[Anime Review] Aldnoah.Zero 2

"I have walked a stair of swords, I have worn a coat of scars.

I have vowed with hollow words, I have lied my way to the stars."

-Catherine Fisher

Warning: Not sure if I really need to tell you this, but this review will contain spoilers for the ending of the first season of Aldnoah.Zero. You've been warned. 

Click here for my review of the first season of Aldnoah.Zero.

It's a shame it all had to end up like this. If you were to flashback to about a year ago, the first season of Aldnoah.Zero was the most anticipated anime of 2014 for many(including me): the latest brain-child of Gen Urobuchi, directed by Ei Aoki, with music by esteemed composer Hiroyuki Sawano. It was a super-star of the 2014 summer anime season, but by the time it had finished airing it had fallen quite roughly from the spot-light. Problems plagued it: a lackluster cast, odd pacing, as well as mediocre writing, as it soon became the butt of the anime communities jokes. But even so, it wasn't a terrible anime; at least in my opinion. It had problems, but it was still enjoyable, and even showed an occasional spark that it could be something more then it was, that it could maybe meet those hefty expectations that the community had set for it before it had begun airing. This was my mind-set as we headed into the second, and concluding season of Aldnoah.Zero. It wasn't the right one.

     Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, and today, we take a look at the second season of Aldnoah.Zero, and maybe we can figure out where it all went wrong. I won't be boring you with the studio who animated it or the writers involved, all that information is already available in my review of the first season. What I will tell you is that Aldnoah.Zero 2 is a 12 episode anime TV series that aired between January 10th to March 28th of 2015, airing in that year's winter season. Now, let's jump right into where we left off in the plot.

So, as a slight refresher, where did we leave off? Well, if you recall, everyone was dead. Princess Asseylum had been shot in the head, Slaine had shot Inaho in the face, and now it is 19 months later. The war between Earth and the Vars Empire has continued, though after the events of the finale of the first season, the core pieces have been shuffled, and now everyone stands in different places. Slaine is now a well-respected knight for the Vers Empire, as he has the backing of Count Saazbaum, a penance for Slaine saving the count's life at the end of the first season. Slaine, with the help of Count Saazbaum has rescued Asseylum from her certain death on Earth, and now they hold her in permanent status within Ver's military base on the moon, unsure whether she will ever wake up from her coma. With the Princess now out of commission and the last chance for peace between Earth and Vers completely gone, Slaine has devised a new way to rally troops against Earth: as now Asseylum's half-sister Lemrina impersonates Asseylum, using the princess' influence to ignite the hatred between Earth and Mars to drive the war effort onward. Slaine in the meantime, works his way up Ver's military, with a final goal in mind that only he knows, as he leads the charge against Earth's military and gains the support of various counts and knights around Vers. The situation is made even more complicated as Slaine must work through his own personal stigma of being "a terran", a fact which places various barriers in the way of his path into a commanding position, and now, Princess Lemrina has started to develop feeling for Slaine, and she could potentially reveal herself as an impostor at any moment out of jealousy of Slaine's feelings for Asseylum or if he reject her advances, effectively putting an end to his plans before he even has time to instigate them.
     On the Earth side of the war,  Inaho has miraculously survived as well, due to some, let's be fair, bullsh*t involving Aldnoah that allowed him get medical attention. Inaho lives on as a soldier, now equipped with a new robotic eye that allows him to perform all kinds of life-hacks(including being able to tell if somebody is lying, scanning distance between targets and make predictions, scan for coordinates(and really this thing is just completely over-powered)). Inaho is the only one who suspects that the current Princess Asseylum is an impostor, and is determined to find where the real princess is and rescue her, even if that means he will be putting himself directly in the way of Slaine Troyard, setting the stage for an inevitable showdown between the two that may determine the fate of the entire war.

Yes people, now it's basically Inaho vs. Slaine. Though if you're like me,
you won't care enough to pick a side. 

