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[ToonyMan]

kind of dusty in here

So I finished the first arc of Knights of Sidonia. I feel like my best explanation for it is "a cross between Attack on Titan and a harem anime, set in space with giant mecha."

cough cough

The only thing to mention when Knights of Sidonia is stated to be like a twist on Attack on Titan is that KoS is a few years older as a series. Just mentioning that so we don't get the idea that it's some sort of clone.

cough cough cough

My money is on Macross Frontier as an influence on KoS, what with a deep-space colony ship attacked by mysterious bio-mechanical aliens and the humans experimenting on the aliens to make bio-weapons. Frontier aired the year before Sidonia started serializing so the dates work out.

couuuughoughguhgoughgough

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[IronyOwl]

Heh, my best explanation for KoS is: This is why animu characters have wild and colorful hair.

Watched a few episodes, that pink-haired clone batch was creeping me out.

[Flying Dice]

Heh, my best explanation for KoS is: This is why animu characters have wild and colorful hair.

Watched a few episodes, that pink-haired clone batch was creeping me out.

Yeah, but at least you could tell who she was at a glance. 

[Shadowlord]

I watched two episodes of KoS before dropping it. I ended up watching Shiki instead (which I liked quite a lot). I heard good things about KoS, but it hit a bunch of peeves that I didn't even know I had.

Spoiler: for example (click to show/hide)

MECHS DANCING IN SPACE USING LANCES WHAT THE FUCK NO JUST NO.

(I haven't watched very much anime.)

[Flying Dice]

Don't feel bad, KoS is kinda weird and not particularly extraordinary in any sense except the display of why CGI isn't necessarily good.

[Neonivek]

I never realized how much Prince of Tennis took from Aim for the Ace until now.

I'd compare but honestly they don't feel the same, even if they share a lot of the same plot elements (beyond Tennis of course)

I do wish the main character of Aim for the Ace had a shred of emotional fortitude... I know I get tired of heroes who cannot possibly be stirred but I don't quite want the opposite where a character will suffer a break down after every single thing (and no... I am not exaggerating, it is as bad as I make it seem).

[Hawkfrost]

Knights of Sidonia is, as said, Macross Frontier with more of the crap trimmed off and infused with a MuvLuv cast. You can clearly see the influence, it's bright as starlight.

Don't feel bad, KoS is kinda weird and not particularly extraordinary in any sense except the display of why CGI isn't necessarily good.

For the most part I'll agree, but some scenes they did pull off really well.
The problems are mostly in the scenes between human characters talking, but honestly I'd rather have full CGI than a 2D show with 3D shoddily shoved in here and there to create an artistic clash. (A perfect example of this is the terrible Kantai Collection anime.)

I watched two episodes of KoS before dropping it. I ended up watching Shiki instead (which I liked quite a lot). I heard good things about KoS, but it hit a bunch of peeves that I didn't even know I had.

Spoiler: for example (click to show/hide)

MECHS DANCING IN SPACE USING LANCES WHAT THE FUCK NO JUST NO.

(I haven't watched very much anime.)

They do explain why they use lances, it's somewhat understandable.
Beyond that;

Spoiler: Somewhat spoilers for later on? (click to show/hide)

By the second season most of the mechs are outfitted with long rifles that fire synthesized material that can kill guana, so the lances get put in storage and instead battles involve formations of mechs firing at the targets from long range.

I think the thing I liked about Knights of Sidonia (and why I stuck with it) was the unusual bend it takes towards the direction of a hard sci-fi series instead of being pure space fantasy bullshit.
Obviously it's not a true hard sci-fi series, but at the least it makes attempts, and that puts it up above a lot of the other dross that comes out.

Still have a bunch of problems with it regardless, but that's a whole different affair.

[Orange Wizard]

(I haven't watched very much anime.)

I like how everything in that list has an R rating.

[Flying Dice]

Oh, yes, the slightly firmer grounding was a welcome change... it just couldn't carry the series, IMO.

[Reelya]

The only thing to mention when Knights of Sidonia is stated to be like a twist on Attack on Titan is that KoS is a few years older as a series. Just mentioning that so we don't get the idea that it's some sort of clone.

cough cough cough

Yeah, you're right my google-fu failed me there somehow, KoS was 6 months  before Titan, not years. But it's still older, so the point stands. It's not influenced by Attack on Titan. It has many more direct similarities to Macross Frontier as well. Space Colony, Mecha Pilots, Aliens etc. Castles and Giants might have similar themes, but it's a different genre.

AlleeCat's description is a valid enough description for someone who has seen Titan, without getting into spoilers.

[Furtuka]

GUNDAM THUNDERBOLT EPISODE 1 IS OUT FOR FREE UNTIL JANUARY 7TH.

That mook horror show scene was magnificent.

[Reelya]

Catching up shows I put on hold, and got to Young Black Jack. Goddamn, is this writer sucking up to the Americans about Vietnam.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(American soldier): "why don't they realize we're just here to help?!?"

(Communist Interrogator): "sign this false confession that Americans soldiers commit war crimes"
(American soldier): "I'll never sign that pack of lies!"

- show has local Vietnamese forces and communist mistreating women, implies that no American ever did that.

- show has Vietnamese communist high-explosive land-mines which could blow an entire person up leaving a 6-foot radius crater in the earth, in fact almost all the explosive mines were American M-14 mines, and the Viet's used improvised devices with shrapnel and gunpowder. Later, the Vietnamese mass-produced replicas of the M-14, but there was basically no way they had the infrastructure to do that sort of engineering during the war itself.

In other words, complete load of bullshit that whitewashes all problems with the American conduct and blames all the stuff done by Americans that's extremely well documented on the Vietnamese.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah, you're right my google-fu failed me there somehow, KoS was 6 months  before Titan, not years. But it's still older, so the point stands. It's not influenced by Attack on Titan. It has many more direct similarities to Macross Frontier as well. Space Colony, Mecha Pilots, Aliens etc. Castles and Giants might have similar themes, but it's a different genre.

AlleeCat's description is a valid enough description for someone who has seen Titan, without getting into spoilers.

I think the point is more that we know AoT is based on Muv Luv Alternative.  I don't know about KoS.

[Reelya]

Yeah my point was more of a lack of connection rather than a specific connection. The similarities are pretty common stuff.

[IronyOwl]

Catching up shows I put on hold, and got to Young Black Jack. Goddamn, is this writer sucking up to the Americans about Vietnam.

Best Allies gotta stick together on filthy slander regarding questionable military activities in Asia.

Plus weird political stuff occasionally shoehorned into the series would complete the Franken Fran comparison. Dude really did not like whaling protesters.