LOGH: Overture to a new war

Another Prequel of the Legendary Series


Bought the DVD yesterday and watched it immediately. i would say Legend of Galactic Heroes sidestories are really good and very different with filler episodes of anime nowadays. Despite the story does not significantly affect the main story, it gives some background of some characters that appear in LOGH. This OVA covers the story when Reinhard Recently promoted to admiral and acquired Brunhild as his Flagship until the first battle in Main Series which was the first few episodes in the first season.

After being promoted to Admiral, Reinhard still face ordeals from the Nobilities of the Empire who despise him for him being a lower nobility who attain a high position in military in a such young age(Reinhard was an admiral when he is 19 years old). The Ova shows that the progress that Reinhard go through for his ascension was not smooth at all. The nobilities always try to kill Reinhard by sabotaging his task but Reinhard still managed to overcome the problem with his prowess.

The first battle in main LOGH series is the battle of Astarte which was famous for Reinhard defeating Free Planet Alliance forces which twice the size of Reinhard's forces.

The OVA shows more detailed story of the battle especially what happen prior to the battle which was not shown in the main series. The OVA shows more stories about Yang Wenli's friend, Jean Lapp who was died in the first few episodes. From the OVA you will see that some nobles hijack Reinhard's mission by Reassigning his Retainers to another mission and leaking the information of the mission to the opponent. However Reinhard still manage to win the battle by defeating 2 of 3 fleets sent by Free Planet Alliance which has the size of 12000 and 13000 manpower respectively while heavily damage the 3rd fleet. The defeat was not only mainly due to the brilliance of Reinhard's Strategy and tactics but also contributed by the incompetence of the Fleet Leader who underestimated Reinhard's power. Initially Free Planet Alliance forces plan to surround Reinhard's forces which was half in size of their trooops by dividing their forces into 3 fleets. However Reinhard see through the plan and decided to destroy each fleet one by one.

The total defeat of the Free Planet Alliance forces was barely avoided by Yang Wenli who will become Reinhard's archrival was in charge of the fleet by last minute and managed to force stalemate condition for the battle which forces both sides to retreat due to war of attrition. There is one of the monumental moment during the retreat of both sides where Reinhard sent a personal message under his name though Yang didn't reply anything.

By the end of the OVA, Reinhard earned victory while Free Planet Alliance forces suffer major defeat. When Reinhard arrived to the homeworld, he was entitled with Lohengramm nobility name and promoted again. With this Reinhard manage to gather his own admirals under his wing for his further conquest in the future.

Overall you can avoid this series without losing many stories of LOGH. Though it really worth to watch this OVA since it really fleshes out more parts that were not revealed in the main series. I think i am going to get the DVD for the main series in my local DVD store since i find a good bargain for them...