Aldnoah.Zero

Aldnoah.Zero (アルドノア・ゼロ) is an original sci-fi mecha series created by Urobuchi Gen.  The series's first season aired over the summer of 2014 in Japan.

    During the American missions to the Moon in the 1970's a gateway to Mars was discovered.  Soon humans started migrating to the red planet where they discovered other alien technology.  The people who emigrated decided to claim the technology and Mars for themselves and separated from Terrans by calling their new 'empire' Vers.  In 1999 during a minor conflict the gate was destroyed, taking a sizable portion of the Moon with it.  The Vers citizens who remained stranded on Earth moved into orbital castles built out of the debris from the explosion.  Relationships between both Terran's and Versian's strained and in 2014 a Vers Princess decide to visit Earth on a goodwill mission to help ease tensions.  The mission ends in failure as the princess is assassinated and the lords in their orbital castles declare war on Earth.  An unlucky group of Japanese high school students end up stumbling upon the living Princess in their escape from the assault on their home.  They discover who she is and work to get to safety and inform both worlds that she still lives in a bid to stop the useless killing and destruction.

    This is one of my favorite titles from the Summer season and made me take a good hard look at the styles of mecha anime and how they possibly evolved (I'll elaborate sometime in the future on that).  The animation is typical for today's standards and I liked the simple and soft style for the character designs.  They reminded me of designs from the late 90's when the acute angled heads were going out of fashion.  The mech designs...I really liked the utilitarian designs for the Earth mechs and was only mildly annoyed by the regal Vers mechs.  What I was more impressed by was the interesting weapons deployed by the Vers mechs.  The story was liner and not filled with much in the way of twists and surprises, but it was enjoyable.  I like the concepts for the backdrop more than the episode plots though.  It wan't bad, but sometimes the tenacity and planning deployed by the main character, who's stoicism can annoy some, was a bit of a stretch.  Regardless it was a well done show and I eagerly await it's return in January 2015, especially with the cliff hanger or sorts at the end.

    It was simulcast via Crunchyroll and there is no word on a disc release in North America.