Aldnoah.Zero Episode 10 Discussion

rickywolfy said:
Yay! x3
Princess Asseylum is alive. :3 That's good to know~! xD
And...that freaking Rayet who betrayed the Terrans is under custody know....she deserved it.......
Damn bitch. O-O

*Clears Throat*

SO! Shit is about to go DOWN! Final war is almost here....2 more episodes to go....what to do after this anime is over. D:

Dunamis said:
It's so sad that this series only has 12 eps. Feel like they could have do so much more.

The princess surviving was kind of expected. Looking forward to see what Slaine will do.

koroX said:


Yeah, it would have been awesome if it had more episodes.

ZaldiuntheGerman said:
blegh, I feel like every time this anime is given an opportunity to push the boundary and become something a little more... special, I guess, it wastes it. You know what would've been a more interesting turn of events? If Inaho couldn't have successfully saved Seylum's life, then Rayet killed herself in front of them.

Then Saazbaum's flying fortress or whatever the fuck it is descends upon the base, slaughters everybody, and Mars takes Earth for itself. This happens, of course, after Saazbaum actually shoots Slaine square in the face like the anime leads you to believe he's about to do for all of two seconds.

The bad guys win. The good guys lose. The anime ends in one cour. FIN

I'm not gonna say there's no merit to what's going on now; Saazbaum is actually becoming quite a respectable antagonist, surprisingly enough. But I feel like it could've done better.

deadoptimist said:


2) Orlaine. Her death is important, though it is mostly a huge plot device (unless chickenonthepan's theory is correct, and she did or does something besides dying) and it was shown terribly. But fine, it has consequences. Though it is kinda strange to take revenge for someone who was killed in the process of killing others. And, again, this is what makes Saazbaum at least slightly interesting.

chickenonthepan said:
Quite agree with you on all of the thought above.

But about Okisuke's death, I think that's Urobuchi's part. They indeed show some grief in ep 3, some in ep 4, but not after that. When Urobuchi stops writing, I think the other writer forgot to catch up on this detail. Same about Marito's syndrome. The inconsistency when changing the writers.

I hope they won't let me down this time. Make things right for once, Aldnoah. :))

deadoptimist said:

I hope that they will make Orlaine an important character. Otherwise I will be even more angry at the series bacause of another example of "woman in refigerator" trope.

deadoptimist said:


Wow. But what will they do afterwards?

Though I agree that for an anime about war Aldnoah has few meaningful deaths and is very bad at showing the effect of death on people. Rayet should've died or at least killed someone in this episode, if they want us to take the situation seriously. And the characters should be affected by what's happening more.
Everything is like in the scene, where Inaho shoots down Slaine's plane. If he wanted him out of the picture, he should've killed him, otherwise his action had no meaning. But despite the fact that Aldnoah tries to show fighting, it is afraid to show blood.

Let's sum up the body count and the reactions to it:
1) Princess' double. Nobody gives a f*** about her. Now I understand that it was her work, but shouldn't the princess be at least a little sad - another girl died in her stead, and they even should've met at some point.

2) Tons of people, when the castles landed. Surprisingly we don't see any heart-wrenching scenes among the refugees on the ships, though people tend to be very sad after loss of their homes or beloved ones. Usually someone is left behing even in case of successfull evacuation. Hell, people are sad to lose their cat and nobody evacuates cats.

3) A lot of soldiers. Nobody gives a f*** again. Calm wants to be a pilot even after seeing them being butchered. Ok. Yuki talks about it a bit, but in a calm and matter-of-factly manner.

4) Schoolboy from Inaho's crew. Children don't give a f***. Calm looks at his photo once, reminds bout his death to Inaho once, and that's it. Then he accepts Asseylum in matter of seconds, because she is cute.

5) Rayet's father. Rayet is a better character, so she mourns spectacularly. Ok, that's why she makes this show bearable.

6) Some knights. Nobody gives a f***. Let's assume, that Cruhteo doesn't give it about Trilliam, because he is a sadistic bastard, but it is beyond me, why we don't see any reaction from other knights. Fine, maybe everyone on Cruhteo's castle is sociopathic, but what about Femianne? Shouldn't her underlings get involved in the plot after her death?

7) Cruhteo. Slaine is slightly sad (what was written in the official materials? that he was a father figure to Slaine? they failed at depicting this very interesting type of relationship miserably.) We don't see any reaction to loss of the second in command among the knights. Everyone in his huge castle is supposed to be dead, like no survivors at all, which seems unrealistic.

So, for 7 entries only 1,75 f***s are given. (I count the schoolboy as 0,5 and Cruhteo as 0,25.)

