Knights of Sidonia – 02-05
That’s it, drink up~
Knights of Sidonia is actually pretty entertaining despite some scientific hiccups and inconsistencies. But this is science fiction so we can forgive that.
Looking Good
First contact.
No, I haven’t forgotten about this show or been scared away by the CG. I just didn’t have the time to get around to covering it until now. Hopefully coverage will be more consistent from here on out. Anyway, Knights of Sidonia continues to do a fine job of keeping me engaged. I haven’t found a single episode boring yet, and in fact I only grow all the more fascinated by the story’s universe with each passing episode. There’s a lot of potential development to be had in the way of revealing humanity’s past and the war with the Gauna. And while the show appears to be going for the standard war started by miscommunication trope (complete lack of communication in this case), I still think the potential for a great, original story remains if Knights of Sidonia plays its cards right moving ahead.
A short space walk.
I spent some time on the CG animation in my coverage of the premiere, so I think it’s worth returning to the subject now that I’ve had the chance to look at more of it in action. From what I’ve seen, I think it fair to reiterate that the CG is pretty good all things considered. I know there were a few uncanny moments here and there in the premiere, and those still crop up every now and then in episodes since. But overall the quality is very much watchable. In fact, I might go so far as to say that the character designs and animation have gotten a bit better since the premiere. I don’t think it’s just me getting used to it gradually because I just marathon-ed episodes 2-5 in one sitting. And even at the start of the session I thought things looked better than in the premiere and continued to stay that way. Also, the mecha animation continues to be top-notch as it should, because CG really is well-established at least in this application.
Science Stuff
To turn a large rock.
Before moving on to the contents of the show, I would like to spend some time dwelling on some questionable physics of interstellar travel I noticed during my marathon. There are probably other minor details, but this was the one that stood out the most to me. For the most part, Knights of Sidonia nailed it with the titular seed ship’s maneuvering. The ship for the most part coasts along until the need to accelerate arises due to an emergency or some other circumstance. And this is spot on, because it is pretty well known that drag in space, while present, is of a very small magnitude. Basically, once you get up to speed you more or less remain at that speed for a very long time. This is very well exemplified when the Sidonia kills its thrusters and continues to coast, having narrowly avoided the Gauna. But then we get to the Gardes and suddenly the show forgets about the physics that it just did a commendable job of representing.
Flyin’ solo.
I’ll let the Gardes in combat slide because it is very reasonable to expect that they require acceleration almost constantly primarily to maneuver around the Gauna and its tentacles. But how about a Gardes traveling in a mostly linear course? Of course, it should behave exactly like the Sidonia and turn off its thrusters once it has the desired course and speed. So then why was there a need for Nagate to burn his thrusters until his tank ran dry when it came to rescuing Shizuka? I suppose it could be argued that he still hadn’t reached a speed sufficient to reach Shizuka’s pod since it had been sent flying due to her Gardes exploding. But I have a hard time believing that considering the high maneuverability of the Gardes (it should be able to accelerate very quickly).
The humble four-man formation.
It’s also worth pointing out the formation flying of the Gardeses ostensibly to travel at even higher speeds than a single unit alone. Imagine you couple two exactly identical cars and somehow drive the resulting mess. You might have doubled the power output but you’ve also doubled the mass the engines need to pull, so even at best the coupled cars would not go any faster than one car. The same should apply to the Gardeses, but I have no idea how the fictional Hyggs engines work and how they might interact so I’ll let that one slide.
256-Gardes formation. Seems legit.
What I want to get at is that the formation flying Gardeses also burn their thrusters constantly even though they presumably travel in more or less a straight path. Changing directions would become increasingly complex to coordinate with more units so I imagine they avoid doing that, but I digress. In this case however, I believe the show is portraying constant acceleration space travel. The idea is to get to the destination as quickly as possible, so the ship accelerates constantly until the midpoint of its journey, then it decelerates constantly for the rest of the trip. This seems to be what’s happening here since “reverse thrust” is mentioned several times in reference to formation flying Gardeses arriving at their destination. The important point is that trip time appears to be of primary interest to the formation flying Gardeses while fuel conservation should have been of primary interest to Nagate during his rescue of Shizuka, so there is no sidestepping the latter issue by mentioning the former.
The Enemy
A giant peeled banana is a’ firin’ it’s lazer!
