Vandred: 2nd Stage

Summary: >

Having been stranded far from their homeworld, the crew of the Nirvana continue to struggle for survival. On their way, they find more and more planets inhabited by people being used as crops for the harvesters. The harvester fleet isn't content with leaving them alone either, and continue to skirmish with the pirates whenever they cross paths.

While they had sent a message to their homeworlds a while ago, they're in for a few surprises once they arrive. Worse still they've barely been able to tackle harvester flagships which were created to reap human body parts. How are they going to tackle a destroyer made with the intent on destroying worlds?

Thoughts: >

I had been planning on grouping my Vandred reviews together, but while I had big gripes with the first season, the second season threw in enough interesting stuff to redeem the series in my eyes. Most of the faults remain, but many of them were muted compared to the first season.

Many of the characters are further developed in season 2, and we get more character back stories. Misty is the new character introduced, and while she seems interesting and in a good spot to inject more fun into the story, this anime doesn't seem to know what to do with her. By the end I found I was alright with all the characters except 3: That annoying egg shaped robot mascot thing, Paiway the obnoxious "nurse" that serves no purpose, and finally Hibiki who gets less immature by the end, but is still annoying.

The first season wasn't short on action, but the second kicks things up another notch. The Nirvana gains combat capabilities which enhances space battles a lot. As far as space battles go, this series did really well, but the last 3 episodes are packed full of sci-fi space carnage that is cool as hell.

The story improves as well. I'm not sure why, but the different planets encountered are way more interesting this time. I figured Vandred had puttered out as far as new content and plot twists, but the second season still has a lot of interesting things to reveal.

As a sci-fi show, season 2 delivers. It's still plagued with anime silliness, long winded speeches (Please stop it with the freaking speeches!), and has a few weak plot points. After season 1 I wouldn't have said Vandred was a lost cause, but I didn't seriously think it would improve to the point where I'd look favorably on the series. I think it becomes an ok anime when weighting all things together, but there's still a lot of annoying points to this one.

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