An examination of gender politics and cultural divisions played out as a Space Opera Mecha Show. No, really.
In the far-flung future, there are a pair of colony worlds: Tarak and Mejale, locked in a constant state of Space Cold War.
Tarak is the Orwellian, industrial, militarized planet of men. All food is synthetic, flavorless pills. All public gatherings are related to sports, marching, and being manly. Everyone wears a uniform. Babies are made by merging your genes with those of your buddies in a factory, and they are raised by dedicated orphanages-schools.
Mejale is the Awesome, but Impractical planet of women. All things are polished and shiny. All military uniforms are excessively flattering. Appearances are all-important. The citizenry form couples, of the lesbian top/bottom variety, called the "Oma" and "Fama" in the native vernacular (probably derived from homme and femme), and make babies by merging two eggs and implanting them in the Fama. They eat real food and celebrate real holidays, like Christmas.
Naturally, the two worlds hate each other.
The story follows a young man named Hibiki Tokai, a factory worker from Tarak who wants more than anything to be a mecha pilot. When his attempt to steal a Humongous Mecha get him thrown into the brig of a reconstructed battleship, things seem to be looking down until the ship gets attacked by Space Pirates, and Hibiki, a Bishōnen doctor, a cowardly officer and a malfunctioning robot wind up as prisoners on a ship full of women. Things couldn't possibly get any worse.
That's when the pirates find themselves stranded on the far end of the galaxy, with a mysterious alien force out to kill them. But, as a result of some serious Plot-Technology, the pirate vessel merges with the men's starship, and one of the "Vanguard" mecha and three of the pirates' "Dread" fighters are altered. The Vanguard, piloted by Hibiki, can combine with any of the three Dreads into a form with amazing abilities.
All of a sudden, Hibiki's the focus of three girls with different personalities who all want to try and "merge" with him. Of course, none of them have any concept of heterosexuality, and Hibiki doesn't even seem to know about any sexuality. They clumsily rediscover their biological imperatives as they fight a mysterious shadow enemy across the universe.
Most of the crew fit dual roles for both a madcap romantic comedy and a military story. The Captain is also a wise grandmother, the medical technician's a naughty loli nurse, the local Wrench Wench is a Meganekko and a Gadgeteer Genius, while the communications officer is friendly and pregnant. The first officer's essentially the Harem Nanny, and the quartermaster's the wise Cool Big Sis.
Over time, the three men and the enormous gang of women come to an understanding, and they work together to unravel the bigger mysteries of the universe, like the origin of their robotic enemies and the fate of the other human colonies. A very funny and enjoyable dose of Martian Successor Nadesico meets Love Hina meets Star Trek: Voyager.
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This show contains examples of:
- Absent Aliens:
- The closest thing we have to real aliens are a bunch of psychic Navajo expies who border on Homo Novus. It runs into Human Aliens with Ma-Ger and Tarak, the inhabitants think the people on the other planets are evil aliens, when they're really just male and female humans trying their damnedest to be One Gender Races with genetic engineering.
- Paksis may count as an actual alien though, as it is ultimately found to be a sentient, living being.
- Earth as well.
- The Aesthetics of Technology: Tarak tech is rough and bolted on and they still use conventional firearms while Majarl has shiny spaceships and laser rings.
- All Your Powers Combined: Super Vandread, naturally, being a Combining Mecha of the three Vandreads.
- Ancient Conspiracy:
- The rulers of Tarak and Mejale were in on Earth's harvesting operation the whole time. It is later revealed that they were not willing to lose any natural children (i.e. conceived and delivered the traditional way) of the rest of the original colonists — the vast majority of whom still remain secretly secured in cryo-stasis, guarded over by the man who raised Hibiki — hence, the reason for the genetically-engineered sons and daughters of Megere and Talark respectively, who were secretly considered to be merely Expendable Clones, and thus sacrificeable to the Harvester Fleets of Earth.
- Babies Make Everything Better: The birth-cry of Ezra's daughter Kahlua deactivates a computer virus attacking the ship.
- Babysitting Episode: Meia's Birthday Episode doubles as this: Meia is stuck babysitting Ezra's baby daughter as part of a ploy to prevent Meia from escaping her own birthday party again.
- Beam Spam:
- Once Bart unlocks it, this is Nirvana's primary attack. It will even stop and curve around a friendly ship before going back on its original orientation.
- Hibiki does this in episode 6 by shooting a laser at his squadmates and having their shields reflect it towards the enemy ships.
