Knights of sidonia

[Jerseykid]

something about the style bothers my eyes

[Top Sergeant]

I didn't mind the animation at all. It beats the heck out of the "Pinoccio nose" stuff that I watched from the '90s .

The story seems to be off on a good start. I'm definitely watching this one.

I wonder, if they ever set foot on a planet, if they'll suffer from Agoraphobia? At least in space they are still enclosed in suits or ships, but in a breathable atmosphere, looking up; well that might be an interesting problem.

[Kaoru Chujo]

As far as I was concerned, that was outstanding. The scenes in space felt real and the pyrotechnics and movement were exciting. The plot moved at breakneck pace, but that worked for me.

The CG faces conveyed just enough emotion, and gave a slightly alien feeling. I found that quite thrilling: as if I had been thrown into an alien future, with people who had grown slightly alien from us today, as well as real aliens. The idea of the masked leader was beautifully alien and disorienting. We're not in Kansas any more, Dorothy.

The backgrounds were excellent. The scenes inside the vertical city, despite some disorientation early on, made me feel I was there. Terrible place to live, in that rabbit warren.

I had zero complaint about the CG. In fact, I loved the way they did it. I thought the motion was particularly well done.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Aside from the fugly CGI, anyone else worried that this is one-cour? Story-wise it seems to be trying to be a serious sci-fi epic/space opera - and you can't do that in 12 episodes.

They'll either go with an original ending or stop at a certain point. But there's no way they'll adapt it very faithfully, with the changes they've already put in place. I mean, a lot of the content is left intact, but they've moved scenes around, omitted small but important details, and blazed through three chapters (each chapter is almost 50 pages long) of content without explaining much.

It changes the character dynamics a bit which is problematic for future content if they don't continue to alter the adaptation.

It won't matter much to people who only watch the anime, but it does make a difference if you're reading the manga and watching the anime as well. You'll notice a lot of the changes and ponder if they were actually needed.

Originally Posted by cupumanager

This is actually better than how The Manga presented it.

I disagree, honestly. In fact last night after watching this I went back and read all of the available chapters. While the writing is definitely not amazing in the manga (the twists are fairly predictable, imo), the order of events and small but important scenes add up toward a meticulous presentation of information which makes up for it. If anything, the anime should be an opportunity to flesh things out (especially in terms of the abrupt shifts in arcs/character povs), not attempt to condense it into a one cour expensive CGI project.

There's plenty of material for more than one cour, heck this could go for at least three if they worked in more details and smoothed out the pacing.

But like I said, it's not like the anime is horrible either (so far). It's worth watching if you like this kind of sci-fi, which lets face it, isn't exactly common these days.

That CGI though. Ugh. I look at those mid-episode cards and wonder what could have been.

[cyth]

I'm not completely sure about the animation process of such low FPS CG, but I imagine it's something like stop motion. Which brings me to believe the animation team had to be working on a very tight schedule. Surely they could have added just a few more inbetweens otherwise, it's not like they had to redraw the models.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by cyth

I'm not completely sure about the animation process of such low FPS CG, but I imagine it's something like stop motion. Which brings me to believe the animation team had to be working on a very tight schedule. Surely they could have added just a few more inbetweens otherwise, it's not like they had to redraw the models.

I'm probably even less sure about the process, but to me the low FPS actually made the motion more interesting. It might have allowed them to make each frame count more, at least in angles and implied motion. I understand why people don't like this drawing/animation, but to me it is a daring scheme that actually works. To me, the motion in this show, while somewhat jerky, is particularly enjoyable.

[apotheosis]

I find myself intrigued by some of the sci fi premises ( photosynthesis in humans ), but others seem oddly cliche and fantasy themed: monsters that can only be killed be <special weapon>. I don't have a problem with that in principle .. it would just fit better in an anime that was more straight up fantasy or space opera, instead of seeming to want to be a gritty sci fi like say, the remake of Battlestar Galactica.

The CGI was fine for battle/sim scenes, but as others have noted ... it feels rather jarring for the characters themselves. Perhaps I'll get used to it in time.

[RoboMambo]

I'm supportive of the CG, as I usually am. Yeah, it's more choppy than it should, and it accentuates too much when a side character didn't get any effort, but thee look of the battle and mechas is more than worth it. It also makes the dirty and worn lok of the scenery work.

Besides the mechas, what caught me is that we don't get many series with this kind of sci-fi, with actual strong futuristic elements.

EDIT: wow, had no idea that original writer was the same from BLAME! The hype just went up a few notches.

