15 KiB
Aldnoah Zero, Rationalist Mech Anime?
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Author: u/Sagebrysh Rank 7 Pragmatist*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3fj2e1/aldnoah_zero_rationalist_mech_anime/
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Score: 5
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Created: 2015-08-02T18:07:23
Post:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldnoah.Zero
In 1972, an ancient alien hypergate was discovered on the surface of the moon. Using this technology, humanity began migrating to Mars and settling there. After settlers discovered additional advanced technology, the Vers Empire was founded, which claimed Mars and its secrets for themselves. Later, the Vers Empire declared war on Earth, and in 1999, a battle on the Moon's surface caused the hypergate to explode, shattering the Moon and scattering remnants into a debris belt around the planet. Cut off from Mars, the remnants of the Vers Imperial Army established several massive orbital space stations within the debris belt and a ceasefire was established. 15 years later, in 2014, an attack on the Vers princess during a peace mission causes the Empire to launch a new attack on Earth, this time determined to conquer it once and for all.
I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with Aldnoah, but its easily one of my favourite anime. It comes off as very clever and intelligent, the main characters use their wits to win battles by outsmarting the more powerful martian mechs with combined arms and careful positioning. Is anyone else a fan of Aldnoah Zero? Think it qualifies as rational fiction?
Comments:
u/blazinghand [+8] Chaos Undivided (10 hours later)
Aldnoah Zero was amazing for the first three or four episodes and then went downhill quite a bit in my opinion.
Good points: The main character solves problems and overcomes enemies with super mechs using his intelligence rather than the POWER OF HIS FIGHTING SPIRIT or his MANLY TEENAGE ANGST or BERSERKER FURY. He has a weaker mech, rather than a stronger mech, than his adversaries, so you feel some amount of tension. At first, a lot of what he does involves attacking his enemy's weaknesses in organization and military discipline, and playing to the strengths of his own forces. The way the initial invasion is portrayed is great too.
Bad points: The plot goes downhill pretty quickly. The characters don't develop much. Overall the character motivations are pretty bad. A lot of what's going on doesn't make a huge amount of sense, especially during Season 2. The entire Season 2 plot loses coherency even worse than Season 1 plot post episode 4.
If you want to watch it, just watch the first 4 episodes. They are well plotted and the pacing is great. I haven't checked but I get the feeling they fired the author or deviated from the manga or something after the first 4 episodes because the tone and pacing gets much worse.
If you want to get some kind of closure, watch the first season and pretend there's no second season, since everything that happens after the end of season 1 is a mondo asspull.
u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
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u/blazinghand [+2] Chaos Undivided (11 hours later)
Ah, that makes sense.
Episode 3 has some of the most explicitly rational stuff going on, during the lead-up and the battle itself.
u/None [+0] (19 hours later)
Gen Urobuchi only wrote the first three episodes, which might be why they were better.
Not sure if ironic...
u/None [+1] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Slytherin plots and bastardry != rational.
u/RMcD94 [+8] (3 hours later)
I wouldn't think it would qualify. There is a ton of deus ex which isn't part and parcel of rational fiction. It's better than most anime for sure in terms of component sensible characters but I imagine most people here would be annoyed at the spoiler, and obviously mech's themselves are usually inherently irrational and there's no logic given for the usage of them.
Most of the bad guys (especially the knights) make little sense in terms of power level which leads to a number of scenes that completely lack tension. It might make more sense if the people piloting the mechs weren't human but some of the stuff is just utterly ridiculous and has to be idiot ball, the biggest of which I can think of is spoiler.
I definitely expect a higher standard than that out of rational fiction, but perhaps it is just me.
The only animes that tend to qualify in terms of not having people holding the idiot balls are slice of life stuff, and those often don't tick off any of the other boxes.
Edit: I could write longer comments on the anime since I watched it recently if anyone is interested, I posted some stream of consciousness stuff on the discussion threads on myanimelist when I was watching it just to vent.
u/Sagebrysh [+2] Rank 7 Pragmatist (3 hours later)
Regarding the magic super eye, we were constantly shown the downsides of its use, and how it was a highly experimental piece of technology that was no without some huge drawbacks.
I think the reasoning behind the Nilokeras having the weakspot was that if the shield completely enclosed the mech, it would have no way to see. It couldn't cover its feet with the shield or it would fall through the ground. It wasn't in the front though, it was in the back, under its armpit, in a really non-obvious spot. The spot also was armoured, they cut into with a giant field knife first and then shot bullets into the hole they made.
Regarding the martians though, they do tend to hold the idiot ball pretty often it seems like. Its less that they're dumb, because they're certainly not dumb, its more that they're blindsided by their own hubris. After they carve a path of destruction across the Earth as easily as buttering toast, they got complacent and assumed nothing could threaten them. The other thing they do is put a ton of specialisation into their mechs. There's no guns or missiles or anything on the Nilokeras, they didn't utilize combined arms nearly effectively enough, and they mostly assumed they would be so incredibly badass that no one could so much as touch them. Their own sense of moral and intellectual superiority blinded them to the dangers coming their way.
Feel free to rant on, that's generally the idea of having a discussion.
u/RMcD94 [+6] (3 hours later)
Regarding the magic super eye, we were constantly shown the downsides of its use, and how it was a highly experimental piece of technology that was no without some huge drawbacks.
The downsides of its OVERuse, is what we were shown. And the downsides were slim picking in a war where everyone without said OP item dies. What is the combat survivability of non-Inaho? I'm sure it wasn't high the amount of mechs we see get utterly destroyed before he comes in and saves the day.
