Sidonia no Kishi

When certain premises in anime are overused without variation they're quickly labeled as "run of the mill".. Like dystopian with mecha. Because of that many anime try to change minute details regarding the setting or premise to stand apart. However, if something normally considered "run of the mill" is executed with proper care it can be seen as rather refreshing. Knights of Sidonia is a rare case, not quite falling towards being called mediocre nor does it fall towards refreshing. Rather it all depends on the individual to make the judgement call.

Story: 6/10

Set in the distant future, the story takes place upon a spaceship ... where the lone surviving civilization of humanity live in a stagnant state of unrest due to the attacks of giant ominous creatures known only as "Gauna". These creatures are rather interesting as they seem to have the ability to mimic the action and appearance of things they encounter, giving them an eerie presence as the series progresses.
Due to these frequent attacks by the Gauna the story never feel bogged down to a slow paced narrative. This makes for good binge watching material as your curiosity pushes you to one episode after the next. Despite the pace being powered by propane the tone of the series is all over the place. The story goes from "Shingeki no Kyojin in space" to " let's build a harem" at a drop of a hat . This can be very off putting at times but it's slowly resolved back to an even tone towards the show's midpoint.

Art: 6/10

it's hard to judge the art for this anime. It's a mixture of both CGI and cell shaded animation. The CGI is rather jarring upon 1st encounter but quickly becomes tolerable as you become immersed in the show's setting. On normal occasions if someone were to tell me to watch a show composed entirely of CGI, I would probably think "well this is gonna be some ugly shit" but in this case it works. In fact I think it's safe to say that the CGI gives Knights of Sidonia it's special signature. This is especially true for the fight sequences. However when the focus are on the characters, their movements feel artificial and stiff. It's also obvious that recycled footage were used during the launch sequences and team formation. The flaws are too noticeable to ignore and ultimately impedes on the score from being higher.

Sound: 7/10

The music score is virtually nonexistent. It's all muddled together with very little difference separating them. Only standout were the ones played during Gauna encounters.. The opening song however is one worth noting. I has an orchestral tone while still being rather tranquil, making it one that you simply can't skip. Voice actors all perform their roles with no hiccups but there wasn't any standouts that come to mind. The only other standout being the sound affects pertaining to the lasers (heigus cannon), thrusters and other devices used.

Character: 3/10

The characters are all a dismal mess. None of them receive any decent characterization. Our main character is basically another "self insert" protagonist with little personality to speak of and is good at everything he does. Basically he's the vanilla of most MCs coming out today and can easily be replaced by one of many other series with no difference noticed.
the antagonist Kunato, upon 1st introduction seemed 1 note. Before he even muttered a word you already know he was going to be the 'arrogant, rich, short tempered douche '.. But surprisingly he becomes the only character with decent characterization. As the show progresses it also becomes easier to sympathize with him.
And finally a plethora of females! Because what's a harem without some right? But seriously there's only two female characters worth mentioning and that's Izana & Hoshijiro (Izana being non gender but I digress). Both of which have no real characterization beyond being 1 dimensional archetypes but they do get a more screentime than the rest.
OH YEAH! there's also a talking bear with a robot hand that we never get a proper explanation for but we'll ignore that lol

enjoyment: 7/10

despite this show's numerous flaws it's an enjoyable watch for those looking for a sci-fi popcorn flick. The characters were nothing special but the story carried it.

Overall: 6/10

This anime is made to be enjoyed by the casual viewing masses and is an easy watch. However seasonal anime fans will notice the overused tropes and archetypes in a heartbeat and that might be the deciding factor on whether they like it or think it's mediocre. Either way the series to the very least was entertaining with little down time to speak of and can be easily finished in one sitting. With that in mind I recommend giving this one a go.

“Attack on Titan in space? Well…. not quite.”

I was terribly hesitant to delve into another dystopian anime with mechs, as I feel it can be one of the most overused plot elements in any anime, but at the strong recommendation of a friend I tuned into Sidonia no Kishi (Knights of Sidonia). What I found was a CGI-infused space epic of sorts, which I even later found out to be compared often to Attack on Titan. It’s a show I wanted to like, but turned out to bland in a lot of ways, hindering its overall successes.

Knights of Sidonia takes ... place years after unidentified creatures known as “Gauna” invaded Earth, forcing the population to seek refuge elsewhere in space aboard Sidonia, a massive, self-supporting deep space vessel. Tanikaze, the MC in this series appears to have been living in the depths of Sidonia his entire life, practicing blowing Gauna away in a spacefighting simulator created by his Grandpa. His grandpa passes away and is left to venture out into the real world for the first time. Honestly, he ends up adjusting to never interacting with other humans before quite well. For initially unknown reasons, the captain of the Sidonia military takes a liking to Tanikaze and puts him into pilot training. There also seems to be an instant harem element present, as the academy’s vice president and other random girls blush at every glance from Tanikaze… of course they would.

