I personally love the tension. It's anime, you can't expect RR Martin drama in here, but I like how the Martian court is played out, with the emperor being manipulated by the Knights.

I also think that it makes sense that no one knows that the princess is alive. All communication lines were cut off, and it's not like she can just waltz in and claim she is the princes, because then she would face assassination for real (remember, everyone still believes that one of the rats is still among them, which is actually kinda true).

Actually I can and it has been done before a lot of times.

Didn't really expect something like that coming from you. I will assume that you haven't watched a lot of anime before to make this claim.

From the top of my head there are Simoun, Maoyuu and Spice and Wolf which did political drama better. Hell, I would even count Sora no Woto among those even though it's extremely cheesy. And I can't even name all the animes that can produce higher tension than this.

I will admit that this anime will certainly be exhilarating for anyone who hasn't watched anime before.

Having watched Maoyu and Spice and Wolf, I can safely say that neither comes even close to RR Martin in terms of the insane amount of political weaving and drama. I haven't watched Simoun, so I'll take your word for it. 

I'm an avid reader of books and manga, and I love anime as well, but they all serve different purposes. There are exceptions, but for the most part there are things that books do better and anime do better.

Spice and Wolf took more than a season for the full plot to start playing out, yet you criticize Aldnoah for not living up to expectations when it's only on episode 6 of 24?

You know, you are really going against your earlier claims about not judging anime. You seem to be hardcore against Aldnoah already, and me claiming it's good causes me to be branded as a novice anime watcher?

No, I probably don't watch as much as you. I'm a full-time university student, so the most I can manage is watching four or five episodes a week, while over the summer I binge watch one or two animes a week. Still, I've had plenty of experience with hundreds of different anime. I haven't finished them all, but I've watched enough to be able to make a solid guess with what's good for me and what's not.

If you you choose to believe that Aldnoah is only good as a casual anime, fine. But please don't call out people like you are now, or sweepingly generalize everyone who enjoys Aldnoah as newbies. 

Well now you're generalizing my comment. I never said anyone who enjoys Aldnoah is a newbie. I was referring to your statement that anime can't deliver proper (political) drama. Which was a giant generalization in itself.

In case of Spice and Wolf, that anime had a lot more going for it and political drama was more on the sidelines. But it still did it better than Aldnoah.

Since my original point is that Aldnoah is very generic in its story and characters, my point stands that it will be especially enjoyable for newbies who haven't seen the same thing a hundred times before. There simply is no such thing as generic if you haven't watched a lot. Of course it will also be enjoyable for people who like action and suspense and a less whiney character.

But for seasoned anime watchers who are looking for something fresh I doubt the appeal. Nothing in this animes hasn't been done before in the exact same way. Even more, everything in this anime has been done better before. I don't see a single thing that sets this anime apart from any other scifi/war/mecha anime, yet it gets hailed as one of the best animes this season. That is my gripe with it.

You said that you expect anime to match the political tention of RR Martin. I said anime doesn't match up to that, and I stand by that, as RR Martin is considered one of the masters at writing political drama in modern fiction. You said Spice and Wolf match or exeed GoT in that aspect, which they simply don't. I never said that anime can't deliver proper political tension, if anything, I already said I feel that Aldnoah does. I said that you can't expect anime to be on-par with modern fictional political masterpieces like GoT, you generalized my comment to mean that anime can't deliver proper political drama period.

Anyway, let's just drop this. If you don't like Aldnoah, fine. I'm not worried about that, just irked that you would try to call me out as a novice anime watcher. But we're not getting anywhere with this, so let's leave this before it gets any worse. 

Strike witches movie was licensed by Funimation, I'm so excited. I can't wait to watch it.

I will drop this as soon as I clarified that I never said that the animes I mentioned are better that GoT. I took them as examples of animes that are better executed than Aldnoah. I couldn't even because I never watched GoT. But I watched a lot of other great dramas on television before anime and I will say with all confidence that anime in itself as a medium can live up to any standards set by western dramatization(Go watch Kaiba!). If anything I have higher standards for anime than any other medium because I know it can deliver and it has in the past(and because I've consumed anime more than any other medium in my life). That's why Aldnoah rubs me the wrong way. It has not oly a lot of generic anime tropes but western drama tropes as well, which I think is a tragedy seeing what Japanese fiction can deliver without westernization.

Actually what rubs me the wrong way is not the anime itself, which is a fairly inoffensive action piece with no aspirations to being great. What rubs me the wrong way are people who insist it is.

I would've ignored it but people kept saying that it would be one of the best of the season. Now I've watched and I am asking Why, what and how?

Maybe there's something I'm missing. Maybe it has a deeper underlining I'm not aware of. But unless I see it in future episodes or someone tells me what I missed I will continue to be baffled how this can become one of the highest rated animes of the season.

Höhö ^^

Good stuff!

Haikyuu really is amazing. I just hope this will spawn even more amazing sports animes.