Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - Intrigue

Episodes 37-40

There's always the question of how dense these bumper-length premiere reviews are going to get for a new Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These season. That's just the way the schedule works out, and hey, I already gave my thoughts on Episode 37 back in the Preview Guide, so you can defer there for that one, anyway. Suffice to say, that episode absolutely should have been the last episode of the preceding season, Collision, so really, it makes sense to start with the thirty-eighth episode here. So it's just like a three-episode premiere review after all! That's fairly important in this case, as from Episode 38 onward is where it becomes clear what this stretch of LOGH is actually going to be like, something those familiar with the previous versions of this story will have anticipated, to potential consternation.

That is, the sweeping military efforts and massive spaceship battles that LOGH is known for are taking a backseat for the time being. These introductory episodes for Intrigue are even low on the kinds of big-picture politicking and the like that have defined other downtimes for the series. No, true to this season's title, things are slowing down for LOGH's approach, letting us watch scattered snippets between individuals trying to outflank each other at the beginnings of plots which we've only been told the implications of at this stage. They are major implications, yes, and things have soundly started to pop off by the time we reach the latest episode, but one does perhaps start to understand why they saved the last half-hour of a giant space-station battle to open this one with, as well as how watching much of this in their original film format might soften the blow of several weekly episodes of People Standing Around Rooms Discussing Hypothetical International Incidents.

I'm snarky, as I don't mind being after following forty episodes of new LOGH, but I kid because I love, and I do recognize the general tone of this content as being, on some levels, the sort of material we keep coming back to this franchise for in the first place. I also understand how the cores of several of these conversations absolutely are the show, on a fundamental level. Episode 38 opens with Fezzan's Rubinsky and Rupert discussing their overarching schemes alongside meditations on the merits needed to succeed someone in a position of power. Both of those threads intersect with Reinhard as the story goes on, with the question of how a successor to him could or even should come about, before he gets involved in a layered scheme involving the kidnapping of the technical 'true' successor to power in the Empire, the 7-year-old Emperor himself. Parallel to that, the thirty-eighth episode also features a conversation between Julian and a slightly-delirious Yang on the roles of state-utilized violence and the inevitability of any nation's efforts to ultimately be consigned to pure 'history'. Dynamic it is not, but it all is, undoubtedly, pure Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

In other words, it all still feels like we're just in the prologue for this plotline, and it is still earnestly engaging if you've remained in the mindset to come this far in the series. We're delivered raw, revelatory instances like Reuenthal admitting to Mittermeyer that his push to maintain Reinhard's power might have been more conditional than he previously thought, or Yang's definition of the 'Two types of violence'. It's that kind of chewy stuff we keep coming back to this series for, apart from any of the major mechanical shifts that are still several hours away. And Die Neue These, in these instances, continues to leverage its cinematic ambitions to make things as engaging for a modern audience as it can muster. Yes there are some moments of over-utilized cinematic effort such as a transition that makes it appear as if Reinhard really spent an entire day just standing at his desk pondering if and how he should punish Müller, but I'll take blips of unintentional hilarity alongside the show's calculated use of background music and mood-making filters for weather and times of day.

That sort of intonation is apparent even as the languid reveal of the mere setup for the kidnapping plot makes clear it is going to be a slow burn. For its part, I do like the incremental effect this all conveys, the simple observation of a couple returning monarchy loyalists into Reinhard's reformed Empire. It's something that arguably works better when you're fully aware of the massive implications this aside instance will have, since otherwise what we're left with is characters discussing the fact that people might commit terrorism before we can even get to the people planning to commit their actual terrorism! It's a discussion—between Reinhard and Hildegard in this case—that somewhat spins out of that aforementioned idea of who would hypothetically succeed him, before arriving at Hilde's calculation of the kid Emperor as the target, and all the implications therein.

