okay, the other two threads for this are piss-poor, so I'll give it what it deserves. Let justice be done, though the dupes fall.

Aldnoah.Zero is an alternate-history war story between the planet Earth and the Vers Empire. Their backstory goes a little something like this:

In 1972, an ancient alien hypergate was discovered on the surface of the moon. Using this technology, humanity began migrating to Mars and settling there. After settlers discovered additional advanced technology, the Vers Empire was founded, which claimed Mars and its secrets for themselves. Later, the Vers Empire declared war on Earth, and in 1999, a battle on the Moon's surface caused the hypergate to explode, shattering the Moon and scattering remnants into a debris belt around the planet. Cut off from Mars, the remnants of the Vers insurgents established several massive orbital space stations within the debris belt and a ceasefire was established. 15 years later, in 2014, an attack on the Vers Princess during a diplomatic mission causes the Empire to launch a new attack on Earth, this time determined to conquer it once and for all.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

Aldnoah Zero was originally created by Gen Urobuchi but he only had credit for supervising the first 3 episodes. The man actually in charge of series composition was Katushiko Takayama, though many of Urobuchi's typical thematic elements of racism, alienation, violence, post-traumatic stress, and the illusion of safety remain. It's also notable for being one of the first (if not the first) mecha works produced by A-1 Pictures. It looks beautiful. Its themes are strong. Its writing is careful and its tentative finale (the show is scheduled as a split-cour and just finished its first half) was absolutely spectacular. "Well, that escalated quickly" would be an understatement. This show can and does deliver an action-packed punch with reasonable pacing and intensity. Hiroyuki Sawano did the OST too, and it's damn incredible.

The characters are a little less consistent however. A majority of the main Terran (from Earth) cast consists of students enrolled in a military academy suddenly flung into the war. It's far from original for a mecha series and their roles aren't given anywhere near as much emphasis or originality as they could have been. Many of the Versian antagonists could have also benefited from more screentime to more clearly develop their motives. There are still some shining characters of the show; the naive and overly optimistic Vers Princess Asseylum contrasts greatly with the more detached and succinct Inaho, who in turn also contrasts with Slaine Troyard, a Terran who finds himself in an ambiguous position among the ranks of the Vers Empire. While those three suit their roles well, many of the Terran adults commanding the operations for Earth also get plenty of story, and there's always a stray nut in the bunch who might surprise you by taking actions into their own hands. It's an uneven makeup, but it manages to work, and the plot of the show is strong enough to counteract its spotty moments of unrealized characterization here and there.

Aldnoah.Zero is not perfect, but for a mecha, a genre which I'm not particularly fond of, it has enough going for it to stand out above the rest of the competition. If you're looking for an action show with some politics and other strong thematic elements, this might be the show for you. It's certainly up there as one of the most interesting this year.

Still my favorite of the season.

It was very good in all aspects.

The end of this show made me want to shoot myself in the face.

>>4
Ah, but it's not truly over yet, Maelman.

Glad to see you stop by.
What did you think of Aldnoah up until that point?

>>5 Yeah yeah, spring 2015. BUT STILL, COME ON.

Up to that? Amazing, hands down favorite of the season. It gave me aa real old school mech vibe, which i haven't. Seen in so long.

Eh the only thing i -didn't- like was the plots backstory... i mean, you can't consider yourself a fucking different race after SUCH A SHORT TIME. 1972-2014 is hardly enough time to completely segregate yourself from humanity especially when transportation between the two planets was never an issue... I mean i get the whole Aldnoah factor but even so, their mindset and misguided envy towards Earth is incredibly ridiculous. If you miss Earth, fucking go visit.

well i think the ending is Focking awesome ,, it make make so confused or whatever

Wait, so the entire series wasn't done by urobochi? *shocked*

Anyway, it was a really really good series as a mecha. Hardly any mecha series managed to impress me other than code geass and aldnoah.zero (I'm still kind of new to anime :P )


Since they ended the season 1 this way, I wonder how they will start things up in season 2?

Hiroyuki is awesome→→→"A/Z" Never get tired of it
Wonder how many bullets can kill a princess

Before we start getting dupes, I'd like to make it clear that this thread is the official Aldnoah.Zero thread for both seasons.

Speaking of which, the second season has debuted now and I'm rather underwhelmed but still intrigued and eager to continue it. What has everyone else thought?

Oh, and those of you who haven't seen A.Z yet, just be aware that the second season discussion will be very spoiler-heavy. Read this thread at your own discretion.

>>10 Yeah, they decided to have him on-board for publicity, and it worked.


Honestly, I feel like I'm watching SEED with more deus ex machina and plot reversal.

Slaine is still a fuck boi.

I wanna see Slaine get rekt by Inaho

ah i just finished watching this i really cant wait to start watching the 2nd season

Disappointed with the fact that Inaho is back that fast. Not just that, but the whole army looked like brainless and cannot fight a bit without him.

>>17 slightly surprised that people are still signing up for the "shoot at them and wonder why bullets aren't working until inaho comes" job

>>18 More surprised that after all the cool shit Inko and Rayet have said just a minute before they are rendered useless... again

HAHA I love the MC inaho. he taught me(I don't learn physics) what is meissner effect which is damn cool.

I love how this is so educational.

The latest episode (ep2) somehow reminds me of lelouch and suzaku... where

lelouch = inaho
annoying suzaku = slaine

>>17 >>18 i agree with you, only one thing makes this anime interesting is using physics for defeat the enemy

i really love this anime especially inaho... now that the 2nd season is airing i love their opening song!!! ^^V especially if you are interested in space and yeah they are using physics that it really makes more interesting to watch :)

Now a sister appears out of nowhere. Slain has a point, in her condition she had to go with him. Humans dont have aquariums for people in coma xD

I'm gonna bump this up on my list. It looks like the kind of thing I'd like a lot.

Aldnoah reminds me so much of Code Geass... they're not exactly the same, but you can see a lot of similar elements shared between the both of them. If you like Code Geass, you should find Aldnoah Zero okay. AZ may not be up to par with Code Geass in terms of plot-twisting/quality of plot (in my opinion, AZ could get a bit predictable at times...) but it's still a pretty good anime.

There's the awesome-looking mecha; if you're into the sort of thing too. And I have to say, even as someone who's not into mecha, the mecha in AZ look quite badass.

Oh, and did I mention you can learn bits of physics from AZ too? The main protagonist Inaho will help with that quite often throughout the anime. Not everything in the anime is purely fictional at least. Sorry, I just had to put this here - I like anime that has some shred of reality and real life theories and physics and whatnot in it. Anyway---

Character development is quite lacking, though I hope to see this being rectified in the new season - like how our beloved protagonist is how he is; and just who is Slaine's and his father?; and how about the other characters? how did they meet? how long were they friends?; what about the Aldnoah and its method of transference? Yep, there's a whole lot of stuff on the list.

To those still skeptical about the anime: just give it a try, and if you don't like it, you could always move on.

Looking forward to more episodes from season 2. Hopefully more answers than questions will be revealed to us viewers ; u ;

This anime is awesome. i like Inaho