The biggest gripe I have with the story in Knights of Sidonia is the actual lack of plot depth. You see battle after battle with lots of pilots dying, but no one seems to know anything about the Gauna or where they came from. You would think that after several centuries of fighting with these things… that SOMETHING would’ve been uncovered, just a little clue. Also, we come to find that there is an immortal council devised of Sidonia residents who seek immortality and provide general guidance to their figurehead, who just so happens to be the military captain. The only problem is, their formation is alluded to but never fully explained. And, to make it better… there’s also a chick that is a bear for some reason. In a ship full of humans, just one bear…. with a robotic hand. Nice. You think at one point Tanikaze would ask… “Hey Lala, why is it that you’re a bear?” Nope, of course it’s normal.

Tanikaze literally seems like the only intelligent pilot in existence. Despite the amazing amount of preparation that the other members of the military had to fight against the Gauna, their best four pilots get wiped out almost instantly in their first battle. Seems legit. To top it off, by the third battle or so the mediocre pilots are slaying ten to twenty of the Gauna at a time. All the battles seem to play out the same way as well, which makes the detailed and flashy battle scenes less impressive. Don’t worry though, Tanikaze will end up pulling through in the end! The story isn’t all bad though, the relationship between Tanikaze and Hoshijiro blossoms well, and the outlook of the dystopian society is well written… just not enough to make up for the blandness. I also didn’t notice a large amount of similarities between AoT and KoS, except for the low amount of people remaining from Earth and some unexplained entity that they’re fighting to survive against. I feel that archetype is presented in other animes as well.

An even weaker part of Knights of Sidonia is the characters and the writing of dialogue. Tanikaze is the stereotypical haremy badass of a protagonist, but his inner emotions and history are never really expounded upon at all. It would help me relate to the character more if these areas were explained… at least a little bit. Due to the heavy CGI used in the animation style, it can also be tasking and difficult to decipher proper body language of the characters themselves. If it weren’t for the random blushing redness on their faces, a comment could honestly be taken way out of context. The character’s movements made me slightly nostalgic to older shows like Reboot on Toonami, as they seemed to all move similarly. If you listen closely you can hear their bleeps and bloops.

The rest of the characters are so boring that when they die, I feel apathetic to the whole thing. If that’s the effect they were going for, they hit the nail on the head. I did feel Kunato got some development as the series went on, and I actually kind of felt bad for him from the stress consuming him from being a pilot and throwing Tanikaze under the bus regarding Hoshijiro. It’s a spark of some development but not much.

Some people say the CGI makes or breaks viewer’s experience with KoS, but I’m not quite onboard with that mentality. Sure, it is rather hard to watch at first, because it is different. And yes, it does detract from the static conversations between characters, but the action scenes are actually beautiful and well constructed. And they’re plentiful in the anime, which made me actually anticipate what would come next. The sound is also pretty good. The opening theme does remind me of Attack on Titan with its fanfare, and the sound effects of the Gardes are cool to say the least. The OST in general never lacked, and the dramatic openings of battles were orchestrated very well. Voice acting is alright, but nothing noteworthy. I had a hard time differentiating between some of the female cast.

Aside from the plot holes and unoriginal or bland characters, I did enjoy KoS. It was nonstop action which allowed me to watch almost the entire series in one sitting. The special effects were great, and I am a sucker for space mechs with oversized guns.

Knights of Sidonia could’ve been improved in several ways, and I think the CGI art style may have been a bit too ambitious for the writers to counterbalance with the plot and characters. Although I enjoyed it, I don’t think it would be for everyone. If you have some time to kill, and you’re looking for a lot of fast paced action, this one is for you. Thanks for reading!

I've gotta say, I'm not one to let some janky animation get in the way of a good story, but the animation was just horrendous. I'm a fan of good CG animation, but this was not it. The character design was okay - typical anime fare - but the characters were animated in this really choppy, static manner. Ugh. I tried to like it, but i just couldn't.

The overall story was interesting, and not having read manga yet, I'm interested to see where it goes. I like the main character's origin, however inconceivable it may be. I don't like the harem aspect of the story, ... though. I don't see why it needs to be there. It makes no sense to the story, it's distracting to no great effect.

Overall, it's interesting, and I hear that Netflix is picking up the second season. I will watch it, but I'm not really expecting much.

