English Dub Review: Knights of Sidonia Season One

If you are a fan of robot on alien violence, then this show is for you. Seriously, that’s everything Knights of Sidonia is good for. Before the lynch mob forms behind me, let me explain a little bit. Then you will probably agree.

Now here’s the thing. The action of Knights of Sidonia really hits. It’s what drives the series forward, mainly because life on Sidonia is full of drab backgrounds that makes Bleach look like a Disney film. Everything just felt more vibrant when Nagate and company were in space. Maybe because we had emotional investment in the fight between the Gauna and the humans.

There was some real effort to make the Gauna look formidable, especially early on. The show has a very Game of Thrones feel to it, Everyone you feel any sort of connection to will either get killed, or hurt in some way. Hoshijiro got the Catlyn Stark treatment, and probably had the biggest mind fuck of a death in the series thus far.

Speaking of the Game of Thrones effect, everyone you like, will die. Period, end of story. The fun part is how the Gauna will do it. By far, the most gruesome was Yamano, mostly because the Gauna took its shape. And by doing that, really fucked with Nagate’s head. I guess that’s one good thing that’s happened with what’s going on inside Sidonia. You get to see the mental breakdowns of the characters, and whether or not they actually get out of it. You’ll see some kids don’t really get past their time in the cockpit.

However, it’s that life inside Sidonia that really convoluted everything in the plot. There is so much that hasn’t even been developed yet, like what the fuck is going on with the human race? The humans are where things get all fucked up. I didn’t get the whole genetic enhancement thing, because they never went into it. We have Lala, who’s a bear, and a bunch of immortals running around! How do the writers not get into any of this? Oh, and then the Ochiai situation is barely touched, and the deal with the guys in the stones isn’t even touched. This is some shit that needs to be talked about.

The story inside the mechs was straight forward and to the point. It was great. When the pilots got out of the mechs, everything went awry. The Honoka clones got a lot of time on screen in the first few episodes, but then disappeared as Knights went on. The way these characters went in and out of importance made me really think twice about whether the writers were able to write a story or not. The only things that went right, again, were the scenes where Sidonia’s interior were nowhere to be seen.

One thing I do want to touch, however, was Kobayashi’s obsession with Nagate. This is another one of the stories that start out on fire, then fizzle out. Throughout the latter half of Knights, Kobayashi sends Nagate on repeated suicide missions that end up killing everyone around him. If he is supposed to be the Knight of Sidonia, let him grow into it and give the story time to mature.

And then there’s Kunato. He spends most of the first half being a poor Sasuke Uchiha clone. He thought he was better than everyone else, and did everything to show everyone that he was. The second he did his one dastardly thing, he caved under the remorse of killing someone. What kind of antagonist is that? These characters show as little emotion as possible, and when they do, they just crash from the weight of it. I cannot begin to tell you how terrible that seems to me.

I really wanted to like this show. But the problem here is that there is too much for me to get irritated at, or just flat out hate. Kobayashi does nothing for me as a leader, Nagate makes Naruto look like a Mensa member, Kunato just sucks, and both Hoshijiro and Izana (Yuhata to an extent as well) had to shit or get off the pot when it comes to Nagate. At least Hoshijiro got naked in front of Nagate, so that’s a plus. Izana, however, is the most passive aggressive person when it comes to Nagate, and it just pisses me off. It’s the second biggest anime trope going for this show, next to “mechs take precedent to the pilots lives.”

You know what? Fuck it, let’s talk about Nagate. That kid is supposed to be a prodigy, and yet he is whittled down to nothing. He saved the human race? That was glossed over. He saved the human race, then went to save Hoshijiro, at probable cost of his own life? We got “Adrift,” but the aftermath was glossed over. He became head of a squad, with Seii as his subordinate? No one cares. Hell, it even felt like Johnny Yong Bosch just mailed in some recordings, then went back to voicing Ichigo.

There is so much I wanted to like. There really was, like how humans evolved with the use of technology, the mech design, the fights with the Gauna, Johnny Yong Bosch, and I’ll even throw in Izana’s third gender. Unfortunately, I can’t get behind it. Sure, there were good episodes. Adrift and the final three episodes (Decisions, Collision, and Home) were all good episodes. But the terrible animation of life in Sidonia just drives me up a wall. There was a point where I almost stopped watching, because the animation was giving me a headache. 

To sum things up, the show is really a tale of two shows. On one hand, we have a really badass space anime with awesome fighting. And then, we have a terrible social / dating anime with terrible design, bad animation, and a story that gives Ranma ½ a run for it’s money for worst plot in an anime. Hopefully, season two of Knights of Sidonia will address some of this shoddy work, and give us a reason to re-up our Netflix accounts.