The first season of Knights of Sidonia, Polygon Pictures' pioneering CGI mecha series, is now streaming on Netflix with both English dub and subtitle options. The 12-episode run, originally airing in Spring 2014, follows Nagate Tanikaze as he pilots a Garde mecha aboard the massive seed ship Sidonia, humanity's last refuge fleeing a destroyed Earth.
Set a thousand years after the Gauna destroyed Earth, the series blends intense real robot combat with elements of cosmic horror. The Gauna, amorphous and terrifying alien beings, pose an existential threat, forcing the remaining humans to fight for survival in the vastness of space. The show is notable for its distinctive, fully CGI animation style, which was groundbreaking at the time and has since become a hallmark of Polygon Pictures' work on series like Ajin: Demi-Human and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Knights of Sidonia explores themes of humanity's struggle against overwhelming odds, the nature of consciousness, and the blurring lines between human and alien. Its philosophical undertones and mature, often bleak, narrative earned it a nomination for Animation of the Year at the 2015 Tokyo Anime Award Festival.
The series is a direct adaptation of Tsutomu Nihei's manga of the same name and has a MAL score of 7.63 from over 114,000 voters. Its success led to a second season, Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine, which continued the story and further explored the mysteries of the Gauna and the Sidonia's journey.
