Knights of Sidonia - Reviews

Secret Santa Reviews 2015

So the story is centred around a young man called Nagate with the last of humanity fighting an alien race the Gauna.

The synopsis for the anime portrays it starting when he is younger, learning to fight and thrust into battle. However this isn't case as the story starts with him being a well establish pilot coming from a big battle. This battle (and much of the backstory) only being recalled in flashbacks. This is a big shame as they have gone through a lot and all of which looked pretty good.

The story that is in the anime is very straight forward but does leave questions unanswered, which I hope will be answered in the second season or maybe the movie. There is clearly more history to the show, especially between some of the older characters.

For some reason I enjoyed the style of the animation and thought it worked very well with the type of anime that is was.

Allright. It's been a while since I've done something like this so bear with me as I try to find my way again.I did quite a lot of them in the past on a different website which you can find here: http://legendsofsatura.net/index.php/forum125/6-reviewing-guild.html

....They probably aren't very good though but please do stop by if you have the time and inclination. Originally the site was for writers, mostly original but also fanfiction.

Also I'm Dutch so there will be spelling errors. If you find them annoying give me a shout and I'll try to fix them.

Oh, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there will be some. Usually the worse I rate an anime the more spoilers this will contain. You have been warned

So, you have probably already read what the animation is about in the discription given by Anime-Planet, which is the same as on the box. I will therefore try not go into the story that much unless I'm ranting about something (spoilers).

ART: Lets start with the art here. As you can see I gave it a 3 and with reason. For the first few minutes I was staring at the screen wondering what was bothering me about it and then it hit me. The ENTIRE show is CGI.

We all know that CG is the future and it is a great tool to enhance the animation in an action scene while keeping cost manageble. Unfortunately it hasn't yet reached the point where it can do a full length series well. They did a good job but Pixar it isn't.

The character movements are very wooden and not at all natural and they take you right out of the story everytime you notice it.

Where the CG shines though is the space battles and action scenes. These are very well done and flow nicely.

SOUND: One of the sections that are hardest for me to do as I hardly pay attention to it. If done well the music enhances the viewing pleasure without being intrusive to the viewer. So me not noticing it is a good sign.

CHARACTERS: Main character is Nagate, raised by his grandfather in the bowels of the ship. For reasons unknown to him he has been trained to pilot the Garde, mecha's that are Sidonias' first line of defence, and fight the Gauda. He has zero social skill and has to eat constantly. At some point I started calling him generic bland boy A. Nuff said.

Izana is more interesting though in that she is genderless and becomes best friends with Nagate. You may notice that, although genderless, I still refer to Izana as female. This is because she acts as though she is fully female as a character. Izana is part of a newly developed third class that are initially genderless and only later decide whether to be fully male or female. In her case it is very clear what her choice is going to be as she has a huge crush on Nagate.

Kunato, or Sephiroth as I call him as he looks like his long lost twin brother, can losely be desribed as Nagate's enemy. He was the star pilot of the class untill Nagate came along and stole his limelight. Basically he is a whiny little shit who is jealous of Nagate's skill and Garde.

Samari ....Holy shit why couldn't this series be about her! She is the acting field commander of the Garde's during combat and every moment on screen she blows every other character away with her badassery!

Lala ....Another character who is much more interesting than Nagate. In appearance she is a talking bear who runs the dorms that the trainies life in. It is later revealed that she was part of the original Sidonia crew.

Hiroki is Nagate's garndfather and one of the biggest idiots on the ship. A distinction that he must share with Kunato.

STORY: Wheee! Rant time!

The set up is pretty simple really. Earth destroyed by powerful alien race? Check. Humanity scattered through the universe? Check. Mysterious alien race still present? Check. Just as the Gauda appear a young boy is discovered who just happens to be an ace pilot? Check. Allright, lets do this then!

Sounds pretty simple huh? Well it is yet they managed to mess it up with a massive amounts of plotholes. Here are the biggest of them that completely mess up the story.

1: Hiroki is an idiot. Why? Hiroki is one of the original crew members and its ace pilot. As a crew member he is given drugs that keep him young and vital so that he can continue his mission of protecting the Sidonia.

It is established that the Gauda are extremely deadly and 100 years before a mere 2 of them nearly wiped out Sidonia untill they were stopped by Hiroki. He then throws a hissy fit and disappears for nealy 80 years before turning up again. During this time he stopped taking his meds and has aged into an old man. He refuses to take up drugs and also refuses to let the Sidonia crew make a clone of him. When they do create a clone (Nagate) he steals it and hides in the bowels of the ship where he trains the clone to fight the Gaude.

Here is the problem though. Why would he do this? It was pretty much implied that Hiroki was very much into protecting the Sidonia and the people living on it. As he is its best pilot and defender there is simply no reason for him to deprive the people of its best defender.

2: Kunato is an idiot. In more ways than one.

