Vandread and Vandread the Second Stage: Complete Collection
by Takeshi Mori
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DVD details
Actor: VandreadDirector: Takeshi Mori
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 650 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-26
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: GENEON [PIONEER]
DVD Reviews of Vandread and Vandread the Second Stage: Complete Collection
DVD Review: Women = Aliens
Summary: 4 Stars
Note: This review is ONLY FOR THE FIRST SEASON.
After managing to get the OOP box set for £26, I started watching my Vandread DVDs a few days ago.
After watching the first season, while happy with the quality of the series for what I paid, the shallowness of Vandread makes me happy I didn't pay a huge amount for it.
Plot: 7/10
Women are an alien species: We men already know this much already. Vandread takes what we know a step further, really making men and women aliens by putting them on different planets.
At the start of the series, the men of Taraak and women of Mejere were about to start a war. The men got fed up of a group of women space pirates and decided to put a stop to them, unleashing a new battleship against them. However, much to the dismay of the men, the launch of the battleship went badly, the women space pirates stealing the ship.
During all this, a young 3rd class worker, Hibiki, decided to sneak onto the battleship to steal a Vanguard (male mecha) part, ending up getting stuck on board when it launched. He soon found himself thrown in the brig by the men, just before the women attacked.
After the women took over the ship, the men decided to destroy it rather than let the women have it by firing missiles at the ship. This resulted in the ship *somehow* blocking the missiles and getting sent to a distant part of the galaxy. The men and women on board the battleship then had to start working together since they soon discovered a new alien race that wants to "harvest" humans...
----
The plot did have a lot of potential. If taken seriously, a plot involving a war of the sexes could have been amazing... If turned into a comedy, it had the potential to be insanely funny. Sadly, however, Vandread turned out to be light-hearted, shallow and not very funny.
The plot does not develop much at all once the Nirvana (the battleship mentioned previously) gets warped to a distant part of the galaxy. The crew face battles against their new alien enemy, known only as "harvesters", go down to the mostly deserted planets they pass for supplies, fight with each other, play with each other... Episodic stuff.
It's really quite disappointing that the series was taken in such a light-hearted direction when it would've worked much better as a more adult series.
Characters: 7.5/10
The characters, while not exactly being deep or unique, saved the show from being bad.
The main character of Vandread is Hibiki, a young male who wants to prove himself. He's simple minded, direct, bad tempered... The type of lead you see in shounen series on a regular basis. Truth be told, he isn't very interesting, with no background details revealed outside of him being a 3rd class citizen; no depth.
Dita, the female lead, was much more likeable. She insists on calling Hibiki "Mr. Alien", following him around everywhere due to being curious about the male gender and generally annoying the hell out of Hibiki. She was the most funny character in the first season and by far my favourite, if only for being a redhead.
The other 2 female main characters, Jura and Meia, were less interesting. Jura is your stereotypical flirtatious woman and Meia is your stereotypical military type, hiding her emotions and commanding the others in battle. Meia had the most development (not that that's saying much...) in the first series since her past has been revealed, but the sequence about her past wasn't designed very well and had little to no impact on me.
The other 3 characters I found to be interesting are male: Bart, a wimpy guy who ended up steering the ship since only a male can, the male doctor Duero and Rabat, a Han Solo type. Rabat will hopefully get fleshed out in the 2nd series, him being one of the few intriguing characters.
Art/Animation: 9/10
For a show that aired back in 2000, Vandread most certainly looks impressive. It was a rather nice surprise to discover that the the DVDs are in widescreen format.
There was no obvious corner cutting on the art and animation side during the first season; everything looked smooth and nice to look at. The colours made everything look bright and eye catching.
CG is used for all of the space battles in Vandread. I'm sure it looked amazing back when Vandread originally aired, but the CG sections haven't survived the test of time and don't impress in this day and age. I didn't really like the speed the CG battles went at since I found it hard to follow what was going on a lot of time... I suppose the idea was to make the CG battles as fast-paced as possible in order to impress more.
Overall, Vandread looks excellent for its age.
Sound: 5/10
The soundtrack was more distracting than anything. The person who created the soundtrack deserves to be shot... That's all there is to say really.
The OP/ED were pretty good. Nothing too memorable but the themes made watching the OP/ED animation more enjoyable.
As ever with Japanese voice acting, the performances were mostly excellent. There was no noticeable bad performances.
Total: 7.3/10
Enjoyable yet disappointing, Vandread is a great show to watch to pass time. Just don't go into it expecting to see the best anime of all time.
More Vandread and Vandread the Second Stage: Complete Collection reviews:
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