The Knight's Darkest Before the Dawn

February hit my area with a vengeance. Just snow every day, everywhere you look. Luckily I'd heard the forecast, and set aside a series to watch just in case I got frozen in my home for days on end. It's been on the edge of my radar for awhile now, and the recent favorable write-up in Otaku USA pushed me to finally give it a shot. The series' name is Knights of Sidonia, and you should all watch it. Like right now.

Though it aired way back in early 2014, I never gave it much thought because of the plot description: all humanity lives on a single spaceship, is being attacked by mysterious monsters, and one boy must pilot a robot to save everyone. Pass! It wasn't until much later that I learned the original manga author was Tsutomu Nihei. Then I started paying more attention.

I'd read his cyberpunk classic Blame! some time before, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Though the plot's incoherence and characters' relative lack of emotion still turns me off a little, these flaws contributed to the incredibly rich, bleak atmosphere. Forget those weaksauce “sci-fi” shows that thrown in a few laser guns and lightsabers, then called it a day; Nihei takes scientific concepts to their logical extremes, and isn't afraid to put his audience in a totally alien setting (read: no high schools). I watched hoping for something like this once again, and I wasn't disappointed.

We get to see a population that's evolved beyond needing three meals a day, even beyond having just two main genders. We get to see a city-ship that actually has to take propulsion into account, that literally cannot pick up fighters left behind in space because it's too big to do a 180. We get to see what happens to that ship's civilians when it's forced to make a hard turn. And we aren't even subjected to droning technobabble explaining what is going on every single second; a few sentences at most gives us a general idea, then the scene plays out naturally to show us the consequences. What a concept!

Given the extraordinary attention to setting, one would expect the characters and their emotions to be sacrificed. That isn't the case here, although they certainly aren't the series' selling point. The characters resemble the comfortable stereotypes we've seen before, especially in mecha anime: the aloof rival, the shy love interest(s), the mysterious commander, etc. The protagonist is a likable enough fish out of water, desperately trying to understand and protect this strange world, and a few others reveal interesting depths as well. The high-strung drama of combat is handled much better than the occasionally forced romantic ones, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't some touching parts in there.

Animation is what you'd expect for a mostly CG show. That is, mecha action and environment are both excellent in a way traditional methods would struggle to imitate these days, at least on a TV budget. Facial expressions suffer greatly as a result, though, especially when anyone has to cry or blush. This will probably be a turn-off for some, but it didn't bother me much, in the end. Nihei's characters have never been particularly emotive from what I've seen, so this is both a step up from Blame! and an accurate depiction of his style, to my eyes.

I really, really wish I had checked this out sooner, because it feels different from almost everything else out there. These twelve episodes are well worth your time, especially since there's a new season coming soon. Watch it now and let me know what you think! Already seen it? Tell me about your experience in the comments!