Knights of Sidonia is an anime that pushes a hard sci-fi storyline mixed with elements of "real robot" mecha in exploring the Sidonia fleet's struggles against a mysterious alien threat in space that has nearly driven humanity to the brink of extinction. The major element of Sidonia that sticks out prominently is the meticulous detail it provides to showing off the world of the Sidonia space colony. The series devotes a great amount of effort in detailing varying elements to the civilization of the series as humans aboard Sidonia have undergone genetic engineering that provide them with differing abilities to adapt to the space colony ... environment they live in that include utilizing cloning to increase population size and giving humans the ability to perform photosynthesis to reserve on food supplies. This meticulous detail also went into the mecha and technologies of the series as limitations of their capabilities, the zero gravity of space, potential for casualties and ammo/ energy reserves are factored into missions and battle tactics seen throughout the series a la past "real robot" titles like Gasaraki and Patlabor.

The other prominent element to Sidonia that sticks out is its high quality visuals. Milking use of 3DCG animation, the use of the technology helps to give more realistic detail to its character and scenery designs with subdued color tones to compliment the title's serious storytelling. Movement is very fluid throughout the series, best highlighted in showing off the realistic effects that gravity has on the human pilots and the intense action scenes that take place between the Sidonia mecha and the alien threat they are dealing with. The only setbacks with the use of 3DCG with Sidonia are that its use give character designs a somewhat plastic feel that can be rather noticeable in some camera angles and facial designs are poorly animated with limited range of expression.

When it comes to the story and characters of Knights of Sidonia as a whole, the series is a bit on the generic side in these areas. Sidonia mostly relies on story elements and character archetypes typical of sci-fi titles to carry along the series and it doesn't really offer anything new for the genre that I might have already seen before. The gifted teenage pilot and uptight, jealous rival seen in the form of Nagate and Norio's chemistry has been a recurring character dynamic of past titles and this dynamic is rather shallow since both characters don't get much in the way of dimension or depth. This issue also applies to the majority of other characters seen throughout the series as they mostly exist to fill specific tropes found in sci-fi anime, from the doomed love interest (which the Gundam franchise milked enough for many of its titles) to the secret group of superiors having ulterior motives hidden from the majority of those within their ranks. The whole "post-apocalyptic future where humanity struggles against an alien threat" premise is also nothing new and Sidonia offers nothing new to let it stick out from other titles milking similar plots.

There were also some noticeable issues I took notice of with the anime's plotting. Due to the limited depth given to much of the cast, the character deaths seen lack any impact and Sidonia makes a half-assed attempt to force viewers into caring for them by having characters aboard the Sidonia bond with Nagate on the episode they die in. One particular incident that happens during the middle of the series is a bit dumbfounding in how the perpetrator behind it can get off scot-free without any repercussions nor suspicion of it thoroughly investigated by the military, leading to a pointless case where Nagate is reduced to a depressed state and lashed out against by the Sidonia populace. I also have to wonder where in a series that is as meticulously realistic with its sci-fi depiction as Sidonia is, why it has a talking bear with a robotic arm in the form of Lala Hiyama as there is nothing revealed over why she appears as she is while everyone else aboard the Sidonia is human in appearance. In addition, the series ends inconclusively as there are lingering mysteries unresolved with several plot elements within Sidonia.

While Sidonia is pleasing enough with its animation and implementation of realistic elements for its sci-fi, the series doesn't offer much new to the sci-fi and mecha genres that have been seen from similar titles of its ilk, which made it hard for me to care much for the story and characters it had to offer up. Action and sci-fi fans may enjoy this if they overlook this problem. But Sidonia had me feeling like I seen the stuff it offered up too many times at this point in my 13 years of anime fandom.

It's quite a weird story how I came to watch this series. One day I was browsing anime series as to what to watch, and "Knights of Sidonia" caught my eye. Something immediately clicked in my mind. I just knew I've seen this somewhere a long time ago, but the description of the anime didn't jog anything, besides, it was a brand new series and I remembered seeing this title many years ago. It was bugging me to no end, but I just couldn't remember. So, on a whim, I decided to watch Knights of Sidonia, in hopes to uncover the mystery. All I can ... say, this is nothing I expected...

Basically, Knights of Sidonia is a quite average mecha anime with some pretty interesting ideas in art and direction. First of all, the story is blatantly bland and doesn't even worth discussing. It's your standard mecha action-schlock: Armageddon du jour threatens humanity with total destruction, humans fights back with huge mechas. Take unassuming "Bland Hero No#12628" who rises from nowhere with an uncanny ability to control said mechas better than even seasoned veterans, rising from zero to hero in an instant, pissing off the enemy, making other male pilots jealous and making all the girls wet their panties with joy. Then force in a totally out of place "highschool love triangle" romance subplot, throw in a handful of typecast side characters as plot devices, season with tragic backstory and shady government conspiracy, and finally marinate the whole thing in fast-paced shooty-explodey action scenes. Viola, Knights of Sidonia. It's not bad, but it's nothing revolutionary either, it serves it's purpose as far as story goes, nothing more, nothing less.

