Aldnoah.zero

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Fetucine

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So this doesn't take over the Heavenly Blue thread.

Aldnoah.zero is a currently-airing anime series. It's got a pretty good pedigree:

Original creator: Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica)
Director: Ei Aoki (Fate/Zero, the first Kara no Kyoukai movie)
Series composition: Katsuhiko Takayama (Mirai Nikki)
Music: Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn)
Character design: Takako Shimura (Aoi Hana, Wandering Son)
The production work is a collaboration between A-1 Pictures (Black Butler, Sword Art Online 1&2, a lot of other stuff) and TROYCA, an unknown studio who have previously done minor work on Watamote and Inari Kon Kon (that is the entirety of their public work thus far).

In addition, the opening theme is "Heavenly Blue" by Kalafina, and the ending theme is "A/Z", composed by Sawano again.

Crunchyroll is legally simulcasting the show in NA, SA, Australia (+NZ), and Europe (other than German-speaking territories). Members can see episodes as they air (Saturday 1:00PM EDT), and episodes become available to non-members 1 week after airing. Alternately, Daisuki is streaming episodes without the need for a membership in the Americas, Iceland, the UK, and all of Asia except Japan, China, and Korea.


Now, what's this show about, anyway? The infodumping parts of the first episode were pretty dry and forgettable, so here's a summary from Wikipedia:

In 1972, a hypergate was discovered on the surface of the moon, and humanity began migrating to Mars and settling there. However, eventually the seeds of war were sown and then the war breaks between humans on Earth and the Vers Empire, a highly advanced civilization that emigrated from Earth thousands of years before and claimed the red planet with all the ancient artifacts in its possession. After a ceasefire that lasted for 15 years, the Vers Empire launches an attack on Earth to conquer it once and for all.

Giant robots punching and/or shooting each-other, ancient artifacts, interplanetary war, etc. etc. This probably isn't going to be groundshaking to anybody who's watching anything Gundam before, but the production is pretty solid so far. With some stuff in the first episode, it looks like a lot of the action will be planetside and feature kinda clunky, real-ish robots, but maybe that's just projecting what I want to see.
 
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Gah, why'd they name it something so close to a FJ song anyway? Thanks for the catch.
 
Going to give this a shot because of Kalafina and because I'm a big mecha fanboy.
 
It was amazing how calm MC was when the missile was coming, as if it was starting to rain :XD:

I dont get how the terrorist/spy launched the missiles from a truck sitting inside a parking. How did the missiles got out ?
The whole thing looks like provocated by the Martial commanders.
I hope the princess survives, she's too kind to die so soon, and after all heavenly blue's lyrics are dedicated to her
 
It was amazing how calm MC was when the missile was coming, as if it was starting to rain :XD:

I watched the first episode last night and found myself thinking the same thing. I mean, the guy didn't even bat an eyelash. That's a whole new level of nonchalance right there :XD: Anyway, I think one reason why he might not have overreacted was because people would've started panicking if he did.

Well, in the end no one believed him anyway... lol

Another reason might be because he knew nothing could be done about it...?


I dont get how the terrorist/spy launched the missiles from a truck sitting inside a parking. How did the missiles got out ?

If you meant how they got outside of the parking lot, I think it was possible because of the direction the back of the truck was facing (if you look back, you'll notice it's not an enclosed parking lot).
 
^ haha indeed. But when the last missile was launhed, the truck autodestructed before the missile launches, or that's how it was shown on the 2nd shot, but the missile made it out :XD:

Under these circumstances I doubt the earthlings will be able to fight back, even with these robots, all the marchians have to do is to land a spaceship on one of these robots and they are done :ohoho:
 
I watched that part again and noticed that the truck actually blows up after the missile launches. Right after the terrorist enters the command in his phone or whatever, the scene shifts back to the truck. You can see the missile launching from the side mirror briefly just before the truck blows up.