On to the show itself. More or less these four episodes served to demonstrate the real threat that the Gauna present. The first concern is their ability to adapt and mimic characteristics from their encounters. Mainly, I am referring to the Gauna growing a Hyggs particle cannon. That’s very impressive considering we’re talking about an organic construct mimicking the workings of what I assume to be a complex machine. Next, it would seem the Gauna possess some sort of higher intelligence and directive beyond just randomly screwing with mankind. Judging from the Gauna prioritizing Nagate and co. while they were retrieving the Kabizashi, I would say that they clearly possess enough intelligence to recognize the danger the weapon poses to them. And judging from the Gauna doggedly attempting to approach the Sidonia, I would say that they are clearly trying to achieve some purpose, whatever it may be.
Threat neutralized.
Speaking of the Gauna making contact with the Sidonia, the whole circumstance was highly suspicious, especially considering the very extreme measures captain Kobayashi took to avoid it. It’s possible she only had the best interests of her people in mind, but I highly doubt it was just a matter of the Gauna killing all humans on board. For one, it doesn’t have to get so close to the ship to do that; there are so many easier ways to do it from a distance, like using that Hyggs particle cannon for instance. So I think there is some deeper reason for this behavior that Kobayashi knows and is hiding. It might be something as simple as the Gauna being drawn to the rest of the Kabizashis that are on board the Sidonia. I suppose one way to find out if that is the case would be to eject all the spears from the Sidonia and see if the Gauna stop following the ship. But seeing as said weapons are the only means of killing a Gauna, this might not be an acceptable experiment.
If I haven’t expressed myself sufficiently yet, let me reiterate that I’m rather enjoying Knights of Sidonia. Whatever you want, it’s got it. Awesome mecha action? No problem. Intriguing universe and story? Done and done. Developing character relationships complete with blushing? You got it. Occasional random fanservice? Consider yourself served. Of course, the show isn’t perfect. It’s got its fair share of things I find stupid, such as the main lead who doesn’t ever listen to orders, ever, a seed ship with limited resources using a mass driver to shoot large chunks of what could probably see use as a raw material instead of using fictional pew pew lasers, or said ship with no fictional inertial dampeners having no sort of public shelters with mounted harnesses to keep the people safe when the gravity goes wrong. But these are minor enough that they don’t really ruin the show for me.
She was just photosynthesizing.
About Sumairii
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
heh… communication… reminds me of an incident.
“Hey, it’s those humans we were told about. Let’s open our gunports and welcome them as a sign of respect!”
“SHIT!! THE ENEMY IS OPENING THEIR GUNPORTS!!! ATTACKK!! ATTACCCKKK! ATTACCCCKK!!!”
Heh.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
“Lost in space-better drink my own piss!”
Few Sidonians knew the chapter of their history where Bear Grylls was involved in designing Sidonia’s spacesuits…
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
Hyggs engine reminds me of Gundam’s Minovsky particle. Fictional, but it makes every illogical things excused in the anime. Oh well, this is anime
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The story is improving but I certainly wouldn’t trade where I am now for a life as a Sidonia resident. If not killed first hand by a Gauna, you’re a casualty among many in an attempt to evade one. Falling sideways out of a toppling building to end up a splattered corpse against another is not the way of picturing my own end. And if there’s any consolation, those who died went quickly thanks to the impact so maybe not much pain was felt. It still sucks to go through that at all.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I wouldn’t consider using Hosojiro’s method of using her own body fluids unless it was an absolute last resort. What’s done is done. Though Nagate is better off not knowing how he got rehydrated.
One subject I feel didn’t get enough thought on. A big number of ships left the earth, that much is already elaborated. If they’re so many and some found a means to fight the Gauna, why didn’t the others organize an expedition to secure more of the material? Sure, the ones who created the weapons are unknown but what’s needed to make them would’ve been at their disposal and since there are bound to have people in the scientific field, it’s safe to say they wouldn’t be above trial and error instead of waiting after centuries of drifting in space to bring up the news.
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
Not to mention that when you get old they march you off to become raw materials.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
This part of the anime is just tragic, but it shows how bad the condition there is
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Who’s to say that’s not happening to those who died slamming against the buildings when Sidonia drifted sideways to evade the Gauna’s trajectory? They don’t have enough prison cells to punish the team that defied orders in order to recover Nagate so I doubt there’s any place suited to be grave sites to bury the dead.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Wouldn’t want to live there either, and I am interesting in those weapons and why they didn’t trying to figure out how to make their own?
Also if these people wear Japanese clothing at the festivals, why don’t they have some more variety in clothing on a regular basis instead of wearing the same outfits all the time even on vacation? And is everyone one this ship Japanese? I would think a world evacuation ship would have a little more diversity?
