The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Episode 1 – Anime QandA Review

What’s the show? The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These Episode 1.

Quite the mouthful. Heh!

Did I say something funny? Oh, no just kind of apt, this show’s got a serious homoerotic streak between the protagonist Reinhard von Lohengramm and his second-in-charge Siegfried Kircheis. And I don’t know if it’s intentional but it’s how do I put this delicately…

Just spit it out. Haha!

Some quality dialogue there.

Oh my god you’re so immature… Listen, I’m all for homoeroticism, believe it or not. Just because I’m usually into cute girls doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the importance of a little male same sex relations but it’s just… it feels so damn silly here! And not because it’s OTT, quite the contrary, it’s so stuffy and repressed that I don’t even know who the target audience for it is. Maybe because it’s based on an older anime that came from a time when it wasn’t so cool to be open with these things. Or maybe it’s just because the setting is so grand and slick and its framed against epic space battles and intergalactic diplomacy that it kind of feels like they’re holding back as not to further narrow down their audience but in doing so they’re really just making an unfulfilling product.

Anime blue balls? Sure, if you want to be crude about it…

And perhaps later I can show you my stamp collection.

Hey, who’s the one who was laughing at my innuendo just a few questions ago?! You admit it then!

Ugh—so you mentioned ‘epic space battles’. Care to elaborate? Yeah, I mean it’s probably the most impressive thing about this show, the 3D CGI animation is flawlessly integrated into the 2D and the battles have the kind of scope and scale that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a TV series. It’s just a shame the rest of the story is so dull and the characters (so far) are playing it so low key that there feels like everybody’s just phoning it in. That and the story is kind of boring.

It looks better in motion, trust me.

Well that’s a shame. It is! It feels like there’s a lot of promise and a lot of talent behind the scenes but it’s not very well executed, to the point I have to wonder why should I bother continuing. But it’s not offensive enough to give it up just yet, maybe it will improve, and maybe the relationship between the two men will go beyond “flirting” “words”, but until then it will continue to be dull.

That kind of captain’s chair says a lot about a person.

Since when are you rooting for more man on man action? Hehehehe ‘rooting’.

No but seriously! I don’t know, I guess when there’s so little else to focus in on in a show like this you want it to do something daring. I mean at least it would be doing something.

A bit phallic perhaps? Or do I just have a dirty mind?

Fair enough, so do you recommend this show? Umm, not really? The space battles are excellent but that’s not nearly enough to make it worth watching unless you are for some reason really into these characters. I’ll keep watching though, because even though it may be dull at least it doesn’t offend me or make me angry. Maybe that seems like a silly reason to continue a show but the very least I’ll have some cool space battles to look at.

It really is a good looking anime.