Review for Aldnoah.Zero - Season 1 Collector's Edition

Introduction

I may have tuned out of the anime streaming scene of late, simply through a sheer lack of time, but even I’ve heard of Aldnoah.Zero, or rather some of the fan reactions around it, which have been polarising to say the least. The EU referendum has nothing on it; from what I’ve read on forums, Aldnoah.Zero might just be the epitome of a Marmite anime. And I didn’t even know what the show was about. You might have thought that I would have reacted as I usually do to Marmite, when I learned that it was a mecha anime, but it’s the name of the writer that actually got me enthused about reviewing it. Gen Urobuchi is a writer that has impressed me greatly with his work on Psycho Pass, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero and Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. While he works in much the same oeuvre as Tow Ubukata, I find his writing to be character and plot focused in a way that makes him Ubukata’s diametric opposite. I have a lot of time for Gen Urobuchi, and that’s why I have been really looking forward to Aldnoah.Zero.


However, it is an Aniplex US title, which means that the rest of the world has to go up to them like Oliver Twist, tugging furiously at a forelock, meekly asking for more, and having to be satisfied with the scraps that are dealt out. Having said that, Anime Limited don’t do too badly when it comes to Aniplex titles, and Aldnoah.Zero’s release is almost on a par with the US release. On top of which, we’re getting the show in two halves, rather than four parts as in the US. We still get 12 episodes split across 4 single-layer Blu-ray discs (Aniplex use BD50s), re-authored for Region B by Hanabee Entertainment, I believe. We also get the English audio in PCM as opposed to Aniplex’s Dolby Digital. It also looks as if we get most, if not all of the on-disc extras, and a 72-page artbook. All that’s missing are the postcards that came with the US releases.


History changed when the crew of Apollo 17 discovered a hypergate on the moon. That opened up the large scale colonisation of Mars, but it wasn’t long before the independent VERS Empire was established, built on the strength of ALDNOAH technology, discovered in ancient alien ruins on the red planet. It also wasn’t long before a war erupted over control of the lunar hypergate, a ceasefire only called when a tragic accident resulted in the destruction of the Moon in 1999, the subsequent carnage on Earth dubbed Heaven’s Fall. A tentative peace remains in place, albeit with Martian ships in a watchful and ominous orbit.


It’s been 15 years since Heaven’s Fall, and Princess Asseylum vers Allusia of Mars is on a state visit to Earth, a gesture of peace, but her assassination is all the excuse that Mars needs to resume the war. And the people of Earth aren’t ready for that threat, as their government has kept the Martian strength and their ALDNOAH technology classified. The Martian nobles and their giant robots quickly decimate Earth’s military, but one student, Inaho Kaizuki has an uncanny skill in figuring out the Martian weaknesses. It isn’t long before he’s drawn into battle, and an insidious conspiracy.


The first twelve episodes of Aldnoah.Zero are presented across four Blu-rays from All the Anime.

Disc 1
1. Princess of VERS
2. Beyond the Horizon
3. The Children’s Echelon

Disc 2
4. Point of No Return
5. Phantom of the Emperor
6. Steel Step Suite


Disc 3
7. The Boys of Earth
8. Then and Now
9. Darkness Visible

Disc 4
10. Before the War
11. Wind, Snow and Stars
12. Childhood’s End

Picture

Aldnoah.Zero gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer that is just a tad disappointing. Certainly given the episode distribution, three episodes per disc on four single-layer Blu-rays, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they would make the most of the disc real estate. Certainly that’s what Aniplex of America tend to do to justify their RRPs, devoting so much space to video bitrates that they wind up only having the English dub in lossy Dolby Digital format. Hanabee of Australia have apparently re-authored these discs for Region B, which is why we have uncompressed audio all around, but we also get a little digital banding in the image. It’s not as prevalent as you might expect from a company like Funimation, but once again, with three episodes per disc, the potential of 8Gb per 23-minute episode, I would have expected no banding at all.


Other than that, the image is clear and sharp, with good detail and consistent colours. It’s a strong animation, with impressive character designs, detailed world design, and a whole lot of CG talent applied to the mecha designs. The anime style conforms to the mainstream design ethos, with nothing straying too far from the expected norms. But some serious time and effort has been put into the action sequences, and Aldnoah.Zero is a high budget affair throughout. Were it any other company, the usual 2-disc count, and the usual price point, I wouldn’t have whinged, but 12 episodes on 4 discs in a £79.99 collector’s edition; I don’t want to see banding!

The images in this review were kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

Unlike the Aniplex release, we get uncompressed audio for both languages, PCM 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. The subtitles are locked during playback, but you can have any combination of audio and subtitles. You can’t switch the subtitles off completely though. I went with the Japanese audio, and was happy enough, even though the character voices were very archetypal. One oddity is that while the Japanese dialogue introduces some English profanity, the subtitles clean that up. The dialogue is clear, the subtitles accurately timed and typo free and the action comes across well. The show’s music is pretty good too, with some nice theme songs, and some driving incidental music. I gave the English dub a quick try, and it was okay-ish, although I kept wondering who Old Noah was.

Extras

These discs are probably Hanabee authored discs, given that when they boot up to the static menus, the default audio setting is Japanese with English subtitles. The menus are simple, static affairs, with a key art image, and a listing of options. There are also some extras on the discs, enough for disc 4 to be more a 4-episode disc, rather than a 3-episode one.

