Sidonia no Kishi

Although I originally had this pegged as somewhat below Attack on Titan for one of the best anime series I've seen in the past decade, the second time through it entertained me just as much.

This is about a future humanity fighting aliens in giant mechs. Wow, that's an anime cliché that usually goes south and needs superb execution to be something decent. This series does just that. Executes this premise in a way that has a unique feel, despite appearing derivative and cliché on paper.

This is a very grown up anime, no real chibi here. Although not at all the dystopia of Attack on Titan. In my experience, Sidonia was built up as this amazing place, almost a character itself with many sides and mysteries, that draws you in. I felt like I wanted to be in this world and share in the adventures and drama.

I found the action to have real weight. The humans and even main characters feel vulnerable, and have to really struggle. No real deus ex machina to make everything better in the end. People die and there are real consequences for the actions that occur in the battles.

There's an interesting dynamic about the aliens, where some characters have interesting hypotheses on them and why they're fighting, which may lead to some great plot twists later on.

I loved the love stories, which take time to develop as well as the character interactions. Although there were a few clichés, each character ends up with their unique characteristics, hopes, wants, and dreams.

There are real themes of love, loss, war, friendship, political intrigue and manipulation of power, and so on. There's also a real sense of humanity.

There are a few flaws in this, but hell, there are a few flaws in Attack on Titan: a near perfect anime in my opinion. The first one is that the main character Nagate, although truly likable, can come off as that quintessential anime protagonist nice guy that the girls are all into for some reason. But with his background, it makes sense that he's out of it and socially inept. But he was still a character that was much more than a cliché by the end.

I felt that Titan balanced the many secondary characters better and there are several in Sidonia who seemed to come and go and by the time they're reintroduced, you've forgotten who they are. But this didn't really matter as there are 5-6 main characters who were integral to the plot, that were focused on.

There was one character who was just about to have an arc when something happened to this person in the second season, that was neat as a change but kind of left me hanging.

Much of the political story that gives you small bits at a time seemed confusing but made more sense the second time through.

Overall, I found that this show was truly addicting and serial watching it never became a chore, I couldn't wait to see the next episodes.

Can't recommend highly enough.

Growing up on Robotech (Macross) and the Gundam franchise, I have a tender spot in my core for mech anime. If you grew up on said anime, then you have to immediately view this series. It's not for you that I need to make the case. You'll already be willing to finish the series in one sitting.

For those of you, maybe a younger generation, without the mech background, give this a chance. My girlfriend is of the Hunter x Hunter, Kill la Kill, Blue Exorcist generation. But, Knights of Sidonia has your emotional character development, cutesy facial expression (heavy blushing) and the artwork will hold the new generation. I've tried in vain to get my girlfriend to watch many of the late 80's early 90's classics. She loved Ninja Scroll and Armitage, but still admits to not watching older anime for the dated animation. Knights of Sidonia is the perfect oldschool mech vs alien anime with an updated appearance.

Well, this is short review that old anime fans might find useful.

This show is basically some sort of Neon Genesis Evangelion remake, or at least strongly based on, I'm surprised that few people noticed that, and no, this is far from being intense as NGE, but it's a really good show and definitely worth being watched. I giving it a 8 out 10 because the main character lacks of some development, I'd say that 50% of Nagate's(which would be Ikari Shinji in NGE) sentences are "hmm" literally. This show also have some very provocative scenes that makes me want to watch some hentai and some sort of gore scenes.

I'll finish with: the show leaves some unanswered mysteries and questions, a really nice hook for a sequel, which is great, many of best animes out there leave you alone and feeling deserted since they have only one season, this is not the case.

this is my first review on IMDb, i hope you find it useful, I tried to do my best without giving any spoiler.

Knights of Sidonia has some good stuff going for it, but I find the animation distracting from the story at times. Sometimes it's incredible, even beautiful; other times you can tell that this a 'three-dimensional imitation' of traditional cel-animation and the look still hasn't grown on me yet. It's difficult to describe how exactly I feel about the animation style: the fight sequences look great, but everything outside of that still feels oddly alien to me (the jerky CGI at play here is not a substitute for that traditional animation look). With that said, there is stuff to enjoy here. It's a legit space-opera with some good music and stories to tell, but it's far from perfect.

'Knights' gets 3.5/5 stars.

A joy to see. Some battle sequences a bit to long for me but even so still totally recommendable. The characters are rich and interesting. You get attached to them and want to know more about them The quality of the graphics stunning.

Can't wait for the next season.