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An examination of gender politics and cultural divisions played out as a Space Opera Mecha Show...no, really.
In the far-flung future, there are a pair of colony worlds: Tarak and Mejale, locked in a constant state of Space Cold War.
Tarak is the Orwellian, industrial, militarized planet of men. All food is synthetic, flavorless pills. All public gatherings are related to sports, marching, and being manly. Everyone wears a uniform. Babies are made by merging your genes with those of your buddies in a factory, and they are raised by dedicated orphanages/schools.
Mejale is the beautiful but impractical planet of women. All things are polished and shiny. All military uniforms are excessively flattering. Appearances are all important. The citizenry form couples, of the lesbian top/bottom variety, called the "Oma" and "Fama "in the native vernacular (probably derived from homme and femme), and make babies by merging two eggs and implanting them in the Fama.
Naturally, the two worlds hate each other.
The story follows a young man named Hibiki Tokai, a factory worker from Tarak who wants more than anything to be a mecha pilot. When his attempt to steal a Humongous Mecha get him thrown into the brig of reconstructed battleship, things seem to be looking down...until the ship gets attacked by Space Pirates, and Hibiki, a bishonen doctor, a cowardly officer and a malfunctioning robot wind up as prisoners on a ship full of women. Things couldn't possibly get any worse.
That's when the pirates find themselves stranded on the far end of the galaxy, with a mysterious alien force out to kill them. But, as a result of some serious Plot Technology, the pirate vessel merges with the men's starship, and one of the "Vanguard" mecha and three of the pirates' "Dread" fighters are altered. The Vanguard, piloted by Hibiki, can combine with any of the three Dreads into a form with amazing abilities.
All of the sudden, Hibiki's the focus of three girls with different personalities whom all want to try and "merge" with him. Of course, none of them have any concept of heterosexuality, and Hibiki doesn't even seem to know about any sexuality. They clumsily rediscover their biological imperatives as they fight a mysterious shadow enemy across the universe.
The three main girls, the pilots of the Dreads, are a variation on The Three Faces Of Eve principle, with a military twist:
- Dita Liebely, a child-like, bubbly Genki Girl, who's obsessed with aliens. She calls Hibiki "Uchujin-san" (literally "Mr. Spaceman"). She can't cook too well, but then, Hibiki was raised on synthetic food pellets, so anything not artificial's good enough for him
- Meia Gisborn, The Stoic leader of the Dread squadron, is a consummate fighter pilot and professional officer. She acts as a mother figure, despite her lack of domesticity
- Jura Basil Elden, the vain, voluptuous and self-absorbed squadron sub-commander. She has a lover, Barnette Orangello, who's exasperated at Jura's attention towards Hibiki.
The characteristics of the merged Vandread mecha are unique metaphors for Hibiki's relationship with each girl:
- "Vandread Dita" is a large, powerful humanoid mecha armed with a pair of beam cannons. When they merge, Dita loses her seat and winds up on Hibiki's lap
- "Vandread Meia" is a fighter that resembles a robotic bird. It's extremely fast and manueverable. In a rather ironic twist, Hibiki rides on her lap
- "Vandread Jura" is a bizarre, slow fighter, with a collection of remote pods, that can fire beams at the enemy, and project an energy shield around an entire planet if needs be. The cockpit has a round control console with mobile chairs, meaning Hibiki and Jura are constantly jockeying with each other for control of the ship.
- In addition to all this, the "Super Vandread" (aka "Vandread Pyoro"), formed by combining Hibiki's Vanguard and all three Dreads with Pyoro at once, is a massive humanoid mecha with the abilities of all three Vandreads. It can also mix their abilities, such as combining Vandread Dita's cannons and Jura's shields into a Wave Motion Gun. It even gets enough chairs and control stations for everyone. See what happens when we all work together?
Most of the crew fit dual roles for both a madcap, romantic-comedy and a military story. The Captain is also a wise grandmother, the medical technician's also a naughty lolicon nurse, the local Wrench Wench is a Meganekko and a Gadgeteer Genius, while the communications officer is a friendly, child-carrying Yamato Nadeshiko. The first officer's essentially the Harem Nanny, and the quartermaster's the wise Cool Big Sis.
Over time, the three men and the enormous gang of women come to an understanding, and they work together to unravel the bigger mysteries of the universe, like the origin of their robotic enemies and the fate of the other human colonies. A very funny and enjoyable dose of Martian Successor Nadesico meets Love Hina meets Star Trek Voyager.
This show contains examples of:
- All Your Powers Combined (Super Vandread, naturally, being a Combining Mecha of the three Vandreads)
- An Aesop (Something about life being worth fighting for)
- Ancient Conspiracy (The rulers of Tarak and Mejale were in on Earth's harvesting operation the whole time.)
- Beam O War
- Beam Spam (Nirvana's primary attack)
- Beehive Barrier (Super Vandread, not to mention the Nirvana. Also Vandread Jura when NOT using its planetary shield)
- Berserk Button (Do NOT hurt Jura while Barnette is anywhere nearby...)
