Reinhardt trusted him a lot based on very little. It's not a matter of liking or disliking it. This is a thing that happened.
And as I mentioned above, Reinhard is exactly the sort of person who knows that he's a good judge of character, is always very aware of his own situation, and often acts on intuition. This is a thing that is actually true about Reinhard, and this is not the first, nor last time he takes risks based on gut instinct. Just because you think it's madness that's still what the character is like. (Also, it's not like Reinhard doesn't know who Oberstein is and what situation he is in.)

Oberstein had very little to lose at that point, and Reinhardt a whole lot.
We'll just have to disagree on that, I guess.

HunterSeeker

2018-05-25, 12:57

Actually, thinking Reinhard has little to lose before his eventual ascension to power is seriously WRONG. At this point of story he and his allies are only his sister and his subordinates, you can tell 90% of the nobles and other top leaders of the court is hostile to him and his group, be it because of jealousy or fear towards his fast promotion, or both. (Some like Merkatz will recognize his talents, but they won't stand to Reinhard's side anyway) Basically almost everyone will try to take advantage against Reinhard should he fail at some point, so it's better for him to have more allies rather than enemies. (The most important function of this rebellion is actually introducing the Marindorf family, which will have significant roles as the story goes on, one of them being drawing some nobles to Reinhard's side)

And Oberstein's viewpoint towards Kircheis is, to a certain degree, also lessons from history. The court (or the history) of LOGH is so full of strife and coup that made our medieval history like kids' show, and absolutely no one can be trusted. We as viewers all know Kircheis won't betray Reinhard, but others may not think the same.