Where it gets interesting, is the art direction and the animation itself. For better or for worse, aside from a few parts, the whole thing is made using cell-shaded 3D CGI animation. Because of this, the whole art style uses really thin lines, incredibly bleached/desaturated color palette and significantly higher framerate, which can be pretty jarring against the hand-drawn backdrops sometimes. Also, it doesn't lend itself very well to individual characters, especially facial animations. All the characters, including the protagonist, look completely unremarkable and borderline devoid of emotions. When they do try to force emotions on the characters, it slides into Uncanny Valley territory pretty fast. Not to mention the (thankfully) few goofy/over-the-top fan service and comic relief scenes, where it comes off as downright jarring.

Criticism aside, the same CGI makes it possible to present some pretty detailed, jaw-dropping action scenes, particle effects and tech eye-candy. The higher framerate and the smooth animations make for some incredible, adrenaline-pumping action scenes and effects, that rarely ever been seen in anime before. The sci-fi/cyberpunk art direction is very well suited to this animation style, and creates some of the best looking scenes and landscapes I saw in ages. There is an obvious focus on realism regards to the tech, the animation and the story too, which gives the series a sense of consistency in place of the lacking characters.

While I was watching the last episode, I finally realized where I heard the name before. It was back in 2007, I played "Guitar Hero 3: Legends Of Rock", where I had to play a (then) relatively fresh Muse song with the title, yea you guessed it, "Knights of Cydonia". I remember it quite well, since it was a nightmare to get through that whole song on Expert. Funny enough, it has many common attributes with this anime: a pretty bland piece with bad pacing and plastic "instruments" but some pretty impressive technical flair that somehow makes it all worth it in the end.

According to the news, the second season is in production, so I'll be waiting. I'm pretty intrigued as to where this path will lead.

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| Knights of Sidonia : Review |
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Knights of Sidonia is an another Dystopian Sci-Fi Mecha series that's set in Space written by Tsutomu Nihei who was famous for his highly successful manga Blame! and bought life by Polygon Studios.
I went into the series without reading the manga and without much expectation , and it was an fairly average experience. I wouldn't necessarily say it was awful , but was it good enough to stand out from the rest ? No. Is it worth watching ? Let's find out shall we.

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Story - 6
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...
The premise of the story is solid and competent but nothing unique. Earth is destroyed , Humans now colonize in space on a giant spaceship which in now being attacked. But one of the glaring issues is while it supposed to be this dystopian setting , the viewer doesn't really feel that tension. Beside a few civilians dying in one episode and a few civilian protest scenes , you would expect the environment to be more chaotic. The pacing feels rushed , nothing is properly explained , the show keeping throwing half-baked information at you and it gets rather confusing at times. The romantic subplots feels cheesy.., forced and awkward.
Beside it's flaws , it does provide enough conflicts and space battles to keep the viewer interested , even tho most of it is cliché and predictable.

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Art - 3
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Dear Polygon studio , what the fuck ?
Okay , I don't hate CGI by default. I think CGI can look great when properly utilized , Ghost in the Shell : Innocence is a great example for that. But here , It's an atrocity.
I feel like they could have at least put some effort into making the different characters look unique , But No. Even the main characters of the series are indistinguishable from most of the side characters in the series. I was genuinely confused about who is who most of the time. This isn't helped by the poor characterization which I'll get into later.
All the backgrounds and environments are kept pretty simple , which isn't entirely a bad thing because it's doesn't feel bloated. Everything look black or white most of the times. Something that deserves fair points is how they animated the space battles , which looked fairly good most of the times , everything felt smooth and the effects were adequate.

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Sound - 6
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This is where a series like this could have truly shined. But sadly , Musical score of the series is almost non-existent. I value the soundtrack of a series very highly , and I felt this series could have profited from a good soundtrack and the lack of it was clearly apparent.
But what they should receive major points for the fantastic opening theme , which I never skipped even though I was bing watching the show and heard it 10 times in the past 12 hours.
I should also point out that the sound effects on the series was really well done , so plus points for that.

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Characters - 3
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Oh boy! , This is one of the sections that the series really faltered. I already mentioned that the characters were indistinguishable from each other because of the poor characters designs and the artwork , that really highlights how poor the characterization were. They didn't just simply look the same , there were no unique characteristics to identify them , most of them had any unique personalities and was pretty generic.
The main character was one of the most boring and bland protagonists I've seen in quite a while. In the first episode , his introduction was him stealing bread and doing somethings he shouldn't be doing. You would expect some kind of punishment , But the writers say "Well , Fuck that" and gives him a job as a pilot ?
I did hoped that the main character would get some development later on but character development was ignored here , almost completely. The MC was the same bland and interesting character when the series ended as when it started.
Most of the female characters in the show are there as romantic interests for the main character , and not interesting or unique , although fairly likable.
So in short , characters are bland and uninteresting.

