Vandread: Mecha Harem = Profits??

It took a while to finally get this review out and on the site. Not because it was exceptionally terrible and thereby a pain to write about. Nor was it the greatest thing ever created by human hands. Instead this first season of the series is in the middle in terms of the content that it delivers that picking out the exceptional parts of it was challenging.

Vandread was one of the many Harem animes that came out before the genre had such a negative connotation with many anime fans. It had a different approach though from others. "What if when the guy picks one of the girls, their vehicles fuse together into a more powerful weapon?" A pretty decent idea but unfortunately there isn’t enough love given to the mecha side of the story to make someone care which of the robots is used as long as there is space combat.

The characters do help to save the show a bit. They are entertaining enough to watch and the fact that men and women come from separate planets does help to set up why they would be so awkward around each other. Just enough character development for fan’s to ship characters together and route for ones they personally relate to.

Overall, not a bad show in the first half but it just needs some polishing here and there. Maybe in its second half it will be able to turn things around.

Rating: 3/5

→ Full review (on The Gigantic Project)