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Aldnoah.Zero (TV) (both seasons).


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Key
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:46 pm Reply with quote
The Earth force defenses were prepared, but grossly underestimated the technology that they were dealing with. And that's because they didn't listen to/believe eyewitness testimony (as provided by the teacher guy) about what the Aldnoah tech was capable of.

And before anyone criticizes that as hokey, there are historical precedents. One classic example is how European generals dismissed reports of observers sent to the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-1905. As a result generals on both sides were utterly unprepared in WWI for how drastically the machine gun impacted, and forced a change on, modern battlefield tactics.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:56 pm Reply with quote
Jacquipuff,

I'm pretty sure that there's something wrong with the boy. Probably some traumatic event in the past, or maybe some other reason. IMO, he's well outside the normal human spectrum of stoic-excitable.

Key,

We're talking about multiple militaries and also the obvious result of a chunk of the Moon being blown up. If your opponants have tech that lets them live in those castle things and then come in on that kind of entry into the atmosphere (which they claimed to have been prepared for), then wouldn't that lend credibility to eye-witness reports? Furthermore, didn't they have any transmissions of what actually took place? They had no hard data at all? Not even recorded material from the survivor's equipment? It just seems baffling to me. But I do admit I tend to put too much thought into things like this.
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Penguin_Factory



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 5:28 pm Reply with quote
Wow, that second episode was awesome. Aldnoah Zero is looking extremely promising at the moment, I hope it keeps up the quality.

About the Earth forces being unprepared, I strongly get the impression that the Aldnoah robots being essentially immune to bullets isn't something they were capable of last time around. Even the teacher guy seems shocked by it.
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LordByron227



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 5:46 pm Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
Jacquipuff,

I'm pretty sure that there's something wrong with the boy. Probably some traumatic event in the past, or maybe some other reason. IMO, he's well outside the normal human spectrum of stoic-excitable.

Key,

We're talking about multiple militaries and also the obvious result of a chunk of the Moon being blown up. If your opponants have tech that lets them live in those castle things and then come in on that kind of entry into the atmosphere (which they claimed to have been prepared for), then wouldn't that lend credibility to eye-witness reports? Furthermore, didn't they have any transmissions of what actually took place? They had no hard data at all? Not even recorded material from the survivor's equipment? It just seems baffling to me. But I do admit I tend to put too much thought into things like this.



Multiple militaries united under a singular bureaucracy. They spent 15 years preparing to catch up to what they think would be VERs tech 15 years ago (always preparing for the last war and all). Not to mention, the various governments have to contend with the devasation left by Heaven's Fall. Throwing 100% into R&D and sending the population into panic isn't the best way for any government to stay in power for long.

Plus the moon explosion was caused by the Stargate equivalent blowing up. The few survivor's like Morito weren't shushed up. Look at how his commander not believe his words.
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Doodleboy



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:16 pm Reply with quote
Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote:
I agree that the Terrans are toast if they don't have anything more to throw at the enemy than that. I'm actually kind of astonished how inept the Terran side has been considering they had to have some knowledge of what they were up against. Yes, the Terrans have been recovering from Heaven's Fall, but they must've known -- in fact, they would've had to assume -- that the Vers was going to attack again eventually. So why didn't they prepare better for it? Why did they seem so utterly clueless about what they were going up against? This episode just created more questions for me.

Also, I noticed how all of the adults are gone now (the last adult ran away and was promptly killed), just the scrappy kids who will now fight with trainer mechas and probably figure out some way to get around the matter-eating field that is surrounding that purple mecha.


Hahaha... This is a Butcher show. Just as likely some of the kids will sacrifice their lives in a bid to bide time for the refugees to escape. More likely even. They already killed one of the kids introduced in the key art.

Hm... the only thing I'm not really sold on was that shot of Inaho after his friend died. Who knows maybe this bid to buy time is his way of dealing with survivor's guilt in the guise of logic... hope so at least.
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Kruszer



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:34 pm Reply with quote
So no one else got of that exchange/interrogation with Inaho that spoiler[the princess is not just alive but one of those two Martian girls is the princess.] Because that's how I took it, with that unconvincing explanation and the one girls slip of the tongue.
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WhiteHairGirls



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:01 pm Reply with quote
Damn that was a slaughter. It wasn't even an army vs an army. It was literally one or two units wiping out an army.

I like the op song. It isn't a typical Kalafina type of song. This was more calming.
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:12 pm Reply with quote
Interesting that you call it calming, when it's the exact opposite for me. For me, I hear it, and all I can think of is Magia from Madoka, which was eerie and disturbing.
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meiam



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:16 pm Reply with quote
So first impression, lol at the OP spoiling the show,spoiler[ I really hope they don't make a big deal out of the reveal that she's the princess, then again they didn't try to hide the fact that the princess assassination was an inside job, pretty glad about that, it was so obvious anyway it would have been kinda insulting to pretend it was supposed to be a surprise for the audience.]

Overall I thought this one was far better than the first episode, so much so that I would have made that the first episode. As other mentioned, love that the martian are actually using tactic even with there huge superiority, now I guess most episode will be a "monster of the week" type with them figuring out the weakness of the particular mech. This one was rather slow and had no range, plus he didn't pursue them in the tunnel, so that's probably a clue. Looking forward to it. Also very glad that the MC didn't get his own super mech, hopefully it'll stay that way.