That's one thing I appreciate about the thirty-ninth episode, in all that it gives Hildegard to do. She's still no Kircheis, as far as a confidant for Reinhard goes, but she is giving it her all regardless, and she's sharp enough to understand her necessity in filling that role opposite Oberstein's machinations. Discussing the matter with her lets Reinhard clock that he might have been tipped off to the kidnapping plot on purpose, and she's the one who is able to talk Annerose around to accepting her brother's security increase. Hilde is shown to have a personable understanding of how these fragmented family members' feelings intersect with each other, and her efforts, as much as they are a matter of national security, also speak to trying to preserve as much of Reinhard's heartened humanity as possible. It's apart from the military-minded approach of someone like Reuenthal, who admits his past possible misjudgements in handling Reinhard's issues, but now can only stand by and wait for actions from his leader to react to. Die Neue These, in particular, seems to be going to greater lengths to use its more personable, dramatized portrayals to drive up the present empathy that Hilde is extending to Annerose and Reinhard throughout this case.

The presentation skews other elements in amusing ways, even as so many of the events of these episodes are dang-near shot-for-shot parallels of the OVA's old treatment of this material. Boltik's meeting with Reinhard regarding the kidnapping tip is another of my favorite bits from this story, and at first I was concerned that they were trying too hard to make the Fezzanese interloper seem cool. But ultimately, it just makes his sputtering reaction to Reinhard's call-out that much more of a chuckle-worthy moment. Props to him for trying to play it cool at first, anyway, and it fits in with this new series' increasingly stronger integration of the idea of all these people's personalities into its proceedings. It's something like that which makes Boltik's dawning realization of just how badly he screwed up his meeting with Reinhard that much more entertaining, as it's also demonstrating, yet again, how cutting and clever a leader that Prime Minister can be. It's a clear presentation of how just a few little mess-ups can ripple out into the more huge implications of what's being discussed; It's all in service of dialing up the…Intrigue.

As much as I, and so many other fans returning for this one, can appreciate that sort of thing, we are more conventionally rewarded by the end of the fortieth episode with things heating up as the kidnapping properly kicks off. Don't worry, there's still plenty of conversational catching up in getting there. Much of this repeats ideas from the previous episodes: The questions of succession, the level of mercy Reinhard might allow himself to wield as a leader as his influence and intensity grows. It gets some different spin thanks to Oberstein being directly consulted for the first time in what feels like a while, almost like it's specifically reflecting Hildegard's angles of advice. And it's punctuated with pithy little character details, like Oberstein being assured enough to know to wait for Reinhard to call him back after a couple of hours for further post-kidnapping conceptualizing. Much of this does still fall into the same more banal discussions that this stretch of LOGH has already over-indulged in at this point in this story though, such as the coversations about family-tree succession lines and incidental debt relief.

In comparison, this is our chance to actually revel in the efforts of the infiltrating Landsberg (who I swear looks way more like a Hobbit here than in the old version) and Shumacher. Far be it from me to criticize LOGH for consistently portraying anyone blindly loyal to a monarchy as a simple-minded doofus, but Landsberg doesn't feel like he's contributing much to this part of the story apart from that well-worn teardown. I feel like Die Neue These even misses the mark on one of his bigger moments, him pointing the gun in the maid's face during the abduction. Since she faints within a millisecond here, there's no time spent for Landsberg to contemplate and really drive home to us how incapable he was of decisively pulling the trigger in that critical scenario. By comparison, the series seems far more interested in examining Schumacher, perhaps understandably. Here is a man defined by his previous loyalty to the nobility, but not so irrationally blinded by it that he can't see the positive effects of Reinhard's reforms upon returning. It marks just the shortest potentially-interesting possibility of a turn for Shumacher, but in this case mostly manifests as him recognizing that Boltik's own loyalties might lie so deeply with his own country of Fezzan that he can't be counted on not to sell the returning patriots out. There's a nice dramatic irony to the fact that Boltik and the Fezzanese are actually in pursuit of Reinhard's favor, simply in an even more complex way than Shumacher can fathom at that moment.

And so, at last, we leave on that final escalation on the eve of an even more escalated conflict for LOGH. Even with the kidnapping finally occurring, it continues to be that titular Intrigue driving the broader strokes. I do feel like Oberstein's instruction of Kesler to cease monitoring Landsberg and Shumacher comes off way more blatant in a real-world suspicious way in Die Neue These's treatment, but then it also solidifies what a tip-off the scheme was, and marks Kesler for us as someone to keep an eye on in this plot's immediate future. This is a series famous for the absurd amount of moving parts it maintains in its cast, after all, and keeping track of all of them may prove far more complex as this continues. So many now will be navigating behind the scenes of these schemes, as opposed to laid out on the battlefield front lines.

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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.