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Enjoyment and Overall Experience - 5
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Enjoyment ? Honestly , not that much. The most enjoyable part for me was the opening theme. At times it felt like a chore mostly because I had to put in an effort to even differentiate characters from each other. and I expected more out of the soundtrack.
Would I recommend it ? No , But if you really like Mecha's ,Love Triangles and Space battles , you might want to give it a try.

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| Recommendations |
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[Neon Genesis Evangelion] Just a much better Dystopian Mecha series , that excels and blows Sidonia out of the water in every department.

[Attack on Titan] A series that truly captures the desperation and intensity of what it feels like to be corned and attacked as a race.

So many of my friends, and some who I consider to have good taste in anime, recommended Knights of Sidonia to me, so I came into it wtih high expectations, always a mistake. After the first episode I dropped it for awhile, but my curiosity over the large purple space monster pulled me back in.

Knights of Sidonia is a gorgeously animated sci-fi 'Last of the human race in a colony ship' series with entertaining space battles and perfect use of CGI. unfortunately, that was about all it had to offer.

Story:
The conflict with the Gauna is pretty much the extent of the story here, which is ... fine considering that the show is about the struggle to preserve the human race due to problems caused by the Gauna in the first place. However, this meant that the parts of the show devoted to other things, to the pilot's free time, just felt like a waste. The world of Sidonia, while beautiful, wasn't developed enough to make me feel like it was an actual place. I could have derived a similar amount of enjoyment from looking at an art book of this series.

Anyway, the Gauna destroyed earth in the year 2371 CE and several colony ships scattered into deep space in an hopes that humans might one day colonize another planet, but the ever-present Gauna threat means they will have to be dealt with before humanity can achieve that goal. Throughout the series, I didn't get the sense that anything was progressing aside from humanities ability to combat these giant space monsters which affirmed the fact that the Gauna conflict was the only thing actually happening. There are vague hints at political unrest but it's ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

One of my favorite parts was when three of the characters explored the city and reading Sidonian lore, I though this might lead to something interesting that wasn't space battles but it ended up tying right back into it.

Characters:
None of the characters were particularly memorable, in fact, after watching it recently I can only remember the name of one." NAGATE!" screamed every girl he had ever met while staring in horror as the Gauana wreaked havoc in a manner reminiscent of Krillin gaping uselessly at Vegeta using his powers. Unfortunately, this isn't DBZ, and that trope is inexcusable in an action anime that takes itself seriously.

The relationships between characters is almost Victorian. The sexual tension is so awkward it's hard to watch and everyone is stoic to the point of not having a personality at all. There's a girl with green hair and a mole who actually gets some character development but it's not enough to relieve the frustration.

However, the biggest issue is that all the characters are part of the military despite the fact that they are hopelessly ill suited to combat. They make irrational decisions, shut down in the face of danger, and behave in ways that are outright detrimental to themselves and their comrades, in and out of combat. The commander actually listens to her pilots when they have a good idea, which was a nice break from the constant barrage of authority figures in most shows who never listen to anyone ever.

Nagate's character is actually okay. He doesn't have much going on other than being a really good pilot, but that's okay considering he's lived underground his whole life with one other person, and devoted all his free time to pilot simulations. It makes sense that he'd have zero social skills.

Animation & Direction (Space battles):
This is exactly what I want to see out of a mecha, space battle anime. While it isn't really a mecha show per se, all of combat takes place inside them. The problem I have with mecha (and most action anime) in general is amount of time spent shouting the names of your moves, charging energy, and flashing lights without any actually action. The combat is fast paced, pretty to look at, and easy to follow. It's never chaotic, and things can only be hard to follow because every mech looks the same. However, this fits in with the uniform, militaristic style of the show, so it's not a problem at all. It's hard to put into words how well done the combat is because it's so rare to see anything like it. This was what kept me coming back along with the desire to learn more about the Gauna.

Character Design:
The character design is realistic and consistent. Not a single character's design break immersion. Realistic hair color (even the green haired girl's hair is muted eough to not be distracting) , and similar faces, you get the impression that they have homogenized over years of cloning/being grown in test tubes. Unfortunately, they are also pretty similar and easy to get confused because of it.

Style/Aesthetic:
Like I mentioned before, Knights of Sidnoia depicts consistent realism. It never deviated from this despite the space battles and Sidonia being drastically different, both in terms of pacing and content. This brings me to my next point.

