Vandread
Tags: psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
Set in a universe where humans have colonized the galaxy, and in one star system, men and women are completely segregated (on completely different planets: Mejere by the women, Taraak by the men) causing the gender war to be more than just a metaphor.
Male protagonist Hibiki Tokai, a third-class laborer, takes up a bet to steal a high-tech humanoid robot, known as a Vanguard, from a male attack force battleship about to fight the "evil females." Still on board when the battleship takes off, Hibiki is caught in a battle with female pirates that causes all of the ship's crew to evacuate, except for Hibiki, Duelo McFile, and Bart Garsus. Stuck on board and held as prisoners by female pirates, things seem to have hit an all-time low for Hibiki until the retreating males retaliate by firing torpedoes at the ship to prevent it from falling into women's hands. The Paksis Pragma, the mysterious, living core of the battleship, eradicates the missile, forming a wormhole that sends the pirates and warship to a distant part of the galaxy, fusing the battleship with the female pirates' vessel. The fusion results in a quirky ship with very smooth lines, a host of technical problems, and various hidden capabilities that become apparent later on. The Vanguard Hibiki attempted to steal has also been altered along with three of the women's fighters, known as Dreads, allowing the separate ships to combine. The fusion of Hibiki's mecha with one of the fighters is called a Vandread, the eponymous mecha.
In this alternate, futuristic universe, men and women (at least on Taraak and Mejere) consider each other to be completely separate species (Hibiki gains the nickname "Mr. Alien" from Dita Liebely, the female protagonist), and the three men put up with much abuse at the hands of their female captors, but gradually make their presence accepted: Hibiki as a mecha fighter and technician, Duelo as a skilled doctor and engineer, and Bart as the ship's helmsman and navigator.
The story of the first season revolves around the crew's trip back to the system where their respective home worlds are. Along the way, they encounter strange, robotic machines, both enigmatic and rather Borg-like, though they do not communicate at all. After a few attacks with the unknown enemy, the crew manages to take some alien data samples from a desert planet. The data is read out: "Blood platelets, white blood cells, red blood cells..." Their alien enemies kills human beings and harvests their body parts from them. Not only this, but a later encounter with the flagship of the "Harvesters," the name given to the enemy, reveals that the robots were sent out by the people of Earth, the same planet humans originated from, whose colonists would eventually colonize Mejere, Taraak, and countless other planets.
At the start of the second season, they rescue an escape pod from the Harvesters. The pod contains a girl, Misty Cornwell of Pluto, the last planet in the Earth's solar system to be harvested, and a virus which enters the ship's systems. When the correct password is entered, the virus shuts down and the crew is given access to the hidden data that the pod brings, revealing why the Earthlings are harvesting their own species.
Following the initial drive to colonize, pollution has devastated Earth, making any life on the planet near impossible. Huge metal gears now cover the Earth's stratosphere in an attempt to create a living environment for people in massive structures surrounding the planet. Earthlings, alone and dying on the toxic planet, began to question the humanity of the colonists. Eventually, they convinced themselves that only the inhabitants of Earth are human, and all other humans exists solely to ensure their continued existence. Their solution, therefore, was to send out the Harvester fleet of machines created from the same basic material as the Nirvana's core, the Paksis Pragma. The Harvesters raid and dominate colonies to obtain body parts, allowing the Earthlings to replace their own dying bodies, thus becoming immortal through the lives of others.
Furthermore, it is revealed that the leaders of the original colonists who founded Mejere and Taraak --- led by Hibiki's parents, Grandpa and Grandma --- were unwilling to lose any future natural-born children to the Harvester Fleets, and so decided upon what they considered to be a most painful but utterly necessary sacrifice: separating the original male and female colonists on two separate planets to create artificially-created twin-races of genetically-engineered sons and daughters through the mixed-cloning of the First Generation (the majority of whom still remain secretly secured in cryo-stasis and guarded by the man who raised Hibiki), who would serve as the substitutes to be harvested by Earth, instead of what would have otherwise been the natural-born children of the original colonists.
For the crew, fighting is not just about defeating their enemy and surviving; they need to rush back to their respective home worlds in time to warn their people. But will the leaders of the planets listen to their almost impossible tale?

