It makes you watch two young officers become the men you already know the ending for, and that's the trick. Reinhard is still climbing, still just a blond upstart with a grudge and a sister he intends to take back, and Kircheis is still the friend who says the quiet correcting thing nobody else in the Empire dares say. Because you know how that friendship resolves, every casual exchange here lands like a bruise. The animation is hand-drawn to an absurd degree for side-story material, and the Rosen Ritter material widens the Alliance side of the map instead of just servicing the Empire. Be honest about the first three arcs, they crawl, and none of this is required reading. Push through anyway. There is a version of Reinhard in here who still laughs, and you will miss him.

Before the Battle of Astarte, Reinhard von Müsel and Siegfried Kircheis are young officers of the Galactic Empire working their way up the chain of command. This OVA prequel gathers independent short stories, some adapted from the novels and some original. After leaving military school, the pair are sent to a frozen frontier planet where a superior plots against Reinhard. Later they serve with the military police and investigate a murder at their old academy. Kircheis stumbles into a murder plot while on holiday at a resort station. As a commodore under Vice Admiral Grimmelshausen, Reinhard clashes with Hermann von Lüneburg, a former commander of the Alliance's Rosen Ritter. The stories mix action and science fiction with a look at the corruption and incompetence Reinhard meets inside the Empire's military.