Pacing:
I don't know if it's because the characters mostly lacked personality, or the absence of world building, but the segments of the show spent in Sidonia, which comprise most of the show, are really, really slow. There needed to be something other than shots of generic looking characters walking through gray hallways and reserved, uninteresting dialogue and there just wasn't. I wanted to see Sidonia, I wanted to learn about it's inhabitants, but I got almost nothing in those areas.

Sound:
Fantastic sound effects. Never have I heard weapons with so much Oomph. The sound really conveys just how devastating these weapons are. The score was properly dramatic for a fast paced robot vs. massive alien space battle.

Intro/Outro
The opening theme was perfect for the show. I wasn't crazy about it, but I acknowledged that one would be hard pressed to find a more appropriate song. The ending theme was a little energetic and dramatic for the tone of the show, but sounded cool.

If anyone knows of an anime with animation on par with this show that actually has interesting characters, an intriguing story and decent world building, please let me know.

In terms of the western market, the anime industry has been accelerating at a rapid rate since the reintroduction of Toonami to the television lineup in 2012. On the TV front, we had the first instance of a dub premiering at the same time as its original subbed version with Space Dandy at the beginning of this year, and even more progress has been made with the introduction of FUNimation's Broadcast Dubs this Fall, allowing fans access to the top dubbed series months before they would normally premiere. Even those outside the industry are beginning ... to invest in it. For the first time, Netflix has acquired the exclusive license to stream a certain anime title in the West, and it has already displayed plans to continue this trend in the future. So, how did the very first "Netflix Original" anime fare?

In terms of what type of science fiction this series goes for, it takes on the mantle of very straight and fact-based sci-fi, and the laws of physics and nature come into play very often. Ideas like propulsion and acceleration become key concepts when determining how battles sway and how life prospers on board the "Sidonia," and this ends up making battles a lot more thrilling and exciting because the lack of fantastical plot armor creates some extremely tense situations and often results in extremely high death tolls during battles. This turned what would have otherwise been an extremely generic plot into a captivating experience.

That being said, the truly generic nature of the plot itself is nearly unbearable at some points, and I found myself making a gagging motion whenever the standard dialogue clichés started popping up. There were also a lot of points where things just didn't make any sense. Without spoiling anything, there comes a point where Nagate messes up during a mission and it causes a big problem. Then, after the mission, one of the other soldiers actually beams him in the head with a rock. Now only was this infuriating on the level of "this crap probably wouldn't fly in an actual military," but also on the level of "here's that clichéd plot point where everyone hates the main character after he messes up, but then he does really well in the next mission so they're ok with him again." And, I kid you not, there is actually a montage scene where they flash between different moments on Nagate's rise up in power and respect within the military. This is just a sample of the unbelievably terrible writing that takes places between the epic thrills of each battle.

Characters really don't do much to differentiate themselves from their standard tropes either. Nagate is probably the most fleshed-out of the cast, but even his background of living in the underground alleys of "Sidonia" felt a bit generic. From there on out, between token love interests with no personality other than "love interest," and a quite literal bully character with very few redeeming qualities, the characters really don't do much to make themselves stand out. Character interactions also feel a bit forced at times, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fact that there are enough main characters fawning over Nagate to fill a small harem for any other anime. By the time they had added a fourth love interest, my eyes were about to swivel back into my head so hard that they'd fall out of their sockets.

And then, there's the bear. There is literally a talking bear with a robotic arm that actually gets to be a main character...just let that sink it for a minute. I don't know if this was their attempt to insert some kind of comic relief despite the fact that the bear never does anything comical, but if it was, then it worked just about as well as every single forced comedic relief scene in this series.

The animation was produced by Polygon Pictures, and to my knowledge, this is the first television anime series to be animated completely in 3D rendered models. This ended up creating an incredibly stark contrast in animation quality. On the plus side, the action sequences were some of the best I've seen from this year, with every single movement choreographed and animated to near perfection. The heavy attention to explosions and particles effects also added a great deal to every fight, though some felt less realistic than others. On the reverse side of this category, any animation that wasn't a fight sequence ranged from incredibly mediocre to unbelievably awful. The characters have an extremely limited range of facial features, blushing and crying looking extremely jagged and unnatural, and any sort of body movement looks severely robotic and completely destroys any attempt at immersing you in this story.

On the dub front, I actually couldn't tell you who exactly dubbed this series, but I can tell you that we have definitely found a fundamental flaw in Netflix's business plan for original anime series. I do have to give credit to Johnny Yong Bosch and Todd Haberkorn (credited as Todd Stone) though, but saying that those two were good in a dub is practically unnecessary since they've been voice acting legends for at least the past decade. Unfortunately, aside from a minor role by Spike Spencer (Shinji of Neon Genesis Evangelion), I did not recognize a single name on this dub cast. Upon further research, I discovered that a good portion of them had never even done any anime voice acting before they were cast for this series, and the effects of this were plain to seen. I personally was able to slosh through the dub because it's a heavy action series and Bosch can in fact carry an entire cast by himself, but I would not blame you in the slightest if you switched to subbed while watching this. Hopefully Netflix will learn from their mistakes before they begin their work on The Seven Deadly Sins.