The earthlings don't stand a chance :XD: Seriously though, the destructive power of just one of those spaceships is something I'd really like to see them try and handle. In the end we're shown one of those ships landing, right? Just the impact of the landing alone was enough to turn all the people on the bridge to ashes :white: :omg: :hide:
 
Yes that one happens when its shown from the parking's perspective. When right after we see it from outside, the track blows first and then the missle escapes the exposion. I believe its a mistake of the studio, but nvm :XD:


The whole anime gives off an Attack on Titan feel, and its not just the music: The design of the characters, the way they talk, and the stress it builds up!
 
Oh, you're right (watched it again lol). Oops, my bad. Yes, maybe it's a mistake by the studio.

I haven't watched Attack on Titan. A friend told me it's got quite a lot of blood and gore, and lots of characters get killed. I don't really mind blood/gore all that much (the Garden of Sinners movies had quite a bit of that and I was able to handle it), but I'm not a fan of tragedies so I'd rather avoid character death as much as I can :...:
 
I might add that Daisuki is streaming the series for free on the Americas, ALL Asian countries (except Japan, China, Korea), Iceland, UK, and Ireland.
 
I might add that Daisuki is streaming the series for free on the Americas, ALL Asian countries (except Japan, China, Korea), Iceland, UK, and Ireland.

Ah, cool. I added a bit on this to the OP if you don't mind. I think Hulu is streaming as well, though I'm not sure where, and it's licensed by Aniplex so they're doing something on their own site... apparently like two days after the simulcast.
 
I was actually thinking (after watching it with my brother again last night) that maybe that was a stand in for the princess? It does seem like a direct hit to where she was, so I don't think whoever that was survived, but maybe that wasn't her. But then why the whole landing of the ships? It probably was partly the martians, since that guy did say "if anything happened to her it would be a blessing" but yeah, I wonder now. Just a thought. I have not watched AoT either. I tried, could not get through the 1st ep. Saw a bit of it on Adult Swim again but still could not get into it. So it's the same artist as them? My brother thought their lips were weird when they turned to the side. lol

Yes, it is on Hulu, as that is where I am watching it. (In the US.) But like I said before you need a membership.
 
Just watched Ep 2, it has awesome plot, and graphics, I end up wishing that Kajiura was composing for this instead of SAO but Hiroyuki Sawano does an awesome job too. I also saw the OP, they have done it pretty well.

That MC is super emotionless. Even before going to war is like he was experienced war for years.
I seriously see no hope for Earthlings unless they manage to still some Martian weaponry and use it.
 
I liked this episode a whole lot more than the first. It didn't blow half the runtime on clumsily-delivered exposition, for one thing. Really, in retrospect, I think that's convincing me that Urobuchi might have a larger hand than I've been giving him credit for; series he's heavily involved in usually have a really weak first episode due to a bunch of blather that's hard to make visually interesting.

I do have a couple quibbles on the episode, but they're pretty minor. I think they could have cut a sequence or two from the Cataphract introduction part right after the OP, it went on like 15 seconds too long without establishing much, but maybe they're setting up the Cataphract pilots as the direct antagonists? Bowl-cut was being pretty ridiculously evil, but he's probably a throw-away villain that won't last through next episode so whatever.

Spoiler-y running thoughts on the episode:

It was pretty obvious the princess was going to survive, and her new look is pretty cool. Still, I don't think keeping your handmaid around without a makeover is the best way to stay inconspicuous...

Like I said above, bowl-cut is driving in "ridiculously evil" pretty hard. On the other hand, ramming a bailed-out pilot in mid-fall is a really memorable image.

Also I love pretty much everything about his mech. It's pleasingly chunky, cleaving through the road in one blow got the perfect amount of emphasis with the super-quick double take, the face is freaky-cool in a way reminiscent of the Evangelions.

Aldnoah being some sort of matter-disintegration tech is really unexpected and pretty cool. They also use it in ways that look pretty cool, even if they're laughably impractical. I was expecting it to be the name of a robot honestly, that's normally how it works.

