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So this past month I finished watching all of the Gaidens (I'd watched LOGH in 2014-early 2015, but put the Gaidens off until recently). A Hundred Billion Stars, A Hundred Billion Lights is great LOGH, and parts of Spiral Labyrinth are great as well, but I think my new favorite LOGH bits are 1. Mutineers (Reinhard learning how to slum it with the commoners) and 2. The Third Battle of Tiamat. The Third Battle of Tiamat features the most stunningly incompetent of stunningly incompetent Alliance commanders, a bar so low I didn't think it would be possible to hit. Just sending your ships out in a random mess of a formation and saying that it was a pioneering new tactic? And then for the Imperial commanders to be all "We've never encountered this formation before, what do we do?" while Reinhard just facepalms for 10 minutes? Admiral Holland's incredible idiocy is amazing in a series that already contains military geniuses like Fork and Bittenfield (who is admittedly luckier than other idiots). A Hundred Billion Stars is great because I love the contrast between the geriatric Admiral Grimmelshausen and Reinhard, an impatient and ambitious young man in a hurry. It's interesting how Reinhard learned that he had drastically misjudged Grimmelshausen. Also it featured a cameo by Ovlesser, the scariest sonofabitch in the entire series.
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# ¿ Nov 30, 2015 05:39 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:24 |
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I got the impression more than once that the series was designed with the expectation that you'd already read the book, which, of course, isn't true of anyone in the West, or at least isn't true yet. (Can't wait until March and English release of volume 1). The next episode previews are basically "the next episode is the one where this happens" and are aimed at people who have heard the story before. It would be like if they made a big epic about the Trojan War here and an episode featuring Achilles sulking in his tent ended with "Next time: Achilles returns to the battlefield in grief as he watches Patroclus fall to the Trojans. Will Hector be able to withstand Achilles' fury?"
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# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 19:28 |
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Is Legend of Galactic Heroes the only show to feature (Season 2 spoilers) a 16 year old drinking whiskey with his dad's best friend explaining how he's happy that his adopted father is getting married but conflicted because he has a crush on his stepmom-to-be? I think it might be.
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# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 05:02 |
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mikeycp posted:The first episode of our LoGH podcast is live! It covers My Conquest is the Sea of Stars. I think you guys are hard-selling the original Gundam and its successors a bit hard to your friend, and I'm quite fond of those UC series. The whole Gundam arc from the original series through Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack is obviously massively influential on anime of many different genres for decades to come, but the original series and Zeta both come off as incredibly heavy-handed with their war=bad moral message in a way that can be off-putting and that other series have done in more subtle ways. Not that Legend of Galactic Heroes is that much less heavy-handed on that message, as you've already seen by ep 4. Both Reinhard and Yang, in their own ways, see the war as pointless and, at best for both our protagonists, it's a quick means for military advancement through the hierarchy. Of course, LOGH is more "war is inevitable and is the natural state of affairs for man...and is also bad" than just "war is bad."
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 05:00 |
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mikeycp posted:I would ultimately agree, though I do think Gundam is still definitely worth watching for the purpose of seeing what came before as well as seeing a different take on it, even if it's a less nuanced one. Plus we just like Gundam quite a bit. I like UC Gundams as well. I enjoyed the much-maligned ZZ Gundam especially: Judau Ashta's arc from "this war is stupid and pointless" to "This war is stupid and pointless" is great.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 17:33 |
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mikeycp posted:Episode 3 of Anime Kiwi is live. It covers episodes 5-8. Just listened to this. Another Person gets so much poo poo from you two. Hang in there, AP! You guys have a great show going. It's a shame you talk rather softly because I usually listen to podcasts when I'm driving and I cannot make you guys out when I'm on the highway.
