Summary: >

Rin Ogata was once considered a prodigy of ballet, but her dreams were crushed due to an injury sustained during a performance. While her injury didn't exclude her from ever dancing again, the road to recovery would have been long and hard. Rin decided instead to leave the world of ballet. Three years later: the year is now 2020 and Rin is beginning her first year of college.

By chance she encounters an unusual club oriented around machines called ridebacks. A rideback is a mix between a motorcycle and robot. With her superior agility, and balance; Rin proves to be a natural at riding them. In fact her skills with ridebacks is at a level no one has ever seen before. Eventually this also leads to unwanted attention from the world government known as the Global Government Plan (GGP). As Japan becomes more and more like a police state, ridebacks and Rin in particular become a focal point.

Thoughts: >

What I had heard of Rideback, and what it's actually about are two different things. I expected a story about a girl struggling to recover as a fallen prodigy, then finding a new passion in ridebacks. While this does happen in the background, much of Rideback is concerned with a story about a world government organization becoming more and more strict; particularly in Japan. These turn out to be two completely different (but related) stories. Both intersect at various points, but neither depends on the other. In fact they differ enough that you may not even like both. This is what happened to me, as I liked Rin's character driven story, but wasn't taken with the GGP revolution aspect.

The GGP is an an organization which took over the world. Apparently Ridebacks were instrumental to this happening, but it makes absolutely no sense why. They're very mobile, and may offer better firepower compared to regular infantry, but against the likes of tanks, cruse missiles, fighter jets and all other forms of modern weaponry? I don't see how every military on earth could be toppled by robot motorcycles. The events surrounding the GGP world takeover is not detailed and never really explained. That would be fine except that characters reference these key events which we're in the dark about. This makes the basis of the story even more vague, and it ends up less compelling than it should have been.

By contrast, I liked Rin's story much better. Rin is the focus at the beginning, and towards the end, but the middle consists mainly of GGP plot advancement and circumstances contrived to keep Rin involved with them. There is a brief introduction showing Rin as a star of ballet; but as the story starts, she's already in college. All of the expected despair, anger, and emotions from her fall have already been dealt with. As her personality isn't clear at this point, it's hard to say if she's withdrawn or if she was always a quiet sort of person. Her excitement over ridebacks infers that she probably was a more lively person in her past, but this is left up to interpretation for most of the series. Only towards the end does Rin come to grips with the loss of ballet, what it meant to her, and what ridebacks have given back to her. Rin's heart turns out to be surprisingly complex, and she's a great character. While she may seem quiet and unassuming at first glance, she's also very determined with a mentality and passion consistent with a person who's been at the top tier of competition. Unfortunately none of the other characters even approach how good Rin's character is, so she carries the show.

Classifying a title as sci-fi often evokes images of aliens and space ships, but sometimes it's just a simple evolution of technology as was done here. Cell phones are the only other technology shown to have changed much. As someone tired of giant robots, the concept of ridebacks worried me, but I was impressed with their treatment consistent with high tech motorcycles. For a series featuring a girl often wearing a dress while riding motorcycle like machines, I have to give credit to this title for not lowering itself to panty shots. (sad state of anime when this is a "feature").

I didn't like the world government thing, but I adored Rin so much that she kept me glued to the show until the end, although some have the opposite view. Rideback is put together very well, and has an interesting mix of attributes. This gives it a distinct flavor which avoids feeling like recycled content common in today's anime. I don't think Rideback is the kind of magical title that will win people over with universal appeal, but for anyone receptive to the idea and looking for something different: this should be high on the list to look into.