Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Aldnoah.Zero
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I wouldn't choose Code Geass either, although it would be high up there providing we weren't including the terrible second season. That first season on the other hand was one hell of a ride. I'm curious: what anime would you personally put as the number one mecha show of all time?
While many tropes in the mecha genre can be traced right back to Space Battleship Yamato, Aldnoah.Zero has too many similar plot points to Code Geass for it not to be at least partially inspired by the latter series. |
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ryanvamp
Posts: 416 |
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Just watched the final episode. I enjoyed S2 slightly more than S1, at least up until the last two episodes. It was even more stupid than I had anticipated, and with none of the charm the "so bad it's good" series tend to have. I hold no grudge towards Aldnoah Zero cause I admit I thought the 1st season was pretty bad so I knew what I was getting into. Somehow I needed to keep watching to see how much of a trainwreck it could become. In the past, I did the same thing with Code Geass R2 but it surprised me with a really decent ending after such a bizarre and weak 2nd season. This time around I had no such luck, and every plot thread just kinda ended cause it had to. And of course, with one last twist. Because why not?
I don't have much issue with disagreeing with ct the reviewer's opinion but the only thing that truly baffles me is that someone with years of watching anime can praises the animation during the fights in such a way. Not only was the main fight really short and underwhelming but it was far from well directed and only had slightly higher budget than the rest of the series. To each their own, I guess. |
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_Cyphon_
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No, I am not joking. Considering I never got into the Gundam franchise and was not interested in seeing many other mecha shows such as Eureka Seven or Macross Frontier, Code Geass would have to be at the top of my list. That is my own opinions however. What would you say was #1 then? |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Probably Neon Genesis Evangelion - and I'm including its follow-up movies. (I won't comment on where the newer movies stand since they still haven't put out the third one in English yet and the fourth has yet to be released.) It was, I think, the first true mecha series that I saw to conclusion, so I didn't appreciate how ground-breaking and genre-redefining it was at the time, but even from the first viewing I thought it was something special and my opinion only went up on various rewatches. Since I wasn't a fan of RahXephon, probably the only other one that I would seriously consider would be Flag. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well, I should have guessed it would be Evangelion; it's a reasonable choice that's hard to argue against. On the other hand I was surprised at FLAG's inclusion as an honourable mention, even though it deserves to be. I thought you'd mention Macross Frontier or even Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann instead.
Anyway, the thing about RahXephon is that though it's undoubtedly a mecha show, it doesn't feel like one. For all the many battles, it comes across as a character-driven love story that just happens to have mecha in it. The same could be said of Voices of a Distant Star. Funny that both titles were released (in Japan) at almost exactly the same time; just twelve days apart. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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You must be forgetting that "Top 10 of the 2000s" ANNcast from a couple of years ago, then, where I ranked FLAG as the #1 mecha title of the 2000s and the #5 title overall. 
If I had to make a list of top mecha series, Gurren Lagann would, at worst, be in my Top 5, maybe even #3; there's no anime series - mecha or otherwise - which plays the utterly bombastic, power-of-the-human-spirit cards better or more compellingly than what it does. I would have to at least consider MF, though if I was going to go with a title from that franchise, it would probably be Macross Pluss (assuming that it actually counts as a mecha series, but I'm not sure that it does).
I'll agree with you about VoDS; I've always felt that was more a story which happened to have mecha then a mecha story. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3652 |
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I feel like these examples you're giving, though, are a completely different kind of "mecha show" than Code Geass or Aldnoah Zero, and I wouldn't even put them in the same genre. The mecha itself is just a storytelling element, and they tell completely different kind of narratives. Comparing Aldnoah Zero to, say, Evangelion seems ridiculous.
In the context of quasi-realistic military mech shows in the Gundam tradition, I think putting Code Geass at number one is defensible. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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If you're going to narrow the focus that much, then sure, you have a stronger case. However, that's not a subgroup of mecha series known for producing quality titles, so CG being #1 out of that lot doesn't carry a whole lot of weight. |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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I certainly wouldn't call Code Geass quasi-realisitic; I think it's pretty balls to the wall myself.
As for my favorite mecha shows, I think the winner for me is Bokurano, because it's so good at integrating the huge universal scale super robot battles with the individual lives of the children who pilot the robot, and both of these individually were unique takes on those ideas and were very well put together. Pretty close behind I think are Valvrave and RahXephon, the former for integrating some really serious ideas with some offbeat comedy, and the latter like Dtm said playing out more as a serious science fiction and character/setting drama story than a traditional mech story. The characters and things that happened were very intelligent and put together with a lot of nuance and attention to detail. |
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jroa
Posts: 537 |
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Opinions wil always vary depending on how you look at it, but I don't think this is remotely surprising. In fact, some would say the same about Gurren Lagann and Super Robots in general (either because they don't like that subgroup of mecha series, or because they think TTGL is overrated). Yet both of those mid-2000s shows are still popular choices as far as individual personal rankings are concerned. I liked the two of them myself, but wouldn't rank either of them so high.
Generally speaking, the robots are all within the range of Gundam technology. Which is usually considered to classify under Real Robot as such. I think that is the applicable term, as opposed to thinking about a show that is "realistic" in every single sense (when even Gundam itself often isn't). Either way, I found Aldnoah Zero rather underwhelming. For me it falls right next to Valvrave in terms of shows that tried to be either Gundam or Code Geass (or even both at the same time) but never really had enough of a spark in my opinion. It had the potential to be a lot better or at least more creative, if Urubochi had actually stayed on board, yet for whatever reason that didn't happen. |
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