I suppose I'll talk about positives first. As a the plot for a "second cour" of a series goes, it could be worse. It has put both main characters into more commanding roles that allow more radical plot-points to occur, and it does well to recognize that these things must always have a sense of escalation as now most of the battle scenes take place in space, which, let's be honest, is pretty awesome no matter what context. But that's really all the good I have to say about it. The idea for this second season might have worked, and worked very well,  but ultimately, the execution is so lack-luster that all positives it had just sort of steadily seep out as the anime buries itself deeper under its own stupidness.
     The inherent problem is probably that the writing really isn't that good, rendering all ideas the anime had pretty much pointless. Characters often make stupid or unrealistic decisions that only serve to drive the plot onward, and certain plot-points only occur because of amazing coincidences or logic that fails to hold any sort of weight. I mean guys, are you really telling me that Slaine missed Inaho's head from literally point blank range when he shot him at the end of the first season? We all know the only reason Slaine missed is so this "second cour" could happen, and so Inaho could get his stupid robotic eye. And another thing, that robotic eye is complete bullsh*t. I don't care how smart the show tells us Inaho is, that eye is pretty equivalent to a Geass in terms of unfairness(though to be fair, they do add consequences later on for that plot-point, though it never really goes anywhere). It's things like this that make the whole thing hard to take seriously, though Aldnoah.Zero does undoubtedly want you to take it seriously. You can really tell it's trying to be an epic space adventure, filled with interesting politics and awesome characters, but... it just isn't. It's not like, say Valvrave, that pretty much just insulted your intelligence and credibility as an anime fan by just watching it; Aldnoah.Zero legitimately wants you to be pulled into this world, to care about these characters, and to really be on the edge of your seat as events play out. But the writing just can't support these good intentions; no matter how good it wants to be, just the act of treating itself like a good anime when it really isn't only adds to the stupid factor, and makes the show easier to insult. I don't want to insult Aldnoah.Zero. Hell, I still rather like the first season at the end of the day. But it's really not doing itself any favors by behaving the way it does, because by doing so, it's only going to sink lower and lower down people's "good lists", when arguably it doesn't belong there, at least not as much as some other shows I could mention.
      But here's the last, and maybe even the biggest problem that this second season has: it's just sort of boring, and I think I can offer two possible reasons about why it's like this. First, if you were to rewind to the pacing of the first season, what you might recall is that it was a little weird. There were two very specific "highs" of the series that were exciting and adrenaline pumping, those two moments being the very beginning(or to be more specific, those first three episodes), and of course the very end, where, you know, everyone dies. The space in between was where the first season lost nearly all of its momentum and promise; a space where Inaho just sort of inexplicably beat whatever soldiers the Vers Empire would throw at him, and nothing really happened besides some half-asked attempts to throw in drama(like when Rayet chokes Asseylum in the show, only for Inaho to revive her five minutes later). That's what season 2 largely consists of. I don't think the reason per say is that it actually is as boring as that mid-section of the first season, but because we've already jumped the shark in terms of dramatic tension. I mean, when you "kill" everyone as the finale of your first season, you can't really top that can you? Also(and I've mentioned this before in other reviews but whatever), when you sacrifice your narrative integrity, or in this case, "killing" all your characters and then bringing them all back literally the next episode, it sort of just renders everything pointless after that. What's the point of caring about what happens in this war between Earth and Mars when you feel that anything that you're told can be taken right back if the creators feel that is would increase the drama, or have a target audience return for your crappy second season just so they can see what happened. Pair this with, as I've already said, how seriously the show takes itself, which means there are plenty of politically driven scenes that really aren't interesting, and yeah, it's all sort of boring.

This doesn't really have anything to do with anything, I just thought it was funny.

What this season largely consists of is Inaho and Slaine circling each-other like sharks, breezing through whatever challenge is in their way because both of them are extremely overpowered, until it is time for the final showdown 12 episodes later. Sure, some interesting stuff happens in that time that could have potentially lead to something intriguing: Lemrina's mental state, Slaine's own doubts about his attack against Earth and Inaho's slowly emerging humanity, but nothing really goes anywhere. There's only one sub-plot that really dramatically effects how events play out, but I can't mention it because, you know, spoilers. What I will give the anime credit for is the ending, which while a lot of people seem to find problems with, I thought it was just fine. It's dramatic, there's a certain bitter-sweet aura that I really liked, and hell, even a emotional moment for Slaine at the very end that I thought actually worked. Well, more so than much of anything else in the anime at least.

Princess Lemrina: the newest addition to the cast.

Before I talk about how this second season has changed our two main characters: Slaine and Inaho, I'll about the only significant addition to Aldnoah.Zero's cast in this season: Princess Lemrina. At first, when she was introduced, I thought she had potential. Her relationship with Asseylum was sort of interesting, as she was jealous of her sister's beauty and how she was loved by her people, something that Lemrina would never be able to achieve due to her legs being bound in a wheel-chair and her status as a princess born illegitimately from her father, who was Vers royalty, and an unnamed woman.  This leaves her a sort of bitter and manipulative person, fully aware of how she is despised, and taking that hatred to use for her own advantages, which makes her position as currently impersonating her sister to inflame tensions between both sides of the war sort of unique. However, what really annoys me about her is her nearly blinding devotion to Slaine, which drives her motivation for pretty much everything. And here's the fact of the matter: she really has no reason at all to like him so much; he treats her pretty crappy all things considered. She even offers to be a "replacement for her sister", if that is what he wants, and none of it just doesn't make any sense, because you will always have this burning question of "why?" in your head. The anime doesn't really have an answer. It has the decency to question this devotion later on, leading to a couple interesting scenes which I won't talk about because spoilers, but like most things in the anime, it doesn't go much of anywhere. 

     So, let's talk about Inaho first. He was a character that I thought could potentially develop into something interesting when the first season ended, because I still had no idea why he was so emotionally repressed, and as a matter of fact, I still don't. What could have been interesting is completely ignored, the most we get in terms of development is that he smiles a little more than he used to, and occasionally tells us profound emotional statements with the same blank look on his face. And I appreciate that I guess, but we still have absolutely no reason why he was like this in the first place. Was it because of his parents deaths? Because he tries to be the perfect soldier? We have no idea. And that's not good enough.

