I highly recommend this series to anime fans, especially in the 13-14 age group. The show has both funny and serious moments, and the plot is clear and understandable. The artwork is outstanding down the the smallest detail. I watched the dub and it was worth the hours i spent completing the series.There is a mix of epic battles and emotional drama (not to deep for a 12 year old) I still listen to the opening (1 is best) from time to time. As far as recommendations go, This is an anime you will want to watch, especially for teens.

I have seen many anime, reviewed a bunch, and yet I've never given any one of them a "1" before. This one gets it! It is as bad an attempt at story as I can imagine, which is saying a lot, since I'm a SciFi-Fantasy author myself. This is a feature which tries to make a story, but never does, mostly because of the mindless, imbecilically & pointlessly stupid violence based on more mindless and imbecilic hatred of people who are virtually identical in every respect. It is DUMB raised to an art form, and an art form which is neither engaging nor interesting. Watching beings kill each other for no particularly thoughtful reason, using giant robots to boot, doesn't help. ACTION for no sake at all IS NOT INTERESTING! The story which they TRY to make, is so lame and half-hearted, that they would have been better off just putting everybody in a ring and have them all fight just to see who wins, forgetting any reason for it. You don't care about the characters, for there is hardly anything in the way of personalities to care about, you don't care who wins, and by the forth episode, I just wanted to see everybody blow up in a gigantic explosion - this made the most sense of anything with what was going on in this feature. There is nothing and no one to be sympathetic over here, no drama which captivates the viewer, and no gripping plot which makes us want to keep viewing until the end. Beyond that, the illustrations are weak and sophomoric, while the animation is only so-so with colors that look as if you're watching things though a light fog. I did make it - painfully - through the 7th episode, and then I just had to stop. I couldn't waste any more of my time on terrible, and terrible was all I was getting on every level. I'd much rather watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon, they are SO MUCH superior. There are many anime out there, and all that I've seen so far are much better than this one, even the bad ones. Do yourself a favor and DON'T WATCH THIS ONE - it WILL make you dumber!

Spoiler AheadThe stories logically makes sense. There is no plot holes I can see. People complain that they destroyed Slaine's character, but that was the point. The worse way to go isn't to die but self corruption. This story resembles the rise of dictators. The Vers rise to power is quite similar to how the Nazis rise. A country desperate for resources and claiming to be the superior race even though we're all human. Like the Nazi, their tech were initially more advanced then the Terrans. Did you know Hitler and Stalin originate from difficult countries then the countries they ruled. So is Slaine, a Terran who had at one point became more powerful than any Orbital Knight. And like every dictator, the ends is similar. Self corruption and losing site of a goal. This story show themes of war and peace, the future, and who you want to be in this world. But in the end everything fell into place. Slaine believed he was already too far to come back. If you asked what was the needless slaughter at the end of the series for, well look at how Hitler commanded kids to fight at the end of a losing war. But I agree the ending was sort of bad and if I had to rate the story of human history, I would also rate it bad too. The anime isn't only trying to write a story but to represent human conflict and human nature all together and in that it succeeded.I also found interesting that each Orbital Knight are the only ones with these powerful mechs. Just like the feudal system in Medieval Europe only the nobles can afford full plated knight armor. And as for Aldnoah, it resembles God and the church. Or maybe military strength.During the Emperor of Ver's mindless rant, you can see he initially wanted only peace but then give into the hate after learning you can never get back what was lost including his son. The most touching scene I felt was that Slaine's men he ordered to retreat came back to his side knowing the monster he had become.Production - 9/10 The POV shots were amazingly directed Example: from viewing the Ships slingshotting across the atmosphere from the perspective of the destroyed earth. These shots are a real treat conveying multiple messages in one scene. A picture can speak a thousand words, so how about scene with 60 fps. Combine with amazing art quality and lighting effects will want you to replay to get a good look at the scene.Music - 9/10 Hiroyuki Sawano does it again. As soon as I heard it I knew it was him.Story - 8/10 Hey what you know an anime protagonist who needs the help of his friends (sometimes) and uses is intelligence instead of brute strengths or magic (well I guess the Aldnoah counts). And NO FANSERVICE (I think). Scientific ideas and theories on how these machines and weapons work may seem overwhelming with all that science jargon but then later dumb down and explained. A story that takes you into multiple perspective of ever factor of the war from the soldiers, to the Aces, to the repairers, to the ship pilots, to the commanders. A story where you actually care about both sides and don't wish for them to fight. You understand there perspective, dreams, will strength, and hopes. As you see their rise to power and character development and from a nobody into a badass; this show is worth to watch. Final score 8.5 so rounded up. The presentation mostly carried this but I did enjoyed the story. Though still childish as practically everyone lives (just the extras die). Extremely lucky in executing tactics and strategies. Most times plans don't go that smoothly. Also high schoolers beating veterans. At least make them college students.

The end is disturbingly bad, it's full of pointless nonsense, bad action (with a few funny moments when the "ohhh ohh scary big boss" gets wreak like a freaking n00b. seriously how can he be so bad with such a robot under his power?! And after this funny stupid action... (There is a bit of spoilers ahead) ...comes a pointless slaughter ending caused by the freaking stupid slaine, its all his fault, his weakness, he kills the coolest guy because of some stupid pride or jealous reason, his stupidity is at fault for this ending. Idk wtf the writers were thinking, this anime goes from a nice 8.5 grade to 7.9, which should be 6.5 imho.This guys writes it better than me, i just came here so i could get this out of my chest: worst anime ending ever, its even worst than berserk "ending".http://generallycritical.com/2014/09/20/aldnoah-zero-episode-12- pointless-slaughter/