The Legend continues. Like my last post this is more a collection of thoughts and conjectures on the story thus far. Ton of spoilers too.

The big focus of the second season is how Phezzan manages to manipulate both sides into war and eventually gets the Empire to outright conquer the alliance. However, with all the realism this series possesses I find it hard to believe that a single planet state could control both sides so well. I think the arc would of benefited from an episode or two highlighting the economics of the future and better showing how Phezzan is a threat rather than just throwing them out there. Then again, it’s hard to say how successful Phezzan is since in the end Reinhard basically says “screw you” and conquers them anyway.

LOGH is understandably vague when it comes to technology. Yes, there’s FTL travel in the future but it doesn’t really say to what extant. Hell, the first time we even really see warp travel in the show is in ep.30 when the Empire moves Geiersburg fortress with warp engines. No matter how unexplainable the technology is, moving a giant fortress by warp to battle another fortress is always cool.

God I love the Rosenritter. It’s always great to see the Empire’s soldier shit their pants whenever they realize the Rosenritter have come out to slaughter. Especially Schenkopp, since that guy can take out an entire batallion by himself, and even almost takes over an entire ship singlehandedly later on.

LOGH has some really weird moments sometimes. This bizarre image from ep.36 is one of them. It’s basically about Reinhard pining over Kircheis, again. There’s definitely a strong mancrush going on here. This is also the first time the young Kaiser shows up, and of course he has to be a spoiled brat. It’s funny to see the guys kidnapping trying to act nice at first and then decide just to knock him out and take him.

Everyone underestimates Reinhard in the show, calling him the blonde brat and saying he’s too young to be a genius. Interestingly enough, Yang is also chronically underestimated throughout the show by the Alliance. They don’t underestimate his strength, but instead his morality. The powers that be constantly think that Yang will seize power at any moment and keep Yang down accordingly, even if it means it will hurt the rest of the Alliance. But anyone who even listens to Yang talk understands that he has no aspirations of leadership at all. To him even the worst democracy is better than the best autocracy. Of course any normal person would destroy the Alliance government in a heartbeat, especially with Truniht in control, but that’s what makes Yang special. Reinhard may be a genius but Yang is much more mature than him in understanding his own ideology and reasons. Reinhard selfishly seeks power for his own ego and it’s merely a by product of his own strength that the society is made better, but Yang doesn’t serve his own interests but others. As much as Yang despises the idea, he really is the true military man.

ep.40 is the first documentary episode, which literally shows Julian watching a documentary about the history of the Empire. I really had to laugh that he was watching the thing off of a floppy. LOGH really hasn’t aged technologically that well. It’s a fascinating episode for fleshing out the world, though there are some really disturbing moments. Like illustrating the corruption before the Empire by showing fat naked women dancing on tables. I understand the necessity for showing sexual promiscuity, but why do they have to be FAT naked women? There’s also some chilling images of mass executions and body pits, making the parallels between Rudolf and Hitler all the more obvious. It’s also interesting that Rudolf, the man who champions genetic purity, has a retarded son himself. The episode does a great job of highlighting the real main theme of LOGH, that history is circular and that tragedies and progress exist in all times.

Ep.50 features a great ridiculous strategy from Yang that I just love. He basically positions his fleet right in front of a black hole so that the enemy can’t get around him, and then manages not only to get around the enemy fleet but then push IT into the radius of the black hole! God, death by black hole must suck. Actually, death in just space itself sucks. A later episode shows, very graphically, how much blood and guts are lost when a battleship explodes. Not pretty at all.

I also know that female space pilots are just plain hawt.

The second season ends with a ton of changes to the LOGH world. Reinhard actually conquers the Alliance, Yang goes into retirement and gets married (I loved the Yang X Frederica storyline. Such a cute couple.), Julian is setting off on his own to Eath, and Reinhard finally crowns himself Kaiser. Emphasis on the crowning himself. It reminds of that story about how Napolean seized the crown from the Pope’s hands to put it on himself. I really wonder how the show is going to go on from here with the war basically over, but there is still the threat of the Terraism Cult on the horizon. How’s that for a pun? I’ll be disappointed if LOGH comes down to fighting a bunch of masked cult members, but I’m sure it has plenty more surprises in store for me.