The music was composed by Noriyuki Asakura of Rurouni Kenshin fame, and his mastery of soundtrack composition has certainly evolved since the late 90s. Battle sequences were always accompanied by grand and epic orchestrations mixed with heavy guitar work and electronics, while more intense non-battle scenes often carried creepy electronic elements; I will say that I felt somewhat unmoved by some of the softer tracks though. The opening theme "Sidonia" was performed by angela and plays us in with a heavy techno beat back by a march-inspired feel, while the ending theme "show" by Eri Kitamura plays us out with a heavy rock track. Additionally, both of these tracks are available for purchase on iTunes, and I would definitely recommend checking them out.

Overall, I'm once again left in a quandary over whether or not to recommend Knights of Sidonia. There are a ton of really, really awful moments in this series, yet I was still able to watch the next episode without any pause for a break. Ultimately, I'm feeling a bit generous towards it since it's the first anime exclusively licensed by a streaming company outside the direct anime industry, and any attempt to promote and expand anime in the western market should always be given a chance.

If you like heavy action anime, then definitely give this one a shot, but otherwise stay clear of it.

Around episode 4, a group of "elite" soldiers are selected to kill an enemy alien. The most epically "elite" of them all dies like a scrub when he rushes like a noob in front of the attacking enemy coz he wanted to die an hero in front of his gf. His gf also an "elite" goes mad with rage and rushes into the jaws of the alien to die. While this is happening the remain two "elites" twiddle their thumbs and give running commentary on what happening while the alien eats them both. "Elite soldiers aka Humanity's last hope" ladies and gentlemen.

A single episode later, ... the younger sister of one of these "elites" decides forming a harem with her, another chick, a hermaphrodite and the main character is more important than doing something human like, I dunno, maybe grieve for her "elite" brother but whatever. No wonder humanity is dying.

Nothing makes thematic sense in this anime. We are told humanity is under threat and we are supposed to give a fuck, though the characters themselves are more interested in a harem then in survival. Characters are build as "elite" soldiers for 4 episodes and when they fight, they do worse than a ten year olds first day at military camp.

No tension, no thematic progression.The whole theme of the story is how the main character falls in love with a hermaphrodite from his harem. If you like that sort of thing then maybe this is for you. If you want a sci-fi story with logical progression and characters who react realistically to outside events look elsewhere.

A satisfying rip-off of neon genesis evangelion with elements from star wars, ender's game and other sci-fi related works. For those who are fan of evangelion might find this one a little boring but still inyeresting enough to watch. The story and characthers are not that stimulating but the animation and its vibrating colors will make you addicted all day, not to mention the beautifulness of the observable space with the futuristic technology of this fictitious story.

Sidonia no Kishi, or Knights of Sidonia, is an alternative future where mankind flees like a pussy from an ever impending extinction.

