Knights of Sidonia - Season 2

Knights of Sidonia second season picked up pretty much where the first season left off.  In this current season Nagate is still the main character and is Sidonia’s premier warrior.  Izana is still his best friend, but that begins to change and Izana changes from a hermaphrodite into a female as her feelings for Nagate grow.  The original season story can be found in my post about season 1  http://alter-ego-reality.blogspot.com/2014/06/knights-of-sidonia.html.  

 

Early in the season, Captain Kobayashi’s actions are questioned by the Immortal Council running the ship, and when they decide to get rid of her, she stages a coup, helped by the renegade scientist Ochiai, and kills the entire Immortal Council.  This gives her free rein to run Sidonia in any fashion she chooses, and Ochiai works with Kunato Industries to continue developing Gauna hybrids.   Ochiai is essentially the series bad guy.  He should have been executed for directly causing Sidonia almost to be lost back in the Fourth Defensive War, but because part of Sidonia’s computers and memory systems could only be accessed through his brain, he was kept alive.  His clone is working with Kobayashi.

Hoshijiro’s gauna form that was brought back to the Sidonia by Nagate after her death is taken by Kunato and impregnated with human DNA in order to create Tsumugi, a gauna-human hybrid that has the shape of a young woman in a dress and is the size of a mecha.  Tsumugi can be ridden like a mecha and is an expert at fighting gauna, rivaling or exceeding Nagate’s abilities.  Her personality is child-like and sincere and she develops feelings for Nagate.   Nagate for his part, likes her and accepts Tsumugi's affection even though she's not human.  In addition, although Tsumugi is huge, she can interact at a human-sized level by extruding a tentacle that the show’s producers managed to make amazingly expressive and cute despite being alien.   Tsumugi, Nagate and Izana quickly become friends.

In this season, Izana is almost killed in battle and loses an arm and leg which are replaced by prosthetic ones which give her special abilities.  Izana and Nagate decide to share quarters and find housing in some of Sidonia’s nice older dwellings.  Midorikawa moves in with them when she find out, as she is also attracted to Nagate.  Tsumugi’s tentacle can reach the dwelling also, through Sidonia’s ventilation system, so the series becomes somewhat of a harem series at times, and it's fun to watch almost always. 

Captain Kobayashi’s plan is to attack and take a planet called planet 9, ostensibly in order to set Sidonia up for an effort to completely destroy gauna.  To do so, she falls in with Ochiai's plans to use gauna as weapons.  The last several episodes of this season are battles to take planet 9.  Izana goes out with a reconnaissance squad as Sidonia approaches the planet, and the squad is essentially destroyed when Hoshijiro’s other gauna form (the red battle form) shows up again and takes everyone out.  

Tsumugi and Nagate come to the rescue.  Tsumugi is better than the Hoshijiro gauna and bests it, but then is taken by surprise and most of her life force is absorbed by the gauna.  She is then rescued by Nagate after he rescues Izana and another pilot.   So they win the battle for planet 9.

This season didn’t disappoint me and I find myself hoping they will do another one.   Besides the unique universe they created for the series and how much I like the character style, the interactions between the characters are really good and lots of fun to watch.  They take the time to develop the relationships, between Nagate and Izana, as well as with Tsumugi and Midorikawa.  It’s just a really good series that’s creeping up toward my all time favorites list.