Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1)

Starring:Hiroyuki Yoshino, Julie Maddalena, Yumi Kakazu, Fumiko Orikasa, Yu Asakawa, Julie Anne Taylor, Bob Bobson, Steve Cassling, Olivia O'Conner, Richard Epcar, Zan, Melodee Spevack, Dave Mallow, Marc Cummingham, Michael McConnohie, Jamieson Price, Amy Tipton, Jim Taggert, Lia Sargent, Sandy Fox
Director: Takeshi Mori
Studio: Geneon [Pioneer]
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
In this sophomoric sci-fi series, men and women live on separate planets (Talac and Majel) in a state of mutual hostility and ignorance. Mechanic/third-class citizen Hibiki stows away aboard the new Talac flagship and gets caught by the attacking Majel pirates. He's thrown into contact with Dirda, a girl it would be charitable to describe as ditsy--during a battle, she cries, "These guys are really bad aliens!" The women are forced to enlist the aid of Hibiki and two other male prisoners when they're attacked by unknown aliens who look like something made with a high-tech Lego set. The visuals are a jarring mixture of 3-D computer graphics, flat monochromatic artwork, and 2-D drawn animation. With its many explosions, mecha, scantily clad women, and underdog hero, Vandread is clearly aimed at adolescent boys with raging hormones, despite the male-bashing humor. Contains the first 4 of 13 episodes. Rated 13 Up: Nudity, violence, risqué humor. --Charles Solomon

Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1)
Average customer rating:

very very good good

Great Show!!

Powerful setting, beautiful execution, poor characterization in leads.

Overrated Compared To Better Series Of The Genre

I love this anime!

Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1)
Starring: Hiroyuki Yoshino , Yumi Kakazu , Julie Maddalena , Fumiko Orikasa , and Yu Asakawa
Director: Takeshi Mori
Manufacturer: Geneon [Pioneer]
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Geneon | By Studio | Anime & Manga | Genres | DVD | Video
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Vandread | Characters & Series | Anime & Manga | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Animation | Genres | DVD | Video
DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video
( V ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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Vandread - Great Expectations (Vol. 3)

Vandread - Pressure

Vandread - Second Stage - Survival (Vol. 1) - With Series Box

Vandread - Second Stage - Sacrifice (Vol. 2)

ASIN: B00005RZPV
Release Date: 2002-01-22

Amazon.com

In this sophomoric sci-fi series, men and women live on separate planets (Talac and Majel) in a state of mutual hostility and ignorance. Mechanic/third-class citizen Hibiki stows away aboard the new Talac flagship and gets caught by the attacking Majel pirates. He's thrown into contact with Dirda, a girl it would be charitable to describe as ditsy--during a battle, she cries, "These guys are really bad aliens!" The women are forced to enlist the aid of Hibiki and two other male prisoners when they're attacked by unknown aliens who look like something made with a high-tech Lego set. The visuals are a jarring mixture of 3-D computer graphics, flat monochromatic artwork, and 2-D drawn animation. With its many explosions, mecha, scantily clad women, and underdog hero, Vandread is clearly aimed at adolescent boys with raging hormones, despite the male-bashing humor. Contains the first 4 of 13 episodes. Rated 13 Up: Nudity, violence, risqué humor. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews:

very very good good.......2007-04-06

this anime is very action packed and very funny. i was suprised with this story line it does'nt slow down or confuse you with philosophical questionsand ideas it stays light and fun. you dont have to be a juvinile to enjoy this.

Great Show!!.......2006-12-22

Now... I typically hate anime, but this is great. I was bored at home with nothing to watch. I started flipping through the Encore (Almost like one guy in this review board) channels and I see vandread. I recognized the name because my mom had gone by it a few months ago. I looked at it and at first I thought it was really silly, then I noticed all the pretty girls and I figured I'd stay awhile. Then I realized that not only did it have humor and pretty girls, but it had great battle scenes that gave me such a big adrenaline rush my spine tingled! (I love that!)I want to be a Navy pilot and when this showed such great ship to ship combat I imeadiatly fell in love. I've even designed my own dread! I hate big fighting robots but I will accept this one. Great show; Getting it for Christmas.