- The Big Bad's ship at the end of Season 2 is also capable of this type of attack.
- Beehive Barrier:
- Super Vandread.
- The Nirvana's primary defense shield is shaped like this.
- Also Vandread Jura when NOT using its planetary shield.
- Beta Couple: Parfaite and Duero, generally. In contrast to the more emotional and outspoken interactions of Hibiki and Dita, the engineer and doctor form more of an intellectual understanding, at least on the surface.
- Big Bad: The humans who remained back on Earth.
- Big Damn Heroes: Several examples, generally Hibiki anytime he merges with one of the dreads, Bart has one, and Paksis saves the crew a couple of times as well.
- Big Eater: Despite Misty's implausible food storage, Hibiki can still wolf down all of her intentionally prepared cooking without feeling full.
- Pyoroh mentions when Dita finds the stockpiles of Tarak rations that a single pill contains enough vitamins and nutrients to keep the eater working for 300 hours.
The regular food served by the Mejalans simply doesn't provide the raw nutrition that Hibiki is used to. - Ezra develops this as a wacky pregnancy side-effect. Only for the span of a two episodes, though.
- Pyoroh mentions when Dita finds the stockpiles of Tarak rations that a single pill contains enough vitamins and nutrients to keep the eater working for 300 hours.
- Birthday Episode: Episode 21 revolves around the resident Stoic Meia's birthday. The problem is, she is an avid Birthday Hater and the rest of the crew goes to ridiculous lengths to rope her into at least some kind of celebration—which doesn't go well. Suffice to say, she almost performs a Heroic Sacrifice before it is over.
- Birthday Hater: Meia. Episode 21 is entirely devoted to the rest of the crew's efforts to lure her into attending the birthday party they throw for her, which she skillfully evades (like in all her previous years in the crew). Needless to say, said episode gives her a great deal of characterization beside that.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Misty calling Meia "dear sister" in the both the dub and sub, confusing the hell out of everyone. Including Meia. That said, the literal phrase ("big sister") wouldn't have been any clearer to someone who didn't understand the phrase as it's meant in Japan. "Dear sister" was close enough. "Miss Meia" would still fit better.
- Blue with Shock: Happens to Dita when Misty takes Hibiki's First Kiss. Pyoro, while he doesn't change colors, also seems shocked by it.
- Born in an Elevator: Kahlua, though Pyoro would insist her name is Pyoro-2.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: In Episode 1 of Stage 1, Hibiki uses a false palmprint copied off a person with the right clearance to sneak into the Ikazuchi's Vanguard bay in order to take his 'partner'. It almost failed because he forgot to moisten the copied prints, which he manages to do at the last second with some spit. Which probably only worked because Hibiki had been recorded as a passenger when he was an infant.
- Breather Episode:
- Season 1 Episode 7, which deals largely with Hibiki and Dita's growing relationship.
- Season 2 Episode 7 which happens right after a Wham Episode.
- Brick Joke: BC's improbable language skills and being sneaky. Possibly more of a Chekhov's Gun.
- Bridge Bunnies: Belvedere Coco, Celtic Midori and Amarone Slantheav.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Bart; the poor guy never catches a break. No one gives him any respect ever. When he is piloting the ship he suffers damage when the ship gets shot. When they get back to Tarak and neither he nor Duelo will renounce their female friends, he is the only one tortured. He also gets a stream of constant verbal and physical abuse from people. Most of whom he has done nothing but good for.
- Hibiki is this when it comes to Dita, to the point that practically the entire ship teases him about it.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Hibiki and Dita have a communication problem. By the end, simply calling each other by name is considered enough of an admission of their feelings for one another.
- Caretaking is Feminine: The Babysitting Episode doubles as a Birthday Episode for the Supporting Leader Meia, as she is saddled with babysitting Ezra's baby so she cannot sneak off before the celebration like she always does. Hijinx ensue and Meia ends up taking care of the baby for much longer than intended and despite her initial chagrin and to everyone's surprise, she proves an incredibly capable babysitter. Among other things, this episode helps establish her (despite her outward stoicism) as the most traditionally feminine of Hibiki's three female co-pilots, who form a Three Faces of Eve trio with Meia embodying the Wife archetype.
- Played straight in her initial awkwardness with Kahlua, such as holding her like a football. Meia also possesses many masculine traits.
- Cast Full of Gay: Crosses over with Everyone Is Bi, as despite originally hailing from one-gender planets, the men and women have little trouble developing romantic feelings for each other.
