Aldnoah.Zero - generic discussion thread

[LightningZERO]

http://www.aldnoahzero.com/

Profile for Sleipnir and its long range rifle is now online

[Fireminer]

Waiting for Daisuki to upload this...

It's Gen we're dealing with. 'Male Rei Clone' would be the least to be worried about. Or the Government doesn't act as one.

I wonder who would make the mecha figure? Bandai or Kotobukia? I want a S.H.

[bastek66]

I watched livestream and it was great. Part with Magical Princess was unexpected

[DevilHighDxD]

Spoiler:

It look like without the cloak, they ain't all that OP. Normal weapon will work on them, using water to find a spot that wasn't covers by the cloak was a very clever move by Inaho(this episode can confirmed he indeed the L-elf/Lulu of this anime). But while water wasn't the weakness it still nevertheless helped them. Regrettably I wanted Inaho to finished him off and there not much action this episode.

[Kazu-kun]

So, Slaine killed the Martian asshat. I wonder what he's going to do now. Join the princess? Go back to the castle and try to spread the word? The latter would be a pretty stupid move without retrieving the princess first, but then again, the writing in this series isn't so great so anything is possible...

Also, this episode made me think that if the other irrelevant dude kicks the bucket too, Inaho will have a harem all to himself (well, until Slaine joins him, that is).

Overall, it keeps being barely enjoyable thanks to the production values, but the story is still pretty weak. Inaho doesn't seem as insensitive now but still feels awfully generic. Everything is by the numbers. If Urobuchi wrote this, it doesn't show.

[Dr. Dahm]

Originally Posted by bastek66

I watched livestream and it was great. Part with Magical Princess was unexpected

Well that's certainly one way to casually explain how she was able to slip away in the early episodes. So much for my wig hypothesis. So this universe has actual magic like being able to disguise oneself on top of a whole bunch of other things that make it kind of a grab bag of ideas similar to some other recent mecha anime. All they really need at this point is an idol singer lol.

Mixed feelings about this show continue, but I'll say that it's at least pretty entertaining if you roll with it for now. Among other things that happen this week I think the in universe magic kind of disqualifies the Aldnoah.Zero universe from the hard realism angle they were trying to sell in Newtype magazine. So far Argevollen has done a better job of showing squad tactics and quasi-realistic mecha combat but Aldnoah.Zero is the flashier and more attention grabbing of the two shows in terms of straight up action and thrills and I feel that's what it goes for here too. Definitely would say both shows seem to be aiming for different things. I wouldn't say my suspension of disbelief was stretched too much by this episode though because things like the antagonists being so damn hammy and one-dimensionally evil (makes it really easy to cheer for his rather unceremonious downfall this episode though I guess) and the idea that a high school student and his band of merry men that can take down a mech that the entire Earth's army with 15 years of preparation couldn't even scratch using naught but a large body of water and a little bit of thinking have kind of prepared me for anything now.

They're all kind of lucky that the Martian mecha's armor actually turned out to be kind of irrelevant (even a combat knife will suffice apparently ) and that apparently they rely on the absolute defense barrier (reminds me of Code Geass) pretty much entirely for protection and are actually not all that special without it. This guy Trillram also seemed like an exceedingly and consistently bad and moronic jobber of a pilot and cornball villain to boot that expectedly relied overwhelmingly on the barrier of his mech as opposed to any sort of skill or tact so I hope the other Knights at least put up more of a challenge and the Earth Army sees this battle and gets it's shit together cause so far this show does a really good and arguably convenient job of making everyone aside from the MC's look like complete idiots and gives me some Independence Days vibes lol. I also can't say I cared for more abuse of vocal music during the climatic scenes to try to give them more oomph, but again kind of grudgingly expected it along with the whole smoke and mirrors approach to taking the enemy down though perhaps not so literally. The literal glowing weak poin? Well......artistic license I suppose.

