I legitimately enjoyed the series (currently a 7/10 from me, for the first season), and I think the sheer amount of hate the series receives is unwarranted. However, I do see flaws in it that hold it down, similar to my issues with Code Geass.
- The show loses it's urgency after the third episode, as there are literally no casualties among the Earth party (of people that we know, hell even the death of a single side character would have been enough) up until the last two episodes. Oh wait...
- I don't think Inhao is horrible (my interpretation being that he is autistic, thus his social awkwardness and apparent lack of personality), but he ABSOLUTELY needed more development, more than the fraction we saw during his moments with the Princess. The novel says that he threw rocks at the kids who bullied him in school, which if used in the anime could have given more insight. Anything really. We're not even given an explanation as to his reaction to his parent's death (or his sister's reaction).
- My other problem is that Inhao is the ONLY character in the Earth party who gets the spotlight during the battles. Inhao isn't a genius; nothing he thinks up is because he is super smart, he just payed attention in class and thought before he fought. It would have been cool to see Marito getting his revenge on the Martians and leading the charge or coming up with a plan to fight the enemy, but instead all the other characters remain in the background.
- The factions: I understand the idea behind the federation being crippled by the lack of a communications network with which to coordinate, thus the lone-ship idea works. However, we don't really get to feel like the main band is a group of survivors in desperate need of allies and supplies, nor really get to know anyone there. The Vers Empire never actually feels like a warring nation or even a group of people; we never meet servants running the castles, the generals planning their strategies, engineers who maintain the Kataphrakts or any semblance of an administrative government (so... how are the nobles going to reign over their territories? They don't have any advisers or policemen...), and ultimately feels like a collection of named people in suits with super robots who claim to be apart of a country that we never see. When half the story follows this side, that's a let down.
- The rivalry between Slaine and Inaho could have been executed way better; their meeting in episode 6/7 (been a while since I've seen it) feels awkward, and so is the buildup to the season finale. The ending would have worked better (in my opinion) if Slaine and Inhao had been following each other's movement but not meet each other until the final battle in Saazbuum's castle (similar to Kiritsugu and Kirei). Slaine identifies Inhao as the one who had (from his perspective) taken the Princess prisoner, and shoots him out of jealously. Inhao identifies Slaine as the Princess' unrequited lover, and relishes in rubbing "I won" in his face before he faces the bullet.
- The season finale had no consequences; everyone apparently survived a spaceship CRASHING AT TERMINAL VELOCITY into a solid piece of indestructible castle, the strike team who stayed behind the door to the Aldnoah chamber to protect Asselyum survived the Bolivian Army Ending, and everyone who was shot in the finale survived as well, thus shattering the idea that there were stakes.
- The ending: Aoki's version was far more impactful than the one we got.
Aoki’s initial idea for the character storylines was to have both Inaho and Slaine become increasingly isolated from the people around them because of their devotion to Asseylum, which probably connects to the ending where they “fall to Earth and live on quietly in some corner of the globe.” However, he was told that this would be way too dark for TV, so Inaho’s character arc evolved into what it is now.
Source: https://karice.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/p457/#fn26 |