Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - Intrigue

Episode 43

Halfway through this episode, politician Huang posits "One of the greatest questions humanity faces: Should one side with the corrupt democracy or the pristine dictatorship?" It's a conundrum that Legend of the Galactic Heroes has returned to again and again across its runs and adaptations, and arguably the central thematic question of the entire series. And here, in this week's episode of Die Neue These - Intrigue, it is committed to fleshing out aspects of that. Parts of this point in the story had been covered in the earlier LOGH OVA, particularly that conversation between Huang and his dinner companion Lebello. But Die Neue These diverges quite distinctively in its illustration, to really drive home its impressions of the broader effects of public will on the individuals that it leads to decisions for.

It's a change that makes sense. The Empire's side of the story leading up to the Emperor's abduction was all pre-emptive closed-room dealings, but for the Alliance side of Intrigue, the leadership's choices are out in the open, regardless of their sudden announcement, and the will of the people must be accounted for—if not fully considered—every step of the way. It's apparent in the opening scenes of this episode; the elected leaders around Trunicht are less truly concerned with what's best for their citizens and more with how their perception of them will affect their polling numbers. The direction of the episode gives more thought to the people of the Alliance than their so-called leaders actually do, spending a huge chunk of time on the otherwise generic civilians across this one.

It makes for an immediately-recognizable deviation from the old show, and honestly, a strong one. It continues that streak I remarked on last week, growing past Die Neue These's earlier disinterest in the smaller components of these legends. But it works with the story's neverending political pontifications as a demonstration of the different ways public sentiment affects individuals and their daily lives and interactions. Speaking as someone living in an extremely politicized, divided country (we are just barely getting through a now-typically intense midterm election) the understanding realism of Tanaka's style of portraying all these different sentiments feels familiar, even as we don't personally know any of the people we see espousing them. Even being declared war on by another country is something a leadership can count on to shore up public support, especially if you've got the marketable face of a kid Emperor to trot out across billboards. And as we all know, no one is immune to propaganda.

That manipulation of public sentiment in a democracy still isn't a 100% sure bet though. The collective worries leading to that division in the Alliance that we know Reinhard was aiming for does manifest in the analyses we more expect of LOGH at this point. As alluded to at the beginning of this review, we once again must round back to Tanaka's supposition of a brisk dictatorship versus a muddled democracy. The technical reasoning for this is presented in a believable way among all the anecdotalist fiction, anyway; we can understand the concept that a leadership endlessly concerned with maintaining power through public referendum cannot as efficiently make decisions as an uncompromised dictator. We can see this in comparing Reinhard just hopping on intergalactic space television last week to declare war, while here we watch the Alliance government weather protests and debates before they can confirm the action of defending their home from the dictator.

However, that supposed comparison does fall apart a bit when you realize that said dictator was the one who orchestrated every step of this plan, including the inciting arrival of the Emperor, in order to provoke such stalled reactions in the Alliance. That's all down to the tight textual plotting of the story to begin with, and it's the reason Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a dramatic entertainment series and not actually an instructional historical documentary. It's infused with Tanaka's (often well-informed) takes on historical context, yes, but you must always consider how he's shifted or adapted that lens for both the purposes of storytelling and his own interpretations of systems over time.

With that in mind, the adaptational indulgences of this particular episode honestly work extremely well. Die Neue These's take proves compelling, starting from showing the power of public sentiment towards the Emperor's arrival in the Alliance growing, continuing all the way through to how it motivates Trunicht's consolidation of loyalist military power and the way that results in Julian's reassignment. It's a powerful effect towards one person inexorably relevant to one of our mainest main characters, and it works within the whole episode to speak to LOGH's idea of ripple-effecting ramifications from decisions all the way across the galaxy. Seeing it reach him in this way, over this journey, dials up the intensity of Yang's only momentary consideration of seizing his own dictatorship, if it were to protect Julian.

That's a point we arrive at following Huang and Lebello's conversation hypothesizing the concept I referenced at the beginning of this review. Real processes are hardly as clear-cut as thrifty dictatorships outperforming inefficient democracies. But the construction of storytelling can hone in on why characters, at every level in a nation, would consider those effects. As LOGH has always been, it's political thought experiment crossed with a sweeping space soap-opera, and this episode, with its adaptational additions, absolutely nails the tenor of the idea. This is one of those rare cases where I would say I genuinely prefer Die Neue These's take on events compared to the classic OVA version. It somehow makes time to get into the heads of so many people leading up to the pivotal occurrence that is Julian's assignment, in the process densely indicating the huge ramifications this will have. It embodies that broad spirit of LOGH, not necessarily convincing me of its political ideas, but interestingly demonstrating why so many of these people we see in this show would follow them.

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

Chris is a freewheeling Fresno-based freelancer with a love for anime and a shelf full of too many Transformers. He can be found spending way too much time on his Twitter, and irregularly updating his blog.