- Big Bad (Earth)
- Blind Idiot Translation (Misty calling Meia "dear sister" in the dub, confusing the hell out of everyone)
- This is unfortunately in the sub as well.
- Born In An Elevator (Kahlua, aka Pyoro-2)
- Bridge Bunnies (Belvedere Coco, Celtic Midori and Amarone Slantheav)
- Cannot Spit It Out (Hibiki and Dita have a slight communication problem throughout the entire two seasons)
- Conspicuous CG (All the space scenes are done with computer graphics, mixing animation in surprisingly well)
- Cool Starship (Nirvana, obviously. Not to mention the massive and terrifying Harvester motherships)
- Cosplay Otaku Girl (Celtic wears a costume even while on duty, but that's just to protect herself from nasty boy germs)
- Couch Gag (Second Stage has a clip of the current episode in its opening sequence)
- It's there in the first season, too
- Creepy Child (The Earthling who attacks Tarak and Majale at the end of the series)
- Disney Death ( Gascogne. She gets better)
- Do They Know Its Christmas Time (With the Captain Magno even dressing up as Santa)
- Dropped A Bridget On Him (Bart Garsus, upon The Reveal that BC is a Gender Bender mole. This doesn't stop him, though...
- Empathy Pet (Misty's holographic blob Q-chan)
- Enfante Terrible (The commander of the Harvester Fleet, who has red eyes, telepathically "speaks" with a grown man's voice, and can use telekinesis to crush things/people)
- Evil Counterpart (The green Paksis Pragma inside the Nirvana has a twin red Paksis...used by Earth for commanding its Harvesters)
- Evil Knockoff (The Harvesters gain the ability to copy the Vandreads, even the Nirvana)
- Evolving Credits
- Eyes Always Shut (Ezra)
- First Girl Wins
- Freud Was Right (The way the girls (Dita and Jura more than Meia) fight over who gets to combine with Hibiki, not to mention Barnette's jealousy of Jura's intense desire to combine with Hibiki and the fact that a Vanguard can only combine with a Dread, not another Vanguard...yes, the Combining Mecha are totally a metaphor for sex)
- Gainaxing
- Gattaca Babies (Genetic engineering lets two males have a baby who's born in a factory, while with two females, one of them carries the engineered baby to term in the normal style. In a way, Cloning Blues ensues)
- Gender Bender (Telling who it is would be a spoiler, of course. (It's BC) If you read the spoiler without seeing the show, you now have anti-zen: knowledge without understanding)
- Girl In A Box (How the crew finds Misty)
- Girls Have Cooties (Inverted with the aforementioned Celtic)
- Gondor Calls For Aid (Actually, they came unbidden)
- Grand Finale
- Heroic Sacrifice (Subverted: Hibiki attempts to stop the Big Bad's Wave Motion Gun by plugging it with his Vanguard, mentioning he really doesn't give two damns so long as his friends are safe. Dita, Meia and Jura fly into the breach without even a moment's hesitation. The Paksis helps them out by blowing said Wave Motion Gun away, effectively the Eleventh Hour Superpower)
- Hey Its That Voice (Tons from Yumi Kakazu (Dita), Fumiko Orikasa (Meia), Yuu Asakawa (Jura), Sayaka Ohara (Ezra) and Tomokazu Seki (Bart))
- Holding Back The Phlebotinum (Hibiki; just combine with someone already and get it over with!)
- Hot Shounen Mom (Ezra)
- Huge Guy Tiny Girl (Duero and Parfait. Oddly makes the whole pairing cuter)
- Humans Are Bastards (Partially invoked: turns out Earth's responsible for sending out the Harvester fleets)
- Human Resources (The Harvester fleets)
- Humongous Mecha
- Incendiary Exponent
- Instant AI Just Add Water (Arguably, this along with the Paksis is what happened to Pyoro to bring him from brick to human-level sentience.)
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum (The Paksis, both the one on the Nirvana and the one controlling the Harvester fleet)
- It Is Pronounced Tro PAY (Gascogne wants you to know it's pronounced "Gas-Co-NYU")
- Last Minute Hookup (Literally)
- Littlest Cancer Patient (One-shot character Shirley)
- Lovable Traitor (Rabbat/Robert/Labbat)
- It's Rabat; Word Of God says it's a contraction of "rat bastard" (his real name is revealed to be Sam later in the series)
- Macross Missile Massacre
- Nerd Glasses (Worn by Wrench Wench, meganekko Parfait)
- Nerds Are Sexy (Parfait, who even starts hooking up with bishonen doctor Duelo)
- Non Human Sidekick (Pyoro and Butan, Rabat's pet orangutan)
- The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness (The male elders of Tarak)
- Off Model (Happens as early as the second episode. This is a Gonzo show, after all...)
- Onee Sama (Meia; she literally gets called this way by Misty, causing her to break her stoic persona)
- One Gender Race (This is accomplished through technology, however. Genetically, they're still human)
- Our Indians Are Different (The telepaths on the planet in the middle of the magnetic storm on the way to the Tarak/Mejale system all have a definite southwestern Native American vibe, and they live in pueblos. The elder even does a sand painting while Hibiki's finishing his trial.)
