Trivia / Aldnoah.Zero

• All-Star Cast: A variant; the lead-up to the show's premiere didn't focus much on the voice acting cast, but rather it was the production team that got the heavy promotion. The hype for this anime went through the roof after names like Ei Aoki, Gen Urobuchi, Hiroyuki Sawano, and A-1 Pictures were revealed to be behind it.
• Anime First: A manga adaptation began a month after airing.
• The Character Died with Him: Shinji Ogawa, the voice actor for Emperor Reyregalia Vers Rayvers, passed away on March 7, 2015, three episodes before the series was scheduled to end. The Emperor also died on Episode 23, two weeks after Ogawa did.
• Creator Couple: Lex Lang directed the English dub in addition to voicing Cruhteo, and his wife Sandy Fox voices Eddelrittuo in that dub.
• Directed by Cast Member: Lex Lang directed the English dub of the series as well as being Cruhteo's voice actor.
• Dueling Shows: With Argevollen due to being Humongous Mecha shows airing at the same time. Though they have very little in common aside from said mecha.
• Genius Bonus: Episode 6's English title, "Steel Step Suite", is actually named after the musical suite that Sergei Prokofiev composed for his ballet "The Steel Step". Later, beginning with the first season finale, (almost) all of the English episode titles are named after literary works.
  • Episode 12: Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Episode 13: This Side of Paradise
  • Episode 14: The Beautiful and Damned
  • Episode 15: Toll for the Brave, by Jack Higgins
  • Episode 16: Soldier's Pay
  • Episode 17: The Turning Wheel
  • Episode 18: The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace Thackeray
  • Episode 20: The Light of Day, by Eric Ambler
  • Episode 21: The Fortune's Fool, by Ivan Turgenev
  • Episode 22: Out of the Past; the film is based off of the novel Build My Gallows High by Daniel Mainwaring
  • Episode 23: The Unvanquished
  • Episode 24: Inherit the Stars, by James P. Hogan.
• Lying Creator: Despite statements to the contrary, a lot of fans are convinced Gen Urobuchi was lying at Anime Expo 2014 when he stated that he only worked on the first three episodes, because the first season finale was very similar to his style of writing. If it wasn't him, then the writing staff was trying very hard to emulate his lead. A few days after the finale aired, Urobuchi continued to deny that he was involved in it and that it really wasn't him this time. See What Could Have Been below. The misconception is so strong that a satirical article was published about this.
• Playing Against Type: Several instances.
  • Max Mittelman does not play someone who is a stoic person and makes sensitive comments without realizing what he's doing.
  • An unattractive racist who continuously Kicks The Dog and dies after only 2 episodes is not the kind of character Takahiro Sakurai and Todd Haberkorn normally voice.
  • Ai Kayano typically voices young, soft-spoken girls who tend to be either Moe or emotionally repressed. A navy captain in her late twenties is quite the anomaly for her.
  • For Julie Ann Taylor, she plays a navy captain who is very serious in her job while trying to be a Reasonable Authority Figure as much as possible.
  • Kazuya Nakai and Matthew Mercer normally voice badasses. Here, they play a severely Shell-Shocked Veteran who does very little fighting. He steps it up a bit in season 2 but is still vastly Overshadowed by Awesome.
  • Bryce Papenbrook is normally The Hero of a show, but here he's Calm Craftman.
  • Lex Lang plays a very racist noble who looks down upon those who are born in Earth.
• Star-Making Role: For Max Mittelman (along with his roles in Coppelion and Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea) as Inaho Kaizuka. And for Zach Aguilar as Slaine Troyard, the latter's debut role.
• The Other Darrin: Since Shinji Ogawa passed away before the series could be completed, Takayuki Sugo replaced him in the role of the Emperor Reyregalia Vers Rayvers.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Since Gen Urobuchi was only involved with the first few episodes and the basic framework of the story, the final product and characters turned out to be different from what he had originally envisioned, as he states in this interview. While we don't have much details on what his original version of the characters and script were like, we do know that his version of Inaho was very different from ours.
  • After the season 1 finale, director Ei Aoki was quizzed on a radio show by Inori Minase and Sora Amamiya (Eddelrittuo & Asseylum's voice actresses, respectively). He revealed quite a few things about the show's characters that were changed in development. Some notable instances include Eddelrittuo originally being a woman in her 20s, Slaine being a more "rebellious spirit" instead of the Extreme Doormat he turned out as, and Inaho was originally a more emotionally balanced character instead of cool and collected all the time.
  • The original finale for the series was supposed to be vastly different. Inaho's arc was going to be more complicated, with his disorder leading to a self-destructive obsession with the princess that drives away all his friends and family, while Slaine's arc would've been motivated by ambition and selfishness rather than the princess. After the final battle Inaho and Slaine would then live peacefully together on Earth in isolation. In addition, Mazuurek or one of the other already-introduced nobles was originally planned to become Asseylum's husband, rather than Klancain.
  • In case you're curious as to why Urobuchi left production so early: as stated here, he was approached to work on Kamen Rider Gaim by Toei. Urobuchi, being a big fan of Kamen Rider, agreed, but thanks to scheduling conflicts, he had to drop out of working on Zero. It's likely that, had Urobuchi not been approached, or had he been able to work out his scheduling conflicts, he would've stayed onboard for much longer.
    • As mentioned on the same wordpress blog, Studio Troyca's entire existance is basically due to this anime - originally, AIC, of all studios, was intended to produce the anime in their place; talks fell through, however, and Aoki, Nagano, and Kato founded Studio Troyca as a result.
• The series made its Super Robot Wars debut in DD after World 5 Update.