Schoolchildren are cheerful. We don't see how the dead pilots are buried (or what is the reaction of others, if their bodies are abandoned). We don't see how the crew mourns their losses. There're no grief-stricken refugees. Nobody worries about their relatives abroad. Nobody is angry at Asseylum. There're no wounded in the medical even after fights (And, you know, if they recover damaged kats, they should take out the bloody remains somehow). Martian knights are unfazed by their losses. Marito is the only one, who suffers from war, and it is the past war, despite the fact that the population of the Earth is being brutally wiped out at that very moment.

The only important deaths are in the past - in flashbacks.
1) Humeray. And that's why Marito is an ok character.
2) Orlaine. Her death is important, though it is mostly a huge plot device (unless chickenonthepan's theory is correct, and she did or does something besides dying) and it was shown terribly. But fine, it has consequences. Though it is kinda strange to take revenge for someone who was killed in the process of killing others. And, again, this is what makes Saazbaum at least slightly interesting.

So-o, nope, I don't think that they do well on showing war, which is supposedly the center of the plot.

Sorry for the long post, I got caught in summing it up for myself.

chickenonthepan said:
Stick with me to the end then. :))

Honestly, something inside me tells me that Saazbaum will have a chance to see Orlene's last message for him before dying. He deserves a better death than other Martians. He needs to die with a smile, redeeming himself, not boom -> death. He is not entirely evil.

And from what I can see, they are softening Saazbaum to give him this kind of death.

ZaldiuntheGerman said:
I didn't even think about most of this, to be honest, but you're right. However, I will say that I gave fucks about Cruhteo's death. The entire series I thought the Orbital Knights were sadistic jackoffs and it turns out Cruhteo was actually going to be the saving grace - then he's killed right as he's about to redeem himself. That actually made me very, very interested in everything that was about to happen next. The last episode did too with the major cliffhanger.

I feel like this episode pretty much blew it, though. There was three times the viewer is led to believe someone important is going to die, and it fails each time. These fake death BS only works in anime which are willing to be "edgy" enough to actually kill important characters, which Aldnoah so far has not been. Thus, every time you actually think a character's life is at risk, there's no thrill or suspense because you know they're going to survive somehow.

Keten said:
Ya... I've been saying since episode 2 that nobody seems to care about death...

The series is more about shocking the viewer with death as opposed to actually showing the impact it has. When Rayet's father died, we barely knew him, he got like 2 lines before he was a goner. It wasn't slow, it came out of no where. It added to Rayets character, but the fact that we didn't even get to see the impact it really had on her until this episode is a bit ridiculous. There should have been more scenes of her dealing with it beforehand. Since they waited all the way till episode 10 it feels like she just SUDDENLY has problems. Which granted that's fine... if it was foreshadowed... but it really wasn't.

Inaho's friend. Why should I care about him? Again, they focused more on shocking the viewer by having him die before we even got a chance to know him enough to learn his name. So all we have to go off of is the reaction his friends had... which was along the lines of, "Can't believe hes dead..." -one episode later- "And we're over it!". Never mentioned him again, back to super happy slice of life times!

What about those countless soldiers who were slaughtered? Don't people know them? Shouldn't there be some realm of despair after a battle because of all the people who died? No? Just more super happy slice of life times?

They never show the impact it has on people, the weight that people feel. The only ones that felt that were Marito, Rayet and Saazbaum. Even then it isn't explored as much as I'd like it to be because they are constantly interrupted by super happy slice of life times and action scenes that come out of no where. So there's little time to flesh out those characters, thus their scenes are often rushed or ridiculously handled.

It's kind of a farce. Again, if the show was just a straight action show and didn't take itself seriously, I wouldn't mind much, but when it acts like it's this grand scale sci-fi epic... I feel like it's insulting 'War' and 'Death' as topics.

Keten said:


Like.. Oh no... They are launching an attack now... Okay...? Why should I care? It's not like the characters are gonna care if a bunch of people die and it's not like I know them well enough to really care either because the show doesn't focus on them. This would be okay if they just focused on the action part of it because then I could just sit back with popcorn and watch it happen but if it actually expects me to care about a characters death, they have to introduce the character, give them personality, flesh them out, possibly develop them, THEN kill them and show the effect it has on those around him.

deadoptimist said:
To be honest, I am surprised by the degree. Usually even in a very bad fiction, if there is war, than there're corpses, blood, funerals and crying people, cause it is the main features of the setting. Aldnoah is just so sanitized. It seems like an oh-so-serious anime about space war for very young shipper girls. And it's very mechanical - they do all the steps, but there is no truly living parts.


