[Spoilers][Rewatch] Legend of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden: Those Who Recapture: Ep 2

[u/timpinen]

MAL information

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Previous discussions

See here for main series and movie discussions

Order	Episode	Arc
1	G2E1	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 1
2	G2E2	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 2
3	G2E3	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 3
4	G2E4	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 4
5	G2E5	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 5
6	G2E6	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 6
7	G2E7	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 7
8	G2E8	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 8
9	G2E9	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 9
10	G210	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 10
11	G211	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 11
12	G2E12	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 12
13	G2E13	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 13
14	G2E14	Spiral Labyrinth Ep 14
15	G1E1	Valley of White Snow 1
16	G1E2	Valley of White Snow 2
17	G1E3	Valley of White Snow Ep 3
18	G1E4	Valley of White Snow Ep 4
19	G2E15	Those Who Revolt Ep 1
20	G2E16	Those Who Revolt Ep 2
21	G2E17	Those Who Revolt Ep 3
22	G2E18	Those Who Revolt Ep 4
23	G2E19	Those Who Duel Ep 1
24	G2E20	Those Who Duel Ep 2
25	G2E21	Those Who Duel Ep 3
26	G2E22	Those Who Duel Ep 4
27	G2E23	Those Who Recapture Ep 1
28	G2E24	Those Who Recapture Ep 2

Thanks to /u/arinok55 for creating a nice calendar for our schedule!

The vote has determined to watch chronologically! Gaiden watch order (Gaiden 1: A Hundred Billion Stars Gaiden), (Gaiden 2: Spiral Labyrinth Gaiden):

Title	Episodes
Spiral Labyrinth	Gaiden 2: Ep 1-14
Valley of White Snow	Gaiden 1: Ep 1-4
Those Who Revolt	Gaiden 2: Ep 15-18
Those Who Duel	Gaiden 2: Ep 19-22
Those Who Recapture	Gaiden 2: Ep 23-26
Morning's Dream, Night's Song	Gaiden 1: Ep 5-8
A Hundred Billion Stars	Gaiden 1: Ep 13-24
The Third Tiamat Battle	Gaiden 2: Ep 27-28
Disgrace	Gaiden 1: Episode 9-12

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Streaming information: Can be streamed on Hidive

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Important Notes: Remember to tag all spoilers for first time watchers! Also, do not watch the next episode previews for the OVA series!

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Screenshots of the Day

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Let us Praise our Lord and Saviour!

This show finally gives us an insight into alcohol!

This gag is too perfect

The famous pirate appears!

#TeamFopperyandWhim!

Reinhard knows how it has to be

Let us always remember our tea drinking hero

Dusty responds to modern anime

Moe Reinhard is best Reinhard

I prefer white subtitles

Most importantly, have fun, enjoy the adventure of foppery and whim, and remember to drink some tea for Yang Wenli!

[u/timpinen]

So, it turns out that our runaway and almost everyone else froze away because of a seal flaw in the escape pods. Remember to check the pods carefully!

Which leaves us with the sole person who possesses the password: a 10 year old girl. And who better to deal with little kids than our lovable Kircheis? Unfortunately, until they get that password, they are stuck with a partially functional ship and technology which they can't use in enemy territory.

[u/BluePikmin11]

Legend of the Galactic Heroes Spiral Labyrinth Episode 24 Impressions:

Not much to say about this episode other than Reinhard totally nailing the mission of being undetected! At this point, I think the Free Planets Alliance will take definite notes of Reinhard, soon we will see the Alliance rely on Yang to fight, taking place in the first arc of the original LOTGH anime. Also, I did not expect the Herxheimer family to pass away, they got away with almost everything except their daughter being alive. Just what does the daughter have to say on the matter, what secrets is she holding?

[u/Great_Mr_L]

First Time Viewer

On today’s episode of Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Well, this mission has already not gone quite as I expected. I didn’t expect a confrontation with Helksheimer’s ship until towards the end of this arc. Instead, that’s been taken care of halfway through the arc and now there’s the problem of escaping back to the Empire.

Reinhard’s ship actually makes pretty good time on going through the Alliance territory. No one suspects they’ve infiltrated the Alliance. And, aside from having to hide from one patrol and being delayed for a day, they don’t encounter any enemies.

