Wait for season 2 of Aldnoah Zero to come out before watching the first season, that last episode is really confusing. Otherwise it's a good show.
Don't get me started on that show.
Whoops, too late...if you have no interest in Aldnoah Zero whatsoever, just skip this entire comment. Or read it if you really want to, but this is basically a rant.
The main character, Inaho, is too OP. He can think his way out of every situation in about .0005 seconds, everyone likes him, and he's probably the most boring character I've ever encountered. If he liked Asseylum so much, then why, when she tried to thank him, did he waxing poetic about "I didn't do it to save you. I did it for the war." OH YES THE WAR OH MY MIGHTY GOODNESS THE WAR BETTER CAST ASIDE THIS HUMAN EMOTIONS AND JUST GO WAR WAR WAR!!! Did I mention that his face is the same all the time? Almost all the time, anyway; when Hellas almost wiped him off the face of the earth, he frowned for a second. Have a heart, Inaho. Oh, wait - in episode 12, we get random series of flashbacks that're supposed to be romantic and make us feel for him. Sorry, Inaho, but it's not working. You've been a static Gary Stu for so long that having the writers stick a bit of backing to your character is ineffective. If his mode of encephalopathy isn't explained in the second season, then he will honestly be a bland character. Except it seems like half the girls are attracted to him; Rayet, Asseylum, Inko. What do they see in that emotionless void? Certainly not anything people consider typically attractive. He's plain, he's not rich, he might be smart, he likes eggs. Are people attracted to that dazzling ray of exuberance? And how? From the way his older sister Yuki talks about him, I'd bet that if she weren't related to him, she's probably join his harem with some pushing. Ugh.
As well as that, he's the only one who thinks at all. Even the soldiers get stupid orders a ton of the time, and follow them unquestioningly. "SHOOTING THIS GUY ISN'T DOING ANYTHING! KEEP DOING IT WHILE HE STANDS THERE AND BLOWS YOU UP!" Apparently, only some high school kid can show any ingenuity, and the only reason that any other character is useful is when he tells them what to do.
Even Marito, who continually rambles about how he was a veteran in the first war, can do literally nothing. Inb4 "But he has PTSD from that one time!" He can at least contribute to the war effort in other ways. He doesn't HAVE to pilot a Kataphrakt. I mean, I'm not going to go and tell some veteran to "Get over yourself already." War sucks. But he hasn't changed at all through the entire series. His character literally brings nothing to the series. Oh, and the doctor's method of curing PTSD is the stupidest thing. "Oh, let's just give him a simulation of the time EVERYONE AROUND HIM DIED AND CHUNKS OF THE MOON WERE FALLING OUT OF THE SKY AND IT WAS RAINING FIRE AND IT WAS THE MOST TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE OF HIS LIFE so let's just show it to him because it'll make him all better." And then he gives a recording of Marito's extreme anguish to the sister of one of the men who was killed, who's also a pilot. I think they're trying to ship him with her.
Princess Asseylum continues to be naive and absolutely fails to comprehend the politics between Vers and Earth. Surely, at least by now she should have started to get the idea that the Versian people aren't behind the attack, it's the Orbital Knights. The upper class I mean, she probably won't know the name of the ringleader, but it's not that heard. And don't get me started on Eddyruiteitoeo. She never changes AT ALL. She's the perfect example of how bias changes people, true, but she's forced to spend a lot of time with the Terran people, and not all of them are jerks to her. By the way, all the Orbital Knights seem to have the same personality. Consider Vlad, Trilliam, Femmianne - only Cruhteo and Saazebaum seem to have any discernible difference, and that's almost nothing. Cruhteo of course realizes his mistakes at some point, but it's too late for him - and Saazebaum is less flat of a character than everyone else because he has a real live
backstory. Wow.
Slaine seemed to start out an interesting character, but now everything he does is completely centered around Asseylum. Yeah, I get that she's important to him. That's pretty much broadcasted through the entire show. In fact, he's somewhat interesting, because he's one of the few defined (but still flat) characters that acts against our local Gary Stu. It seems like half the fandom is piling hate onto him for that, but he's perfectly justified. Inaho declared him his enemy for no reason at all, though Slaine's already stated that he's only interested in Asseylum's wellbeing. Is it really wise to test how much he cares? No, because now he hates you. And though he was clearly set up and biased by Saazebaum, he still has closer ties to the villain of the show than the other protagonist.
Rayet was interesting for a little bit, but she just held onto this motif of revenge until it almost ruined her. I mean, it's always fixed in her mind, and yeah, we can feel for her; her father was killed in front of her eyes, but it takes her up to the ninth episode to do something other than mope around the ship.
Saazebaum at least gets that backstory I talked about, and some bonding time with Slaine. Especially since Slaine was "saved" from Cruhteo by him. Though our resident Orbital Knight Count person then blatantly states "I tried to assassinate your precious princess." And Slaine, lame boy that he is, aims a butter knife at Saazebaum's face and says "Please don't hurt her." That's not how you do this threatening thing, sir. Apparently the only way to keep the Vers empire happy is to make them made at the Terrans, which is kind of stupid. They've got this whole superiority complex towards the Earth people because they found some old technology. "WHOA WE FOUND THIS ALDNOAH THING WE'RE GODS NOW!!!"! They set up this quasi-monarchic system and used this tech to make large angry machines. For some mysterious reason, the empire is impoverished and starving on Mars, so the only way to prevent revolt is to blame Terrans for not moving to Mars. If they're so advanced, why didn't they use Aldnoah to make space domes or something equivalent to that? Instead of building war machines, go for the agricultural route and build places to grow plants and raise domestic livestock. But nah, giant death bots are cool.
tl;dr version: All the characters are static, unchanging, and generally dull. The political mess in the plot is interesting, but there's little development on that front. There was so much wasted potential in this show. It's a shame.
Anyway, I'm in the "Small-number-of-animes-watched" club with Manly. I'll hand you my recommendations.
Hetalia was okay, and pretty funny, though I've gotten out of it recently. Personified nations are hilarious, as you can tell from
SATW and
Polandball. Or
Planetary Moe, which is basically Hetalia with planets.
Mekakucity Actors started out good and ended cheesy, but there were a lot of fans who didn't understand because they weren't familiar with Kagerou Project beforehand. Consider this anime a big bundle of fanservice, or "SHAFT's low budget anime." The opening to episode 9 still haunts my nightmares.
The Tokyo Ghoul anime was considerably less good than the manga, but it's still worth watching.. They squeezed sixty chapters into twelve episodes, but judging by the preview to the next season, they're taking the manga plot and running away with it by sticking Kaneki in Kokuria, which I think is the ghoul equivalent of Azkaban. I highly suggest you read the manga, though; all 143 chapters of it.
And then there was Aldnoah Zero, which I went on enough about already. You probably know my feelings about it by now.
Zankyou no Terror is 100% amazing, and I rank it as the best anime I've ever watched. My vote doesn't count for much, though, because I've not seen very many of them. It starts out a little slow, but the drama increased exponentially until you're on the edge of your seat, internally screaming.
Last but not least, Parasyte has an exciting concept. The manga was excellent. They changed Shinichi's design for the anime, but they only added glasses. I expect they'll get rid of those by the last episode, and put his hair in the spiky way. You can see him in the OP. This one just started, so now's the best time to get into it.
I literally spent an hour typing this. What am I doing with my life?
Certainly not anything productive.
