Re: Question !!!!!!
Walter Amos (amos@sedl.org)
Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:58:40 -0500 (CDT)
On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Sentiono Leowinata wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:58:39 PDT, Henrietta Wu wrote:
>
> >Now, that leads to another question. Does Reinhard desperately need
> >Oberstein? I've always have to impression that Reinhard is fine on his
> >own. May be the author of logh lionized Reinhard's omnipotence. I guess
> >their association is mutually beneficial to them both regardless of the
> >side effects.
I agree with Deborah Brown's previous comment on this subject: that Oberstein
thinks like the nobles' and that there are certain things he can do that
Reinhard can't somply *because* he is despised. If you remember, in the
episode where Oberstein sells himself to Reinhard ("Cool Clear Cybernetic
Eyes" I think was the title), he asks that Kircheis be sent from the room to
disciss with Reinhard that Reinhard will need different kinds of servants to
gain total power. He says "Tasks suitable to A give to A, work suited to B
give to B." He points out that Kircheis would be unable to shoot an unarmed
man because he has too much conscience and compassion, which by definition
makes him unsuitable for playing the game of court intrigue. Men like
Kircheis are very valuable, not only because of their unique skills, but
because they are the sort of personality that the common masses will feel a
kinship to and therefore pledge unswerving loyalty. Oberstein knows he could
never command loyalty such as that, but knows that people with his skills will
be needed to intercept things like palace plots and coups.
> >BTW, why the author doesn't describe Reinhard's days at the cadet?
>
> I heard someone mentioned the OAV "Golden Wings". Does anyone has a
> copy of this? I really want to have it. Unfortunately, it has not
> been subbed nor translated - maybe we should beg Sue to do it again?
I have a copy of it unsubbed. While it is nice to see some story about their
early cadet days, this OAV has some major flaws, which make it hard for most
people to want to devote the time to translating and subbing it. It is in a
quite different art style from the anime, more similar to the manga, and has a
much more "shojo" look to it, with the characters being even more dewy-eyed
than usual. The uniform designs in it (at least for the Empire) are different
and nowhere near as cool as the anime designs. The same same goes for the
ship designs. Also the background music is some bland original BGM, not the
great classics. Plus different voice actors are used. This isn't as big a
problem with Reinhard and Kircheis, but when we get to see Yang in a brief
cameo at the aend he has this strong, basso-profundo voice that is just
totally wrong. Also some of the ancillary characters are just irritating and
make little sense in the LGH universe. In short, almost all the stylistic
things that turned me on to the LGH anime are gone from this OVA.
> Officer training is different from soldier training. Officer training
> is not as hard as those special forces, if I may add. The path is
> different. So, I'm not surprised if many officers are a little bit
> flat ;)
Not to mention that (a) we are here more concerned with spacefleet command,
for which one probably doesn't need to be able to "storm the beach" quite so
vigorously, and (b) the Imperial model of command is based very much on the
18th and 19th century European model, with officers from the nobility -- and
there is only so much you can make nobles do when it comes to getting one's
uniform sweaty and so on. ^_^
> What I would like to know is, how does the influence affect Siegfried
> Kircheis? Is it because Annerose's affection to Kircheis and Annerose
> asked the emperor, too?
That, and probably a commander is able to recommend his own adjutant, and
probably Reinhard kept Sieg with him.
> >Like it or not, Reinhard is a rather dry and flat
> >character. No human flesh. Never seen him mess around with interns like
> >that particular someone at the White House. ( Do women come with power
> >or do power comes with women? )
>
> Yes, I would like to know the sex life of those heroes. It seems they
> left out things like that. Does anybody care to fill it in?
All of the major players in the LGH universe are almost totally asexual. I
agree I find this a little hard to believe for a character who is repeatedly
described as the handsomest thing on 2 legs. Only Reuental seems to have some
kind of active sex life, and that is mostly to point out the larger problems
he has with women. Of course Mittermeyer is married, but we see almost
nothing of his wife. I have always thought this something of a tragedy in the
LGH universe that we don't occasionally take a little time to examine some of
the private lives of the characters more. In Babylon 5, the only live action
SF show I can in some way comapre LGH to, we usually insert a character human
interest episode every so often to break up the "end of the world" stuff.
I have said for a long time that it is a great tragedy we never got to see
more of Magdalena von Westphale's attempts to corner and seduce Kircheis
(especially with Reinhard's teasing help, as was implied in the little
exchange at the beginning of "The Klopstock Incident" where Reinhard agreed to
insure Sieg's attendance at her birthday party, over Sieg's obvious
embarrassed disapproval. This was one of the only moment in the *entire*
series where we get to see the characters having even a little fun.) This is
something I have thought about writing a fan fic about for quite some time.
BTW, in answer to the original poster's question about where to get the manga,
I suggest looking up Books Kinokuniya. There is a branch in a number of major
cities, or they can probably be found on the web. Or you could try any of the
anime goods import companies like Nikaku Animart, UCI Bookstore, or Books
Nippan.
==============================================================================
"Zu jeder Zeit, an jeder (sic) Ort, bleibt das Tun | Walter Amos
der Menschen das gleiche..." - Galactic Heroes II | amos@sedl.org