Review: amazing series....
besides the amazing graphic of the battles ...
i think the story is wonderful and it's maybe the best series i have ever seen...
i just have to mention that i don't really fan of anime , maybe it's because of the how the characters look like or the graphic at all...
but watching this great series just opened my heart...
it a great story for my opinion...
it's surprising and it's funny too...the tiny little robot just kept me laughing out laud, it truly made me feel something alright i would give it 10/10...
and the last episode is just above even what i imagine it to be...
give it a shot ...you won't regret it....
Sugoi!.
I would have to agree with the majority of the other commenters.
Vandread is a great anime, with some neat CG'ing and some of the best CG/animation mix I've ever seen.
I thought Titan A.E. did a good job.
There are quite a few good surprises in the series that I had no idea were coming.
I would recommend this anime to any beginner or long time watcher of anime..
Deeply entertaining.
I thought this might be another kiddish shoot-em-up anime, and like others here, I also mistook it for a feminist series early on.
Well, it ain't either.Allow me to make a toast to a team of writers who actually seem to understand human emotions!
Unlike too many soulless anime series these days, Vandread's actually funny (both the physical and written humor) and its characters have personalities and chemistry.
For that reason, the drama works, too, and the series is thankfully free of those forced incidents engineered to conveniently create melodrama.
Heck, even the dorky premise that the show rests on -- males and females literally being from different worlds -- is used to good effect.I'm also a fan of the artwork, and the hot/cute female characters make the fanservice welcome.
The mecha action scenes are pretty invigorating, too (even if things move a bit fast to see what's going on).
Cinching the deal, both the intro and ending theme songs kick ass.The second season ("Vandread 2nd Stage") was a bit of a disappointment, regressing to the typical repetitive clichéd humor that defines all too many anime comedies, but to me the first season ranks right up there with Neon Genesis Evangelion in sheer awesomeness..
I was amazed!!.
Pioneer did a fantastic job of making this DVD, as the picture was crisp and the sound was very clear.
The story was very good, and you start liking the characters right from the start.
Fredrik is right in that it initially seems like a feminist anime, but it isn't.
It is a look at two warring cultures that start overcoming their stereotypes in order to fight a more horrible enemy.
The music and visual effects as well as the story are worth checking this film out..
Simply Incredible.
This is the best anime I have ever seen!It is hard to describe it really.
It takes place in the future, and some colonists have gone out in the universe and settled down.
The men and the women got separated, so they live on different planets with prejudices against one another.
Then some female pirates gets stranded 263 days from their home planet, with 3 males.
Hibiki, the main character.
Bart, the wimp and Duero, the doctor.
When I began seeing it I thought that it would be the worst feminist anime ever, but it was actually quite incredible.
One character, Dita, is the most beautiful anime character that I have ever seen.
She is so totally adorable and innocent, and only has eyes for Hibiki, whom tries to ignore her.
If you have the opertunity to watch it, don't hesitate..
Fairly good.
Watched Stage 1 and Stage 2 over a year ago and first of all I gotta say the spacebattles are simply breathtaking, some of the best I've ever seen in any anime.
The series relies heavily on fan service too, in the form of the scantily clad women we see so often in anime.
The plot is OK, it kept me watching, didn't it?
:)  As for the best anime ever, it is not.
But it is entertaining, despite some annyoing characters that got to me.
^_^ I give it 5 Stars!.
This is a Great Anime!
It's the BEST Anime I've seen in a long time!
Vandread First Stage and Second Stage is funny and is filled with so many interesting characters.
(Hibiki, Rabat, Dita, Pyoro, Pexis, etc.) I really hope they continue this series!
The Story arc is also quite amusing and fun to see unfold!Ja ne!.
First it look stupid, then transformed into a beautiful masterpiece !!!!.
I'm an anime fan and when I first saw Vandread(seen it since ep1) I Thoth it looked stupid with that man/woman war, but when I saw that first space battle and they started to introduce the characters I didn't know what to say to express my feelings, I mean, it was everything necessary to be a great anime: it was a great story, cool action scenes(really liked the CGI), the characters are interesting and funny, has a lot of emotional moments(and good ones too) and you kind of establish an emotional link with the characters.
I've seen a lot of animes with hot girls before, but this was the first time I've actually felt in love with a character (Dita, more precisely).
She's so cute and always smiling and I'm also an alien-maniac so...