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# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 03:45 |
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As for the question of how familiar the characters are with Earth history of our time or before (discussed above), remember throughout the series that it's supposed to be as chronologically removed from us as we are from Constantine. Someone like Yang Wenli knows about this, but he's a colossal history nerd.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 01:01 |
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I have a feeling that this podcast is just going to get better and better. I like how AP is clearly coming from a very different background than the other two (I do wince at your historical analysis every once in a while, especially the Caesar stuff, but whatever) and it gives him a very different perspective on the show than the other two. It's worth remembering that this series was originally a series of books and is noteworthy for being a reasonably faithful adaptation (though supposedly the new LOGH series will be even more faithful somehow, or at least that's what they claim) and wasn't originally written by professional anime screenwriters like most anime. Also, it was direct-to-video and was never intended for a mainstream audience (an audience who buys thousands of dollars of laserdiscs is by definition not mainstream). EDIT: Question for anyone on the podcast: Season 1 ends on episode 26. I know you do it by 4 episode chunks, but presumably you'd want to end an ep on the finale rather than having your 7th ep cover the last two episodes of Season 1 and the first two of Season 2. Will you do two three-episode podcasts (21-23 and 24-26) or a 21-24 and a 25-26 mini-cast summing up the season? Patter Song fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Feb 20, 2016 |
# ¿ Feb 20, 2016 00:57 |
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For what it's worth, I could barely tolerate the most recent episode of the podcast even though I liked the previous ones, partially because I really like the slice of life episodes like 13-14 where you're just following a low-level Imperial officer following some heart-wrenching orders and then the well-meaning low-level Alliance soldiers dealing with the horrible repercussions, but you guys couldn't stand those episodes. Taste varies, and LOGH might just not be for you. I do hope that even if you guys give up the show, for AP to keep watching it and eventually post point by point how his predictions turned out and his thoughts about them. I think he's enjoying and getting into the show much more than the other two of you. On a semi-related note I'm actually very concerned as well as excited about the new LOGH TV show. Legend of Galactic Heroes is so very...different...from everything else. A bit of me's concerned that the past quarter-century's changes in tastes will dramatically alter LOGH and will do so for the worse and not the better. Part of me worries that the amazing soundtrack will be almost completely replaced by anime background music, for example.
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# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 03:39 |
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On another note, drat this review of the book is brutal:quote:Publishers Weekly I know we discuss LOGH's sausage-fest status every few pages, but I seriously don't mind it. It's a military story featuring a deeply reactionary and hierarchical society on one side and an almost hilariously macho and chauvinist force on the other, and I felt the story did a reasonably good job of showing that the consequences of characters' attitudes towards women can and does bite them in the rear end repeatedly. Basically, I don't think LOGH is misogynist, I think it is a story that depicts a misogynistic and paternalistic culture.
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# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 03:45 |
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It's set in a universe where a reactionary bigoted monster seized control of galactic society 400 years ago, reintroduced aristocratic rule, murdered/sterilized those he considered unfit to live, imposed mass agricultural life of serfdom on the overwhelming share of the galactic population, and set his country on a reactionary track it's only starting to drift away from at the time the series starts (see Oberstein's bitterness at the Imperial attitude towards the disabled and awareness that he was only a few generations removed from being euthanized at birth for his defective eyesight). It'd be jarring and shocking if the role of women in the Empire in such a universe wasn't restricted to ambitious noblewomen either playing the court game like Annerose and her friends or one-off ambitious geniuses like Hildegard who want to play the boys' game by their rules. The Alliance is obviously a different story, but the Alliance has a constant narrative theme of the contrast between ideals and reality. The Alliance is allegedly democratic and yet is ruled by a corrupt oligarchy using paramilitaries to enforce its rule. The Alliance is allegedly egalitarian and yet the ruling cohort has absolutely no concern with common folk. The Alliance is, at the start of the series, run by hawkish warmongers who want to keep the war going in order to artificially increase their own popularity even if it means bankrupting the country and sending millions to die pointlessly. Is adding "is nominally supporting gender equality and yet is crudely misogynistic" really that far out of line? And I do stand firm with my thoughts that the show's message condemns the attitudes of Poplan and Schoenkopf towards women, especially in Schoenkopf's case. Long story short, I don't feel that an author needs to be misogynistic to portray a military setting with few women and those that are there subjected to harassment and discrimination...just pessimistic.
