Title: Vividred Operation, ビビッドレッド・オペレーション
Producers: Aniplex, A-1 Pictures
Genres: Action, Sci-Fi
Duration: 24 min. per episode
The happy, carefree 14 year old Akane Isshiki lived a poor, but well loved life together with her reliable little sister, Momo, who does all the housework, and her grandfather, Kenjirou, a genius inventor who only created useless devices. In the center of the Blue island rises the revolutionary Manifestation Engine, a discovery that solved the world’s energy problems. But suddenly, the world is visited by danger. An unknown enemy, the Alone, appear, targeting the Manifestation Engine. As none of their weapons worked and they fell into despair, a lone girl takes a stand wearing a red “Pallet Suit” which wields a great, hidden power. Before long, allies gather around her to fight.
Fansubs watched: JK
From oddities and weirdness, here is a show that is more based around the fan service of young girls, is it odd that this show seems to be the more normal show this season? Vividred Operation features a cast of young moe girls doing typically moe things, but in the future!! There are many similarities to Strike Witches, in that they both feature lolis and a hefty amount of weird fan service. Also, Vividred Operation has transformations. As a first episode, Vividred Operation doesn’t do too much to disappoint, how could it really with all it’s built up ‘plot’ and the whatnot. The first episode of Vividred Operation does deliver some pleasantries, there isn’t anything horribly wrong with it but it is just lolis in a future setting.
The episode starts off with a nice view of the city and a girl standing on top of a tower, where she mentions something that she must do. It is then cut to the island of Izu Oshina, a future utopia. Of course, it is a utopia when the next cut is of a young girl’s ass. The MC narrates the opening segment as she rides around on her floating bike with tights on. She explains that the future has been blessed with unlimited nature energy, thanks to the invention of the Incarnate Engine. The thing itself is a massive tower floating on an artificial island called Blue Island. It was her grandfather who invented the engine and the flying bike that the MC is flying on. Some more ass shots later, it is revealed that the main character is called Akane. Akane is a young girl with red hair and is the main character. She is very cheerful and happy and is full of energy. She lives at home with her grandfather Kenjirou and her sister Momo. Kenjirou is an old scientist who has some life left in him and likes to play around with Akane, who eventually turns into a stuffed otter. He is usually working on his experiments, and invents some transformation tool. Momo is Akane’s little sister and does the cooking and cleaning of the house. So like in typical anime, she is the typical hard working little sister. Akane is also very good friends with Aoi, a blue haired girl who is travelling to Akane’s place by plane, where it has some difficulties later on in the episode. Other characters include: the Prime Minister of Japan, whom has purple hair, some female pilot that has some significance and some random school kids.
Akane gets a call from Momo for breakfast, since the future has this kind of communication. She gets home and sees Momo cooking a rather large breakfast and goes to pay respects to her father (who I assume is dead). Akane goes to call her grandfather for breakfast, who have a lively chat with each other. The three talk about things at breakfast, including seein Aoi when she arrives. Also, Momo eats a rice grain from Akane’s face- because that stuff is fan service and moe. The girls go to school and Kenjirou begins to work on his top-secret experiment. Then we see some people from the army in a base with high tech stuff, and the Japanese air force intercepts something unusual. It seems to be some large black machine, the one from the Incredibles, and wipes out the three Japanese aircrafts, which don’t seem to be too advanced. After that, some shenanigans happen at school- which seems to be a mix of numerous grades- where a bird fell down and Akane volunteers to help.
Here, we learn that she is afraid of heights. Aoi begins boarding her plane as school ends, and the Japanese air force tries again to confirm the unidentified machine, but get taken out by its laser beams. The Prime Minister- who has purple hair, I guess- talks over the phone about the machine, and refers it as ‘Alone’ which was first discovered and warned of by Kenjirou. Speaking of which, Kenjirou then finishes his research and hits the enter key, which blows up his room. Akane and Momo see the explosion and rush to the house, only to see his body lying lifeless on the ground. Some dramatic tears happen, and Kenjirou is heard still alive, but in the body of a plush toy. They discuss about what happen, and Kenjirou states that all his research is finally complete, and has created some key that only Akane can use. A siren is then sounded telling everyone to leave the island, and gives Kenjirou the idea that the engine is in danger, as well as Aoi.
The entire island is on high alert as more aircrafts try to take the ‘Alone’ down. Akane skirts across the water on her flying motorbike with the toy intending to rescue Aoi, where a flashback occurs to Kenjirou’s first sighting of the ‘Alone.’ During this flashback, Kenjirou was working on the Incarnate Engine and a large problem occurred, which had Akane and her mother hanging on the rail suspended up very high. Kenjirou gets a glimpse of some red substance, and an explosion bursts from below consume Akane and her mother. The navy is now up against the machine and fires a volley of missiles, which deal no damage. The machine fires back and destroys one vessel when a civilian aircraft enters the airspace near the machine, the plane carrying Aoi. The machine, for some reason fires at Aoi, and hits the side of the back wing. The machine fires at the plane again, this time towards the body of the plane but a plane protects it and goes down instead.
The plane goes haywire and is going down and needs a place to land, but the nearest spot is the Incarnate Engine tower. Akane sees the plane going down and rushes towards the tower. The plane crash-lands on the top of the tower and Akane arrives at the top via elevator. As she rushes towards the crash site, a flashback ensures to when she was at the incident of the “Alone,” where she is hanging on her mother and looking down- spawning the fear of heights she has today. The wreckage begins to fall off the side of the tower, with Aoi in it, and Akane rushes over the side to rescue her, overcoming her fear. Akane grabs Aoi’s hand but then the key that Kenjirou gave starts to glow red, and queue transformation sequence. After the over the top transformation, they both survive and are floating in a bubble. Kenjirou contacts them and tells them what the key does. Then, he mentions something odd, docking. And so ends the episode.