Some guys like Hibiki get all the luck !!!!I give it 10/10.
Vandread a story about two distant worlds where society has split into two groups, the Men and the Woman.
Both sides hate each other, and come up with stories so scary people cower in the corners at the mere mention of their enemy.
Vandread out starts with Hibiki Tokai, a young, wannabe pilot, though his position is in parts manufacturing.
He takes a dare to steal a Bangata (The Men's newest mecha, that nobody knows how to pilot), and is instead launched into space on the christening of the ship that had brought them to their planet.
When the ship is attacked by Women Pirates, he is one of the three men captured.Through a freak accident, however, the ship, along with the Pirate Ship, had been connected and made compatible by a crystal originating from the Plexus, considered to be an ideal energy source.
When Hibiki is captured, the plot begins to thicken, as the Pirates are attacked by an unknown enemy.
This leads to one of the best story lines I've heard in a while.Through fate or not, Hibiki, Bart, and Duero befriend the Pirates, and they become a team as they try to return to their home planets.
Along the way, they discover secrets which make the storyline phenomenal to the point where its considered awe-inspiring, even to the viewer.I loved Vandread this is definitely now one of my favorite series and I definitely enjoyed it.
Its got a great storyline, and the characters develop perfectly.
Hibiki is definitely my favorite, though even though he can be a bit of an idiot at times.
He is constantly trying to prove himself to the point that he almost gets himself killed multiple times.
Also the fight scenes were new and refreshing with the CG animation playing a big part in its attractiveness.
The storyline is definitely the best part of this anime.
The storyline is perfectly laid out in the anime, and it's worth the $20 or whatever you pay for it a DVD.
Alos the great thing about Vandread is you can watch it again and again.
I've watched it twice now and I could watch it again.~Cyn1c.
I picked up the first three tapes on VHS on a whim.
I'm an avid anime fan, and after watching those three tapes, I knew I had to have the rest of the series.
At first, I thought it might be a little ecchi, but it turns out to have a deep, and very thought-provoking storyline, and simply amazing battle sequences and character interactions.
This series is a MUST for any anime fan.
The 2nd stage was difficult for me to find, as I had to end up purchasing it on online, since no local vendors had it.
However, it was well-worth the time and effort, as the finale of the series is simply stunning.
Hibiki's trials through the series makes him as realistic and lovable as any character..
Vandread.
Vandread.
Vandread.
Often considered a sub - par anime...
Vandread is one of the lesser known Animes in todays world..
But don't let that fool ya, its a great show.
Rarely can a show mix animation and 3D sequences successfully, and...
unfortunately, Vandread is no exception to that rule.
The 3D is wonderful, but doesn't work with the show all that great.
Passable at best.
But the show itself is amazing, and probably the most ORIGINAL anime, no, show in general, since...
I don't know when.
It tells the tale of a futuristic world in which Man and Woman fight one another.
The men live completely separate from the woman, born as test tube babies, and the woman live completely apart from the men, born through gene splicing.
The only time they meet is in Battle, which takes place in combat among giant Space Machines called Vanguards and Dreads.
Only when one man rescues a group of women can the two learn to work together, combining their powers to form a "Vandread." Its a great show, albeit filled with sexual humor and the aforementioned 3D sequences.
Its still aired on The Block (StarsWAM) from time to time, so if you see it on, give it a shot![ - OverlordSmurf ].
Men are from Taraak, Women are from Mejere.
I see it's been six years since anybody commented on this nifty little series, so I'll toss out my opinion just to keep the page fresh.This series was suggested to me by Netflix's preference engine, so I took a look at the first episode to see what it was about.
The Netflix version is dubbed, of course, and the first character you hear, right off the start, is The Premiere, voiced by Beau Billingslea (Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop) at the top of his lungs, exhorting the men of Taraak to go forth into battle against the evil women of Mejere.
Hearing ol' Jet again was a plus mark that kept me going for a bit longer, at least.The story is that at some point in the past the human race in this solar system split off into "The Planet of the Men" (Taraak) and "The Planet of the Women" (Mejere), and are engaged in constant warfare.