I think for now I kind of enjoy this show in a similar way to how I enjoy something like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Valvrave The Liberator though it doesn't seem to be quite as self aware of how hammy and kind of implausible it is which is possibly my only point of concern since that's the sort of thing that ultimately made Guilty Crown a bit of a bear to watch as this show feels only slightly more plausible at times yet both take themselves pretty damn seriously and seem to expect the viewer to take them at face value.

Anyway hoping the show tones down the crazy action for a bit now that it's had it's opening arc to try and wow us and grab our attention and we get some decent character episodes that are also relevant to fleshing out motivations and back story. There's kind of tendency for these larger than life mecha shows of late to kind of try to one up themselves with each consecutive portion of the story which only Knights of Sidonia has really managed to avoid of late.

[Kazu-kun]

I expected the princess to have at least a bit of hesitation about fighting her own people, but she was totally eager to join the fight. Considering she shouldn't know they tried to kill her, her behavior seems quite odd. In fact, even if she knew somehow, it'd still be pretty strange not having any conflicting feelings about this.

[pampz21]

Why do I like Slaine more than Inaho?~

Its not like I like blond haired heroes>>~

Its probably the feeling I get from him~ He's the type to get used when pulling the trigger!~

[MeggieMay]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dahm

Well that's certainly one way to casually explain how she was able to slip away in the early episodes. So much for my wig hypothesis. So this universe has actual magic like being able to disguise oneself on top of a whole bunch of other things that make it kind of a grab bag of ideas similar to some other recent mecha anime. All they really need at this point is an idol singer lol.

I think this is more likely Clarke's Law pt 3, verse magic (Clarke's Law pt3 is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") My guess is she's got a type of cloaking device that changed her appearance. It could be based on the tech that's being used in the Mecha, even. It is also interesting it so far hasn't been shown to change her appearance too much, as in she didn't turn into a six foot tall, 35 year old Chinese male, for example. It could be she just used some good thought process and didn't push whatever tech she's using and kept it simple, though. So she might be able to do something more with that in the future.

BTW, talking about Clarke's Law - did I read our M.C. mech start up screen correctly, in that it said AZIMOV (as in Asimov)? If so, very cool .

[ankgembala]

i'm surprised,, what i've predicted comes true..
and it's amusing to know that the princess is actually a "Mahou Shojo"..

[Dr. Dahm]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

One thing I forgot. I expected the princess to have at least a bit of hesitation about fighting her own people, but she was totally eager to join the fight. Considering she shouldn't know they tried to kill her, her behavior seems quite odd.

Seen the episode with subs now. I'm starting to gravitate further towards my hunch that this show is going to operate primarily on rule of cool and keeping the momentum going level ala Valvrave/Geass/Guilty Crown without worrying too much about small details. I figure the characters will probably act as needed when needed like this episode where Inaho now that the time has come to conclude the opening arc is able to deduce what apparently nobody in the Earth military was able to despite all their claims of the Martians lack of tactics (In actuality everyone in this universe apparently sucks at tactics except for our plucky heroes who have it all figured out) and have pretty much every factor work out in his favor so that his plan actually works in the end. It's pretty contrived but serviceable stuff where all the dialogue is really obvious and laid out very bluntly for the viewers so they know pretty much everything that's going to happen before it even does, though that being said I still don't entirely get what motivates Inaho and what he's all about other than that his role in the show is listed as main character and he's supposed to be the smart one in his group. It's the sort of accessible show that is guaranteed to keep people entertained and coming back every week to see how Inaho chumps the Knight Boss of the week and whatever else happens next as long as they can keep it up, but so far I'm not seeing what makes the show a major stand out in the annals of mecha anime history.