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# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 21:22 |
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TheKingofSprings posted:Schenkop's daughter hating his guts for a long time doesn't count as condemnation? This. Schoenkopf has a (season 3 spoiler) long-lost illegitimate daughter whom he never recognized who absolutely despises him. Most of Schoenkopf's arc in the last two seasons deals with his slow realization that loving women across the entire galaxy has consequences and trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to mend his relationship with his own flesh and blood. Also, Katerose's very persistence in the fighter corps under the hilariously chauvinistic Poplan and her advancement under those circumstances is by itself a story you wouldn't get if Poplan were less of a douchebag.
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# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 23:06 |
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All of what I've said isn't to downplay that LOGH is occasionally pretty bad with gender stuff...but if you look at the characters most out of whack, whether Oskar von Reuenthal's outspoken and extreme misogyny (and his sex slave) or Schoenkopf's blatant womanizing, or whatever the gently caress Freudian stuff Rubinsky and his son are up to in Season 2, they're not especially happy or well-adjusted characters. Contrast to Cazellnu or Mittermeyer, who are in healthy, loving relationships and are stable and well-adjusted characters, or how Julian, who is pretty clearly supposed to be the moral compass of the show, explicitly rejects behaving like Poplan towards women.
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# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 23:14 |
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LOGH depicts brutal bigotry against the disabled as a society-wide trend, to the point where it includes vivid and graphic depictions of mass euthanasia against the disabled. If there's one consistent theme that the entire cast voices it's that the reactionary social values of Goldenbaum are hosed up. Does LOGH come off as ableist propaganda because it portrays its one major disabled character, Oberstein, as a deeply morally ambiguous Machiavellian mastermind devoted to destroying that old society?
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# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 20:06 |
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Read the prologue of the book. I can understand some of the criticism. If I hadn't seen the series I'd be totally in "why do I care" mode. That said, I love the "pompous bombastic 19th century historian purple prose" style, having read enough of the real thing to appreciate taking the piss out of it. I will miss the Mahler and Dvorak and Mozart and Bruckner and...
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 00:35 |
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The book is constantly ogling Reinhard and Siegfried. Siegfried: "When he was out of uniform, he was 'nothing but a handsome, redheaded beanpole,' as the female officers in the rear service whispered." Reinhard: "Reinhard was a handsome young man. One might even say his good looks were without peer. His white, oval face was adorned on three sides with slightly curling golden hair, and his lips and the bridge of his nose had an elegance that brought to mind a sculpture carved by the hands of some ancient master craftsman." It will never stop being hilarious how homoerotic this story is.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 17:36 |
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VostokProgram posted:I'm still only a few chapters into the book, but I get the impression that besides Dusty, LOGH is one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen. The show even includes Tanaka's little digressions about tank beds and how most soldiers who are wounded survive. Agreed. I feel like I'm watching episode 1. The dialogue is wordier but hits all of the same scenes. Also the author of the book's translation recognized the Phoenian gods naming scheme for placenames so the book starts out with a Battle of Astarte rather than the fansubbers' Battle of Astate. Probably the biggest namechange I've noted is that the ancient hero of the Alliance mentioned in the prologue is Yusuf Topparol rather than Yusuf Tparl.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 20:41 |
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"Yang's Name Notation Type was E. This was a tradition carried over from the days of the federation. People whose family names came before their given names were designated E, which stood for Eastern. Those whose given names came before their family names were called W, for Western." Well, that's one mystery cleared up.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2016 22:53 |
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The LOGH book reads like the show-Bible of the show: the volume long-running TV shows put together to remember who all the characters are, what they were doing when and why. I would not recommend this book to anyone who has not already seen the show. That said, from a series vet's perspective, it's a fascinating "so that's where that came from" experience. I just read the story of Yang Wen-Li's early childhood that the series doesn't touch until Spiral Labyrinth, as a massive digression in the Battle of Astarte.