- The Paolo (Misty)
- The Password Is Always Swordfish (Subverted; who the hell sets a password to the voice of a baby's cry?
- Played straight with the password used to protect the systems of the Nirvana and to disable a planetary minefield around Tarak
- Planet Of Hats (Tarak and Mejale as an aesop that men and women need each other)
- The Promise (Hibiki's promise to visit Dita's room)
- Proud Warrior Race Guy (The men from Tarak are generally portrayed as this: the commander of the Vanguard unit even goes out of his way to say "It is a good day to die" before drawing first blood in the most badass way during the final battle)
- Rags To Royalty (Hibiki's in fact the son of the leaders of Tarak and Mejale. This allows him to have a say in regards to how both worlds should forge their own destinies instead of being cattle for Earth.)
- Rescued From The Scrappy Heap (Bart. Not only was he rescued, but he Took A Level In Badass, complete with the Nirvana gaining a Beam Spam
- Robot Buddy (Pyoro)
- Schoolgirl Lesbians (Well, space pirate lesbians, anyway)
- Then again, there is only one depicted lesbian pair, and half of that one is after Hibiki
- There's also one other, but we don't get to meet Ezra's Ouma until the penultimate episode, as she was left on Mejale Yup, this is still very much a seinen fantasy
- Screw The Rules, I'm Doing What's Right (Hibiki launches into an epic speech near the end, hoping to rally support against the Big Bad that Tarak and Mejale's planetary governments have denied the very existence of. As a result, there's massive defections from the military of both planets, to form an impromptu defensive line against the forces from a degenerate Earth. It works.)
- Sitch Sexuality (Most of the women hate men as the enemy, but as the series progresses, many of them seem to have been in same-sex relationships due to a lack of options rather than preference. It also seems as though none of the men on Tarak pair off (this is, after all, a seinen fantasy show, not a shonen-ai vehicle))
- Possibly justified by the Tarakians' hat being over-the-top manliness, making Ho Yay, with the possible exception of Hard Gay, unlikely
- Space Opera
- Space Pirates
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens (The Paksis)
- The Stoic (Meia)
- Shut Up Hannibal
- Stripperiffic Somewhat averted, actually, given the suits worn by the pirates for ground ops are quite monstrous
- Come on, you're forgetting that Jura's daily costume fits this very trope to a T?
- Telepathic Spacemen
- Touched By Vorlons (Hibiki, Dita, Jura, Meia and Pyoro, due to the influence of the Paksis)
- Third Person Person (Jura...sometimes. Also, Dita)
- Through His Stomach
- Trash Of The Titans
- Tron Lines
- Tug Lover War
- Twelve Episode Anime (Originally, but then a second season was made which picks up right where the first left off and provides the real conclusion)
- The Unwanted Harem (Not just the pilots are chasing Hibiki, after a while)
- Unstoppable Rage (Semi-subverted, as Hibiki cuts through a swath of smaller robots after seeing someone die in front of him, just to be swatted away by the enemy flagship)
- Unusual Euphemism (If the proof of your existence lasts more than four hours, consult your physician)
- Verbal Tic (Pyoro)
- Villain Decay (Averted with the second Harvester mothership, which learned from earlier battles. It takes a Heroic Sacrifice by Gascogne to stop it. Played straight with the three motherships in the Grand Finale, where they are destroyed rather easily. Of course, this is probably due to the fact that they were being ganged-up on by the fleets of two planets, one space station, three cool ships and [[spoiler:a hijacked Harvester mothership, courtesy of Gascogne, due to not being Not Quite Dead. Not to mention, they were in the presence of the Big Bad. The Evil Knockoff of the Nirvana also suffered from this, having TWO of them easily defeated by the Vandread Dita and the allied Redshirt Army, despite being nigh-invincible in its first appearance.
- Wave Motion Gun (Features a lot of them, from Vandread Dita's twin shoulder-mounted cannons, to the Harvester motherships' main guns)
- We Will Use Micros In The Future (Despite being set far in the future, one episode had the characters finding an ancient VCR tape. It was the work of moments to find a working player, power it, and interface it with the current dual-ship intercom system. Try doing that today!)
- What Do You Mean Its Not Awesome: Hilariously played with the first time Vandread Jura comes into play. Jura is highly disappointed it doesn't look the least bit elegant, the bridge crew think it looks like a giant crab, and at first appearance, didn't seem all that impressive. However, once Jura learned it was a shielding god that could defend an entire planet by itself, she grew to like it, even invoking this trope in an emotional sense.
- Whip It Good (BC during her fight with Liz)
- The Worf Barrage (The Tarak minefield activates when the Harvester motherships enter the star system. In a mild subversion, it actually manages to destroy one. Unfortunately, there are three more)
- World Of Cardboard Speech (Episode 12 of Second Stage)
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