Kunato is very jealous of Nagate and at some point tries to get rid of him. One such way is by sabotaging a mission where they fight against Gauda. Now it has been established that the Gauda are very deadly and very hard to kill so sabotaging a mission to kill one is very stupid. 2 Gauda nearly destroyed Sidonia so Kunato decides to sabotage a mission where they fight against 8!!!! Gauda.

Compare it to going into Africa and walking into a pride of lions, bitchslapping every lion you pass, then kick the final lion in the balls and then expect to be able to walk back through the pride unscathed.

Hilarious though is the way he does it. After setting charges on the Gauda the plan is to detonate them all at the same time. But instead he switches to a private channel to Nagate and gives the order to detonate. As Nagate is the only one who got the order he is the only one who blows the charges. The mission fails and Nagate is left standing with his foot firmly planted on the lions balls. People die and Nagate is blamed for the failure.

Here is the funny part.... This can not happen for one very simple reason: After Action Reports. Every military has AAR because they allow the higher ups and tacticians to see what went wrong, what went right and how to adjust the plans for a next engagement. There is simply no way for Kunato to get away with his private transmission because it would have been logged either by his Garde or Nagate's Garde. Even if he had managed to disable the black boxes on both machines he still wouldn't have been able to get away with it. As both machines came back to base a quick check would have revealed the sabotage and both would have landed in jail while the crew investigated who the guilty party was.

3: Relationships within the military is forbidden for a reason.

It is very frowned upon in all militaries across the world to get a relationship within the unit you are serving. The reason is very simple. People in love forget the objective and protect their love instead of completing the mission or they will sabotage the mission to get back at their former lover.

This is what happens to the unit that is send to deal with the Gauda. 2 of the 4 man team were having a relationship so when the girl is threatened the boyfriend sacrificed himself to save her. 1 down, 3 to go. The death of their leader shook up the group but the other 2 men pull their shit together and decide to complete the mission. Before starting their run the girl decides to get some payback and blinded by rage charges in on the suicide run. Instead of using the diversion created by their doomed teammate one of the other men decides to follow his leaders example and sacrifices himself to save her. 2 down, 2 to go but oops.... looks like number 2 wasn't quite as succesful as his leader. 3 down, 1 to go but oops.... Guess he should have paid attention to the Gaude instead of looking in horror at his former teamates. 4 down, flawless victory.

Well, there are already two detailed reviews on here, one praising this show, and one saying it couldn’t have been much worse.  Allow me to give a dispassionate middle of the road review.  I really enjoyed Knights of Sidonia, but it certainly had its share of flaws, and a couple of WTF moments.  Maybe its because I grew up with Macross and Megazone 23, but I like this kind of anime.  I don’t watch exclusively sci-fi anime, but as I turn to look at my DVD shelves right now, I can’t help but notice my anime is about 80% sci-fi.  So, hey, if you are looking for a giant spaceship/mecha/action anime, I think you have found your next series.  Still, it’s definitely not a perfect ten.

Let’s break it down:

Synopisis:  See Macross Frontier.

Animation: 9.0  This anime is completely 3D CGI.  BTW, they haven’t hand drawn and painted anime for a while now, it’s all digital.  That’s why you can’t find cels from your favorite show unless its ten years old.  Still, there is a distinct difference between the 2D and 3D varieties, which becomes a problem when a show combines the two, which can look awful.  Sidonia avoids this by going with full 3D, even for the characters.  It looks great, in my opinion, allowing seamless integration of the characters with their environment, but I do have two complaints.  Some have said that all the characters look the same, and I agree there is some truth to that, but it’s not because they are done in 3D CGI, it’s because the series has a distinct lack of color, in the technology, the environment, and especially in the characters.  Everyone has the same skin tone, hair color (except for Midorikawa and Seii), and if they had different eye color, I didn’t notice in the two times I have watched it.  The other problem is the computers.  Because of the lack of color and often of lighting, it’s sometimes hard to determine where the computer screen ends and the panel/wall/etc. begins.  It’s not a major problem, but it did bug me.  The action, on the other hand, was fantastic.  I love a good space mecha fight, and this didn’t disappoint.

Characters:  6.0  This is one of the shows major downfalls.  No character development.  Some die off too soon, others are just there for window dressing (like Lala, who happens to be a bear with a robotic claw, and is never explained.)  We learn some of the history behind a few of them, but still, they don’t develop much over the twelve episodes.  Also, with the rate of character deaths, you almost get apprehensive when they start giving details about a character, like, “Oh no, she’s getting more screen time!  She’ll probably be dead by the end of the episode.  Too bad, I kinda liked her.”  I would be remiss if I didn’t bash a bit on Tanikaze, the main character, who starts out as a socially awkward (for good reason) outsider who happens to be an outstanding pilot, but develops into a socially awkward (for no reason) outsider who is an outstanding pilot.  I mean, after defeating every threat facing Sidonia for twelve episodes, you would think he might develop a little confidence, or at least a cocky attitude… but no.   He’s also painfully oblivious to the fact that he’s a chick magnet.