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# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 06:12 |
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75 pages in and I think it's decided: Legend of Galactic Heroes might be the most faithful book->TV adaptation ever. A lot of the dialogue is word for word (excepting minor shifts due to different translators). It's a story that works much better in a visual medium, in my opinion. That probably even includes those ridiculous LOGH stage plays that have never made it out of Japan. Pretty much the only time the narrator shows any signs of emotion is either A. when he's calling non-Yang Alliance people or non-Reinhard Imperial people idiots or B. when the narrator is talking about how sexy Reinhard is, which actually gets weirder because the book attaches descriptions of Reinhard's lovely blue eyes shining or flashing pretty much every time he talks. Show don't tell as a cliche was born for our dear Reinhardo-sama : if I hadn't already seen 165 episodes and 3 movies worth of stuff about the guy, I wouldn't really be sure what to picture. At the point I'm at, I've read basically word-for-word transcripts of the first two episodes of the show and the first episode of Spiral Labyrinth (Yang's childhood), described at this point in the story rather than much later.
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# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 04:14 |
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quote:In a sonorous voice, the coordinator of ceremonies called for the man of the hour to come forth.
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# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 18:25 |
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I'm starting to think that people were way off for criticizing the lack of women in Legend of Galactic Heroes. No poo poo there's few women...this is the gayest setting ever written. There's only homoerotic subtext in the TV version...in the book it's the most blatant text I've encountered in a long time. Pretty much without exclusion every male character who has been introduced who has met Reinhard wants to bang Reinhard and the narrator has said so in so many words, and while there are references to anonymous women characters who also do, none have actually been named yet. Couple that with the references to Kaiser Rudolf "the Great" banning homosexuality 400 years ago, creating a closet case dynamic in Imperial society, and it's easy to imagine that the entire cast is closet cases trying to feel each other out through innuendo.
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# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 23:05 |
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quote:Ten years ago! Again, Kircheis felt that pain in his heart. Edit: Alliance Rear Admiral Caselnes' name will take some time to get used to, although Caselnes is not really odder than Cazellnu. "Job Trünicht," complete with umlaut, dramatically changes the sound of that character's name and raises questions. Is he descended from recent Imperial refugees? Patter Song fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 14, 2016 |
# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 19:11 |
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Last post for now, but there's actually an interesting explanation of how the hell the Alliance government worked in here.quote:The face of Defense Chairman Job Trünicht rose up in both of their recollections. Also, the Alliance's anthem is somewhat different. Liberty, alas, no longer stands for freedom. quote:My friends, someday, the oppressor we'll o'erthrow
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# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 01:31 |
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Julian is with Yang due to a hosed up program where the government adopts out war orphans to soldiers and pays child support...under the understanding that if the child grows up as a soldier repayment is waived but if the kid wants to be a civilian you have to repay years of child support.
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# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 17:39 |
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While I'm here, I remember an argument over whether the PKC was based on the KKK or the SA/brownshirts of the Nazi Party.quote:That was when the security system's lamp began to flash and make a nervous sound. Julian flippen on the monitor. Many human forms were displayed on its infrared enhanced screen. All wore white hoods over their heads with only their eyes exposed. Well, that settles that.
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# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 17:53 |
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Apparently Frederica Greenhill has a perfect memory. I don't remember that in the show, but maybe it was. Edit: quote:As to why the number 13 was unlucky, there was no general consensus. One theory said that it was because the thermonuclear war that had nearly eradicated humanity on Terra (and provided the impetus for the survivors to completely abolish nuclear fission weapons) had lasted 13 days. Another claimed it to be because the founder of a long-dead religion had been betrayed by his thirteenth disciple. Patter Song fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Mar 17, 2016 |
# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 17:27 |
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quote:Reinhard stretched out his long, supple fingers and playfully tugged at his best friend's hair, as red as if dyed with molten rubies. Reinhard would do this sort of thing from time to time when no one else was around. During his boyhood, he would describe Kircheis' hair according to his whim: whenever they were quarreling, a state that never lasted long, he would say mean things like "What's with that red hair? It looks like blood." Then after they made up, he would praise it, calling it "really pretty, like a burning flame."
