Aldnoah.Zero is an original sci-fi mecha anime about an intergalactic war between Terrans and Martians. It was highly anticipated because of the superstar names under the ones who made the show, A-1 Pictures, Gen Urobuchi as the original story creator and script writer and Hiroyuki Sawano making the soundtrack. However, the creators and hype don't guarantee a good anime, and we witnessed that in full bloom here.
Plot:
After a Martian princess Asseylum Vers Allusia comes to Earth in attempt to form a friendly bond between Terrans (Earth habitants) and Martians (Mars habitants), she is assasinated during a parade. Outraged Martians launch a massive attack from Mars to Earth in attempt to annihilate all Terrans. The story follows a group of students with a military unit as they try to survive the war against the superior Martian mechas, Aldnoahs.
The war plot is fine for the most part, but there supposedly was another war 15 years before the events of the show which ended with massive consequences. The Earth is already in an apocalyptic setting, but there's no exploration of it at all. The anime starts destroying the setting in the very first episode without any establishment at all. The results? You don't care about what's going on!
The story is extremely predictable. It was sure as hell that the princess survived, and that Martians themselves participated in the assasination. The show attempts to have tension, in the early episodes following a "villain of the week" format. The problem is in the extreme differences in mecha power, with Aldnoahs basically wiping the floor, so it takes a lot of plot armor for our protagonists to overcome the enemies. So much that you barely care what's going on, because no matter what the odds are, our heroes always win.
Characters:
I've mentioned "you don't care what's going on" a few times in this review already. Well, this is the section where everything starts going downhill, with the characters. Billions of people die, but our heroes don't care at all. They witness a genocide right infront of their eyes, but the level of apathy shown was so high I didn't think it was even possible. The worst care scenario is Inaho Kaizuka, the main protagonist. I really thought his lack of emotions or personality was a plot point and there would be an explanation as to why he doesn't give a shit when his friends die infront of his face, but there wasn't. He is a silent super smart guy that wins battles using anime's insanely stupid logic and flawed physics, and forms a sub-harem with chicks he travels with, because girls must be interested in the main character at all times for no reasons given.
Moving forward, we have Inko, Calm and Nina, completing the student group, once again having surprising level of lack of emotion, but not so much as Inaho. Yuki Kaizuka is the overprotective nee-san of Inaho, who also acts as a bridge of connections for the group to get into the military unit. Rayet is another girl that joins the fleet later on, and she was part of the group that was told to assasinate the princess, but her father is slaughtered infront of her eyes and all she does is blink. Lieutenant Marito was the most laughable attempt of character development through PTSD I've seen in this show and anime in general for a long time, the potential he had from episode 1 was huge but he ends up being completely irrelevant. Ending the 0 to 1 dimensional characters is Magbaredge, the unit's leader.
Things are more interesting in the Martian side, where we have a deuteragonist Slaine acting as the protagonist there. He formed a bond with the princess being her teacher about Earth, but even he is a one dimensional character whose sole purpose seems to be saving the princess, and having a one to two personality traits. Saazbaum is a plot device, has some sort of reason behind his actions but they're not explored. Princess Asseylum was the best character of the show, as she is the only one who gives a shit about people dying everywhere and has some sort of personality. The villains of the week of the Martian sides are just 0 dimensional dolls that have insanely high amount of pride and disgust for weaklings and they all lose because of that. So much potential wasted!
The problem with the characters is that you just don't care about them. Most of them are just emotionless puppets or plot devices that are there to just be there or just to move the story forward. Marito, Saazbaum and Asseylum were the only ones who had some sort of internal conflicts and were the only ones who were affected by this tragedy and that had influence on their actions (and not that they had lots of time to get decent amount of exploration considering everything that was going on), but the rest of the cast? Genocide is an everyday thing, guys! It doesn't even help the characters that they get Urobutchered in the end, it was just a sad attempt to create drama and tragedy.
Writing:
And here we get to the most awful part of the show. The writing is just ludicrous. There are millions of instances of plot inconsistencies and defying logic of physics and common sense, so much that you cannot take it seriously. Plot holes were just glaring throughout the entire anime, and even if the anime does get a second season in attempt to gloss them over, they just destroy any sort of fluid continuity or attempts to care about the situation when they just flip it over 360 degrees with introducing a new plot device or solving the issue with deus-ex-machina. The characters don't help either, there is no global perspective of humanity and what do they do in this situation, or how was their life inbetween the wars. Everything that we know comes from the characters that the story follows, and they are just awfully apathic, effectively making everything useless. If the characters don't care, neither does the audience care.
All of the battles between the Terran fleet and the Aldnoahs consist of the Martian Knights being overconfident, playing a "cat and mouse" game and getting Jerry'ed. One moment they destroy entire cities just upon landing, and in another moment they get shot from a pistol and explode. It is extremely hard to take fights seriously with such huge power disparity between sides, with the weaker side winning all the time because of defying logic of physics or just because of plot convieniences. Not to mention, the Aldnoah concepts of power are extremely stupid with such advanced technology of theirs that they just can't crush a piece of metal can that is a normal mecha the Terrans use. The audience is led to believe that the Aldnoahs are supremely powerful, but that never happens in the fights for some reason. At this point, I just wanted the writing crew to try and save the fights by introducing a super-powerful mecha equal to Aldnoahs to give to the main protagonist and try to have cliched, but atleast logically reasonable battles.
However, the anime does stay away from unneccesary fanservice and doesn't try to have comedy out of place. They do have a pseudo-comic relief character in Calm, but the themes are not butchered because of it: it is trying to be a mature story without any distractions, and they do a good job at telling a story without the need to throw boobs at you every 5 seconds to keep you interested.
Animation and sound:
I have to give credit where credit is due, though. Animation looks really solid in this one. The character designs are okay, the mecha designs are okay. Even the CGI looks fluid, to be honest. However, sometimes (and especially the last episode) the action is just so quick you barely know what the hell is going on, what was damaged and what was not. It should have toned down the tempo during fights so you can clearly see what happened or what is about to happen, because considering the power inequality between sides you may reach to wrong conclusions after an attack happens.
Hiroyuki Sawano is often found guilty for overusing the same tracks over and over again in the soundtrack. He did it with Shingeki, he did it with Kill La Kill, and Aldnoah is no exception. However, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The grandiose scale style of Sawano's music fits perfectly with the action, and it was one of the main reasons I still followed this show after so many shortcomings. And yes, he uses a lot of German lyrics in this one too.
The opening sequence is pretty basic, it has nice visuals but a really generic and lackluster music to go with, it gives a big Fate/Zero vibe. The ED to the show, "aLIEz", is Sawano's one of the best tracks created, and it especially fit in the demolition part of episode 1. The other ED, A/Z, is pretty basic and unmemorable.
Summary:
Aldnoah.Zero is a rather failed attempt at creating an exciting mecha battle show with tragedy, as it is lackluster in both of the categories. It ends in Urobutcher's style, on a cliffhanger, and barely resolves anything. As with all Urobutcher shows, a proper characterization of the cast is non-existant. The second season is scheduled to air in January 2015, so atleast that has going for it, which is nice, but in all honesty, after this first season there shouldn't be lots of expectations going forward. It is just an another anime with overblown hype, with medium thinking that famous names grant a well made work. They don't. And I only enjoyed the soundtrack, and which is the only good thing this anime can provide.
Final Verdict: 4.2/10