Disc 2 offers the clean opening animation, and 2:47 of Promotional Videos and Commercials (subtitled).

Disc 4 has the clean closing credits, both of them, along with the Count to A-Z making of featurette, which lasts 23:41 and is presented in 1080i. It offers a preview of the show, a look behind the scenes, and features interviews with the voice cast and creative staff.

Conclusion

Aldnoah.Zero is the anime equivalent of event TV, the big, blockbuster show that everyone watches, putting as much bang for the buck on screen, delivering oodles of entertainment value, but fails to stand up to scrutiny after the fact. It’s the nu-Doctor Who, the Lost, the 24 of the anime world, packed to the gills with water-cooler moments. I enjoyed Aldnoah.Zero, had great fun following its story, its characters, and the twists and turns of the plot. It was only after I ejected the disc, turned off the TV, and had done something else for a couple of hours, and then thought about what I had just seen, that a few niggles started to creep in. Judging by the first half of the show, this might be the first time since Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom that Gen Urobuchi has produced something that hasn’t blown me away.


The story is fun to watch, a classic war of the worlds scenario, with technologically advanced Martians attacking poor backwards Earth. The Martians have a complex and martial (pun intended) society, divided down feudal lines, with each ‘Lord’ fighting wars of conquest to promote his own superiority over his peers, all to impress the Emperor. The assassination of a princess on a peace mission to Earth is all the excuse they need to resume a war, and it’s unsurprising to see just who is behind the conspiracy. It wouldn’t be much of a show if the princess didn’t actually survive (It’s not much of spoiler either), and she winds up hooking up with a group of Earth’s defenders, planning to get news of her survival out to Mars so that the war can be stopped. Naturally the conspirators will do anything to prevent that.


Earth’s defenders can’t do much against the superior Martian forces, which in this case offers a rational explanation for the teenagers driving the giant robots. It’s part of the curriculum since the last war to get some military training, and following the initial attack, a group of teenagers led by Inaho Kaizuki take their school’s training mecha and use them against the invaders. Given that Inaho has superior strategic and tactical intelligence, it allows them to find and exploit the weaknesses in the Martian Aldnoah technology, and they wind up defeating the enemy. Which is why as the series progresses, they turn more and more to Inaho when it comes to battle, and given the shortage in the military following the attack, the students wind up drafted.


On the Martian side, Princess Asseylum had at least one loyal subject in Slaine Troyard, a child of Earth who was ‘rescued’ by the Martians, and while Asseylum shows him some affection, the rest of the Martians tend to look down on him as subhuman. When Asseylum is assassinated, he becomes just as intent on revenge as the conspirators hope, but his world is conflicted when he learns that Asseylum survived, and who the conspirators might be. His one loyalty remains to the princess, but no matter what he tries to rescue her, he’s thwarted at every turn.


The characters in the show, the way the story dynamic is established, Aldnoah.Zero should be compelling stuff. The conspirators behind the assassination try to erase the evidence by killing the assassins. The daughter of one of the assassins survives and winds up with the Princess and Inaho’s group, which makes things interesting. The students’ instructors from the academy survive; Yuki is Inaho’s sister, while Lt Marito has been sidelined for the last 15 years since the last war. He suffers from PTSD, has a drinking problem, and no one believes the report that he gave about his encounter with the Martians. As the show progresses, he has to work with the sister of his best friend, who died in that attack. You get similar complexities and back stories for many of the characters on both the Earth and the Martian sides. On top of that, the animators really push the boat out with the action sequences. The Martian attack at the start of the series is reminiscent of the Independence Day movie, it’s that spectacular.


But Aldnoah.Zero felt flat to me. I just couldn’t engage with it. For one thing, it doesn’t bear up under scrutiny. According to the story, the hypergate was discovered in 1972, after which Mars colonisation began. This story is set forty years later, 15 years after the first war with the Martians. In 25 years, the planet is colonised, develops a technologically superior society (thanks to alien artefacts), also develops a monarchy and a feudal system, and grows in size and population enough for it throw significant resources at a war with the planet Earth. The maths of that alone confounds me.


Worse for me are the characterisations of two of the main characters, Inaho and Slaine. Princess Asseylum is likeable enough, but her two ‘suitors’ fail to light up the screen. Inaho is supposed to be analytical, logical, and soft spoken, but he just comes across as dull, and uninvolved, a little too ‘Rain Man’. But he’s nothing compared to Slaine. Slaine is an idiot. Give him two choices, the right and the wrong; he’ll make the wrong choice every time. He’s so obnoxious in his stupidity that he actually detracts from the show. His actions in the final episode in this collection, beggar belief, and had me tempted to mark the show down considerably.


Aldnoah.Zero wants so much to be like other great and popular anime. The way the main character dynamics unfold speaks very much of Code Geass, the Mars versus Earth scenario calls to mind the Jovian enemies of Martian Successor Nadesico, while the giant robots, and the slow flight from danger reminds me of Gundam. The thing is all of these shows are better than Aldnoah.Zero, even if Aldnoah’s production values are sky high. Aldnoah.Zero is great fun to watch while you are watching it. Just don’t think about it afterwards. And Slaine is an idiot!