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# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 04:29 |
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Apparently the Alliance's favorite sport is flyball, which is basketball except at 0.15 Gs and the hoop moves around the stadium at high speed. Julian is quite good at it. We were robbed of a flyball episode. That totally should've happened.
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# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 06:06 |
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skasion posted:The moral of the show is literally spelled out for us and doesn't have anything to do with any trend towards political stability, it's "people are the same wherever, whenever". "In every age and in every place, the deeds of men remain the same." Yes, it's literally the moral of the story.
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# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 17:12 |
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Oh my... Rubinsky's device for chatting with the Grand Bishop is some crazy FTL telepathy thing that broadcasts brain waves.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 17:29 |
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Baloogan posted:holy poo poo this book is homoerotic No joke. If I were running a bookstore I wouldn't know whether to file it under Science Fiction or Gay Interest. The book grows on you after a while. I thoroughly liked it by the end.
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# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 19:03 |
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To the podcasters: one reason you might already like Reuenthal is because he's voiced by the great Norio Wakamoto, who is basically ADTRW's patron saint.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 01:13 |
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I'm kind of amazed, after reading the book, that the show was so...vague...on how the Alliance government functioned, to the point of neglecting to mention that Trunicht, like Lebello etc. were basically Cabinet Ministers in a Parliamentary government, behind a Prime Minister, Royal Sunford, who isn't even named in the series. And that Trunicht used the "I opposed the invasion" card to become Prime Minister after the huge defeat of the invasion (the other two opponents, Lebello and the Vietnamese-named guy whose name I keep forgetting also advanced).
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# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 02:29 |
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Good last ep. If you guys ever do decide you want more LOGH let us know. I am very curious to see how the books handle Reinhard in ep 26 basically throwing down the gauntlet to Reuenthal and saying that if he ever wants to try to seize power, come at me bro. It's a fascinating scene because Reuenthal has been such a nonentity that it feels totally out of the blue, but I like the idea that Reuenthal just caught a glimpse of Reinhard in a moment of unguarded vulnerability and grief. Even if Reuenthal wasn't important yet, hearing Reinhard say that makes him important.
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2016 01:13 |
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Weedle posted:My girlfriend and I started watching this show and are about halfway through the first season. I want to start reading the novels since they're finally being translated into English, but I don't want to get ahead of where we are in the show. How can I find out which episodes of the show cover the events of which novels? Book 1 is the only one out in English yet (Book 2 comes out in July). Book 1 covers episodes 1-16 of the show, as well as episode 1 of Spiral Labyrinth, which is Yang Wen-Li's backstory that the show decided to skip and stick into a side-series for some reason.
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# ¿ May 25, 2016 02:03 |
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Weedle posted:Thanks! Is each novel approximately half a season? I can only judge by the descriptions on Amazon for the unreleased volumes 2 and 3 (do not read these for volumes 2 and 3, they will spoil plenty of stuff) because I've only read volume 1 so far, but it looks like volume 2 is the second half of season 1 and volume 3 (due out in November) is the first half of season 2. I couldn't give you episode numbers without actually reading them, though. Fun fact: there are 10 books, but only books 1-3 are confirmed to be released at this point in the West...they're going to judge whether to release the later ones depending on how these first three sell. I hope that encourages you and doesn't discourage you.