- The series comes across more like a subversion or even aversion of this trope more than anything. Despite the fact that Mejare is specifically confirmed to have a culture where female lesbian pairs form family units (though its left up in the air whether or not all women who have children together form such, or some just do it by agreement), almost none of the women on the ship actually forms or is shown to have a romantic relationship with another woman, aside from the existing couple of Barnette and Jura, and potentially Ezra and the woman she had a baby with. There is a blink and you miss it flashback showing that Meia may have pursued relationships with women in the past, or at least been really close to one, but other than that, there is no indication that any of the women in the cast swings that way. Of the other main characters, Magno is a first generation colonist who remembers that men and women used to be together, so she very well might not feel that way at all, while BC is a male spy, whose ultimate sexuality is left up in the air. While Barnette and Jura are undoubtedly a couple, Barnette is willing to help Jura have a child with a man. As for the men of Tarak, Tarak itself knows no love or romance (babies are created in factories and there is no evidence men form family units) due to its militaristic society and nothing is ever indicated how Terak itself specifically feels about homosexuality, other than that its probably tolerated due to no other options. For the male characters, Hibiki is full on attracted to Dita, Bart falls in love with BC and his feelings after finding out BC is a man are left ambiguous, while Duero at the very least expresses keen interest in Parfet and even calls women "wonderful" at one point. Altogether, it is possible that, at least among the main cast, no one is actually bisexual at all, and not everyone actually gives in to Situational Sexuality; some just will do without because they are completely straight. For the story's purposes, almost everyone (besides a few lesbian couples) is treated as straight.
- Clock Punk: Somehow Earth has turned into this. Virtually nobody in the series has any memory of Earth as a blue and green planet.
- Christmas Episode: A Mood Whiplash scenario where everyone is enjoying food and Yuletime fun, looking at a comet that looks like a flocked tree, and OMG the Evil Aliens are hiding in the comet's tail waiting to attack! Wait, Hibiki's there and once again Christmas is safe!
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Dita usually doesn't like it when Hibiki combines with anyone other than her. She also takes an immediate dislike to Misty when she first shows up and hugs Hibiki in the second season. Made worse by Hibiki apparently not objecting to it, at least not in the same manner that he seems to do toward Dita's hugs.
- Compressed Adaptation: The manga adaptation is way shorter than the anime, and changes several major plot points. Here are some differences between the two.
- Bart & Duero only appeared in one page.
- Many characters are absent (Ezra, Gascogne, Pyoro, even the pirate leader).
- Buzam aka. BC is the Big Bad.
- Hibiki only combines with Dita.
- Barnette is in love with Hibiki.
- Cool Old Lady: The captain Magno Vivan. In fact, being the youngest of the first generation colonists, a little girl at the time, she, along with Hibiki's uncle and Grandpa's brother Jin, is the Only Sane Man among them, having experience as a pirate captain allowing her to see what most of her elders have pretty much forgotten.
- Cool Starship: Nirvana, obviously. Not to mention the massive and terrifying Harvester motherships.
- What a Piece of Junk: The Nirvana is also loaded with quirks. The crew barely understands what the Paksis actually is, much less what it's actually capable of. Add to that the fact that it was created by fusing a pirate ship full of looted tech, and a 100-year-old colony ship that had been refurbished into a warship. Early episodes were spent just trying to get the darn thing functional, and it's pretty much a hodgepodge of jury-rigs, ad-lib modifications, repurposed modules, state-of-art tech, salvaged tech, and black-boxes. Sections of the ship are so old that the crew can't even use them, and it's not unusual for things to break down or fall apart. Hell, the events of one episode were kicked off when the men's dorms were flooded due to a plumbing problem.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Celtic wears a costume even while on duty, but that's just to protect herself from nasty boy germs. However, this is only in the first season. In the Second Stage she is in a different costume each episode, none of them terribly "protective" because it's more-or-less stated that she's gotten used to the guys by Second Stage.
- Couch Gag: The First and Second Stage openings have clips of the current episode in their opening sequences.
- Covers Always Lie: Averted for the most part but that dark-skinned redhead on the complete boxset? She appears in the last two episodes despite it looking like she's a main character.
- Crash-Into Hello: Literally; Hibiki meets Dita right after her Dread nearly crashes into him.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Hibiki often formulates some really off-the-wall ideas, but they usually work. Since his enemies have been shown to copy and adapt their strategies with each succeeding battle, Hibiki's unpredictability means they still manage to keep the upper hand.