There's also that time where he aims on behalf of the battleship? What? WHAT?! How can an eye have more targetting capabilities than AN ALDNOAH POWERED battleship?
I think the reasoning behind the Nilokeras having the weakspot was that if the shield completely enclosed the mech, it would have no way to see.
Yes that was the reason they said. It is incredibly illogical considering as you just mention the feet are uncovered too (so your drone signals could propagate through that). The correct place to put it if for some reason you can't send signals through the earth is on the very top of the head.
The spot also was armoured, they cut into with a giant field knife first and then shot bullets into the hole they made.
https://youtu.be/eSHKzlZo9Yg?t=198
Well you were right about being rear armour, however it is still on a large missile target (and if you exploded it before impact which many explosions do then you would destroy it) and the knife cuts through regular armoured kataphracts which suggests to me that it isn't extra armoured (also it's a good thing that guy stood absolutely still during the entire murder scene).
But the fact that you can see the mech instead of a black spot means that photons do go in and out of the thing so he could see fine out of it.
Its less that they're dumb, because they're certainly not dumb, its more that they're blindsided by their own hubris.
They are pretty dumb. Their use of the technology requires an absurd consistent dumbness throughout their own fairly competitive society. The knights are all about appearing better than each other so many if the guy with the fucking INFINITE MASS REPLICATOR put it to any reasonable use?!
After they carve a path of destruction across the Earth as easily as buttering toast, they got complacent and assumed nothing could threaten them.
Except they (for whatever reason) didn't win the first war? Why didn't they win the first war? It wasn't explained (there's only one season right? That's all I've seen) as I remember. But anyway they shouldn't be complacent for that whole reason. Not only that if we allow someone to be complacent at the start then they should snap out of it after 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 have been killed by someone. Even in general complacent people don't tend to be so, uh, peaked? I'm not sure what the word is. They show and act capable at some points, then completely incapable at other and it's totally inconsistent when it is.
All the rest of the stuff is so right, but I don't think you can pawn it all off on designed moral superiority (which never made any sense anyway considering how young the population on Mars is)
Feel free to rant on, that's generally the idea of having a discussion.
I ranted at the time but you're stirring up my repressed memories ^^
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1224887&show=500
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1233869&show=450
For reference those are my two stream of consciousness posts, but because I tend to watch anime while on the go I don't usually write stuff because typing on the phone is a disaster for writing. So I only really write stuff if I happened to finish it when I get home or I was so angry I had to write about it.
And like I said Aldnoah Zero was a whole lot better than 99% of anime (my hair is gone from Log Horizon).
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (11 days later)
Have you written any analysis of Log Horizon? I would love to read that.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (11 days later)
Really? I don't think I am educated enough to write any serious analysis. At best it'd be a stream of consciousness with mistakes galore ala the above stuff.
I finished the first season of Log Horizon and the best place if you want a ramble rant is probably to check my anime list comment history.
http://myanimelist.net/forum/index.php?action=search&q=&u=RMcD&uloc=1&loc=-1
I haven't started the second season yet but if there's interest I could make an effort to type up my thoughts on it.
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (11 days later)
Please feel free to do so, as I have read fairly little criticism and a lot of praise for Log Horizon, and my own opinion is very positive on it as well.
I would love to read a well thought critique of it.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (11 days later)
I have seen a fair bit of criticism for Log horizon especially in terms of pacing.
I'm unlikely to write up anything more on the first season, I covered most of my problems with it on myanimelist.net and the remaining episodes didn't bother me enough to add anything up.
I would recommend the episode 15 comment as unusually for me I offered some constructive advice (including completely changing the first five episodes) however a problem reading any of those rants is I assume recent familiarity with the source material but it's less so in that one.
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=726215&show=270
If I watch the second season then I'll write up criticisms for that. I am not a computer at the moment but if you point me to someone making a strance on it I find it a lot easier to criticise a position (example in this thread) then I might tear into it.
u/luminarium [+3] (2 hours later)
Yes, definitely qualifies as rational fiction and possibly my favorite anime for that season.
u/None [+5] (3 hours later)
My bias: I really liked S1. I really^really^really hated S2.
Aldnoah's first season manages to be driven by fairly rational characters, and the technology (provided you get over the silliness that is "tanks with legs and jetpacks") does as well. The fights tend to hinge on some aspect of applied physics, with a decent high school-level explanation given in-world.
It's not without its problems; my beef with the show is that the protagonist is an emotionless deus-ex with perfect piloting skills and little depth of character. The side characters show development... but are largely ignored later.The second season is far from rational. I strongly recommend pretending it did not happen; the ending of S1 is better without it. Brain dump of Spoilers
u/RMcD94 [+3] (3 hours later)
I had forgotten about how ridiculous that "twist" was. Is that season 1 finale or mid-season? On crunchyroll it was all under one season.
my beef with the show is that the protagonist is an emotionless deus-ex with perfect piloting skills and little depth of character.
But aren't high schoolers the best military tacticians and tank commanders (or maybe fight jet pilots?) in the real world?
u/None [+3] (4 hours later)
u/Sagebrysh [+1] Rank 7 Pragmatist (6 hours later)
Some shark jumping definitely occurred in Aldnoah. I thought the concept was solid, even if it wasn't perfectly executed. Someone should do a rational-fic of it.
u/CitrusJ [+2] (2 hours later)
Never heard of, I'm going to check it out now though!