[Master_Yoma]

Hmmm will its not bad but what is this third gender and got to say that MC can take one hell of a licking

[Pen3]

For you non manga readers, this will be a great show if you stick around. I did notice a few changes in the adaptation though.

[Tiberium Wolf]

I went and read the manga again and I find it really bad at scene transition. The anime did things better but did cut some stuff. In this case I would classify the manga scene transition as bad as Mahouka anime.

[cupumanager]

Originally Posted by Solace

I disagree, honestly. In fact last night after watching this I went back and read all of the available chapters. While the writing is definitely not amazing in the manga (the twists are fairly predictable, imo), the order of events and small but important scenes add up toward a meticulous presentation of information which makes up for it. If anything, the anime should be an opportunity to flesh things out (especially in terms of the abrupt shifts in arcs/character povs), not attempt to condense it into a one cour expensive CGI project.

There's plenty of material for more than one cour, heck this could go for at least three if they worked in more details and smoothed out the pacing.

But like I said, it's not like the anime is horrible either (so far). It's worth watching if you like this kind of sci-fi, which lets face it, isn't exactly common these days.

That CGI though. Ugh. I look at those mid-episode cards and wonder what could have been.

Hmm, perhaps you see it from different perspective to me. It is obvious that the Anime is compressed compared to the manga, but overall I found it having better flow by moving some scenes and not adapting some scenes I deem unimportant. Can you pinpoint unanimated scenes that you think important?

And, do anybody of you feel that the poor FPS is actually a deliberate attempt that ended up not having the effect as intended? Some even jest that its Claymation CG.

[mei misaki fan]

I love the start to this anime i just hope it maintains the quality through out.

[Anh_Minh]

It does a much better job than, say, Gundam of showing mechs in space.

But the future depicted there is dirty and sad. It's rather depressing.

[Irenesharda]

Well, after finally getting to see the first episode, this show actually rose pretty high on my list. Unlike Aoki Hagane, the CGI of this didn't distract me as much as I thought it would. I think the plot and the grand scale of things just really got to me. I'm really liking the world building here, as well as the MC and side characters. The idea of 3rd gender is rather weird as well as the fact that people now do photosynthesis, but okay, I'll roll with it.

The space scenes are beautiful and the fights are really nice. The OP is absolutely awesome and will be going in my music library. I already like it more than Captain Earth and It's so far my favorite mecha of the season. I'm interested to see if M3 will top it though.

[Decel]

Really awesome first episode; I haven't been this excited since Attack on Titans (and even then AoT didn't get rolling until ep 4 or so)

[Jinkies]

The giant, white, opaque channel bug ruined the show for me. I get that most people don't even notice those, but they constantly draw my eye and are a huge distraction. It was especially bad since this is a space show. I don't know what channel this airs on, but they really suck. Oh well. I guess I'm waiting for blu-ray on this one. The first minute or so before I had to stop watching looked pretty cool.

[Pen3]

Originally Posted by Jinkies

The giant, white, opaque channel bug ruined the show for me. I get that most people don't even notice those, but they constantly draw my eye and are a huge distraction. It was especially bad since this is a space show. I don't know what channel this airs on, but they really suck. Oh well. I guess I'm waiting for blu-ray on this one. The first minute or so before I had to stop watching looked pretty cool.

I am not sure what you are talking about, but the deadfish version I watched was clean.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

Unlike Aoki Hagane, the CGI of this didn't distract me as much as I thought it would.

You meant the CGI characters, right? I think the environment and setting also play a big role in the distractive nature of the cel-shaded characters. Unlike Aoki Hagane (Arpeggio) who mostly have its characters in well-lit rooms or in open environments with the abundance of sunlight or other stong lighting, Sidonia’s environments (in this episode at least) are mostly dark, dim, dingy and dreary. It also helps that many characters use similar clothing that help blend one individual with the others. As someone who’s not fond of cel-shaded characters, I’d say both Arpeggio’s and Sidonia’s first episodes are equally bad in terms of how their characters look. But Arpeggio did improve as soon as episode 2. Let’s hope Sidonia does the same (if not better) cause I like the story so far.

[Jinkies]

Originally Posted by Pen3

I am not sure what you are talking about, but the deadfish version I watched was clean.

Thanks for saying that. It looks like Underwater's release was clean, while Watashi's had the terrible watermark. I always avoid Underwater unless there's no other option, so I assumed there was only a bad version. Here's hoping Underwater stepped it up for this show.