Man this is going to be such a fridge logic show I can just tell. For example the fact that apparently the Martian mechs can't see a single thing without auxiliary cameras set up that are now conspicuously in plain sight for our hero to identify and target even though nobody ever picked them up in any of the previous encounters with the Martian mech and we never saw them once....and that's it's barrier literally absorbs everything which can become it's own drawback.....there's something that just seems really off about all of it and not just because Trillram basically just stood there and let Inaho stab and shoot him up for whatever reason. I don't know, it's not bad, the characters fill out their roles well enough here too, I just don't get why the staff was bragging so much about the whole using tactics to take down superior enemies thing when a lot of it boils down to contrivances, gimmicky Martian technology with weird drawbacks, and the enemy pilot being the worst kind of generic cliched idiot antagonist you'd expect to find in a satAM show.

Couple other things, am I the only one that found the vocal music playing as the group left the base to draw Trillram's attention oddly unfitting. It makes it sound like they are going out for a Sunday afternoon drive, not potentially heading into a do or die battle with a previously untouchable opponent. Also the dialogue is extremely cheesy at some times for a show that takes itself so deathly seriously at others. I wonder if that will be remedied now that a new script writer is taking over or just become more of a problem because to me a good sci-fi mecha show also has to have well written, memorable and fitting lines of dialogue to give to the cast.

[Irenesharda]

Well, well, we might just have a winning chance after all!

Or maybe, I'll just make that a "survival's chance", Earth is still outgunned after all, but I think we've taken a massive step forward. Firstly we find that the of course Trillram was working for Saazbaum, who were all in the plan to kill the princess. And we learn the weaknesses of Nilokeras' barrier. So, basically his barrier is like a black hole. It absorbs everything and anything into it, including signals and light. However, because of that the pilot can't see and needs to use outside cameras to see. So, you get out of his sight, and he's blind, also there are seams to his armor where the barrier can't possibly cover. It was very cool to see them take advantage of that.

I'm actually rather proud and amazed at Inaho this episode. In one episode, he as become an actual interesting MC to look at, a more Lelouch-like character that happens to be very stoic and clueless at times. We see more of his emotions this time around, and I can finally believe he is a human being. He is definitely the brains of this show, using all the info he can gather, and then together with his friends forms a guerrilla style counter-offensive to get them to safety. Like Lelouch, Inaho's the brains of the operation, but he doesn't lead the charge. He sits mostly in the background to guide the operation, except when it's his turn to take place in part of the plan. I really like his friends too as they seem to be very capable and much smarter and able-bodied than your normal high schoolers turned military personnel, so I'm really happy to see that.

It also turns out that the Princess, and I'm guessing the royal family, does indeed possess some sort of alien powers? What's that about? I guess, them believing they're gods personified is a little more believable now, but how does their powers work? It can't just be limited to being able to magically transform one's outfit.

Well, this was a really good episode, even though we all know that they all still have a long road ahead. Trillram was a rather stupid evil-for-evil's sake villain. I have a feeling that the other knights are going to be a lot harder to deal with and much stronger villains to fight against.

And how about that stinger at the end?! Slaine's taken all he can stands and he can't stands no more! You can use him a doormat if you want, but you don't mess with his princess! I was wondering why Trillram would be so stupid as to admit all of that stuff to Slaine. I'm guessing he really does see Slaine on the same level as a dumb stupid animal in that he would never actually say anything. However, Slaine did the unexpected and killed the bastard! He shot him like ten times!

Well, Slaine, you've found your courage at last. Now what are you going to do with it? Are you going to try to take down Vers traitors all on you're own? Or are you going to join your gun-toting Princess?

We'll have to see next week! If you haven't guessed, I love this show, and it is probably my favorite of the season with Terror in Resonance as a close second. I don't really come to this show for realism or anything. I come for the drama, action, characters, and your regular mech type things. So, yeah, toss in the magical Princess. As long as you explain it later, I'm down with it.

[Blaat]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Also, this episode made me think that if the other irrelevant dude kicks the bucket too, Inaho will have a harem all to himself (well, until Slaine joins him, that is).

I don't think Inaho should worry about irrelevant dude taking away his harem, at worst he might lose the lolimaid to him.

