MINOR SPOILERS FOR ALDNOAH.ZERO

"Alright! It's time to watch some Turn A Gunda- WHAT THE FUCK?!-" CBF back in 2016.

So, can we all agree that Aldnoah.Zero (the entire series, not just this first season) is probably the worst show Gen Urobuchi had an active role in? If nothing else, it's certainly the most polarizing work his name has been attached to, even if he didn't do much beyond the script for the first few episodes and a few other ideas in the preparation phase. Now that the man hasn't made anything big in the industry since this piece of crap, why don't we look back and ask ourselves: why did I review season 2 before season 1?

Oh wait it's because season 2 was more memorable on the sole basis of being an absolute dumpster fire. Remember when this show was popular? It's ok if you don't; that's probably for the best.

The first few episodes aren't too broken, but they suffer from lacking characterization, a problem that will plague the series for sure. The first half isn't too riveting, even with its many action sequences. Sure, seeing our stale bread protagonist Inaho out mech weaknesses via science is neat in theory, but when the solutions are so obvious or farfetched, it nullifies any satisfaction that would grant. Those only really last until the halfway mark, anyway. When Slaine, the deuteragonist representing the enemy's point of view, helps him take down one of his own, the fucker just blasts him and leaves him for dead. Not only did it cause Inaho to go from a lifeless hunk of tofu to a genuinely erratic character, but it marked the shark-jumping point for the series as a whole. I understand that Slaine was still technically affiliated with the enemy, but he was clearly defecting and trying to get in touch with Inaho and his crew, so it would make so much more sense for Inaho to at least communicate with him before just shooting him down. No one even confronts him about it. The whodunnit assassination plotline isn't done well, and when the villain reveals himself, his motives clash heavily with his methods in a way that the show doesn't take advantage of. Even amidst the blatant plotholes and arbitrary decisions characters make towards the latter half in particular, the biggest slap in the face has to be the ending which opts to shoot Asseylum and Inaho in the face to play the whole "protagonists are dead" card. It's a series of obscenely melodramatic contrivances and cliffhanger situations for the sake of throwing the audience into a frenzy. Geass 1 finale, this is not.

So, outside of our dismal protagonist, who do we have? There's his rival, Slaine, who might as well be the embodiment of "trauma conga line." His trauma throughout the series gets so brutal and frequent that it honestly becomes comical. He quite literally only exists to highlight how awful everyone on all sides is, especially the antagonists he works for. Every single person who interacts with him screws him over in some way, including our protagonist who just backstabs him after receiving his help in a previous mission. He literally doesn't do anything to deserve the shit he gets, and his characterization pretty much boils down to "good boy gets obliterated and jaded". The only one who doesn't directly bend him over is Asseylum, and she's just a boring "good girl politician" character with a terrible love triangle with Inaho and Slaine. Everyone else is honestly as bland as Asseylum, outside of a few of the side characters with potentially interesting backstories that the show does nothing with. They're better than the antagonists who are just a bunch of mustache-twirling bad guys because only the good guys are allowed to have any kind of nuance, as little as there is to begin with. The only exception is the main antagonist of the first season, Count Saazbum, and his motivations clash with his actions in a way that the show doesn't take advantage of. Outside of that, he's just an evil villain because we need more evil villains being pure evil.

With most of the negatives out of the way, we finally reach a more positive tone for this review, at least for now. This joint production by A-1 Pictures and TROYCA is honestly fine from a visual standpoint. The CG mechs are somewhat jarring and clunky, but there are a lot of weather effects and surrounding objects for them to maneuver around. Not only does this allow for more dynamic and energetic sequences that have some semblance of weight to them, but it makes the quality of the models less noticeable. The actual character designs are better than the models and designs of the mechs, and the artwork tends to be rather solid. There are a fair number of sequences that blend 2D and 3D animation together in a way that lets both feel kinetic, like when Asseylum's bodyguard drives her around and fends off the battle taking place in the first episode. Ei Aoki's direction is also rather solid at times, highlighting the state of panic most of the characters are in early on. It stops being noticeable as time goes on, but it's never noticeably bad either.

The music in the show is honestly A.Z's strongest asset. The vocal tracks, while overused, are still pretty good. "No Differences" is the biggest standout, and the background tracks often carry a sense of epicness that Hiroyuki Sawano has become famous for. One of my favorite Sawano tracks actually appears here. The opening isn't as exciting as most of the other songs present here, but it does showcase a sense of urgency and ambition that this project was obviously filled with. While the first ED isn't anything to write home about, "aLIEz" by SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:mizuki, is one of my favorite ending themes of the decade. The sheer bombast on display is one that I don't think they have topped since, with one of the loudest and proudest displays of the "Sawano Drop" and howling vocals in their discography after such an inviting yet cold tone the first half set and built up.

This could have been something. It wanted to be something. Instead, it ended up being a worse version of Mobile Suit Gundam and Turn A Gundam, shows which actually deal with politics, romance, and war between earth and space dwellers in a manner that makes sense. I still remember how my moderate enjoyment of the series turned into crushing disappointment by the second half, though there isn't much else particularly memorable about the show despite the plethora of big sequences it had. While it's not a complete disaster, Aldnoah.Zero isn't much more than a disappointment that turned heads half a decade ago, remembered only for heated conversations surrounding its love triangle and cliffhanger, not for being a compelling narrative people cared about even a year after its conclusion.