Note: This review only covers the first season of Aldnoah.Zero. Original writing date: 22/09/2014.

Anyone who appreciates japanese animation as a whole has some knowledge about the studio Sunrise. This powerful and important animation studio is not only behind the Gundam franchise, but is crucial to the essence of the mecha genre. If you do some research you will see that more than half of the mecha shows released came from it, and whenever they came from other studios they would usually suck hard.

Sunrise, however, is slowly failing to renew the genre. It released Gundam Unicorn, yes, but beyond that they missed the mark every single time since Gundam 00 was out six years ago. So… if Sunrise is failing, who can save the genre? A1-Pictures? The guys behind Ano Hana, Sword Art Online, and Fairy Tail? Ha-ha-ha, don’t make me laugh.

Aldnoah.ZERO (Aldnoah) is exactly that. A mecha show released by the modern-day most popular studio and famous for an absurdly light presentation and cutie-style. Can we trust them to craft an intricate warfare show with betrayal, character development, drama, and lots of action? That’s a tough question. Aldnoah, however, is not about just what a studio can do. It is also about the work of a few key guys, behind amazing shows like Fate/Zero, Ga-rei Zero, Phantom, and Kara no Kyoukai. When you take this into the math, then there is hope in here.

Current Trend, Gundam Formula, Mass Effect

Aldnoah follows the current trend of starting points: humanity is facing a nearly invincible threat. The twist there is: this threat is also human, descendants of Mars colonizers and absurdly more evolved technologically. In this alternate world, mankind found something more when they first landed on the moon: the remnants of an ancient civilization.

Aldnoah basically borrows the survival idea that all other shows of the same season share, but throw in some Gundam inspired racial conflict, where the “superior” martians want to kill every single human, much like naturals and coordinators of Gundam Seed or common people and newtypes in the UC Gundam shows. Adding to that is the fact that humanity discovered ancient ruins right next to us, much like how Mass Effect (and many other scy-fy tales) depicts the abrupt rise of human technology. Its a interesting collection of ideas, one that could certainly bring about amazing developments.

Why 2014?

The show, however, points out the war between humans and martians broke out in 1999, when the moon exploded, and is about to be resumed in 2014, when to pilot episode starts. This means basically that in 30 years the martians already mastered a very different technology, crafted an entire political system independent to the Earth, started thinking themselves as superiors to earthlings, and want to kill everyone in our blue marvel. Seriously? Damn, 30 years means their parents, brothers, sisters, or any other family member may still live on Earth, why would they suddenly want to kill everyone? I mean… if this was about to happen a hundred years in the future, or maybe even half of it, it would make much more sense.

This time issue, which initially appears superficial, prove to be a crucial factor into turning every martian into a mindless racist for no damn reason. It is not as if they are mythical beings such as the newtype as well, no, the martians are exactly the same as humans, they can’t even tell the difference between them in the show.

The Action and Tension

Regardless of this big problem into the villains characterization, the action moments and tension of the show are simply superb. This could certainly be called A1-Pictures best work so far even with all the generic visual identity it has. The CG elements, mechas, background, and constant cat and rat play are nicely crafted and merged with each other, giving a visual show to behold.

When there is little action, the show makes up for it with the charming concept of “brain beats muscle”. Much like in Code Geass and in the newer No Game No Life, the protagonist takes more merits in being uber smart instead of uber powerful. Although this doesn’t make much sense here (Inaho is just a regular boy as far as we know, his only super-power is to think when no one else does), it works well to give us fights that are far more interesting than just two mechas swinging light sabers or firing machineguns at each other.

Cute Cute A1-Pitcures

This, however, is A1-Pictures. After so many shows from these guys you know what this means, right? If you answered “cute girls” or “light presentation” you deserve a cookie! Yup. Aldnoah is not an exception, it is full of cute girls. For starters we have a clumsy princess whose charm and cuteness overwhelm everyone so they never question her motives or doubt her at any time. Then we have the cute classmates, an angry shady cute girl who is always stalking people, a cute older sister (_OLDER_? Whoa, that’s a big change man! No sis-loli-con this time! yay!), a cute captain, a cute XO… and probably more cuteness to come in the next season.

Following their cuteness, their character development is also typical. The princess herself just hangs in there to be saved, no strong personality or courage at all, just a damsel in distress, most of the other girls are just cute acessories for scenes and marketing material, and even the cute captain is left behind, with only one single scene in 12 episodes trying to flesh her out.

What about the guys?

The guys… well, there are basically four guys. One is the classmate who ends up in support, who is sadly just a carefree teenager who claims to wish all martians dead and just blushes when he sees a cute girl. The other is the protagonist, an absurdly cold and calculist guy that could just join the cast of Gundam Wing instead of hanging here. The next one is a traumatized older soldier whose purpose in these 12 episodes is to enter the cockpit of a mecha and freeze there in fear, at least he shows some emotions. The fourth and final one is perhaps the only character truly explored in the show, Slaine, an earthling living as an ward to the martian princess and caught offguard in the middle of all the backstabbing and plotting between martian nobles. Slaine, however, proves to be just as insane as the protagonist and his actions later in the show doesn’t make any damn sense (much less than how he can get in and out of martian fortress so easily).

It is a good start

Although Aldnoah has severe issues with its cast and major problems with some simple choices of the setting, it does offer a superb start for a show unlikely to be seen since Code Geass and Gundam 00. When we leave the motivations and reasoning to the sidelines, all the backstabbing, politics, warfare, and super technology involved turns out to be extremely fun and enjoyable.

As usual, however, this is just a bit part of a larger show and it simply doesn’t work as a stand alone experience, especially given the traumatic end it has. We must wait for the next season to see a development, but with all the issues presented at this start, I would be seriously disappointed if they rushed it to end with just 24 episodes.

Whoa, that was a nice one. I mean, it has been some time since a show got my attention and pulled me episode after episode. Aldnoah is a jewel when it comes to production values. It does use the typical cuteness that is spoiling most of today’s serious tales, but it manages to mix it with interesting CG elements, beautiful scenery, awesome background music, and a welcome lack of ecchiness and blushing.

The show, however, has terrible problems in its cast. The villains lack purposes and are far too mindless. The heroes get little screen time because most of the show is action after action. This works into turning Aldnoah into an addictive experience, but it slowly starts to feel shallow because the cast does not progress in the long run. This can be an even more problematic issue in its second season unless they complete redo the cast part, which gets us to the last episode.