Aldnoah.Zero

Episode 21

Major developments are happening on both sides of the Vers/Earth conflict. So why doesn't this episode feel more exciting than it actually does?

In this case I put the blame squarely on Slaine. He has a potentially major crisis on his hands and approaches it so impassively, so unenthusiastically, that he may as well be Inaho at his worst. That crisis is Lemrina confirming that Slaine is bold-faced lying to her about Asseylum and then going to find and confront Asseylum herself. Although she initially looks like she may have changed her mind about eliminating Asseylum, the two instead team up to trick Slaine into spilling his guts – only to get easily but gently subdued by Slaine, since Asseylum has no more gumption to pull the trigger than Lemrina does. Both have complained now about how Slaine has changed, and not for the better, and that much is evident here; he is now bound and determined to see his vision of a peaceful new world through, and if Asseylum doesn't want it the way he is bringing it about (essentially, by wiping out any opposition so thoroughly that there's no one left to fight) then he's going to give her no other option but to accept it because there will be no other world around to accept.

In other words, Slaine is changing out the co-protagonist role for that of the chief antagonist, a move that, in retrospect, the series has been angling towards for the entirety of the second season. Here it becomes all but official, because with both princesses now against him, he is now solely the bad guy. With Mazuurek presumably snooping around, Count Cruhteo's son shown to be arriving on the scene as the episode ends, and the Deucalion getting outfitted for upcoming space action, everything is converging towards him. Too bad he is also now as flat as a pancake in the personality department and now has largely unoriginal motives. This also begs the question of how he's going to finish rallying the troops if neither of the princesses is going to help, but that's a minor concern for the moment. And as a side thought, do we now know who Asseylum was tearfully preparing to shoot in the first season's opener?

Meanwhile, Inaho has his own issues, such as how to deal with a trio of Martian Kataphraktoi, especially when they are teaming up. Naturally he has some ideas after processing the first battle's combat data, though they hardly go off without a hitch. Still, Inaho is nothing if not incredibly capable at adapting on the fly, whether it be using a clever adaptation of basic physics principles to overcome a lightning attacker or working out that that only way to defeat someone who is using quantum teleportation to create duplicates is to simultaneously take out all of the duplicates. That, of course, means coordinating the targeting amongst all of the Earth forces Kataphraktoi even while more duplicates are being made. Yeesh. At least he takes a hit from his eye for pulling the stunt.

Even so, that doesn't change the fundamental problem with the episode. The Martian side of things has long been the more interesting one, so the fact that the Earth forces battle was actually more intense and involving, and the many dramatic events on the Martian side land so dully, could be looked at both as a positive note for the Earth forces side and cause for concern overall. What could have – indeed, probably should have – been an awesome episode instead ends up being merely mediocre.

Rating: C+

Aldnoah.Zero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.