We see how the women are portrayed from the men's point of view: as medieval-looking demons sending men into helpless fits of terror.Next we're introduced to our hero, Hibiki Tokai, a loud-mouthed "third-class citizen" who labors on the assembly line of the Vanguards -- the mecha fighter of the men -- and has bet his fellow workers he will steal one right off the ship in which they are being loaded for the latest assault against the women.I was not crazy about Hibiki's English voice actor, who I thought was overly loud and all shouty-like, but he's supposed to be a hothead, so OK.
Hibiki makes his way onto the ship, and just as he's about to climb into his Vanguard, the ship launches early due to the excitement of The Premiere, who advances the launch by two hours.The ship is launched, Hibiki is discovered and tossed into the brig, "for immediate execution," and then the women attack, in the form of pirates assaulting the just-launched battleship.
The pirates take the ship, manned as it is only by trainees and cadets, and immediately (and humanely) evacuate them off the ship.
The Premiere, not wanting to surrender the ship to the women, orders it to be torpedoed instead.Hibiki and two other men -- Bart Garsus, the fast-talking son of a food contractor for the ship, and Duelo McFile, a doctor (voiced by the immortal Stephen Blum) -- are left on the ship in the confusion of the torpedo attack and are quickly rounded up by the women.
The explosion sends the pirate ship and the battleship into a wormhole, leaving them far from home, and also activates the mysterious power center of the battleship, the Paksis Pragma, which both combines and transforms the two ships and their equipment.The mutual discovery of the reality of men and women to each group give the show its dramatic engine, but is not treated in a simplistic manner.
Both sides actually believe the propaganda they've heard about the other group, and aren't aware that they are really just male and female humans...
except for the pirate's captain, an older woman who seems to have knowledge of a time when men and women weren't separated.What I enjoyed about this voyage of mutual discovery is that, even in the generations that the sexes have been separate, the spark of interest hadn't disappeared.
Almost against their will, the men and women find one another interesting -- especially Dita Liebely, a young pirate Dread (the women's mecha fighters) pilot who takes an instant liking to Hibiki, calling him "Mr. Alien," much to his annoyance.
Young doctor Duelo also finds himself forming a friendship with Parfet Balblair, the pirate's chief engineer, while Bart develops an unrequited interest in the pirate second-in-commend, Buzam Calessa.There are space battles galore, and the surviving Vanguard piloted by Hibiki demonstrates a new ability to "merge" with the pirate's Dreads to form hybrid Vandreads with new, superior capabilities.
Lots of humor is derived from the pirates' eagerness (with one notable exception)to "merge" with Hibiki in battle -- at one point Dita spreads her arms and joyfully shouts "Come and get me, Mr. Alien!" All in all a fun, two-season ride with a group of young men and women rediscovering their human heritage as they battle an implacable enemy intent on destroying their home planets.
Season One shows the discovery of The Harvesters and their ultimate goal concerning Mejere and Taraak, and Season Two covers the return home, their reception by their respective planets, and the final battle.There's humor, sadness, combat, sacrifice, and pretty much every other human emotion in this series, and good English voice acting as well.My favorite all-time moment: in episode five, "Sweet Temptation," Dita tries to spray-paint another Vanguard pink for a mission in which the women will be flying them, because of their ability to land on a planet's surface.
Hibiki, horrified, jumps between her and the Vanguard to stop her, and takes the pink paint full-blast.
As Dita coos "A pink alien!
How cuuuuuute!" the animation zooms into her delighted face with the absolutely most super-cute expression ever in anime.
I swear.
Check it out, you'll agree with me.Catch it on Netflix while it lasts..
An excellent place to start your anime experience!.
Hang on y'all!
This is one of the better offerings, reminding me of a collision between Harlock & A-ko!
It starts off with a bang, it's funny & action packed, & it slows down in all the right places to have a good look at the characters.
Development is consistent & on occasion surprising, with touching scenes & episodes.
While formulaic, it's only enough so that you could equate it with a brownie recipe you really love to smell cooking; some stuff just *has* to be added to get it to bake!
I thought long & hard about including info which would technically be a spoiler, & I've decided against it.
I checked the box just in case.
Let me simply say that character relationships develop in a satisfying way, with just the right tension & conclusion.
In conclusion, this programme was great from start to finish.
Going from first stage to second was gratifying & if it's mildly disappointing that there's no third stage (that I know of) there's no feeling of being let down.
Rather, I came away thinking that as with all the best stories, there's a beginning & an end.
This appears to have ended, but it's a first rate ride.