Knights of Sidonia takes place far into the future, where Earth has been destroyed by giant enemies from space known as the "gauna". Gauna can take many forms and can shapeshift but are usually red with many tentacles used to attack. In order to survive, humanity created self-sustaining spaceships to travel to a far away planet to recolonise, basically, these are seed ships. The anime follows once such ship known as Sidonia. However, gauna continues to target the humans over the centuries, coming close to annihilating Sidonia several times. Sidonia is travelling solo, having lost contact with all the other ships, it paints a bleak future.
To defend against these gauna, Gardes has been created. These are giant robots and at the start of the anime, they are using the 18th generation model already. What makes this interesting is that gauna can only be defeated by one substance, known as kabizashi. Once the gauna's core is exposed and pierced by kabizashi, the gauna disintegrates into bubbles. There are hundreds of these gardes and the story follows a trainee pilot called Nagate Tanikaze. The first episodes beings by showing that he was living alone underground, having been trained by his grandfather on how to pilot gardes using a virtual reality simulator. He gets into contact with the other humans after a failed stealing attempt for food and is formally drafted into the pilot program, eventually becoming a fully fledged pilot. He was given the honor of utilizing the legendary 17th Generation Garde, Tsugumori.
While the first episode can be confusing and the pacing being slow, once they encountered the first gauna at the end of the episode, the anime shines. The properties of the gauna is interesting, as well as how humans has adapted over the years. Humans are now able to photosynthesize as a result of genetic modification, meaning they only need to physically consume food once a week. The fight scenes, while limited in frequency, are fantastic since each gauna encounter is different. They serve as eyecandy highlights of the series. The other thing that hooks you in is the constant discoveries and revelations of information, from the gaunas to what happened in the past to Tanikaze himself.
After each episode, you will be left with some food for thought and you'll come to realize that you will think about it again and again afterwards. The other thing that Knights of Sidonia loves to do is jump ahead in time at the end of an episode to show the consequences of a battle or action, which is usually a massive shocker. Then it doubles back in the next episode to show how it happened or lengthen the scene with more details. These types of cliffhangers are used to great effect and as a warning: no character is safe in this series. You will encounter brutal and saddening deaths, it depicts casualties of war and how this affects the characters.
Not only that, characters that you've come to understand and bond with will die, it is disheartening at times. The loss of each character is felt deeply and while characters will spend time reminiscing about the characters and regretting their deaths, it does so in a meaningful way and does not spend a large amount of time doing so. Therefore, no part of the anime feels like it is filler or boring. As per usual, there is the inclusion of an extremely annoying antagonist who sees themselves as a rival to Tanikaze. They will sabotage and set Tanikaze up during battles, even it if means killing other teammates. What is frustrating is that there is no justice in the series. The rival gets away with it and Tanikaze is forced to wear the blame.
As the season goes on, a more sinister plot is revealed and acted upon. The motives of some characters are shown in a clearer light and no one is as they seemed. It gives the feeling of a complex plot without it being so intricate as to be convoluted. Naturally, the last two episodes are epic in terms of the gauna that Sidonia is forced to battle again. It makes for some great scenes and hooks you right in. While the ending to the season was weak in that it ends quite quickly without much wrap-up, at least you know there is a second season to continue the story.
So while you can say that Knights of Sidonia all boils down to giant robots battling againsta giant space monsters, it is so much more than that. It shows the brutality of war and lasting consequences of every action the characters take. It is also not violent in the sense of it being mindless or gory. The aesthetics are unique and it is beautifully animated with some good music as well. Background environment can look empty at times but the rendering of the Gardes are amazing and some scenes make for great screenshots. You will definitely side with the main character and cheer him on, which makes this a good anime to watch. 12 episodes is definitely not enough!
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