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.