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# ¿ May 26, 2016 02:45 |
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So I was rewatching one of my favorite scenes in this (or, let's face it, any) series, the one towards the start of season 3 where Yang and Reinhard meet, and I wanted to talk a bit about the brilliance of that scene. Spoilers for late season 2 and early season 3 follow. Yang Wenli has been defeated, not tactically as Reinhard craved, but strategically. Yang was on the verge of victory at the Battle of Vermillion, with the death of the soon-to-be Kaiser at his fingertips and with that the destruction of the Empire itself, when Mittermeyer and von Reuenthal capture Heinessen and the Alliance itself surrenders. Yang was forced to face the ultimate choice: victory at the battle while consigning his civilian government to death and turning himself into a military dictator, or surrender at the edge of victory and killing the Alliance itself. Yang picks the latter, but Reinhard is fully aware of the humiliating fact that he has gone toe to toe with Yang Wenli four times now and hasn't had a decisive victory once. Now the two rivals are going to meet. Throughout their polite exchange, the two probe each other and, for me, by far the most interesting is Reinhard, who is skeptical to the extreme about Yang's ideology. Reinhard first makes the obviously-going-to-be-denied offer to make Yang an Imperial Fleet Admiral and after Yang refuses, immediately starts pushing Yang about why he would serve inferior men like the Alliance government but not serve the obviously superior Reinhard. The Alliance is a government of dishonest cowards, elected by a selfish and fickle electorate. How are they a better master than Reinhard? Yang argues that that itself is the virtue of democracy: the people of the Alliance voted in Job Truniht. They voted for the policies that led to the demise of their country and the loss of their freedom. They made the string of choices that resulted in the destruction of their government and way of life. Dictatorship is a way for the people of a country to abdicate that responsibility and blame their ruler...it wasn't our fault that such and such happened. This is actually both a deeply cynical and deeply idealistic take on democracy and it might be the most provocative idea in the series. And then, of course, Reinhard lets Yang go. Not because Reinhard needs to look lenient...but because Reinhard knows full well that any rebellion against his rule will inevitably have to center around Yang Wenli whether Yang Wenli likes it or not. If he keeps an eye on Yang Wenli, tracking the dissidents within the Alliance will become very easy indeed. I love that scene. It reminds me of the scene in Romance of the Three Kingdoms when Cao Cao and Liu Bei are at the Imperial Palace. It rather vividly reminds me of that scene actually, to the point where I wonder if Tanaka was directly inspired by it. Romance of the Three Kingdoms spoiler: Liu Bei is now Cao Cao's deeply reluctant junior ally, following their coalescing to take down Lu Bu, and Liu Bei is under what amounts to house arrest at the Imperial Palace, where he is conspiring with his cousin the Emperor to maybe someday murder Cao Cao. At the meeting between the two warlords, Cao Cao asks Liu Bei whom he thinks are the great heroes of the land. After Cao Cao dismisses all the men Liu Bei suggests (Yuan Shu is just for show, Yuan Shao is an indecisive fool, Sun Ce is an unproven child, Liu Zhang is effeminate and artsy, Liu Biao is an empty name, etc.), Cao Cao declares to Liu Bei that the two of them are the only true heroes in all of China. This powerplay terrifies Liu Bei, because it tells him that Cao Cao sees him as his one true rival and thus high on Cao Cao's to do list to remove, but Liu Bei is saved by a sudden flash of thunder, so he can blame his visible terror on the lightning. Liu Bei, a washed-up loser much like Yang at this point, is still on Cao Cao's list of heroes. Even the man on top realizes that his defeated adversary is a worthy foe and one that could rise again to challenge him. Romance the Three Kingdoms, the book, is fantastic, and I think its influence on LOGH might be more subconscious (Tanaka's drawing most of his direct inspiration from European history) but it is definitely present.
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# ¿ Jun 5, 2016 05:42 |
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https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Galactic-Heroes-Vol-Ambition/dp/1421584956/ July 19th is the release date of Volume 2. It looks like it's going to cover the back half of Season 1.
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# ¿ Jul 11, 2016 02:53 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:24 |
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Have you seen the Three Kingdoms TV series? It's a superb series, and it's in a very similar vein to Legend of the Galactic Heroes and quite faithful to the original book. Most people who enjoyed LoGH will enjoy Three Kingdoms. I have! I watched LOGH right on the heels of watching that series, and there are quite a few striking similarities.
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# ¿ Jul 16, 2016 03:15 |