Generic mechs with jumpjet feet are great. The things look pretty good in motion in general. Lol mechs with combat knives (which didn't even look like they were high-frequency blades or some other goofy justification), but the main character's sister kicking the ATV away was cool. So was the MC using the Aldnoah field to destroy some of his sister's mech and lighten the load. Really everything about the chase was set up beautifully.

ED itself isn't very impressive, but I like the lead-in and the imagery used.

And here are some character concept pieces I thought were pretty cool. Taken from here.
 
^I was right about the first spoiler you mentioned, but I see the point about the handmaiden. I think the title is based on the concept of the technology, since Zero may refer to the way that it sucks in the opponent, kind of like zero gravity, or gravity powers. That is what I think anyways.

The opening was cool. I kind of wish now for the whole song to have an anime PV, since I want to hear Wakana sing "heavenly bruuuue" at the end of it, and then show the princess in that watery/sky scene. That would be cool. But that's just my hoping. Also some of the CG reminds me of Geneshaft, which was kind of a long time ago.
 
I watched episode two last night. George nicely sums up the final thought I had when it was over.

That MC is super emotionless. Even before going to war is like he was experienced war for years.

:glower:


I kind of wish now for the whole song to have an anime PV, since I want to hear Wakana sing "heavenly bruuuue" at the end of it

Yes, it would be nice if the whole song had an anime PV; I want to hear Wakana sing that too :XD:


The ED was alright. I like the imagery more than the song itself because the composition of all those cool colours was really calming. But who knows, I might grow to like the song after listening to it a couple of times.
 
Standalone OST for Aldnoah Zero announced
http://www.aldnoahzero.com/
https://www.aniplexplus.com/itemYiGZmFzu

hqUY4g?w=415&h=415.jpg


発売日 = 2014.9.10
税込価格 = 3,348円(税抜3,100円)
品番 = SVWC70016
収録内容 = 澤野弘之による『アルドノア・ゼロ』劇伴集。高音質「Blu-spec CD2」仕様で登場!

ハイレゾ音源も同時配信決定!
ハイレゾ音源とは……音楽CD(44.1kHz/16bit)よりさらに多くの情報量を持つ楽曲データのこと。対応機器で再生することでより高音質・高精細に楽曲を聞くことができる、いま注目の新しい音楽フォーマットです。

Where are the OP/ED coverarts ? :(

Yuki Kajiura should also demand standalone soundtrack releases
 
Really liked episode 3 as well. The way they take down the Cataphract is different from how I expected and was a little bit cheating:

If the Aldnoah barrier were absorbing all light, the Cataphract should have been pitch black while it was active. It's black when it activates the first time, and it turns black when shutting down this episode, but the show doesn't make it clear enough that the colored version is artistic license to avoid dealing with a big splodge of black. The pilot also does launch his drones on-screen, but doesn't remark on it, which I'd call fair game.

That said, what does happen is really well-handled. I'm not really the biggest fan of Sawano's work, but the like 4-minute vocal track during the smoke scene was pretty rad.

I'm liking the princess a lot more than I expected, too. Lady was having the time of her life playing with that grenade launcher. The instant magical girl transformation and yelling at the Cataphract to go away were pretty good moments as well.

There's a scene after the credits, by the way. It's pretty important.

Also, this was the last episode Urobuchi's confirmed to write the script for. He'll probably be back for the finale, but it isn't clear if this is running for ~13 or ~26 episodes, nobody seems to know for sure. The next couple episodes will probably be a better indicator of the overall quality than the first three; Takayama will be writing the majority of the show.
 
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Yes i saw that scene after the ED. good thing that mc2 didnt pitty that guy like others do in other anime

Last episode i was also wondering why that robot didnt crush the tournel they gone under if he couldnt see them, i guess that this is a plot hole
 
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