Aldnoah.Zero 2 Review

Overall Rating 6.8 out of 10 - Somewhat weaker sequel to original Aldnoah.Zero

I still recommend watching.

After rather dramatic end of the original where everyone is basically killed in a very dramatic way in the last episode, sequel would be hard to achieve. So, for plot convenience they all miraculously survived. 

However, that leaves too many inconsistencies with the role these characters. The story basically reached its conclusion too, plot with Seylum assassination is exposed and Count Saalzbaum is killed. Here Saalzbaum is alive, and Slane somehow became his loyal follower. 

Change in Slane is most regrettable and hard to explain. In the original he mostly tried to survive the whole mess. he accidently stumbled upon the plot to kill Seylum and wanted to save her because she was kind of his protector from xenophobia of Vers. Here he Saalzbaum and Lemurina instead work together to carry on the conquest. 

I guess they chose this path in order to continue Inaho vs Slane rivalry. However, the two do not have much time to fight each other. In fact, here story focuses more on court intrigue and maneuvering then on battles.

Somewhere in the middle they decided to make Slane into ambitious rank climber, to knife his way to power as he wages war against the Earth. However, then they change their mind and instead made him surrender just because Seylum regain consciousness and called the war to an end. A truly pathetic ending that lowered the score.

I would have likely given it 7.4 if Slayne Saalzbaum Vers Allusia Troyaird choose to ignore real Seylum and instead continued his conquest to the end with fake Seylum, played by Lemurina. That would have been good ending.

I did not like Lemurina at first, but later started to see her devotion to the cause. She would work for Slane and continue to disguise herself as Seylum to make his plans succeed, despite he clearly prefers Seylum over her. She is hopelessly devoted to Slayne.

Overall, it is not as good as the original, but decent enough. It does have interesting psychologically deep scenes here and there. It has rather capable authors that might have managed something better under different circumstances.

Still this overreaching narrative of sacrificing everything for some women, that screenwriters here like does irks me.