Heh, missed this thread and went straight for the thread that was made months ago. Oh well, I'll just repost what I posted there.
I noticed this on the Netflix front page last night. Six hours later, I had watched the whole first season. Damn that was good. I never thought I would watch something branded as a "Netflix Original Series", but then they went and exclusively licensed a mature sci-fi anime. Oh, Netflix. It actually makes perfect sense for Netflix to do this, as a significant part of their viewership are anime watchers; I read an article that said some 15 of Netflix's 40 most popular series are anime. Netflix's Independent Content VP had this to say: "Netflix has a huge base of anime fans and we are thrilled to be bringing exclusively for the first time them a first-run anime series, especially one as well-plotted, humorous and beautifully animated as Knights of Sidonia." Technically, the only original parts Netflix produced were the English and Spanish dubs, but I did watch it in the English dub and it was pretty great. If Knights of Sidonia is a success, I'd love to see Netflix acquire the rights to even more anime series.
Now, about the show itself. I loved it. My dad raised me on Star Trek and Star Wars, so space opera science fiction has always sort of been my "first love" over other branches of fantasy like "swords & sorcery" or "steampunk". This show is absolutely dripping with a sleek but somewhat gritty hard sci-fi atmosphere (for all it pretends though, it's not really hard sci-fi because, you know, giant fighting mecha). The characters are likable; there are some obvious anime tropes at play here, but it's all written very well.
The plot itself is sort of similar to the popular Attack on Titan (which will likely cause quite a bit of chagrin for Knights of Sidonia fans, as AoT fans may try to accuse KoS of being derivative, when the reality is that KoS's manga debuted about half a year before AoT's manga). It also bears similarity to the science fiction classic Battlestar Galactica. Humanity is on the run from a overwhelming Lovecraftian menace called the Gauna, fleeing them in the titular "seed ship" Sidonia and seeking a new planet to call home. Defense of Sidonia rests on the pilots of fighting mecha called Gardes, which is sort of similar to the Scouts from Attack on Titan, but also similar to the fighter pilots of Battlestar Galactica. I can't too to further into the plot without spoilers, but needless to say I was enthralled. It's a traditional sci-fi setup with enough interesting twists to keep things interesting and great execution.
But past the superficial similarities to AoT, I actually like KoS better than AoT. I've only seen the dubbed episodes of AoT so far as it airs on Toonami (yay 90s nostalgia!) but it just really hasn't grabbed me. The first couple episodes are great, with an effective death to get you invested in the main characters...but it just doesn't let up from there, beating you over the head with tragedy after tragedy. It got monotonous to me quickly (Also, transparently pretending that the main character was dead for a couple episodes and acting like we should feel morosely sad for his friends pissed me off). The ironic thing is that KoS has just as high if not higher a death toll than AoT, but it just works better for me. Maybe it's because the show doesn't pretend that you should be more attached to these characters than you are, I don't know.
About the animation: yes, it's 3DCG. I like it. It took some getting used to, but I think it really works for the science-fiction setting and aesthetic.
Overall, I just loved the first season of Knights of Sidonia to bits, and I can't wait for season 2.
