Vandread

Director
Takeshi Mori
Production
GONZO, WOWOW
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2000

Vandread

By KRis
23rd May 04

Who knew? Mech is great. Seriously. Although I've only seen two mech series, they both make my tops. Before I had bad feelings for mech type anime, but not anymore. I strongly urge you to try Vandread out. It's deffinently good for introducing you to anime. It has enough plot and adrenaline to get you addicted to anime. Which might not be a good thing :).

Vandread has deffinently a "unique" storyline. Women and Men absolutely despise each other. Now how could that work? Humans would die pretty quick wouldn't they? How the hell would they reproduce? ANSWER ME!?!?!? (Note: You know you're going crazy when you start argueing with yourself). Women go with Women, and Men go with Men. ACE! and EW!. I don't want to go into detail, mainly because that's talked more about in the series, so there is no use in discussing that. So a war is going on between the two sexes. Hibiki, a 3rd class male, is pretty tired of the way he's living. Makeing parts all day isn't what he wanted out of life. So he decides to sneak on one of the war ships currently leaveing to go fight against the gals. The ship is soon taken over by the women after a very short fight. Most of the men are either dead or have retreated back to their home planet. Except for a few exceptions and Hibiki, but before leaveing their ship behind, they decide to blow it up with the women inside. Somehow the explosion rips a portal or something really stupid like that in space and the few people escape death. So the leftover men and the women pirates have to learn to stand each other long enough to get back to their homes. If you don't understand what I'm saying, read it more slow, you have time. Vandread's theme screems out Fan-Service. Common, what did you expect, the women don't cover themselves up as much, since there is no men. Of coarse Hibiki goes under the usually journey to find himself, which is starting to piss me off. When will we get a more confident main charater? Stop it with these virgin males already! The series is spilt up into stages, (much like Initial D), which makes no difference in the story. Although the Second Stage is MUCH better that the first. If you can make it past the beginning. It's really hard to tell what's going on in the 3D mech scenes during the coarse of the First Stage. The First Stage brings down Vandread's overal mark a lot. Too bad. There were movies, they are both recaps of the two Stages. I wouldn't mind watching them, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you are a die hard fan. I LOVE Neon Genesis Evangelion and I never watched Death and Rebirth, so that's just me.

Art was great, the close ups were weird though, seemed like when a character was shown close up, he/she looked very sloppy. The mech was god awesome. The Second Stage screams for greatness. Music was bad in First, great in Second. That includes the themes, I especially like the opening for the, (get ready), Second Stage. It's like you just want to watch the First Stage just to get to the Second. The characters were great. Vandread also packs a bit of mystery. Great for everyone. So stfu and watch. Pai Check!

8/10

-- KRis 23rd May 04

Vandread Images