- Creepy Child: The Earthling who attacks Tarak and Majale at the end of the series.
- Cross-Popping Veins: Happens to a few characters, especially Dita/Misty in regards to Hibiki.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: Mejale tends to give this vibe, in contrast to the Spartan-Industrial Tarak.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Usually happens whenever Hibiki merges his Vanguard with the women's Dread fighters.
- Rabat delivers one to Hibiki when they first meet. Hibiki later comments to Meia that Rabat was holding back despite easily beating him, and could've easily killed him had he wanted to.
- Cute Little Fangs: Jura.
- Dare to Be Badass: BC gives one to Hibiki at the start of the series. Near the end, Hibiki thanks her for motivating him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Meia and Gascogne.
- Date Peepers:
- While they're not on a date per se, a lot of the girls on the ship seem to like spying on Hibiki anytime Dita or especially Misty is with him.
- The ENTIRE ship gets a reality show-like view as Jura has cameras focused on Hibiki and his antics with Misty and Dita in episode 7 of Season 2. Practically everyone stops what they're doing to watch after Jura locks Dita and Hibiki in a room together. The only that thing that "saves" them from this is a Harvester attack at the end of the episode.
- Declaration of Protection:
- Hibiki although he usually denies it.
- Bart to Shirley, a little ill girl he is trying to protect from being Harvested. His will to protect her activates the weapons systems on the Nirvana.
- Default to Good: Rabat, eventually.
- Deflector Shields:
- Vandread Jura.
- The Nirvana has some as well. While fairly strong, sometimes enemy attacks do breach it.
- Designer Babies: On Tarak, genetic engineering lets two males have a baby who's born in a factory. While on Mejere with two females, one of them carries the engineered baby to term in the normal style.
- Didn't See That Coming: Captain Magno quietly bemoans the situation and wonders how her crew of pirates has become a government sanctioned babysitting group to help reintegrate men and women back together.
- Died on Their Birthday: Subverted where Meia is willing to perform a Heroic Sacrifice during her own Birthday Episode in order to save her crew mate's baby, but they are both saved in the very last moment.
- Discount Lesbians: It seems actually pretty safe to figure that most of the Mejale women are lesbians (or Bisexuals with no other option); the one who is after Hibiki seems to be drawn to the...novelty of having babies that way, sort of the equivalent of a modern lesbian asking a guy to be her sperm donor. Besides, it'd be a rather different sort of series if it spent much time on the sexual implications of One Gender Races. However, it's possible that many of characters are fully straight; only a few lesbian relationships are made explicit, and no gay ones.
- Disney Death: Gascogne. She gets better.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The pilots use "combining" in ways that make it sound an awful lot like something else men and women do... Vandread Dita in particular has Hibiki seated right at Dita's back, and they pilot the ship with their hands intertwined.
- Jura does this most frequently with Hibiki in the early episodes.
- On the subject of 'combining...' take a look at the first episode. The elegant, sleek female ship combining with the large, rather bulky male ship?
- Doujinshi took this and ran with it.
- And Hibiki is inexplicably exhausted by the end of each combine battle.
- Hibiki first (joyfully) recognizes his Mecha "Partner" by the mark he had placed on a certain part. A certain part that juts forward right from the pelvis and seems to be vent.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The crew of the Nirvana go through quite a bit, and have to constantly adopt new tactics in order to defeat the Harvesters who also try to develop new counters.
- Earth That Used to Be Better: The enemies' homeworld was revealed to be Earth itself, which has been devastated by pollution, and is covered by huge gears to maintain a livable environment for the humans left there.
- Empathy Pet: Misty's holographic blob Q-chan.
- Enemy Mine: The men of Tarak and the women of Mejale, along with various factions/planets that the Nirvana interacted with throughout the series, end up all fighting together against the Harvester fleets from Earth.
- Applies to the main cast as well, at least at first.
- Enfante Terrible: The commander of the Harvester Fleet, who has red eyes, telepathically "speaks" with a grown man's voice, and can use telekinesis to crush things/people. Given Earth's motivations, it's entirely possible that's not his original body.
- Everyone Can See It: The whole crew pretty much knows that Hibiki and Dita were meant for each other, even if he himself denies it.
- Evil Counterpart: The green Paksis Pragma inside the Nirvana has a twin red Paksis...used by Earth for commanding its Harvesters.
- Evil Knockoff: The Harvesters gain the ability to copy the Vandreads, even the Nirvana.
- Evolving Credits: After Bart shaved his head the credits changed to show this as well.
