Okay, the reveal of the princess’ secret identity was a good
twist. No question there, but... it
really should’ve happened in the second episode.
It’s worth bringing up CODE GEASS as a comparison point
here. That show was also a mecha sci-fi that involved prep schools kids having
to take arms against a hostile government, and it also involved pampered
royals causing problems once they got involved on the front lines.
The major
issue with CODE GEASS was that - - as Sam
would put it - - it packed its premise with too many ‘buys.’ However, while the world-building got a little complicated,
too quickly, the plot always had a strong through-line. There was a
clearly-established protagonist, leading a cast of clearly-differentiated characters,
who all received clear intros.
ALDNOAH is just as top heavy with lore as CODE GEASS, but it’s
collapsing under that weight a lot worse because it never bothered to introduce
its characters properly. I can’t tell any of these preps apart, because their first
scenes were just scenes, not introductions. Same goes for the martian villains. The
only character I can really identify here is the princess (she’s like the Lelouch of this plot!) because - - guess what? - - she got an actual
introduction in episode #1.
Observing this, I think I’ve finally gained a better
understanding about why anime became so infamous for characters with
ridiculous colored hair. Give a character a bright, green dye job and - - guess what? - - she’s going to be a
lot easier to differentiate from the rest of the cast.
So yeah, I say this twist should’ve come during the second
episode, because it would’ve more solidly defined the princess as the lead (right? Like Lelouch?), and we'd be introduced to the rest of this complicated world through
her eyes. That'd be solider plotting. Instead, it’s just a bunch of made-up politics and lore, presuming
that we should tell these characters apart because we can read the crew’s minds.
Watch “the Children's
Echelon" and decide for yourself, then read my thoughts on the previous
episode.
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