Review: Knights of Sidonia “Commencement”

Thankfully, this isn’t anime based on a Muse song. Check out the latest giant robot show to make its way to our shore!

Spoilers Below

One thing I’ve learned about anime, is that if you use giant robots, the plot is generally pretty good.Well, as long as we don’t venture to shows like Evangelion, or Escaflowne. Those take the term “mind fuck,” and bring it to levels that have not been reached before. Where does Knights of Sidonia come in? Well, after episode one, I’m not entirely sure.

The series starts off with a pilot trying to make to an asteroid, where a giant alien is tearing apart a station. The mech out maneuvers all of the tentacles coming out of the alien, where it lands a final blow, tearing out a vital organ. The simulation ends, and Nagate ends up with the highest score on the simulation, again. He walks out of the simulator, and looks like a complete wreck.

Nagate wakes up later, climbs up out of a shaft, and makes his way to the Number Four Food Factory. By that, I mean, he took a plunge into a rice vat. Nagate makes it out of the silo, but broke two of his fingers in the fall. It turns out that Nagate is there to steal some rice. Two guards catch him, and he bails out, leaving his rice behind. He makes it to a train cart, but falls off.

We make it to the female Photosynthesis Chamber, and rumors of Nagate made it there. I have to say, there’s a lot of restraint here for a TV-MA rated anime, and they don’t show any tits in the locker room. Kudos, guys, I didn’t think it was possible. It seems like Nagate is an underdweller, which explains the tattered clothes, and the shit living conditions. No one believes they exist, because it’s been a thousand years since the city was built. The caverns are confusing, and people can get easily lost. The three Honoka Sisters (they look the same, down to the hair) decide they want to go visit him, and see if the rumors are true.

Yamino decides that it’s probably smart to study, because they’re cadets, and they’re in the middle of a war. Yamino lays into them all, and coming close to saying they’re disgraces. Instead, she holds that back, and walks off. They walk off, and Norio and Hoshijiro spend some time marveling over the mech that is blocked off. Norio tells Hoshijiro that she should go over to his place when she becomes a pilot. Her being head of development will come in handy for Norio.

In the next scene, a masked person is in a room that bares a striking resemblance to the NERV comms room from Evangelion, complete with disembodied voices. The masked person is Kobayashi, and he tells the voices that Saito’s mummified body in the tunnels. They have to deal with Gauna, which is more important at the moment.

Elsewhere, Nagate wakes up, and stares at his hand like he’s having a staring contest with it. A nurse walks in, and thinks that Nagate left. For whatever reason, she doesn’t move her head a millimeter up to look at the ceiling, because he dropped down right after she left. The sisters and Ren make their way to where Nagate should be, and they have a deep discussion about what happens after they’re uses are over. Everyone ends up at the organic converter reactor.

They make it to the ground, and they walk right into an anti-war rally. They find Norio and Hoshijiro, who are stopped by a protester. The monotony is broken up by Nagate crashing through a window above the people. He is trying to escape being sent to the reactor, but the nurse tells the cadets to stop him. Nagate wakes up with a black eye, still worried with getting sent to the reactor. He won’t be, but he is getting questioned by a cop. Ochiai comes in, and tells Nagate that he has a guarantor, and that Ochiai is there on his behalf. Ochiai accompanies Nagate to his guarantor, who turns out to be the masked woman, Kobayashi. She hugs him, and tells Nagate that she wants him to be a Garde pilot.

Nagate makes it to his new digs, and he is greeted by the dorm mother, Hiyama. This fits out bear quota for the series, because she’s one, with a mechanical arm. Nagate is taken aback by this, and looks like he shit himself. The next day, he shows up for his first class, and he looks like a fish out of water. He greets everyone with “Hi, everybody,” and no one knows how to take it, including the 11 Honoka sisters. I guess they reproduce by budding. In fact, everyone is in awe of this guy. After class, Nagate is walking out, and Izana tries to talk to him, but Nagate doesn’t remember her.

She asks a lot of questions, because getting into the program is very hard. Izana then puts Nagate on the spot, getting him to think of whether Izana is a boy or girl. She’s neither, and it surprises Nagate. Whenever Izana picks a mate, her body changes to the need. They come across the virtual training console, and Nagate goes right in. He gets a following around his pod, but fails miserably. Back at class, the cadets are getting a run down on how to take down the Gauna. While this is going on, Norio finds that the Mark 17 Garde is missing. Back at school, Nagate is practicing with his broom. He then gets a mission, where he can get in a real Garde.

Kobayashi is overseeing the operation, but the cadets haven’t proven to be ready yet. Nagate gets the Garde that Norio has been looking at, the Tsugumori. Norio sees this, and he is fuming. Everyone loads in, and they move out. They make it to the mining site, where they set up the cutters. Unfortunately, that also wakes up one of the Gauna.

So, I watched this episode three times. Not because I didn’t understand it, but because the layers in this show is reminiscent of the Matrix. There’s so much stuff going on, that if you’re not paying attention fully, you will miss a nuance. For instance, I didn’t see that Norio wanted to be the pilot of the Tsugumori. I just thought he was admiring the past.

There’s also something not right about the Stepford sisters. First there’s four, then there’s eleven later in the episode, and they all sound and act the same. I thought it was off that they had the Honokas talking, then in the very next scene, they had the organic converter reactor. Judging from what I got from the cop, it’s either re-purposes carcasses for fertilizer, or some odd scientific procedure. I mean, people getting their nutrients through photosynthesis is weird enough.

Also, the art direction is really weird. The faces of all of the characters are missing facial details, and it started to get really irritating towards the end of the episode. You can tell that the real focus is going to be on the mechs, because when they were getting loaded up into the launch bay, they looked good.

To sum everything up, I really like the premise of this show. An ancient, colossal evil vs giant mechs always grab me. In the moments during the episode where there are actual fighting, it looks awesome. When the show goes into school life, everything deteriorates. The plot, so far, is overly convoluted.