The second season of Aldnoah.Zero is twelve episodes long. It takes place in the future where there are two factions, Earth and Mars. Mars holds a technology advantage thanks to the discovery of the ancient civilisation tech known as Aldnoah on their planet. Due to the assassination attempt of the Princess of Mars, war has broken out between the Vers Knights of Marsand the forces of Earth. Inaho is on Earth’s side, a talented high school pilot of the mechas, while Slaine is on Mars’ side, having redeemed himself in the eyes of the Vers Knights and is now fully committed to their cause.
The season takes place a few months after last season’s finale, where it seemed to play up the shock factor with unexpected events and fates of several main characters. However, due to the way the first episode is structured, we don’t get answers or even a proper continuation of it until the end of the episode. By the time the second episode comes, the whole situation is completely different and feels weird and unusual as a result, in complete contrast to the first season.
The anime was building up to this point and now completely focuses on Inaho versus Slaine. They are deemed rivals, being talented pilots on their respective sides. Ever since the events of last season, Inaho feels even more cold and distant, to the point of feeling a bit off about his character. Slaine on the other hand becomes unlikeable due to his actions, how he has reacted, and the terrible situation he had helped to create. Slaine is gets better as the season goes but is still far from likeable, whereas Inaho becomes worse and worse, but doesn’t become unlikable. It’s like both protagonist and antagonist are mediocre.
There is a lot of focus placed upon the Vers Knights and the political aspects of their power play. For better or worse, at least this allows far more space battles between the mechas, including ones where it’s the Vers mechas against Vers mechas. It’s never fully explained though on how Earth managed to get their communication hardware back up and running in order to actually fend the Vers Knights off pretty well, considering the absolute curbstomp beating their received in the beginning attack.
On a grander scope, the war has become worse with no hope of reconciliation between the two sides. There are still things left unexplained from the first season and it introduces a lot more questions. This causes it to feel that it is piling on things without resolving existing ones, and makes you lose some interest as a result.
As the season goes on, the motivations between Slaine’s actions become ever more puzzling. He goes to extremes and considering how he is seen in contempt by most of Vers as he is from Earth, he manages to get significant power at this disposal. Granted, he is eternally loyal to the Vers Princess, Asseylum, but that is not enough to fully explain his actions. It feels as though this season tries to implement as many shocking twists and developments as possible, but it comes off as straying too far from what made the first season enjoyable. We get heel-faced turns, behavioural changes, and revival of characters.
While you know that the season, and ultimately the ending, is coming up, it doesn’t feel like the story properly built up to it. There seemed to be far too many filler scenes that touch upon the same thing again and again. It’ll alternate from Slaine and his plans, to Inaho helping to fight off yet another Vers Knight who had targeted them. What makes it worse is how Inaho’s ability develops into something more and more stereotypical, to the point of being like the poster child of a special anime ability.
With all the dilly-dallying, it can feel that it doesn’t properly build up to the ending. The ending itself feels rushed and unrealistic. After all that has gone on, you would not expect both sides to react and accept the way that they had. When we have been told and shown how much Mars hates Earth, you would expect that there will be more resistance and more slaughter.
Overall, the second season of Aldnoah.Zero loses some of what made the first season so enjoyable. Despite giving us more and better action sequences, and diving more into the political aspect of the war, it focuses too much on a macro level in the rivalry between Inaho and Slaine rather than a bigger picture. As a result, the ending of the war doesn’t have a satisfactory close, having wasted a lot of time on ultimately inconsequential developments.
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