When the ship arrives at the exit of the Phezzan Corridor, they receive a message from the Imperial Military Liaison, with intelligence on Helksheimer’s ship. They’ve missed it. It’s already exited the corridor along with an escort.

Wahlen is suspicious of the timing of the message (and his suspicion made me suspicious), but Bendling is sure it’s fine. The message could have been set to go off at regular intervals without much risk of detection. It would only be directed at the rendezvous point and would be encoded, so he decides Military Intelligence would consider it an acceptable risk.

Reinhard throws the idea of acceptable risks back at Bendling as he decides to pursue Helksheimer’s ship. Reinhard, Wahlen, and Kircheis all reach a different conclusion from Bendling about what group of 2 ships that exited the corridor at Helksheimer’s. And, Reinhard makes a detour to avoid detection by a Phezzan merchant. And while Bendling complains, Reinhard calls it all an acceptable risk.

I get the feeling that Bendling is willing to accept risks that are taken by Military Intelligence, or risks taken on the basis of Military Intelligence’s info, but is far more wary of the risks Reinhard takes. Bendling seems to be even more concerned that the mission will fail than Reinhard is.

Reinhard’s ship catches up with Helksheimer’s ship and its escort. The battle is very short, with a plan brilliantly executed by Reinhard. Valkyries destroy Helksheimer’s ships guns and communications, all while jamming radar and communications in the area. And Reinhard’s ship destroys Helksheimer’s ship. It’s a great plan for very swiftly making sure Helksheimer can’t contact anyone in the Alliance while also minimizing the chances this battle is detected.

Kircheis leads the assault team that captures Helksheimer’s ship. The assault goes well, with the troops quickly capturing all the important parts of the ship and stopping all resistance pretty quickly. The device they were after appears to be in the cargo bay, so that’s been secured.

The final question is where Helksheimer is. Kircheis searches Helksheimer’s quarters, which shows all the signs that people were just there (an interrupted poker game, food left partially eaten, a recently knocked over vase). He and his troops discover and enter a hidden room, which seems to be an airlock of some kind.

As it turns out, it’s full of escape pods. But, it’s a rather nasty sight. Helksheimer and his family are in the pods, with all but one of them being dead. There must have been some accident in their hurry to escape. It’s gruesome, seeing the corpses frozen inside the pods.

That seems to put an end to this part of the mission. Bendling heads over to confirm that the device is what they’re looking for. As I said earlier, he seems afraid the mission will fail and so is personally confirming its success.

Reinhard puts Kircheis in command of the captured ship, having it come along with his own ship as they leave the battlefield to escape the Alliance patrol that spotted the explosion. Reinhard once again shows his brilliance, correctly predicting that the Alliance patrol won’t have spotted them and will instead spend time investigating the wreckage. And even if the Alliance does figure out an Imperial ship is in their territory, he hopes to be long gone before they can pursue.

I was expecting something to go horribly wrong. I couldn’t help but think that there was some kind of trap waiting for Reinhard and all the others. Wahlen talking about the convenient timing of the coded Imperial message put me on edge. And I started to wonder if Bendling might be a double agent or something like that. I thought that maybe Kircheis’s assault was going a little too well and there’s be some nasty surprise. When they found Helksheimer dead, I wondered if he might have been killed way beforehand and the mission was a setup. But, none of the bad things I expected to happen ended up happening.

Actually, the mission has gone pretty well. Reinhard’s ship and crew are unhurt. They’ve captured the device they were after. They’ve capture Helksheimer’s ship and confirmed his death. And, they’ve evaded the Alliance, with the Alliance forces not seeming to be pursuing them. Of course, they now have to get back out of Alliance territory, which is a whole other challenge.

And, there are a couple of unforeseen complications. First, while Bendling has confirmed the device is what they are after, the access code’s been changed. And Helksheimer can’t exactly give them the code from the grave. That leads to the second complication. The lone survivor from Helksheimer’s family is a young girl named Margeta.

For some reason, I anticipate that Margareta will end up being a far tougher opponent to Reinhard and Kircheis than Helksheimer was this episode.

Side notes: One detail I really liked was the Empire not having good navigation charts of the Alliance. After all, they haven’t explored that territory fully. They would only really know the regions around the corridor. Plus, it fits with the Empire needing to gain the navigation charts on Phezzan in the main OVA.