Ah, and also - nice to see you again, Keten.

Keten said:
[
Lifeless! Thank you. That is how this anime feels, lifeless. It's like the creators don't care to give any sort of depth to the story or characters. Either that or when they do try, they half-ass it like it's not important and simplify it. The creators don't care about telling an engaging story or writing engaging characters or having any sort of themes to it, they just want you to believe they care about that stuff. I can't look at this show and go, "Oh ya, the creators totally cared when writing this thing". Not just the episodes after Urobuchi left, I don't think Urobuchi cared in the episodes he wrote either. This just feels like a lifeless production meant to do nothing but make a profit.

chickenonthepan said:

Don't make me lose hope. XD

I am waiting for the death of Saazbaum and Orlene having some impacts.

Waiting for a light spark at the end of the tunnel. :))

Keten said:


Lifeless! Thank you. That is how this anime feels, lifeless. It's like the creators don't care to give any sort of depth to the story or characters. Either that or when they do try, they half-ass it like it's not important and simplify it. The creators don't care about telling an engaging story or writing engaging characters or having any sort of themes to it, they just want you to believe they care about that stuff. I can't look at this show and go, "Oh ya, the creators totally cared when writing this thing". Not just the episodes after Urobuchi left, I don't think Urobuchi cared in the episodes he wrote either. This just feels like a lifeless production meant to do nothing but make a profit.

@chickenonthepan

I suppose so, but even that ending can be done well if the writing is good. Which it isn't. If they want to have a kill them all ending then they have to at least make me care about the characters first. If it's just, "WAR IS BAD BECAUSE PEOPLE DIE BLAH BLAH BLAH" then it's just pretentious for pretending to be a deep show when really it was just a kill them all ending which is kind of lazy... Not that the show doesn't have it's fair share of pretentiousness already but still.

chickenonthepan said:
Your comments make me have a feeling that:

Would it be better if this show didn't use mecha and focusing on "badass" action? Instead, it focused on love and war. Make romance the main plot. Make the cruelty of war the main plot. Tear and blood. Mecha and action were subplots.

I guess it is harder to sell that way though.

chickenonthepan said:
Your comments make me have a feeling that:

Would it be better if this show didn't use mecha and focusing on "badass" action? Instead, it focused on love and war. Make romance the main plot. Make the cruelty of war the main plot. Tear and blood. Mecha and action were subplots.

I guess it is harder to sell that way though.

deadoptimist said:


That's another curious thing about Aldnoah. It seems that it has a severe problem with screentime management. I think that fitting both action and personal drama in a two-cour show shouldn't be hard. There're movies, that pull it off, even though they're an hour and a half long.
Myabe it would be easier, it they dropped useless characters and half-hearted fanservice, like, for example, Inaho's friends and their interactions, long shots at naked thighs, the princess hopping around seaguls, Slaine being beaten with every object on a castle...

It looks, like Kaioshin_Sama is right, and they show whatever they think they can sell better. It could be more bearable, if they were more honest about it, because at the moment the show gives off a sickening impression, that they believe that they're clever about hiding the fact that their work is purely commercial.

What surprises me, is that even in the shittiest shows, there is often something raw, something living, maybe by mistake or because someone took his or her work seriously. I can't find such a thing in Aldnoah at the moment. And during the last episode they started killing off the last characters, who were breathing, - Saazbaum and Rayet. Marito still gives me some hope, but I worry after what doctor did.

Kaioshin_Sama said:


Historically grand scale mecha/sci anime have run either 26 or 50 episodes straight through or at the very least 25+25. I don't think I've managed to find a split cour 24 episode series in this genre that has ever managed it's tie particularly well. I don't think it can actually be done personally, it's just not suited for this sort of compression and having to fit everything into two distinct parts with two big plot climaxes that are hard locked to specific episodes. It sort of limits what you can do and how you can use your time. Aldnoah.Zero isn't doing too bad compared to some of it's contemporaries here that have chosen to go with the whole 12+12 approach, perhaps it's even doing a little better, but it still has some pretty significant problems that I think could probably be solved with a staff and producers that seems to care more beyond the advertising and seeming reliance on their popularity alone which will only get you so far at the end of the day.

Mariola-chan said:
Again I feel like I'm different for all AZ watchers, because I really hated the 'let's rescue Hime!' scene, I was dissapointed that she was alive (she was choked not drowned. eh.), I really don't like Inaho x Hime, I actually don't like any ship that includes Hime. And I don't hate on Rayet and try to understand her.