Speaking of irrelevant dude, I honestly thought the writers (and characters) all had forgotten about the other irrelevant dude but luckily the writers decided to remind us that one of their friends died with Inaho's final line.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dahm

Seen the episode with subs now. I'm starting to gravitate further towards my hunch that this show is going to operate primarily on rule of cool and keeping the momentum going level ala Valvrave/Geass/Guilty Crown without worrying too much about small details. I figure the characters will probably act as needed when needed like this episode where Inaho now that the time has come to conclude the opening arc is able to deduce what apparently nobody in the Earth military was able to despite all their claims of the Martians lack of tactics (In actuality everyone in this universe apparently sucks at tactics except for our plucky heroes who have it all figured out) and have pretty much every factor work out in his favor so that his plan actually works in the end. It's pretty contrived but serviceable stuff where all the dialogue is really obvious and laid out very bluntly for the viewers so they know pretty much everything that's going to happen before it even does, though that being said I still don't entirely get what motivates Inaho and what he's all about other than that his role in the show is listed as main character and he's supposed to be the smart one in his group. It's the sort of accessible show that is guaranteed to keep people entertained and coming back every week to see how Inaho chumps the Knight Boss of the week and whatever else happens next as long as they can keep it up, but so far I'm not seeing what makes the show a major stand out in the annals of mecha anime history.

Man this is going to be such a fridge logic show I can just tell. For example the fact that apparently the Martian mechs can't see a single thing without auxiliary cameras set up that are now conspicuously in plain sight for our hero to identify and target even though nobody ever picked them up in any of the previous encounters with the Martian mech and we never saw them once....and that's it's barrier literally absorbs everything which can become it's own drawback.....there's something that just seems really off about all of it and not just because Trillram basically just stood there and let Inaho stab and shoot him up for whatever reason. I don't know, it's not bad, the characters fill out their roles well enough here too, I just don't get why the staff was bragging so much about the whole using tactics to take down superior enemies thing when a lot of it boils down to contrivances, gimmicky Martian technology with weird drawbacks, and the enemy pilot being the worst kind of generic cliched idiot antagonist you'd expect to find in a satAM show.

Couple other things, am I the only one that found the vocal music playing as the group left the base to draw Trillram's attention oddly unfitting. It makes it sound like they are going out for a Sunday afternoon drive, not potentially heading into a do or die battle with a previously untouchable opponent. Also the dialogue is extremely cheesy at some times for a show that takes itself so deathly seriously at others. I wonder if that will be remedied now that a new script writer is taking over or just become more of a problem because to me a good sci-fi mecha show also has to have well written, memorable and fitting lines of dialogue to give to the cast.

Yeah, basically all this, plus what I mentioned before. This series is a serious mess. The plot, the dialog, the characters. Everything is so weak and generic. I honestly was expecting a bit more from Urobuchi.

Let's hope the next writer will do better.

[Kusaja]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dahm

Seen the episode with subs now. I'm starting to gravitate further towards my hunch that this show is going to operate primarily on rule of cool and keeping the momentum going level ala Valvrave/Geass/Guilty Crown without worrying too much about small details.

Not only are those three shows very different from each other and from Aldnoah Zero, outside of superficial comparisons, the idea of keeping momentum going at the expense of small details isn't exactly unique to them either. Gundam does that a lot, more often than not. Some people just seem to be selectively aware of it.

Other than that...I'm not going to comment on the newest episode before watching it myself.

[Hooves]

Look if we're going to have Mahou Shoujo Princesses. You're definitely going to have something like Inaho/Slaine be like two people but one soul nonsense. But still, I'm loving this series too much to care about the small details.

[Irenesharda]

I'm loving every part of this series, from the writing to the animation. It's all great to me. Though, like someone else mentioned. I am interested in what the Asseylum is thinking. I'm hoping to get more conflict from her part. Also, since she knows she's the official cause for the war, you'd think she'd try to get in contact with her people, especially since she let Rayet, who she thinks is a Terran, see her. I think the Earth forces would be a little pissed with her if they find out she's been hiding out with them this whole time and didn't attempt to smooth things out with her people.

