I wanted it to stop, but I stuck around longer than I should have, or maybe it was just a sunk-cost fallacy. It's a good mech show, or was, that still has a stellar soundtrack. Before Iron-Blooded Orphans, this was my go-to anime for a Mars vs. Earth conflict plot. The first season ended on a rather intriguing note which some may find good like me, or absolutely horrible. Season two introduces us to a wide variety of things. We get a new setting, the princess declaring war on Earth, and finding our heroes in space for some epic battles. The show moves away from its (literal) grounded roots and goes into the direction of full-on science fiction now akin to Gundam. So what makes this season better? What story improvements can we expect? None. Absolutley nothing in season 2 is the least bit better. The opening is the only redeeming part. The closer you analyze the show, the more you realize just how weak the writing is. The character progression gets a complete 180 from everything that was set up beforehand. Never have I had the displeasure of having something so unique be tarnished within the span of the first few episodes. Season two's debut infuriated me to no end.

For a duration of the first season, we constantly went back and forth playing "dead" with the princess's life. "No she's not dead", wait no "she's dead" to "wait no she's dead, but actually isn't...we're just being more elaborate with it". It got to the point where I knew Asselyum wasn't actually dead. The writers were so proud of themselves being hopelessly subversive that I wondered whether or not I should really take this show seriously anymore. If there's one thing for certain, the writers forgot how to do their job well. Regardless of this issue, I pushed through till the end. The final scene in the first season made me change my mind. For the finale, I could honestly feel like they could now start taking risks in the transition to the second season. Was this true? Not one bit. The final episode of the first season wasn't really substantial at all, so you just wasted watching season one. Why? Nothing happened, the characters who should've died are back. Everyone survived, by a stroke of pure, unadulterated deus ex machina luck. You could honestly skip the first season and treat the second as something else entirely because it resets everything from before. More importantly, I'm pointing out the biggest flaw of the show, plot progression, and an actual story arc. Doing a complete reset means that the season suffers severely because no one goes through any meaningful development. The characters are reduced to their season one counterparts, with only the story to move things along. Worst of all they choose to resurrect a character and use the same pristine model as if nothing had happened to him.

Maybe I'm expecting too much of this show, but episode five was my breaking point. I finished the episode in anger, frustration, and disarray. How could anyone in their right mind write this garbage? Watching the subbed version made it all worse too when you see the line presented right in front of you. Near the beginning of the episode, Inaho nonchalantly predicts the identity of the princess being just a decoy. Why? Because this new robotic eye can determine the percentage of how fake she is. What the actual fuck. I legitimately cringed at that moment. As if Inaho didn't piss me off enough with his bigger-than-life attitude. I mean look at this shit, I couldn't make it up if I tried.

Worthless Deus Ex Machina Garbage

If you think it's worth it to see what happens, then more power to you. A friend of mine had said the space battles get better, but I do not want to slog through a show that wants to violate my emotions. I could not stand another minute of this show, and I'd rather see it buried than continued. Alndoah Zero's hype left the station the moment it reintroduced an old character with an annoyingly dead personality. I'll never understand how people enjoyed the season the least bit. It was nothing more than trashy fanfiction for Inaho fans.