Still believe that Cruhteo is alive. It was said that the owner can turn off the Aldnoah drive when he wants to, so I hope that he's pretending that he's dead. Please let it be true.

And I really hope that Slaine won't join Saazbaum. I just don't know anymore what this poor guy should do now. Eh.

I just can't. I'M SO DISSAPOINTED that Hime is alive, that it made me feel bad through the whole episode. Meh.

Mariola-chan said:
Again I feel like I'm different for all AZ watchers, because I really hated the 'let's rescue Hime!' scene, I was dissapointed that she was alive (she was choked not drowned. eh.), I really don't like Inaho x Hime, I actually don't like any ship that includes Hime. And I don't hate on Rayet and try to understand her.

Still believe that Cruhteo is alive. It was said that the owner can turn off the Aldnoah drive when he wants to, so I hope that he's pretending that he's dead. Please let it be true.

And I really hope that Slaine won't join Saazbaum. I just don't know anymore what this poor guy should do now. Eh.

I just can't. I'M SO DISSAPOINTED that Hime is alive, that it made me feel bad through the whole episode. Meh.

DerpHole said:
I really fuking hate when i do this to myself. i sart a series ad then it ends on a fucking cliffhanger and i have to wait longer than a pregnant bitch whos expecting

chickenonthepan said:


Well, this is exactly why many people are so heartless to predict that Earth will lose the final battle and only Deucalion can escape.

The death in this show is light as feather. So that people don't care that how many Terrans will die, just the main characters survive is enough. And they also hope that will happen so the conflict can switch to Mars side, making a certain character having more appeal in the plot.

I personally don't think that ending will happen. But I blame the writing make people think lives of innocent people as nothing like that.

If that ending happens though, we can conclude that this show care nothing about death. No need anymore debate and criticism.

laldonkaments said:

- Saazbaum shooting off Slaine's cuffs from that angle... srsly? Is this some Hollywood action movie or what?

Kaioshin_Sama said:


In a way yeah it kind of is and I'm pretty sure it's been the intent all along, I just never realized the degree to which it would be the case. Aside from the extremely obvious reliance on big time star power (Urobuchi, Aoki, Sawano, Kajiura) at least as far as anime can be concerned, a lot about this show feels very Hollywood in it's approach with how the tempo and pacing seems to be set around the big action pieces, twists and cliffhangers, much of the dialogue is compromised of cool sounding one liners with a little light humor thrown in there at set intervals to lighten the mood and character motivations and developments are kept as simple and easy for the audience to understand in how they are laid out as possible so as to attract the biggest possible audience. The music definitely fits the Hollywood style approach in how it's composed too. Heck I think I even remember a staffer for this show saying in a magazine interviewer that they were trying to make a Hollywood blockbuster style anime in the vein of Man of Steel that would wow audiences with a visceral approach.

Kaioshin_Sama said:


In a way yeah it kind of is and I'm pretty sure it's been the intent all along, I just never realized the degree to which it would be the case. Aside from the extremely obvious reliance on big time star power (Urobuchi, Aoki, Sawano, Kajiura) at least as far as anime can be concerned, a lot about this show feels very Hollywood in it's approach with how the tempo and pacing seems to be set around the big action pieces, twists and cliffhangers, much of the dialogue is compromised of cool sounding one liners with a little light humor thrown in there at set intervals to lighten the mood and character motivations and developments are kept as simple and easy for the audience to understand in how they are laid out as possible so as to attract the biggest possible audience. The music definitely fits the Hollywood style approach in how it's composed too. Heck I think I even remember a staffer for this show saying in a magazine interviewer that they were trying to make a Hollywood blockbuster style anime in the vein of Man of Steel that would wow audiences with a visceral approach.

y123y said:

I wonder who will be piloting the orange robot.... Any guess?

chickenonthepan said:
Episode 11 PV. Big battle coming.

DerpHole said:
inaho obviously with princess as copilot to power aldnoah

deadoptimist said:

I am surorised to see foot soldiers. Are they martian? Though it doesn't look like that, their uniforms are of Earth color... Do martian even use infantry? Do they need to? And if not, what purpose terran infantry will serve on the battlefield?..

Other than that I agree with y123y - I am more interested in character interaction. We all know, how the battle will look like - 3D models of mechs flashing parts here and there, a couple of close ups of Inaho and maybe Inko, vocals playing loudly in the background (I hope they'll chose another fragment) and it is very hard to understand, what's actually going on.
If Slaine joins Saazbaum forces, I hope that they'll show how he reaches this decision, because I want to finally understand on what side of the conflict he wants to be.