Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1) dvd movie.|
Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1) dvd videos, dvd movies reviews |
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List Price: $29.98 Our Price: $26.99 You Save: $2.99 Features • Animated • Color • DVD-Video • Letterboxed • Widescreen • NTSC |
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Vandread - Enemy Engaged (Vol. 1) description 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--dur ... review details |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Powerful setting, beautiful execution, poor characterization in leads. |
| 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. | |
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