Martians invade. Japanese kids fight back in their robots.

I love giant robot shows, and Aldnoah Zero did a few things right. For example, Slaine. The Suzaku character that you love to hate. I was motivated to finish Aldnoah Zero almost entirely due to my vehement hatred for Slaine. There are also occasional good moments of comedy, mainly where Inaho does something robotic. And some twists and turns, or moments of surprising character development.

But these moments are few and far between. Most of Aldnoah Zero is extremely formulaic. Random enemy appears. They’re losing. Inaho uses the power of SCIENCE to turn the battle around as the exact same music plays, week after week.

I got sick of it.

The second season is much worse than the first season. The first season had plenty of exciting twists and turns, even if most of them were reset in the next episode. But the second season… nothing. I don’t know what the point was. Absolutely nothing happened most episodes. And the ending was complete crap. All those interesting characters they developed in the first season? Completely wasted. Rayet. Onee-san. Lieutenant. Captain. That Martian traitor. Nunally. Each of them were more interesting than the main characters. And each of them had a subplot that went absolutely nowhere.

Not to imply that the main plot went anywhere. The story ends with the main villain just randomly deciding to give up. Definitely the worst ending in recent memory.

• Storytelling – D – Repetitive. Not well thought out.
• Voice – C – Somewhat unique setup. But not really.
• Characters – B – Good characterizations, which are wasted.
• Attention Grab – B – Not boring.
• Production – B – Looks fine.
• Overall – C

Recommendations – Valvrave, Code Geass, AKB0048