VANDREAD

A two season anime which came out around 2000 and 2001 consecutively having 13 episodes in each season and two ova which covers a summary and ova exclusive scenes of the series.

An anime series taking place in a far future where male and women are at war with each other and living on each of their own planet. Tarak for the male and Mejer for the female.

Two planets at war both planets inhabited by human species one planet Mejer an all-female planet and Tarak an all-male planet.

The two planets were colonized by humans who left earth hundreds of years ago looking for planets to colonize as earth is slowly dying due to over population and pollution. The planet Mejer and Tarak are just two of the colonized planets of the human species and no other alien species were introduced in the series. The colonization was later explained as a means of “farming” of the remaining humans on planet Earth as they “Harvest” each planets later on as it was explained by other humans and the data that team Vandread got while doing battle on what they thought were aliens.

Each planets harvested for specific organ, one planet for the spine, another for their voice, another for skin and so on. Planet Mejer and Tarak are being harvested for their genitals which I think was the reason why they were separated from the start I guess to preserve the organs like one planet who use telepathy because their voice are the ones that are being harvested.

The story has three male and a huge number of female characters stuffed together in one ship and forced to worked together in order to survive after they got thrown off in another part of the universe after getting blown off by a space missile and travelled by hyperspace or wormhole by accident.

There are a lot of characters to cover in this series not to mention a two season with 13 episode each, I will only cover some notable characters and events which I think will summarize the entire series.

The series mainly follows Hibiki Tokai one of the three male characters and the pilot of the vanguard or bangata a humanoid robot supposed weapon of the males to fight the females. He accidentally became the pilot of the bangata after accepting a dare from his fellow engineers on retrieving the marked bangata with his initials on it. He was exposed to a blue/white light along with three females Dita the youngest of the three dread pilots and is a UFO fanatic wanting to meet aliens (males) and the one who got a lot closer to Hibiki from the start to the end of the series. Meia a stiff and strict leader of the dread team and the trio dread pilots who also got exposed to the light emitted by the peksis. Lastly is Jura the bustiest member of the trio pilots who is also the classiest member of the entire female space pirates. The last THING that got exposed were the three dreads, the bangata and the navi droid now called PIYORO.

       

HIBIKI TOKAI                                            

After being exposed to the light Hibiki the pilot of the bangata that got exposed can combine with the three dreads and form three different modes with various functions for specific uses. The first to combine was Dita who pilots a blue dread and can combine with the bangata to form another bigger humanoid robot armed with two shoulder cannons which can also be used as arm blades or blasters. Mostly used in rescue missions and also the most common used of the three modes. It later got an upgrade after the red peksis incident in season two.

DITA

The second to combine was Meia who pilots the white dread and once combined transforms into a bird which I think is either a falcon or an eagle. This mode is basically for speed although it was used on one episode when both Hibiki and Meia had an argument with each other about males not needed in the operations of the females and the other is the Christmas episode where they worked together to take out a hidden enemy planning to surprise attack them while they are relaxing for Christmas.

MEIA

The third was Jura whose dread was as mentioned in the series the “ugliest” of the three modes as it turned into a crab. This form is more on defense and not much weaponry in this mode as well as the speed is not on par with the Meia configuration. This mode was able to shield an entire planet which they were trying to save as the atmosphere of the planet was not good for the humans causing them to be sick as they are born.

JURA and BARNET

The combined forms are called VANDREAD combination of BANGATA and DREAD thus VANDREAD. Three forms Vandread Dita the humanoid form, Vandread Meia the bird mode and Vandread Jura the crab mode. Later in the second season all four vehicles combined into one along with Pyoro who also got exposed in the light. Trying to call the combined form Vandread Pyoro but failed as it was called Super Vandread where all three individual abilities were combined into one. A humanoid from with speed and defense of the other two forms.