[MartianMage]

I'll just say that was a pretty awesome fight. This episode totally blew my predictions wrong and I like it!

[dniv]

I just saw episode 3... Well I'm completely sold to this series.

What a boss MC, and tech ideas, and everything else...

Well, that was all fantastic.

This is now competing with some of the others for first spot of this season...

Edit:

Lol... I just saw the part after the ending credits.

Scratch that... This may be one of my favorite shows even outside of this season at the rate this is going.

Now we have two interesting MC's.

This might be the show to really get me into more hard-line mech shows...

Edit Edit:

Why the hell are people calling this generic? You must care about different aspects of the show than I do? So far, I've been caring about how the powers are working... and the subtle differences here compared to other series... I'm confused as to how this is generic in any way, shape, or form.

Also, some big differences between this series and other series is that they recognized we'd have an issue with the earth MC's personality in episode 2, and they went as far as explaining his whole reaction in episode 3, in the right way. That move, I think, is something only someone as experienced as Urobuchi could have predicted and done so spectacularly.

This is the most intelligent series I've seen in a long time, and it's a big plus in my book. All of the characters are interesting, the plot is complicated, and the future looks pretty unpredictable... with this episode, this show has definitely passed all necessary checks for starting off as a series with a ton of incredible potential (for me).

The OST's have been absolutely amazing so far, and the animation is also great. The set-up was completely different from what I was expecting.

This is the first time that one episode of a series has changed my view of a series so immensely... it took one episode to make me go from this might not be my style of show to being sure that I'm going to love this.

The reason I like this so much probably has to do with the fact that it reminds me of a lot of other shows I like... and that it also feels very different and original from all of them.

I hope the new writer is excellent as well. I'm really satisfied with this, and I'm glad I decided to watch episode 3.

[Dr. Dahm]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Yeah, basically all this, plus what I mentioned before. This series is a serious mess. The plot, the dialog, the characters. Everything is so weak

Let's hope the next writer will do better.

A couple other things that were brought to my attention in other places, one is that if the Martian mech can't receive any sort of information from the outside how is it getting any sort of signal from the auxialary cameras. Wouldn't that technically just be absorbed by the shield too? Also how is he communicating with Slaine via what looks like radio asking him to identify the location of the targets for him? Where is his mechs actual weapon? It doesn't seem to have anything other than just swatting at things with it's arms and barrier and is supposed to be superior yet is less armed than the Earth mechs which have all of a knife, rifles and hand guns.

The other is that in the last episode of this show there's a shot where the Martian mech leaps up on top of a bridge and Earth mechs shoot at it from below and nothing seems to happen so either they all missed somehow or something doesn't quite add up about it's feet being a weak point (A plot point borrowed and modified from Zeta Gundam into two distinctive weaknesses by the way which was even thrown out in some Japanese blogs as a possible answer to the weakness question last week where one of the cutting edge enemy mechs called the Gaplant has a weakness involving visibility and vulnerability from immediately below where the pilot can't use it's 360 degree panoramic cockpit to spot it's targets and is weakly armored as well)

I can't help but feel like in trying so hard to portray this gritty military atmosphere like Universal Century Gundam the series is going to end up defeating itself in the long run if all these question marks and rather obvious inconsistencies keep popping up with regard to tech specs and how tactics are used in the show. It plays itself as this smart and saavy 'war is hell" type series yet the way it goes about it could be a lot better in so many areas. It doesn't have the strong dialogue that sticks with you yet, the sense of scope and loss (despite all the carnage in the first episode it has yet to really be followed up on which I hope will change soon), the battles in three dimensions, likeable and engaging characters (Slaine is alright I suppose) on either side, nor that human touch. It doesn't treat things like a game per se which is appreciated, but it really seems like everything is over-complicated in practice and how the show tries to set up it's big moments of awesome yet ultimately really simplistic, cut and dry and kind of dubious in execution for what the producers were advertising as the next big cutting edge mecha anime.