As far as human being outclass, kinda make sense, they had 15 year to prepare, but they can't exactly just have there entire technology jump 100-200 year ahead just for that, especially after heaven fall. Althought it does raise the question of why the martian didn't finish off the earthling then. I do expect that there's eventually gonna be some super weapon that the human have been developing in secret, so long as it's not a super mech for the MC to pilot (or that the MC is some super weapon himself) I'll be happy.
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WhiteHairGirls



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:29 pm Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
Interesting that you call it calming, when it's the exact opposite for me. For me, I hear it, and all I can think of is Magia from Madoka, which was eerie and disturbing.


I guess calming wasn't the best choice of words. Yes it does sound eerie. But the Madoka and Fate Zero songs have loud chorus parts. This one was much softer.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



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PostPosted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:58 pm Reply with quote
Well, to play Devil's Advocate to my own position, I suppose that the Terrans were only able to do so much. You can only advance tech so fast, and you can only dedicate so much of your resources to it when simultaneously dealing with Heaven's Fall (something I did mention earlier, so I didn't discount that).

Still, this is the 21st Century. Communications are way more prevelant now than ever before. And that is *our* 21st Century. The tech level of Terrans in the show should be *better* in most regards, as they did get hold of some alien tech and were able to establish a colony on Mars, plus they were able to put combat troops on the Moon and fight a war there (which I'd guess they lost pretty badly). So you shouldn't have to rely on word-of-mouth. They should have *data* -- recordings, telemetry, the damaged equipment (which, like a car wreck, can be investigated to determine a lot about what happened to it).

Considering what happened on the Moon, I would think Earth would be frantic to gain every last piece and crumb of information about the Vers. But as far as I can tell, their intelligence on the Vers was abysmal.

As someone who has been in the military, I guess I'm a bit more demanding about things like this, probably too much so. I still think it's an entertaining show and I still intend to keep watching it. Hopefully it won't turn out like Gargantia, which I dropped after around 5 episodes after feeling very disappointed with where things were going.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 1:00 am Reply with quote
Quote:

Still, this is the 21st Century. Communications are way more prevelant now than ever before. And that is *our* 21st Century. The tech level of Terrans in the show should be *better* in most regards, as they did get hold of some alien tech and were able to establish a colony on Mars, plus they were able to put combat troops on the Moon and fight a war there (which I'd guess they lost pretty badly). So you shouldn't have to rely on word-of-mouth. They should have *data* -- recordings, telemetry, the damaged equipment (which, like a car wreck, can be investigated to determine a lot about what happened to it).

The opponents of Earth have "sufficiently advanced tech" which as far as the receiving end Terrans are concerned is practically a force of magic in comparison to the current technology level of Earth, nothing short of capturing an enemy unit in an attempt to reverse engineer the tech would have given Earth forces a chance and as far as the events have shown the War that started 15 years ago was probably even more of a one sided affair with only infighting between the Orbital Knights as a reason for why there was a cease fire in the first place.

With regards to the story, spoiler[it is clear that our protagonists are going to find the eponymous "Aldnoah Zero", combined with the nature that the current war is one found on an unjust cause (a case for resumed infighting between the Orbital Knights), and somewhere along the line much of cast with be scarred for life (assuming they live that long) from the horrors that they see with "peace" being too high a price and justice little more than killing the war mongers and glory hounds.]
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Key
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 1:36 am Reply with quote
Kruszer wrote:
So no one else got of that exchange/interrogation with Inaho that spoiler[the princess is not just alive but one of those two Martian girls is the princess.] Because that's how I took it, with that unconvincing explanation and the one girls slip of the tongue.

See my post on the previous page.

As for the OP, that was pretty typical Kalafina. Reminded me some of their work on Fate/Zero, especially the second season OP. (BTW, if you ever get a chance to see them in concert, take it! They put on a great live show.)
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DuskyPredator



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PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 2:33 am Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
Interesting that you call it calming, when it's the exact opposite for me. For me, I hear it, and all I can think of is Magia from Madoka, which was eerie and disturbing.

This was exactly my thoughts, and totally not surprised the same lot sang both.
Other music parts, did not really put much thought into it, but music is being handled by Hiroyuki Sawano, who also did Attack On Titan and Kill la Kill, two shows I think share some notability for music.

Episode 2

It would seem that calling them Martians is quite apt, as they indeed appear to be gods of war, for clarification the Roman god of war is Mars. If only they managed to get their own Prometheus they might be able to do something. But right now the only thing I can think of would be to get past the mech would be spoiler[its feet, likely the only place without the phase shield, and why it was built so bulky to keep its balance]. I wonder if the Vers changed their tech especially to take on Earth humans who used projectile metal?

I can accept the MC being the way he is, I am guessing that he may have spoiler[been through something so traumatic that he is almost numb to it, still he did seem to really want to save his friend but he did not let himself really look grieving.] And it appears that the spoiler[Princess is a little surprising in actually pulling him down to get information]. Her being in the spoiler[company of the daughter of a sleeper agent who tried to kill her and were betrayed], should be enough to do something in stopping the fighting.
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ikillchicken



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PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2014 5:07 am Reply with quote
Well, episode 2 did nothing to improve my middling impression of this show. Really, that may even be giving it too much credit. Watching wave after wave of earth grunts getting crushed by a few nigh invincible martians is the antithesis of interesting. I'm also increasingly aware of this show's apparent lack of subtlety. The martians are all cartoonishly evil, which I might not mind if this show didn't also take itself deadly seriously. And the main character is stoic to the point of being an emotionless cutout. For what it is, it's still decently polished and well executed which makes it an easy watch but at this pint I'm in no way impressed.
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