Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Die Neue These Season 2 - They got me twice in a row with surprises...

Continuing from what we discussed last time, I finished the second season of Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Die Neue These, and I'll be honest: they managed to surprise me multiple times during this run with some bold developments that changed the structure of the story drastically.

The first was killing the Emperor so quickly. I knew he wasn't going to last because civil war is the best way for Reinhard to get power, but killing him off a few episodes into the season and then centering the entire season around Reinhard's ascent to power is a whole other thing.

This connects well with the subsequent change in Reinhard; he first allows the enemy to bomb a world, killing millions, which creates a rift with his best friend, Kircheis. This heavily strains their relationship, causing Reinhard to stop giving him special rights (the ability to carry weapons) and leading perfectly to an attempted assassination that Kircheis has no choice but to stop, dying as a shield.

Good intent on Frederica's father part, but he still killed tons because of his wish to get a less corrupt government.

Honestly, Weng-li should just retire by marrying Frederica and live together in some remote planet away from all the noise. They'd made a great couple I'm sure.

This creates a cataclysm in Reinhard's life because his whole existence orbited around Kircheis and his sister, Annerose, and he just lost one of the two pillars of his life. Then, an additional bomb drops with Annerose asking for a small house in the countryside and isolation from Reinhard. It turns out Annerose loved Kircheis, or at least that is what Reinhard understood from their talk.

Now, Reinhard is alone and without purpose. He started this whole revolution because of Annerose, and now he is on top of a country he has no use for, with no way to actually feel any sense of "victory." He is hollow, and who knows what this will do to his view of the upcoming war with the Free Planets Alliance.

I think she made the best choice by just going into isolation, there's too much disaster ongoing for her to be on the spotlight.

Hilda is an interesting character that got added to the story. She seems way too amused by change and I wonder if she'll cause trouble later on...

Speaking of the Free Planets Alliance, they have been busy the entire season fighting an internal coup d'etat that Reinhard himself instigated to move their attention away from the front. Yang Wen-li managed to defuse the situation, but this did not come without a huge price.

Frederica's father was one of the instigators and died in the process, along with a good portion of the military that helped him. This solidified the power of Job Trunicht, who is now pretty much the only one with enough power to move the Alliance wherever he wants, and it seems like he is connected with the Earth Cult.

...and there goes Kircheis, the only reasonable guy in the entire franchise. Good guys die young indeed, he was just 21.

These are totally going to be the enemy later on aren't they? They seem the perfect final boss for both protagonists.

We don't know enough about the Earth Cult yet, but it's a secretive society that wants the center of humanity to return to planet Earth, as it was 800 years ago. At the moment, Earth is seemingly a wasteland, and I wonder how they plan for that to happen. By destroying every other planet, I wonder?

Now, onward to the third season in the coming weeks; I'm curious to see where they want to go from here. The Earth angle is definitely interesting, but how are those lunatics going to take over the entire universe? By replacing the respective governments, or what?