Story: 5.0   Well, it borrows a lot from its predecessors.  Giant spaceship with a city inside, mysterious aliens want to destroy the ship, multigenerational spaceship searching for Humanity’s new home.  Sound familiar?  It should.  It’s been done and done, and here it comes again.  It was done SO much better by Macross Frontier that I would say if you enjoy this show at all, you need to immediately start watching Macross F.  It’s not a complete copy of Frontier, there is the immortal council, like the one in Ergo Proxy.  And the part where Tanikaze and Hoshijiro are trapped together for three weeks; that was totally copied from Original Macross, not Frontier.  And the third gender, neither male nor female, that was copied from a Star Trek episode.  On the bright side, there are a few scenes that will get you thinking, like when Saitou breaks into the cloning facility to steal the unauthorized copy of himself.  When he comes out, he is met by the Captain and the security forces… armed with swords and bows?  He actually gets shot with an arrow.  You might be thinking, if they can produce giant robots, cloning facilities and particle cannons, why the hell can’t they figure out how to make a taser?  Even a conventional gun would have been an improvement!  I’m still thinking about that one, and what I’m thinking is, “I think I know why they fared so poorly in the Fourth Gauna War!”  Actually, (and I’m not making this up) it’s later revealed that they do have guns which fire tranquilizer darts, but they shot Saitou with an arrow anyway.  Total dick move!

Also, there were SOOOO many missed opportunities for storytelling.  This third gender could have been explored, with an awkward love triangle which would have been really interesting to see play out.  The peace protesters, who insisted the Gauna were only attacking because Sidonia would not jettison their anti-Gauna weapons (Kabe).  They left the ship, but got attacked by the Gauna anyway.  It would have been awesome if it were revealed that the Captain or the Council had put some Kabe on the protesters’ ship to attract the Gauna, making it seem like the protesters were wrong, when they were right all along.  Conspiracies make for good entertainment.

Sound: 8.0  Here I get another chance to say something positive about the show.  The music is quite good.  The opening song is an outstanding march, which kept me from ever once skipping the credits, simply because I loved the song so much.  If I was to make a playlist of outstanding anime music to listen to while I drive, I would put this on it.  As for voices, I watched it in Japanese and English, with no clear favorite.  Both sound quite good.  I didn’t really know many names on the cast list, which is strange for me, but I did recognize Christina Valenzuela, who played my favorite character from Madoka Magica (Homura Akemi), and plays the Honoka sisters here.  She sounds nothing like Homura here, and if I hadn’t read the credits, I would never have known it was her, which is high praise for any voice actress.  I will say that the way in which the mouth movements were rendered made the English version problematic, with rare instances of strange pauses or sounds not fitting the mouth movements, but again, it was rare that I noticed it.  The Japanese dialogue matched better.

Normally, I would get into my overall impression at this point, but there is a category which I feel I must comment on.  This series has been praised for its realistic portrayal of physics.  I will say that they did a good job with parts, but bad with others.  For instance, when the giant ship makes dramatic course changes, the occupants do feel the G forces, sometimes to fatal effect.  This is something that almost ALL giant spaceship anime neglect.  However, in the scene where Tanikaze flys away from Sidonia to rescue Hoshijiro, he passes, “the point of no return!”  What the hell is that?  I’m supposed to believe that if he goes past that point he won’t have enough fuel to get back?  That’s not how space works!  All you have to do is get going in any direction, and you will continue to go that way FOREVER!  Regardless of if you have fuel left or not!  Also, when the mecha have to travel any long distance, they all join hands to form a “clasp formation.”  Apparently holding hands gives you greater thrust from your engine?  Well, yes, four mecha holding onto each other do have four times the thrust (because they have four times the number of thrusters) but they also have four times the MASS!  Meaning no net gain in acceleration!  However, the morale boost from a squadron group-hug cannot be quantified.

Overall Impression:  7.0  You might ask why I rated it so high when I brought up so many faults.  It’s because despite the flaws, it was fun to watch, and that’s all I expect from my entertainment.  It entertained me.  It helps that I like this sub-genre of mecha anime.  And it’s Netflix, so it’s not like I had to spring for an expensive box set or something.  And even though the story was super-derivative, the action was thrilling.  It’s just too bad that their weapons were the only aspect that actually developed by the end of the series.  Still, I’m looking forward to the second season. 

My anime reviews are always simple, short and straight-forward and is 100% spoilers-free.

Genres: Action, Fantasy, Mecha, Sci-fi, Seinen, Supernatural

Additional Info: Who the heck said Mech animes suckzz?

Ending Rating: 95% (2nd Season)

Short Review:

Knights of Sidonia is a very good spectacular masterpiece of anime. The level of action scenes are on the maximum potential an anime could have. This will surely keep you entertained alot as you enjoy every wooping action scenes this amazing anime has. With a bit of feels to pierce your heart and very sweet romantic moments to spice things up. Knights of Sidonia will give everybody's demands. This anime is worth your internet, electric bills, laptop and mobile batteries so drop that Gundam series and watch this already and transcend to the 13th dimensional space and rip the space-time continuum.