Straight off the bat, I would like to say that Sidonia no Kishi has a very interesting and eye-catching idea to the whole show. The way humans live in this O'Neill cylinder-ish space station and that there are many different layers of the station. Also, clouds and lakes are even included to make it seems as if it is Earth. Kinda reminds me of Made In Abyss. However, the flaws of the show are quickly revealed as the show progresses in the first few ... episodes. The pacing, planning of scenes and the execution of scenarios are utterly horrible and butchered. When I notice this from the get-go of the first episode, I was deeply saddened and in a state of anger and crestfallen. Anger due to them ruining such a fascinating and intriguing concept, I could really see the potential in it and was looking forward to the show as a whole. Of course, saddened by what the studio did to present this concept of Sidonia no Kishi. To be more specific, our main character, for example, Nagate, a boy that came out of the depths of the station. He has little to no knowledge of the world above and yet, in the span of the first episode, he is found by the authorities and instantly given a position at the school for pilots. This compiled with the fact that we the audience know nothing seems very rushed and out of pace. I was truly shocked by what was happening and how it happened so fast. Plus, by the next episode, our character just blends in normally like he was there begin with anyways. Additionally, how is our character not even shock to see a talking bear? Like, I was shocked and he just took it as if it were natural to see a talking bear. Talking about character issue, Norio, or the super edgy prideful piece of shit. He is painfully shallow and badly written, like, of course, there has to be that kid that wants all the spotlight to himself and proceeds to challenge Nagate. But by challenge, I mean sabotage, and by sabotage, I mean committing an outright murder to get the spotlight. How the hell is students like him recruited in the school, I just can't fandom what the fuck he did just to get appraised. What's worse, or should I say for the better, is that he didn't have the balls to carry on his doing and loses his shit when he hears the voice of Hoshijiro. I am at least glad the show excluded him from the episodes that came after and till the end because I really do not want to see more screen time of his edgelord ass. Like, the time when he bitch slaps Izana after knocking into by accident AND she got her leg piece by a wooden stick, like, that, in bird culture, is considered a dick move. Not all is bad, thankfully, I love Izana, she is such a breath of fresh air to the horrible characters around her and Nagate got better in the later episode. What I can't stand is Kobayashi and why couldn't they pick any other name for her, I love Kobayashi for the dragon maid series. Anyway, who placed this lunatic as the head of the station. She is literally an insane person that makes, not roughness actions, but dumb and stupid ones. Like the time she engaged a turn of the station in an instant without giving time for the people to react, resulting in a ton of flying bodies splattering across the station's internal. I bet in her mind it's like 'LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR'. Plus all she does is agree at commands and disagree at some, only to bring up stupid choices. Moreover, the show does no effort in presenting time in the series. That I mean the sense of time in the show, many a time the show skipped or fast forward the scenarios that are happening, resulting in, what seemed to be a short time, happened over a long duration. The failure in doing that just makes scenes transition off and out of place. Lastly, the show does a trash job on making human pilots worthy of something, by that I mean the way the show presents the death of pilots on every mission doesn't seem impactfully enough and that just resembles disposable underwear to me. You have to be kidding, how did the 4, star pilots train hard and well for an attack and instantly got rekted in the first battle without putting much of a fight. Truly, that is so disappointing to see.


-SCORES-

Character- 5/10: Love Izana, Hoshijiro (even her placenta form), the last half of Nagate and of course, Lala. The rest of the characters just seemed too shallow and weak, and Kobayashi is just a lunatic.

Art- 8/10: I honestly think they did a great job on the art, I absolutely adore the half-time art scenes of episodes, probably from the manga but those are gorgeous to me. Other than the times when scenes are too bright and that their clothing is always dirty, I say the style they made on was pretty and decent. Nowhere close the studio Orange standard of 3D but still a decent one.

Writing- 4/10: Planning, pacing, storyboard, character-wise, execution, dialog, and some others are weak. I disapprove of the implementation of Slice Of Life and Romance genre at first, but after seeing countless 'Sortie Alert', I just want them to continue the path of the world around them in the station and not what is going on outside. The 'Sortie Alert' is probably used too many times, I sigh whenever something interesting is happening and then,' Sortie Alert' appears. For Nagate, it's back to sorties for you.

Sound- 7/10: The did a decent job, the intro is nice by everything seems kinda flushed out. Like I just want to enjoy it at max but the studio probably forgot to increase the volume of the intro in production.

Overall, please for the love, please get better in the next season. I really love the concept but hate the studio for presenting it in such a shit manner.

Strong 4 to a Light 5

Why do we root for the main characters, because we can relate to them.
Why are we thrilled to see the characters triumph, because we know how hard they worked.
Why do we want to see the characters have a happy ending, because they deserve it.

I do not root for the main character of this anime, because no one can not relate to him, he can operate an advanced piece of technology without the need to of rigorous training and dedication. the main character can make women swoon over him without work and while being the extremely uninteresting.

I am not thrilled to see the main character ... triumph because i do not believe he has put in enough work to trump. When i can see a character fall and pick them self up i can relate, humans learn from trials and tribulations this main characters can just do.

Lastly, why don't i care if these characters have a happy ending, because they haven't fought hard enough for it. (sorry if repeating)

Story: Fairly generic attack on titan stuff but that's not a real negative, but the show doesn't really bring anything new to the genre

Characters: Unrelatable, too much plot armor, when other characters drop like flies i wanna know how the main characters are able to avoid death.

Art: i hate the cgi but i think the setting and has some unique aspects to it that i enjoy.

Overall: I believe this is a very generic average show and i don't care for the characters and to me the characters matter far more than everything else. But i do believe some people especially those getting into anime can find enjoyment in this show (i really liked this show in my early anime days, few years ago), but there are too many flaws for me.

I started watching it because it was produced by Netflix. I thought it will have a different flavor, considering I’ve been watching Mobile Suit Gundam on the sides. I loved the animation but it has a generic space anime plot; a dystopian world trying to protect itself from an existential threat to humans and suddenly a savior comes along. The origin of Gauna, space beasts that Sidonia is protecting itself with is still in the mist. I wish they had explored the Gauna more.

I like the anime that is why I am giving it a “good” rating but it is nothing out of the ordinary. ... Production value is high but the story is cliche.