The personal relationships between characters make Vandread special. © Takeshi Mori * Gonzo/Media Factory * G.D.H.

Around 1995, Japanese animation (anime) began pouring into North America, Europe and across the globe in video form. Most of these titles were unknown outside of Japan and never covered by animation journals. Whether a title is highly popular or very obscure, a high-quality theatrical feature or a cheap and unimaginative direct-to-video release, they all look the same on a store shelf. Therefore, Animation World Magazine will regularly review several new releases (including re-releases not previously covered) that have merit and about which our readers should know.

Vandread. V.1, Enemy Engaged! V.2, Nirvana. V.3, Great Expectations. V.4, Pressure.
TV series (13 episodes), 2000. Director: Takeshi Mori. V.1, 4 episodes/100 minutes; V.2-4, 3 episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Pioneer Entertainment.

Vandread: The Second Stage. V.1, Survival. V.2, Sacrifice. V.3, Revelations. V.4, Final Assault.
TV series (13 episodes), 2001-2002. Director: Takeshi Mori. V.1, 4 episodes/100 minutes; V.2-4, 3 episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Pioneer Entertainment.

Vandread proves that a 13-episode TV series which ends with a cliffhanger can be popular enough to return for a sequel. The Vandread interstellar adventure serial was broadcast on the WOWOW satellite channel from October 3 through December 19, 2000, ending with our spacelost heroes racing back across the galaxy to their home planets to warn of impending doom. Vandread: The Second Stage, the final 13 episodes, finished the story from October 5, 2001 through January 18, 2002.

Vandread follows the basic sci-fi comedy/adventure formula of 1996's mega-popular Martian Successor Nadesico series. Put a mid-adolescent male protagonist who is nervous around girls (in this case, Hibiki Tokai is from an all-male planet and does not even know what women are -- they are ferocious monsters in his world's folklore) in a spaceship whose crew is mostly giggling teen girls, and watch the fun -- until the unknown alien menace that they set out to battle proves to be so grim and overpoweringly deadly that all humor disappears and they must learn to work together as true partners to defeat it.

Hibiki, a lowly apprentice mechanic, is from the all-male (cloned) planet Tarak, which has been fighting a space war for generations against the all-female (artificial insemination) planet Mejale. Both planets were settled generations earlier in a wave of semi-forgotten space colonization from legendary Earth. Hibiki is aboard Tarak's new space navy dreadnaught, powered by dimly-understood ancient technology, when it is attacked by a pirate ship from Mejale. The confused action leaves Hibiki and two other teen male cadets (Duero McFile, a pretty-boy medic, and Bart Carcus, a boastful navigator), plus all the female pirates, aboard a bewildering merger of their spaceships, which has warped to the other side of the galaxy. The traditional enemies are forced to work together as they return home. There is considerable early-adolescent mildly risqué humor (rated "13+") as the boys and girls embarrassedly explore gender differences ("What are those things that men have between their legs?"), and Duero is fascinated by the medical process of natural birth. As they pass through the galaxy, they find many other planets that were colonized long ago, all of which have some serious social disorder that is slowly leading to inevitable human extinction -- which they realize is also affecting their own worlds. Worse, there is an awesomely powerful alien force expanding in their direction, which is literally harvesting the human worlds for their organic components. Can the Nirvana return to Tarak and Mejale in time to persuade their peoples to put aside their differences and organize a united defense?

What makes Vandread so popular is not so much the plot as the emotionally-varied cast and their developing personal relationships: Hibiki, Duero, Bart, and the many women; gruff-but-motherly pirate Captain Vivan; master mechanic Gascogne Rheingau who becomes a Big Sister to Hibiki; ace fighter Meia Gisborn who wants nothing to do with men; ditzy Dita Liebley who is fascinated by Hibiki as a Roswell-UFO type "Mr. Alien" and quickly develops a crush on him; and numerous others with such "sci-fi" names as Barnette Orangello, Jura Elden and Parfet Ballblair. And also the CGI effects. Vandread was produced by Studio Gonzo which burst into Japan's animation industry with its CGI-intensive Blue Submarine No. 6 in 1998. Vandread has even more CGI in its spectacular space clashes between the Nirvana's boys and girls in their Van and Dread giant robot battle armor and the mechanically ominous death-bots of the alien fleet.