Director: Shizuno Koubun
Writer: Murai Sadayuki (Boogiepop
Phantom, Mouryou no
Hako)
Main Cast:
Oosaka Ryouta as Tanikaze Nagate
Toyosaki Aki as Shinatose Izana
Character Design:
Moriyama Yuuki
Music: Asakura Noriyuki (Ruroni Kenshin,
Major)
I have to admit that Sidonia no Kishi is the show I was looking forward to the most this season. I love a good space opera, especially one where humans are struggling for survival. Sidonia's story about generations of humanity living and dying on a giant spaceship lends itself to a possible exploration of how society would evolve. The fact that they are fighting an alien menace that hasn't been seen for a hundred years adds another element to this mix. A close inspection of how societal evolution is something good science fiction is able to do that few other genres can pull off. And if things keep going as they are in the first three episodes, Sidonia will end up being a good piece of science fiction.
One of my favorite things about Knights of Sidonia is how logically the world is set up. For example, humanity has gained the ability to photosynthesize, a trait genetically engineered after a food shortage following a Gauna attack. Around the same time, a third gender came into being, not male or female, but able to mate with either depending on who was their partner. Both of these things have become normal modern society. This includes the students that the main character, Tanikaze Nagate, meets in the early episodes. However, he isn't like them, as he doesn't photosynthesize, and as the "other" in their midst, he gets bullied by many of the students. Contrast this with the natural acceptance of Shinatose Izana, a third-gender student whose existence is seen as "normal" to the students, and I can see the beginnings some actual social commentary. And it's in an anime! Amazing!
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| Yeah, that's not gonna end well for her. |
Sidonia isn't without its problems. Some of the exposition is clunky. I don't feel that they make the best use of the "fish out of water" protagonist in Nagate. He has been living away from society in the subterranean (can I even use that word on a spaceship?) labyrinth built in the centuries before the show takes place. Therefore, I'd think that there was an better way to reveal things about the world to the audience than awkward dialogue between non-main characters in front of an old mecha used to fight the Gauna. Then there is the CG animation. The human characters do not have the major problems that other anime that have used CG for human animation, but there were definitely a couple of uncanny valley moments per episode. There were also moments that I had trouble telling apart the characters, and that's never a good thing.
However, that is the only time the CG is a drawback in this show. The visuals of the mecha fighting the Gauna with their tentacles flailing and debris surrounding them are nothing short of spectacular. Also, with the characters animated in the same fashion as the mecha, there is no jarring disconnect between the two. There is also the environment itself, which feels used and lived in thanks to the scratches and scuff marks covering everything from the suits the pilots wear to the mecha to the ship itself. I can tell that this ship has been through hell from the look of it, even without the characters saying how long they've been in space.
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| The only Japanese things that survived a millennium on a spaceship are kimonos and chopsticks. |
The other thing that made the battles work so well was that they have consequences. Characters die in brutal ways while fighting the Gauna, and that is an effective means to show how dangerous they are. And since the show is written in a way to make the audience sympathetic with the characters, even character deaths that were telegraphed in an obvious fashion had me on the edge of my seat. The mech battles are by far the best parts of the episode, and I think I'm going to get plenty of them in the episodes to come.
Obviously, Sidonia no Kishi passes. It has some minor pitfalls, but its successes easily outweigh them. This is a show that is doing what animated science fiction should do more often. It is bringing the imagined realities of an author to life, while simultaneously asking questions about our modern society. I'm hopeful that it will keep up its strong pace and not get bogged down in things like showing off the girls locker room or get hung up on the weirdness of having a suit insert a catheter. That kind of stuff belongs in lesser anime made to pander to an audience that is probably bored by all the worldbuilding and post transphobic shit about Izana on their online forum of choice. I'm hoping Sidonia is a show with higher aspirations than to appeal to people like that.
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