Note: I'm reviewing Aldnoah Zero season 1 and 2 as a complete series in this review.
Aldnoah Zero is a series that starts out with the promise of a great future but it's kinda sad that it falls into this huge mess.
The series suffers from a some technical problems, some sloppy editing, the CG-mechs and sadly the directing but the main issue lies with it's characters and story.
Side characters seem to be written as dumb as possible to make the main character Inaho look like a genius. The series portrayal of Inaho as the best strategic prodigy becomes so overbearingly obnoxious that eventually it becomes clear that he is simply a Gary Stu style character and his emotionless and stale personality make him even less intresting than he already is.
The secondary main character Slaine however is a much more interesting and engaging character which the writers seemed to realise as more focus was put on him on the second half. The problem arises as the story seem to not understand where it's going and what kind of story it wants to tell. Action set pieces takes place and actions of our new focus Slaine makes less and less sense.
The series does try to explain his actions giving us glimpse what truly is going on but it feels like only us the viewers saw them as by then end it was clear these hints of great storytelling just flew over the writer's heads, making you think "Why is this happening? Why were they doing this again?" during critical and big dramatic moments.
Aldnoah Zero is also in the habit of making bold story decision and take unexpected turns just to go back on them later. This makes the whole experience feel cheap or severely underwhelming. Even more infuriating is that sometimes, these events actually result in a boon for the main characters. The worst example of this is what happens at he series mid point (Between season 1 and season 2).
In conclusion:
While season 1 has received alot of criticism from alot of people I do have to say that it I enjoyed most of the episodes despite the huge presence of Inaho but the absolute writting mess that is season 2 is really drags the whole series down. I would say if that if you enjoy self insertion, power dream characters, melodrama for the sake of melodrama and that character actions doesn't need to be reasonable and logical you might enjoy it. The rest of you, don't bother.
Ps. The more I think about this series the less I like it.