After a lengthy recount of the episode, its time for a more analytical approach. First thing, the episode is set in the future where energy is pretty much unlimited. This would lead to many new inventions but most of the stuff we see isn’t too fancy. Sure, there’s a floating motorbike but that’s about all- bar the magical transformation key for the moment. It seems that most of the series will be revolving around the Incarnate Engine and the ‘Alone’ trying to attack it. It also seems odd that Japan has the only one around, is it that hard to replicate the engine and place it somewhere else where the defense force isn’t as shoddy as magical young girls. Also, despite being in the near future, the houses and places where Akane live in aren’t all too futuristic. It may be due to their lack of money, or that all of it is spent on the underground bunker, but the only thing that gives it a real future theme is the tower, the motorbike, evil machine and the clothes transformed Akane wears. The premise itself seems kind of nice but a bit too colourful, also the beginning introduction has not been explored yet, so it is that kind of foreshadowing that most people forget.
As for the story, so far it doesn’t have anything really special or engaging. For the most part, the episode sets up the premise and background and has the mystery of the ‘Alone’ and the key that lets Akane transforms. The whole thing may revolve around Kenjirou’s inventions, namely the key thing and the Incarnate Engine. It seems that the ‘Alone’ could be some terrorist organization, but what Kenjirou saw at the incident may indicate otherwise. I mean all we saw was some red squiggly lines. Also, the machine that attacked the island has some pretty high tech stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn out to be some aliens who want to invade earth, and taking out the engine would make invasion so much easier. It is weird that the entire earth is dependent on the Incarnate Engine as a source of energy that is situated in Japan. Other than that, most of the plot seems to be revolved around Akane and her powers, which for now seems to be a bubble. I would assume that her powers are reliant on friendship, as seen when she held onto Aoi’s hand it activate the transformation. So, the show will heading towards its fan service lovey-dovey route without a doubt. Speaking of the fan service, there are quite a number of random shots of Akane’s ass, for some reason. There have been many panty shots and boob shots in countless anime before, but this seems rather intrusive in the least. Oh well, as long as it gets high ratings, right?
For the most part, the episode is rather fun and won’t be deep or complex in the slightest. The main focus will be on the characters, which seem rather find and a bit cliché at the moment. Akane is the typical clumsy heroine with red hair, Aoi seems to be the elegant rich kind, Momo is the typical hardworking and caring sister and Kenjirou is…well I don’t know what to define him as, other than the sidekick that knows everything but won’t tell anyone until the last second. I would assume he does get back into his body near the end of the series; his body is just scarily sitting the freezer. Also, the pilot towards the end of the episode seems to have some questionable screen time, which means that she may be an important character in the future. Other than that, most of the plot and story points from the episode seems rather nice, there isn’t anything complicated other than the docking part at the end of the episode. Don’t search it on Urban Dictionary, well just search it and laugh. There is one thing though, how will Akane be able to defeat the ‘Alone’, with her bubble attacks?
The animation for the episode is superb. The backgrounds all are very detailed and quite vibrant. Heck, the entire episode is very vibrant and colourful which is very good to look at. A lot of the episode takes place outside and all that greenery and ocean is all very pretty. All the inside scenery is very detailed as well, so pretty much all the backgrounds in the episode as a whole are amazing to look at. The character designs too are quite good and again have quite a lot of colour. Each character seems to have a corresponding colour, which isn’t anything different. Akane seems to wear some tight pants, which I guess some people find attractive… some people. The characters have two distinct visuals, the adults and children in which the adults have more sophisticated traditional designs compared to the shiny colours of Akane and friends. There is some CGI used throughout the episode, and it isn’t all that bad but like most CGI it doesn’t really suit the rest of the animation. The animation is quite fluid and all the movement does look super nice. And the transformation sequence is actually very well done, glorious even. It is all over the top and looks very futuristic, and the design after the transformation is kind of good but reminds me of some idols. Once again, it is all very fluid and has some needless ass shots. I mean seriously, what kind of fan service is this? All in all, the animation quality is very high and has a nice range of colours.
As for the music, the only thing that I do recount is from the transformation sequence, with its futuristic tune and whatnot. Other than that, the music is there but not really that obvious or highlighting many moments but it seems to be rather nice. There is only the ending in this episode, which is kind of disappointing. Speaking of which, the visuals during the ending is rather disappointing, it is only a single shot overlooking the ocean and clouds with a weird zooming out feature. So the visuals are lazy but the song is nice to listen to. It does remind me of a moe slice of life anime ending with its cheeriness and upbeat pop music. It is a nice song and other than that, there really isn’t anything else to mention. The ending song may actually be the best song of the season, but I need to refresh my mind on the songs. Other than that, the music part of the anime is done well.
The first episode of Vividred Operation is a nice one, it does well to deliver the premise and background story but not too well on describing things. It seems that Akane’s fear of heights is only a temporary thing just for the episode, which is stupid. The story thus far is ok but the animation is absolutely gorgeous. The backgrounds, colour scheme and detail are all great to look at. The music itself isn’t bad at all. To sum up, a strong first episode for me, I guess I am a moe blob after all.
Docking?