- Expy: In many ways, the series has a multitude of characters that are analogous to characters in Martian Successor Nadesico:
- Hibiki to Akito, Gai and Tsukumo. Hibiki is basically Tsukumo in Akito's shoes;
- Dita is an even ditzier Yurika;
- Jura is a less tame expy to Maki Izumi;
- Meia to Ryoko Subaru and Ruri Hoshino;
- Barnette to Ryoko;
- Parfait to Hikaru Minato;
- Duelo is a gentler Akatsuki;
- Bart to Jun and Gai;
- Misty is a straighter lost-and-found space-girl to Yukina;
- Gascogne to Howmei
- Also, in many respects, the two series have various themes in common:
- The protagonists think they are fighting aliens when they fight their common enemy and eventually find that everyone is human.
- Everyone in both ships knows that the two main characters are meant for each other.
- Both the Nirvana and the Nadesico are ships that are rogue and are in between wars that they are trying to diminish.
- The Nirvana's Pragma Paxis is the equivalent of the Nadesico's Omoikane.
- Only a handful of people in both series are capable of "supernatural" enhancements due to special circumstances: the few surviving Martian humans in Nadesico are capable of teleportation due to terraforming nanomachines present in Mars; Dita, Meia and Jura are capable of combining their Dread fighters with Hibiki's Vanguard due to the meddling of the Pragma Paxis.
- Everyone is in love with Hibiki and Akito.
- Eyes Always Shut: Ezra. Save for when she opens her eyes once after giving birth for a few seconds.
- Eye Catch: Usually shows Jura, Dita, Meia, or Hibiki and their respective mechs. Season two usually shows their combo forms along with the respective pilots.
- Fanservice: While there was indeed quite some fanservice due to the shapely pirate ladies from Mejale, the biggest dose of fanservice is in the first credits sequence, that had Dita, Jura, and Meia posing sensually in the background to the sultry, throaty vocals of SiLC singing the song Himegoto.
- Fantastic Racism: Through the cultural divide that was caused by the division of sexes, due to their upbringing, the men of Tarak and the women of Mejale have been led to believe that the other is a demonic monster hellbent on destroying them.
- A Father to His Men: An all-female example in the form of captain Magno Vivan.
- First Blood: Hibiki starts to berate Jura after Vandread Jura takes a hit, only to be brought up short by the horrified realization he's covered in her blood. She survives.
- First Girl Wins: Not that she would allow any rivals anyway.
- Flash Step: Vandread Meia can do this.
- Foreshadowing: BC operating the newly launched Ikazuchi while the girls can't even read anything in Tarak in the first episode seems like a throwaway gag. It turns out, she can read it because "she's" actually a "he" and is a spy. And their Captain knew of it the whole time.
- Forgotten Birthday: Subverted. They TRY the whole "pretend everything is normal"-thing on Meia. She sees through them instantly, and when Misty ask why everyone is acting funny, Meia explains that tomorrow is her birthday. So, instead, they start making plans on how they can keep her from hiding from the party...
- Gender Bender: BC is revealed to be a Tarak commander.
- Genki Girl: Dita, especially around Hibiki.
- Girls Have Cooties: Inverted with the aforementioned Celtic.
- Giver of Lame Names: Pyoro, who gives Ezra's baby the name "Pyoro 2", and calls the Super Vandread "Vandread Pyoro". None of the other characters are too fond of them.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: Actually, they came unbidden.
- Green Rocks: In this case blue and red rocks in the form of the crystalline Paksis.
- Gun Ship Rescue: Hibiki usually when he merges with Jura or Meia, and Paksis does a couple, sometimes with Bart, sometimes without his input.
- Harem Genre: Vandread initially sets things up by having Hibiki being forced to work with three female pilots: Dita, Meia, and Jura. However the series plays around with this in that it makes it really evident that the only serious contender is Dita, due to her curiosity and desire to know more about "Mr. Alien" personally. Meia ultimately ends up being more of a comrade in fighting built on mutual respect, and Jura's interest is born more out of shallow short term experimental interest in the differences between men and women, but ultimately doesn't go anywhere beyond that due to a complete lack of interest and compatibility otherwise. Dita's first real competition, if anything, is Misty Cornwell who appears in Stage 2 as part of a temporary love triangle.
- Headbutt Thermometer: Duero does this to Hibiki in the third episode.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Jura briefly suffers one in Episode 9.
