01.17
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, Aldnoah.Zero (wait for it) gets worse. This is not a surprise in the slightest. The time for praise has passed, the era of criticism is upon us. Buckle up.
Aldnoah.Zero 2nd Season is littered with plot-holes from here-on out, as compared to the little plot-hole rips the 1st season tried so very hard to ignore. One scene from the 1st season of Aldnoah.Zero completely contradicts a scene from this episode – the scene in question is Slaine’s revival at the hands of Asseylum. Ass-hime, as a member of the Vers royal family, contains the power of Aldnoah, something weaved carefully into their DNA. As Ass-hime performs CPR on the unconscious Slaine, shouldn’t the power of Aldnoah transfer from her to him via saliva, just like it did with Inaho and Ass-hime when he was reviving her? Suddenly, the surprise other Vers princess, Lemrina Vers Envers (the half-sister of Asseylum Vers Allusia that was never even mentioned in the 1st season), blesses Slaine with the power of Aldnoah in this episode to conveniently power his Kataphrakt, the Tharsis. Not only does this plot-hole leave the viewer confused, why wasn’t Lemrina mentioned at all in the 1st season if she is this important in this season? It wasn’t convenient, that’s why – it wasn’t convenient because it would leave the stupid plot-twist of Asseylum being in a coma untwisted right at the start of the show. Also, her character was probably never designed before the 2nd season began production – Lemrina was never shown in the 1st season’s promotional art.
Nothing of extreme importance was shown in this episode, apart from Slaine realizing his lover(?) Inaho had somehow survived a bullet to the skull, which was right at the end of the episode to create suspense for the next thrilling installment! He only realizes this due to Inaho still being silly and using an orange Kataphrakt, somehow ignoring the fact that he became infamous due to his acts in the orange robot nineteen months prior. Wouldn’t using a different-coloured Kataphrakt help hide your identity? At least spray-paint it beige, like the rest of your Kataphrakt squadron. At least the reason Inaho recognizing Slaine made sense – finding out the history and ownership of the Tharsis. The power of Aldnoah has not really been explained well throughout the show’s run, despite the fact it is the series’ namesake – Aldnoah.Zero. The zero part means nothing, while the Aldnoah part could mean something – but the show just simply uses the ability to power ships and robots, nothing else. The quality that Aldnoah can save a person’s life is poorly explained, and how Aldnoah can be transferred from a Martian to a Terran is terribly explained as well.
The character treatment of the show is questionable too. Inko, Inaho’s best friend(?), is reduced to a tsundere, which isn’t much of an insult because she didn’t have much character or purpose in the show at all. Rayet Areash, the dark horse of the original season alongside Marito (her attempted murder of Asseylum, even thought it was without warrant, is why), is wasted, and now may as well serve as a female character only included due to her gender. Marito is nowhere to be seen. If he has died, why did everyone else survive? Why would the show kill of its only interesting, almost 3-dimensional character, even if he only was used to provide a backstory for Saazbaum’s wife and therefore, his motive? Why am I asking so many questions? Answer me, Aldnoah.Zero. Answer me. Promise me Marito shall return. Also, promise me you’ll explain why Lemrina hates her lineage and genetic prowess soon.
The animation and CG of this episode is startling in comparison to how decent the original season looked. The CG lingers on PS1 FMV quality at times, and sometimes the facial expressions of the characters look weird and off-putting. The OP and ED of this season seems much less palatable than the OP and ED of the first season did – and I do hate to repeat myself, but Eir Aoi’s song GENESIS just doesn’t sound nice. I also hate to repeat the fact that Black Song, her song for Drakengard 3, is by miles her best song. Listen to that instead. The OP, &Z by HiroyukiSawano[nzK]:mizuki, does not match the original duo song’s A/Z and aLIEz in any way. The ED art also looks like it is bad fan-art given a watercolour filter. The show repeatedly tries to ram the conflict between Inaho and Slaine down our throats, despite the fact they have literally only met twice in person – and Inaho’s reason for striking Slaine down after their joint-attack against [insert Vers Kataphrakt here] in episode 7 has no decent motive behind it. The conflict just feels forced. This entire show feels forced. The 2nd season feels completely different from the already bad 1st season – just like how Evangelion 3.0 feels completely different to 1.0 and 2.0. Change can be good, but not when change is unnecessary and can survive without it. Anime is often a victim to this.
It appears that the Kataphrakts join and launch together in a similar fashion to how the Gardes of Knights of Sidonia do. Speaking of which, I recommend anyone reading this (if there is anyone out there) to watch Knights of Sidonia, an actual breath of fresh air to the mecha genre. Aldnoah.Zero may as well be a big advertisement for good mecha shows, especially Sidonia.
Go watch it. It’s on Netflix. Treat yourself, you deserve it.