     And here's the character I've been saving for last, because undoubtedly, Slaine is the star of this second season, as he makes his transition from narrative limbo into a primary antagonist. In hindsight, that's something that the anime had been building up to, and rather well at that, there's a clear progression in the ruthlessness of his actions, going all the way back to season one. I rather liked it. But the problem with his character is that his motivation as "the big bad guy" is practically non-existent. At first, you think it's just because he's doing everything for Princess Asseylum like always, but in light of events that happen later on, that theory doesn't seem to hold much water. I honestly don't think Slaine himself or the writers knew what he was trying to accomplish by the end of the series, sure he throws around cliche lines like "trying to make a better world", but I don't think that really makes sense either. Like many things in this anime, I like the idea of it. You could see what they were trying to go for, a good man following his heart as he tries to do the right thing for the girl he loves, but eventually everything falls apart as he digs himself deeper and deeper into his sins, and in the end isn't even sure what he's trying to accomplish as now everyone he cared about has turned against him. However, his reasons for ending up how he does by the end don't seem justified and logical, and he's ultimately flat and uninteresting as a character. Again though, I do like the moment of self-reflection at the end of his arc, even if I can't talk about without spoiling the ending of the anime. 

     As for everyone else, well they don't really matter. Yeah. All those side characters that the first season built up: Rayet, Inko, Lt. Marito, they don't really do crap in this season, so much to the point that I question why they're all here in the first place, or why we spent so much time with them in the first season. Another waste. And if you recall, my favorite character of the first season was Princess Asseylum herself: I found her interesting as well as pretty bad-ass when she wanted to be, but again, she's in a comatose state for pretty much the entire time so... yeah. Those three characters above are really the only ones you need to worry or care about. 

Inaho's mech in one of the many space battles of this season.

Turning to animation, while I never went as far to compare side-by-side, I'd say the animation is just as high-quality or better than it was in the first season, and that's nice to see, when some shows with great animation will cut corners in their second seasons, like Sword Art Online 2. But no, everything looks great, from background, to character designs, to the aesthetics of this futuristic world. The deal-breaker for a lot of people is undoubtedly going to be the mechs rendered in CG. Yes, it doesn't look particularly nice, but after two seasons of watching these things, I can say you just get used to them after awhile, it's a not a legitimate reason not to watch the show(there's plenty of other better reasons not to watch it), because it's simply a matter of getting used to them. The fight scenes are rather good too, as now they've moved largely from Earth into space. I've already stated the benefits of space battles(they're awesome), but Aldnoah.Zero really uses them to enhance the fight scenes, with the battles seeming to take full advantage of the three-dimensional nature of space, and the various factors of it which come into play during fights.

     Hiroyuki Sawano has returned to do the music for this second season, and as most sound-tracks he does are, it's fantastic. Some might find problems with how often certain tracks are repeated, but those tracks in question are so good that I really didn't mind in the slightest. Nothing more to say about the OST: it's great. However, special mention must be called to the OP of this season: "&Z". You might remember that I altogether wasn't too fond of the first season's opening: "Heavenly Blue", but "&Z" is a truly magnificent song, especially the full version, which is exhilarating, exciting, yet somewhat melancholy at times, like it's a reflection of all that was lost in the Vers/Earth war. If you close your eyes while listening to it at the start of every episode, you could almost trick yourself into thinking that you're watching some epic space opera, but unfortunately when you open them, it's always going to be Aldnoah.Zero. I wouldn't go as far to say it's the biggest reason for watching Aldnoah.Zero 2, but... yeah it is actually. 

&Z

So, here we are, standing at the end of this unfortunate franchise. It's all over; undoubtedly, a third season is(hopefully) not in the works; this is what Aldnoah.Zero is at the end of the day, the kind of show that we will look back on years from now. And despite all the promise, despite all the ways it could have succeeded, Aldnoah.Zero's second half is equivalent to a slow, sinking decent in mediocrity. Various life-lines appeared during its run: possibly interesting plot-lines and characters, but it failed to grab anything significant, as it sank too fast under its own expectation and incompetence. What is Aldnoah.Zero at the end of the day? A very typical, very mediocre mecha. And that, is a damn shame.

Final Verdict: 4/10

P.S: I didn't know Inaho was Solid Snake.



Recommended Anime:

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works TV

Another high-budget yet ultimately over-hyped work from esteemed people that aired around the same time as Aldnoah.Zero, but would fair better in the long run. 

Exiled from Paradise

A movie also created by Mr. Gen Urobuchi, that also has a spark of sci-fi and action that you may find appealing.

Goodbye for now guys.

My reaction to the first episode of Aldnoah.Zero 2 is here. 

An anime review of Gatchaman Crowds is located here. 

Or if you want a countdown, click here for my Top Five Wishlist Anime. 

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