2015, 12 episodes:
AniDB
Mecha series, continuation of last summer's Aldnoah Zero. The
Martians are still invading Earth, but things have bogged down.
Don't ask how anyone surived the mass death at the end of series
1. Really. You'll be happier not thinking about it.
The alternate history still doesn't signify all that much. The Martian
mecha continue to do huge damage to Terran forces until Kaizuka Inaho
shows up to defeat them, but this time round there's less of his
working out how to defeat alien supertech and more of him just being a
good fighter. (His damaged eye has been replaced with an "analytical
engine" which can compute basically whatever the plot demands, which
seems a bit of a cop-out.) It gets a bit repetitious sometimes: new
Versian attacks, Earth forces are in trouble, Inaho bails them out.
His actual personality is still pretty minimal, but that's true of
most of the characters here; they get one personality trait if they're
lucky.
On the Versian side things are rather more interesting; we have the
rise of Slaine Troyard, Terran and former whipping-boy for the aliens.
He advances rapidly in rank by a variety of means, and remains the
voice of continued fighting even when all around him are urging peace.
The action continues to be good: the Versian mecha are baroque and
impractical, while the Terrans' are slightly more sensible
(reminiscent of Gasaraki), which reflects the differing technology
levels. On the other hand, those Terran mecha may not be able to stand
up to Versian aces, but they're doing a lot better than they used to
in a normal fight.
The political emphasis is a big change from the first season, but if
you're a reasonably flexible viewer then I'd certainly recommend this
one. There is an ending here, and as far as I know there are no plans
for another season.
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