Aldnoah.Zero #02 — -NoClip

July 12th, 2014

  

Cheat codes don’t make things fun.

I plan on covering Basara today, but its broadcast was delayed 40 minutes into the nethertime where shows often take a while to pop up. It’ll come when it comes.

Impressions:

Significantly better than the first episode, but while it added to the content, it also added a remarkable amount of stupidity… and truly bizarre musical wailing. And everything went all CGI too, but I guess in a mech show, that was only a matter of time. It’s not like they’ve suddenly gotten any better at mixing traditional animation with it though. This was apparently the episode where they obligatory kill off a bunch of characters with absolutely no fanfare or impact whatsoever just to tick the boxes so that they can say serious show. Granted, that’s more effort than they put in last week, but it’s still just ticking boxes for the sake of having boxes ticked. When the characters just stare there impassively as their ‘friends’ die, giving the same reaction as they did when they discovered eggs were on sale, you’re not creating a sympathetic or interesting cast, but I guess being exposition factories previously already did a pretty good job of that.

The protagonist (and I only assume he’s the protagonist because he’s the moonchild the camera keeps focusing on) is still barely functional enough to pass as a carrot, let alone an actual person, the direction got particularly silly (loved the upside down driving away shot and the shot right up the cutoff jeans into the crotch, guys!), and the completely invincible noclip matter sucking or whatever you want to call it robot is just the absolute height of lazy writing and what I expect from something like Jump’s “my power level is too high for your punches to even work,” to say nothing of the mopheaded psychopath piloting it. Is it a law in Japan that only people who fail psychiatric exams, probably by cackling like madmen, are allowed to become pilots? Them and completely untrained teenagers, obviously. Who else is going to look agonized the entire time?

 

Posted in Aldnoah.Zero | 10 Comments »

10 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • FlameStrike says:
    July 12, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    Well it was significantly better than that other mecha show this season. There was at least action and tension. Also I’d rather have impassive stone face than OMFG YELLY NEWBIE. I’m also curious as to how they’ll take down that cheat code mecha. MC will probably notice some WEAKSPOT or something. I’m guessing all these omfg uber mechs must have some kind of weakness. The other option would be that the humans get a tech upgrade, but that would be boring.

    • Anon says:
      July 12, 2014 at 1:35 pm

      you want a cheat code?

      prediction:

      Princess in hide successfully contact his Knight in shining armor Slaine. Slain somehow get his hands on a Mars Mecha, if you want a God like cheat. he get his hands onto the next big Mars Prototype one. Or his Lord will help him in secret. what can his Lord do against the others that want bloodbath

      so, Slain is the piece to turn the tables in Power for earth. I do not think his Lord will betray his people. even if he looks calmer then the others

  • The Phantom says:
    July 12, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    This episode was great, they need to keep the named character dead-count rising, I would prefer if it is more gory and bloody but I accept what I get. I hated that the princess survived, dumb move, she should have stayed dead.

    What does this have to do with Gundam? Is like the same plot, the same motives, same characters, similar mechas, Anyway this is doing much better than any Gundam show did past char era, even Unicorn.

    • FlameStrike says:
      July 12, 2014 at 12:57 pm

      I don’t know, I think it was dead obvious she would survive. As soon as I saw the terrorists I thought in my mind “There’s a double in the car right? That’s be the smart thing to do.” Also she’s featured in the OP way too heavily to be killed off in 1 ep. I also like that they cleared up that the terrorists were Martians. It would be too stupid for a human terrorist organization to have killed the princess of super powerful martian forces. Also the martians reacted WAYYYY too quickly for it to be anything but a planned event. In all, there aren’t too many plot complaints I have. The actions of the characters are actually pretty well thought out.

      The biggest problems are what Aroduc pointed out in his post.

    • ChocoBar says:
      July 12, 2014 at 6:37 pm

      >What does this have to do with Gundam? Is like the same plot, the same motives, same characters, similar mechas, Anyway this is doing much better than any Gundam show did past char era, even Unicorn.

      Yeah, thanks for the laugh.

  • Longhaul says:
    July 12, 2014 at 5:21 pm

    “Is it a law in Japan that only people who fail psychiatric exams, probably by cackling like madmen, are allowed to become pilots?”

    Why would a scheming power hungry fellow allow someone else to pilot his cheat robot, especially when they are set up like 18th century European militaries where social status > ability.

  • Sanjuro says:
    July 12, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    I like the show but not the music.

  • Yue says:
    July 12, 2014 at 10:09 pm

    Won’t these things sink to the ground?

  • Flip Porter says:
    July 13, 2014 at 11:02 am

    Welp my problems at the moment are the enemies are just too generic. They remind me of the King Joffrey from Game of Thrones. The nobility with their heads so far up their own asses you wonder why people haven’t already assassinated them.

    Second issue is that yet again we’re gonna be dealing with teenagers that somehow prove themselves to be superior than trained soldiers in the art of war. On that note I would never want to be a soldier in Japan if that is their viewpoint.

    Third issue is that they went with the overwhelming military advantage angle when being used by a warmongering people. I’m to believe these people sat on their asses in space for 15 years just because the princess (I assume) told them no? I don’t see even an ounce of realism.

    As sad as it is, I would have to compare this to valverave in a comparison of nonsense. It’s got less nonsense but not by too much.