Review: Knights of Sidonia “Sacrifices”

I think I need to queue up Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” because another squad just got fucked!

You kind of have to feel for this space station. Since Nagate came aboard, the Gauna has re-emerged, and laid waste to the best squad in the fleet. Things are not looking good for the denizens of Sidonia.

Spoilers!

Sidonia is a state of shock and mourning after Akai and his team are taken out by the Gauna. Kobayashi orders the heavy mass cannon to fire at the Gauna, but the Gauna uses the remnants of the Strike Team’s gardes to evade the heavy mass shell and start back on its course to Sidonia. Kobayashi wants the station to accelerate diagonally, but that would force the gravity field to malfunction. Kobayashi orders it anyway, and the citizens are in a scramble to find a spot to hook their gravity belts to. Hoshijiro finds Nagate and Izana, and they find an empty railing.

The accelerators start, and everyone who isn’t attached to a railing has fallen to the ground. It’s a tower collapse on a grand scale. They fire the second thruster, and everything that fell out of the residential tower crashes into it. The Gauna almost caught up to Sidonia, but the Gauna has stayed its original course. In the residential area, there are dead everywhere. The loudspeaker goes up, and its a call for all able-bodied pilots. The Gauna is coming back, and Kobayashi has called for a squad to defend Sidonia. Kunato, Nagate, Izana, and Hoshijiro are going out to retrieve the one Kabizashi, while the rest of the cadets are on stand-by.

Kobayashi launches the four retrieval squad members, and Nagate has a flashback to the times that Nagate spent with Akai’s squad. He’s snaps out of it with Kunato’s shrill voice. Back at Sidonia, all of the standby pilots are watching what’s going on in the command center, and one of the twins says that the station is down to only 27 Kabizashi. The defense team is starting to get second doubts, because even Akai wasn’t able to beat the Gauna. The retrieval team makes it to the search area, Nagate finds the Kabizashi, but Kunato wants the other three back so he can grab it. Unfortunately, the Gauna is heading their way. The Gauna’s Ena is morphing again, this time forming a Heigus cannon particle cannon. The Gauna shoots it right at the retrieval team, All of the pilots took heavy damage, and the only one who can be restored is Nagate. Hoshijiro’s Heigus Engine malfunctions, and it shoots her in the opposite direction from Sidonia, but she ejects before the Garde explodes.

Nagate disregards direct orders, and grabs the Kabizashi. He heads towards the Gauna, which fires at Nagate again. This time, he loses an arm, but Nagate takes a second shot at the Gauna, this time scoring a direct hit on it’s Ena. Much to the dismay of Kunato, Nagate officially kills off the Gauna, sustaining no serious damage or injuries. He disregards another order, and goes after Hoshijiro, and he ends up past the point of no return as the episode ends.

This episode has its ups and downs that featured a strong plot but awful animation. This story was full of suspense and false resolutions.  The Gauna gave everyone a false sense of security, but circled around to make a second go at Sidonia. Then, when the retrieval team thought they were in the clear, the Gauna would turn around and try to annihilate its second squad in as many episodes. The story was the strong point for this episode. I really liked the beginning, when Kobayashi ordered the ship to go diagonal and throw off the gravity field was really frantic, because it was something you haven’t seen before.

After the theme, the animation for the faces were atrocious. Yuhata, in particular, looked like it was drawn and animated by an invalid four year old. This is starting to grate on me, because this should look better than what we get from episode to episode. The animators clearly only care about the mechs, because when the pilots are out, the C-team takes over. The best looking characters on the show are the ones that wear the full-sized masks, because the facial expressions don’t have to exist.

To best experience this episode, use your computer, start the video, then minimize it. You can get the best of the episode without getting the terrible animation.