Vandread

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

Vandread

By Stephen Lerch
10th Jun 04

Vandread is a TV with 2 seasons that originally aired in Japan from October 10, 2000 until December 19, 2000 for the first season and October 5, 2001 until January 18, 2002.The first season is Vandread, the second is Vandread: The Second Stage.

It's another Anime by studio Gonzo

Short Synopsis:

Men are from Tarak and women are from Mejale.

On the planet Tarak, men are divided into classes with first class citizens taking military jobs or the job they desire, while third class citizens don't enjoy that freedom. They are forced into manual labour day in and out to build various parts for war machines for the military of Tarak. This is where we meet the story's main character, Hibiki Tokai. Hibiki is apparently a third class citizen working on building the military's new weapon, the Vanguard. The Vanguard is a giant robot, similar to a Gundam, that is piloted by military personnel in an attempt to prevent the men from Tarak being killed by their enemies. Hibiki has made a highly irresponsible decision; he will steal a Vanguard and bring it back to show the rest of the third class citizens what the finished Vanguard looks like. He marks the piece he is building so he knows which Vanguard to take and is on his way.

So who are the men of Tarak fighting? Well, the women of Mejale and pirates, of course! Men believe that women are evil and that they will eat your innards if they capture you and the two sexes live separately, men on Tarak women on Mejale.

During a battle between the men's new ship (which Hibiki has stowed away upon) and some Mejalian pirates, the men's ship splits and the portion with the crew on it takes a pot shot at the split off piece and the pirate's ship. Little did the men know that the on the portion they separated from is the Paksis Pragma, a sort of living energy source for the original colony ship the men and women flew from Earth upon. The men had incorporated this colony ship into the their new ship, which is why they were able to separate old from new.

The Paksis protects the pirate ship and the colony ship by making a space jump, stranding the crew many light years from their homes. The Paksis also fuses the men's ship and the female's ship together with some unexpected consequences.

In the far reaches of space the crew of 3 stranded men and a ship full of women must fight to defend their people from an attack from a horrible enemy whose objective is yet unknown.

During the first battle, one of the unexpected consequences of the fusing of the 2 ships is that 3 of the women's Dreads (starships used for space battle, like an X-Wing) can fuse with one of the men's new mobile suits. Thus is born the name of the series, Vandread.

Video:

The transfer to DVD is near flawless. No rainbows to be seen, no compression blocking and no blemishes of any kind. A great transfer.

The animation is rather high quality, as is the case with most Gonzo shows. Being a Gonzo show, it fuses 3D GCI with 2D. This method is used sparingly, or is at least left to the confines of the outer space battles and anything that has to do with the Dreads, Vanguard, Vandreads or enemy ships. All of the characters are animated in the 2D style and are animated beautifully.

One thing that irritates me a little is that during the first season, any on screen Japanese text is hard subbed on screen. There isn't much Japanese text to be translated, but it doesn't change the fact that it is still hard subbed. The Second Stage avoids this 'problem.'

The transfer is wide screen, though not animorphic. There is no animorphic print for this show, so what the US received and what the Japanese audience received was the same non-animorphic video.

Audio:

For this series, you are given the option of 2.0 stereo in either Japanese or English, with optional English subtitles.

The Japanese voice acting on this is of the highest caliber. For me, Dhita wouldn't be Dhita if not voiced by Kakazu Yumi. The same goes for the rest of the cast. They picked an amazing crew for this show.

The English voice acting is also well done. Having been exposed, and gotten used to the Japanese track first, I can't say whether I feel the characters were cast properly, but the dub is well done.

The music in this series is also wonderful. The opening and ending themes for the first season are 2 of my favourite Anime songs ever. The background music is as high a quality as everything else in the show and fits really well into the flow.

There are no drop outs or other anomalies in the audio. Expertly executed.

Extras:

We are given some really nice extras with this release. Textless openings for every episode (they used pieces of the animation in the opening of every episode, so there are 26 slightly different openings in total), some conceptual line art, Japanese promo clips, and artwork from the Japanese DVD releases. Pretty standard fare, though still well done and well presented.

Another extra for the first pressings was foil cards contained within the 8 volumes. If you weren't lucky enough to pick the show up when it first hit the street, good luck in finding those foil cards.

Packaging:

This is an 8 disc series and the cover designs revolve around a similar theme throughout the release. Each disc is given a foil cover treatment with one character and their Vandread (or Vanguard in Hibiki's case for volume 4) depicted on the front and the second season using only the mecha for the front covers. The back covers contain screen shots from the episodes contained on the disc, along with some nice supplemental artwork to go along with each disc on The Second Stage discs. The first season is left a little plain on the back cover with only semi-wrap around cover art and screen shots available.

The interior insert contains the cover artwork (non-foil) on the front and episode listings on the back.

Also of note is that there are 2 versions of The Second Stage disc 1. You could purchase this disc with or without a box to contain the rest of the series. The artbox is high quality and the discs fit nicely into it. The artwork is well chosen and represents the spirit of the show. Nicely done.

Final Analysis:

I absolutely love this show. This is likely the most watched series in my collection without exception.

Dhita is also my favourite Anime character ever. She's so bubbly, happy and easy going (well, not when it comes to Hibiki) that I can't help but enjoy watching her. All she wants is for everyone to be happy, how can you not like that?

The Anime itself is basically a love story wrapped into a space drama with a twist. How do you commence a relationship when you are the first of your time to even propose an inter-sex relationship? This is the problem that plagues Hibiki and Dhita, with both sides playing up some male/female stereotypes. Hibiki doesn't know how to deal with his feelings and is clumsy in how he treats Dhita in typical male fashion. He also loves home cooked food that only the women can provide. Dhita is bent on simply knowing more about Hibiki, more than anyone else and to have him for herself, along with being super jealous. When Dhita is given a rival in Misty, the ensuing cat fight is also played out stereotypically.

There are a lot of laughs at the expense of relationship stereotypes to be had in this series.

There are also a couple of things that cause me to draw parallels to Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato, though whether this was intentional or not, I don't know. The concept of saving the planet(s), the Earth being destroyed (basically) and the capsule they find in The Second Stage with Misty LOOKS like the capsule given to the Earthlings during the first episode or 2 of Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato and those are just for starters.

I highly recommend this show.

Score: 10

-- Stephen Lerch 10th Jun 04

Vandread Images