The other characters Duero the doctor and Bart the helmsman also have their own perks and their own moments to shine. Duero who got to shine in the first episode along with Hibiki was introduced to be like a mad doctor in the series and had growing interests in the female anatomy specially in the episode where one of the females was checked and he mentioned that a parasite is growing inside her which in turn was she was pregnant (yes pregnant and I am not sure how the heck it happened). Along with Duero he is often seen with either the young nurse Pai (she looks like Nico yes also her personality as an idol wannabe) and Parfet the engineer who later seemed to have a growing interest in Duero which was shown in an episode where the male room was flooded and that she offered Duero to stay with her while the room was being repaired but oddly Duero chose the clinic along with his odd equipment which showed the dismay in Parfet’s face.

DUERO

   
BART season 1 and 2 he shaved his head


BC (has a surprise)

Bart on the other hand was another character who grew in the series from the start as a loud mouth coward to an almost loudmouth almost courageous wise guy.  He is often the guy who voice out the demands of the male group also he was the one who promoted that both parties should work together in order to find a way to get back to their own star system. He took a liking to BC or Buzam the second in command of the entire female space pirate, who has a BIG SURPRISE in season two, yes that SURPRISE if you get my point.

The leader of the space pirate Maguno and also the pirates are called Maguno Pirates. She is more than a hundred years old and one of the “First Generation” of the female population of planet Mejer. The reason of her becoming a pirate was not really explained in the series.

MAGUNO

Other notable characters in the series are Gascogne the big muscled amazon in the pirate group who isin charge of the deployment of the dreads and also in charge of reloading the dreads while in mid combat so to compare her with a game character she is a tank/support character. The next character is Barnet a spunky pilot who is mostly seen alongside Jura which shows in the series as if they are in a relationship (don’t mind the same gender relationship in this series since the characters grew up in a culture where males and females grew up in two different planets and are waging war against each other). The next character is Ezra the only female pirate who became pregnant in which the issue of how the females reproduce really got me puzzled, the males reproduce via cloning by combining two male DNA in a factory and the females well they get pregnant by combining well cells from both eggs I think and also takes months before one is born. The next character is Rabat the Rat Merchant this guy is always trouble every time he shows up along with his female companions Butan who is an orangutan who every time she sees Pyoro always chase him. Misty is the last female and non Mejer character in the group in the series she is supposed to be the last human from earth and was sent in space hoping to find an answer to save the humans from extinction (I think that is her purpose).

So that was a rough summary and character introduction I can give for the series without giving too much spoilers for those who has not seen the series.

So the series is more like humans trying to save themselves from extinction by colonizing but later on finding out that Earth is slowly dying and the humans that stayed on the planet decided not to die and in order to survive they harvest parts from each planets for various organs to be used as spare parts for their own use.

I guess this is how the writer envisioned how humans will try to survive in the far future once earth starts to become a planet where humans cannot evolve in order to survive. Deciding to use colonization of other planets became an option but later on Earth humans decided not to die but to use the colonized planets to take the parts they need so they can survive and become like immortals. Brutal way to survive.

But all in all the series was an enjoyable series to watch from start to finish during its time in 2000 and 2001. An almost harem series during its time since from the start it is more like another Tenchi Muyo like series where the male character is suddenly surrounded by a number of female characters ganging up on him trying to win his heart. But this series is not like that in a way, the only female characters in the series out to win the heart of the male character are Dita and Jura, Meia was more like the equalizer of the supposed to be harem where she only comes to the male character when needed and tries to control the other two girls and make them concentrate on the battle or other situations on hand.

Not too ecchi or not too much skin is revealed in this series considering the tight suits the girls have been wearing in the entire run specially the sultry suit of Jura where she is almost naked because of the deep V neck and Barnet wearing an apron where I almost thought she was only wearing her panties but she was wearing a one piece backless body suit or leotard or whatever it is called.

So this series I can recommend to those looking for some classic sci fi anime series with a mix of comedy and action. Don’t expect too much skin in the series since they controlled the exposure and concentrated on the comedy action part which is fine with me.

So yeah another highly recommended anime for those looking for something different to watch.