Powerful setting, beautiful execution, poor characterization in leads........2006-05-01

First the good. This is a technically beautiful anime. It has great special effects, high production values and a great musical score. Both the opening and closing themes are catchy and memorable. The setting itself is well known, so I won't bother delving into it, other then saying it allows for the innocence of romance to be explored as well as the exploration of homosexuality. But then herein lies the problem. Out of all the beautiful characters we are forced to focus mostly on the core "love" affair between Hibiki and Dita. The reason I put love in quotes is because Hibiki wants nothing to do with Dita, and Dita hangs on him like a jacket and refers only to him as "Mr. Alien." This is cute for the first few episodes, I guess, because of the rift that has existed so long between men and women you would expect there to be problems, especially between these two as they are only about 14. However, even after countless battles, numerous encounters, fights quarrels and revelations the two hardly get past even having a decent exchange of words without screaming at each other, and still not even using each other's names. I have a problem with characters who whine and scream throughout their screen time and that is basically all Hibiki does, as well as hurt Dita's feelings. Dita is cute, likeable, but just too silly and is always set up to have her feelings torn apart. The women seem more open to explore their sexuality with the men, then vice versa, but the time it takes for the two sexes to make progress even on the most base level is painful to watch at times. You would think they could learn to be cordial to each other seeing as how they constantly face mutual destruction at the hands of common enemy. Many of the other characters are far more interesting - such as Meia, Gascogne, Barnette, B.C., Rabat to name a few, and although they have their signature episodes where they are fleshed out more, the spotlight always quickly returns to Dita and Hibiki. I wish there were at least a couple of more male pilots with Vanguards, instead of just all of them fighting over a sawed off wimp like Hibiki. Sigh.

Overrated Compared To Better Series Of The Genre.......2005-09-15

With all the rave reviews here on Amazon, one might think that `Vandread' was one of the better of the many anime being released at present. Unfortunately `Vandread' is mediocre at best.
The plot: In a giant robot future there is universal war between men and women. Love is nonexistent. Predictably during a battle teenage boys and girls are caught on a crippled battleship and must work together to survive. The humor is found (or rather not found) in these teens experiencing romance for the first time.

To put it simply, `Vandread' is not funny or entertaining. There's really not much more to analyze. It's just not funny.

Its comedy never takes off. Like `Geneshaft' and many other series which attempt to ride on the coattails of `Tenchi Muyo' the teens in space comedy is one which rarely works.

I'm clearly in the minority here at Amazon, I can only guess why. But if you're looking for action/comedy I highly recommend, `Najica Blitz Tactics' or `Full Metal Panic.'

I love this anime!.......2004-09-23

I admit I was never a huge fan of anime shows. But one dull night at home and nothing else to watch on tv changed all of that. I couldn't find anything else to watch and I came across a few late night anime shows on Starz action channel. I would usually watch for a while just to pass the time. Until I saw Vandread. It was already near the end of the first stage but the episodes I saw were amazing! The story was interesting, with the women and men getting to know one another after years of being separated from the other and the 3D action was outstanding! It totally blew me away. Ever since then I watched the rest of the first stage and all of the second stage and it just kept getting better and better, I didn't want the series to end and I had to see how it all started so now I'm in the process of buying the series DVDs.

Unfortunately the DVDs don't really offer anything on them: all you get is a language choice (English & Japanese), English Subtitles, Scene Access, Promo videos, Design Gallery, Textless openings. Plus four episodes: Boy meets girl, And...I lost my way, This is the path I choose to live, I want to know more about you. Even though I love the episodes especially in letterbox version the DVD itself isn't worth twenty-six dollars.

But that's okay, I still want the entire series on DVD and will pay for it, the series is that good! LOL! It also turned me on to watching other anime shows like Inuyasha, cowboy bebop, et al on the cartoon network and other late night starz action channel anime shows. So I guess it opened up the world of Anime to me.

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