Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War is a Japanese animated science fiction war film. It expands on the opening phase of the long conflict between the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance, following two gifted commanders on opposite sides. Reinhard von Müsel returns home victorious and receives the name Lohengramm, while Yang Wen-li comes back defeated, yet finds reason to celebrate with his friends. The film reworks and extends the first two episodes of the earlier series, adding new scenes and more detail about Yang and his first encounter with Reinhard's fleet.

The film was directed by Noboru Ishiguro, whose earlier features include Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Megazone 23; Keizo Shimizu and Kenichi Maeda are also credited as directors. The screenplay is by Shimao Kawanaka and Masatoshi Tahara. Kei Tomiyama voices Yang Wen-li and Ryou Horikawa voices Reinhard von Lohengramm, with Gorō Naya, Hiroshi Ito, Hideyuki Tanaka and Issei Futamata among the cast.

Released in Japan in December 1993 and running about ninety minutes, the film has an IMDb rating of 7.8 from roughly 970 votes, while on TMDB it holds 8.2 from a much smaller number of votes. The narrower sample there suggests a devoted audience rather than a broad one.