POWUH: iLurker with 16 comments
I don’t see what’s wrong with the mass drivers. Those hyggs beam cannons are rather weak while the mass driver bought several days worth of time for them to prepare. Much better than an emergency acceleration that buys less time and caused casualties.
POWUH: 800-899 and Mad Scientist with 814 comments
My primary complaint here is that Sidonia is essentially a colony with very limited resources. Sooner or later they will not be able to afford flinging large blocks of material at the Gauna. So, it would be more logical to use Hyggs particle cannons as they can simply “recollect” Hyggs particles out of nothing thanks to sci-fi convenience.
As you observed, a Hyggs particle cannon is relatively weak on its own. However, as we just saw, crossing the streams with two particle cannons results in a rather violent reaction which is capable of destroying most of the Gauna’s placental armor. If the Sidonia crew were smart, they would fire two particle cannons in tandem and exploit this phenomenon.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
This anime reminds me of Muv Luv game. Maybe the Gauna is a distant relative of BETA, and the ship is the ship from Muv Luv Unlimited timeline
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I can see the resemblance now. The Gauna are just as fleshy and butt ugly as Muv Luv’s BETA.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I’m liking this show more, and a lot of that is because they haven’t gotten necessarily better at the character animations, they’ve just worked around the poor character animations. Notice that since the first episode, most of the characters are either just standing, sitting, in a helmet, or other static things that hide the flaws. It’s perfectly understandable to minimize the weaknesses that way, and doesn’t harm the rest of the production.
I don’t really have a problem with the space flight portions either. Real space ballistics is boooooring to watch. So ignoring quite a lot of that is worthwhile for the point of a story.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
MMMMMMMM SPACE GATORADE ITS GREAT!! TASTES LIKE PEOPLE oh wait…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
“Stop right there!! We don’t want bad publicity ruining our product!” is what I imagine the manufacturers would say.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It does make me wonder how the nature of photosynthesis would change the properties of their urine….compared to ours, that is. But then, I get bored easy.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Actually that is an interesting question. If they now do photosynthesis, which requires water to work, as well as the fact that they need water for all of their other bodily functions and systems, you would think that a person who had photosynthesis would have much less actual water in their urine than a normal person. So shouldn’t Nagate have been able to do what Hoshojiro did and been liked to a urine filtration system?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh, they gave this stuff up the first episode. Nitrogen fixation in soil, the entire ATP process that plant cells bring in opposition to animal cells, the whole and total repsiration of CO2 vs O2?
IGNORED!POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
more like bear grylls in space xDD
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
If they can filter it in the ship, and they’ve had to for centuries, then I’m plenty willing to believe they can filter it in their spacesuit. Hell, it’s easier to filter urine than it is to filter freakin’ lubricating fluid.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Is it even worth it to filter lubricant?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The will to do so should be taken into consideration. Maybe they’re just lazy.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 386 comments
“thats almost lemonaid”
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Just don’t mention the ingredients. What they don’t know won’t hurt them… or your profits. 😉
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Surely you could turn to a more rarefied market…charge accordingly.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 386 comments
needs a Slogin “photosynthesizing is it in you?” or “photosynthesizing..because you fkin need it yeah!”
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Peopleaide….
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 386 comments
Peopleaide, It’s made with artificially real..[censored] “OH yeah!”
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
I’m really loving Sidonia right now. The characters are coming on a little slow and I’m just starting to remember names with faces, but I’m enjoying this show more for the plot and the action. The Gauna are impressive enemies and you can see why they are are so dangerous. However, considering how many lives were lost when the ship just turned to avoid the monster, I’m wondering if the human race is in any danger at all if you just can throw away lives like that. I know its supposedly the better of the two evils, but that was ridiculous. Those scenes of everyone getting flung to their deaths and going bloody “splat” on the building was really disturbing.
Nagete is an interesting MC as he’s pretty much of a homey nobody until he gets on the battlefield and then you see him use quite a bit of intelligence as he knows when to obey orders and when to go by instinct. And unlike, Kunato, he doesn’t do it for the glory, but simply because he thinks it’s right.
I feel sorry for Akai and his elite squad, but unfortunately the moment they were introduced, you knew they were going to die. And they were determined to make “death flag pincushions” out of them by adding backstory and relationships onto them too.
The battles are great, the world is getting great depth, the characters are beginning to be fleshed out, the mysteries surrounding the plot are interesting ones, making this my favorite mecha series of the season.
POWUH: and Athenaeum Châtelaine with 2212 comments
Okay, Spammy is holding at least two of my posts from two different sections hostage. What’s up spammy? I know I just got back but come on! This is just greedy…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
The whole insertion thing in the suits is >.< ow.