- Dita goes through one anytime Hibiki lashes out at her too harshly, such as in episode 7.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Subverted: Hibiki attempts to stop the Big Bad's Wave-Motion Gun by plugging it with his Vanguard, mentioning he really doesn't give two damns so long as his friends are safe. Dita, Meia and Jura fly into the breach without even a moment's hesitation. The Paksis helps them out by blowing said Wave-Motion Gun away, effectively an 11th-Hour Superpower.
- Zig-zagged when Gascogne pilots her ship into the side of an enemy mothership, a suicide run that creates a hole in the ship that they use to attack it from within in the following episode. She actually survived and repaired the defeated ship, brought it under her control, and brought it back just in time to reinforce the last stand that everyone puts together for the finale.
- Heroic Spirit: And the subtropes under this. When the crew invokes them with all their might, it empowers the Paksis, who in turn gives the crew upgrades of varying degrees.
- His Quirk Lives On: When it looks like Gascogne dies by Heroic Sacrifice, Barnette volunteers to take over her job, and adopts her signature clothing style and some mannerisms.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The earthlings really believed that the colonies would just subject themselves to being harvested. Every elder in Tarak and Mejare agreed to be organ fodder for them until Hibiki showed up and blew everything in their faces.
- Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Hibiki; just combine with someone already and get it over with!
- Hope Bringer: The crew is called this on the plague planet after they help develop a means of them giving birth without becoming infected by the plague.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Duero and Parfait. Oddly makes the whole pairing cuter.
- Humans Are Bastards: Partially invoked: turns out Earth's responsible for sending out the Harvester fleets.
- Human Resources: The Harvester fleets.
- Humongous Mecha
- Real Robot: The unmodified Dreads of Magno's pirates are not too implausible from a space opera standpoint, though compared to the usual star fighter craft, they're MUCH larger, having more of a size gap between it and a Vanguard compared to a human and large jet fighter.
- Vanguards, too. Notably, they are much smaller than the usual anime mecha.
- Super Robot: The titular Vandreads, on the other hand...
- Combining Mecha: The Vandreads again.
- Transforming Mecha: One Harvester Elite Mook copies the Nirvana's shape and transforms it into a humanoid mode.
- Real Robot: The unmodified Dreads of Magno's pirates are not too implausible from a space opera standpoint, though compared to the usual star fighter craft, they're MUCH larger, having more of a size gap between it and a Vanguard compared to a human and large jet fighter.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Misty is understandably lonely considering she's been in stasis for a long time (the anime mentions she's 14 years old and was in stasis for 63 years) and is the only surviving member of her family. When Hibiki runs after Dita, shes feels rejected, and tries to play off her wooing him as "being bored" and letting him go as to "not making enemies of Dita's shipmates/friends". But a few moments later, she begins to cry alone in the park bench, and Meia tries to assure her that she has friends here.
- Important Haircut: Bart, marking his transition from Lovable Coward to Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, shaves his head bald as an homage to Shirley's doll for him, since she never got to sew on the hair.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The Paksis, both the one on the Nirvana and the one controlling the Harvester fleet.
- Improbably Female Cast: Justified in that the story focuses on three guys that got captured by a squad of Mejale outcasts.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Arguably, this along with the Paksis is what happened to Pyoro to bring him from brick to human-level sentience.
- Instant Expert: Characters seem to be able to pilot completely unfamiliar ships and mechs flawlessly despite having no experience in their operation.
- Subverted (albeit briefly) when Hibiki first pilots his Vanguard. Or when the women first pilot the Vanguards, or when Hibiki uses his Vanguard on a planet's surface (with gravity) for the first time, or when he first combines with Jura, all giving them at least some problems for a few scenes.
- Subverted with the Tarak as well. They are remarkably bad at handling their brand-new Vanguards. It's not until the Nirvana returns to the planets a year later that they have gained a grip at piloting the things. And they became very adept at it. Given that it is implied that the pilots we initially see are newly graduated cadets, it's likely more we don't see their veterans in action until then.
- I Was Quite a Looker: An old photograph of the captain and her family illustrate this trope. It is also revealed that she still has a head full of beautiful golden hair.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hibiki towards Dita, and Rabat, who's a total Smug Snake when he first shows up, but ends up helping them in the end.
- Karma Houdini: Absolutely nobody addresses the fact the child nurse intentionally manipulated the crew into turning against the male members by exaggerating minor/insignificant situations. She was motivated by the fact her best friend, Dita, had seemingly forgotten her birthday and was ignoring her for Hibiki but both of them were in fact preparing a birthday surprise for her. This petty act causes a schism which ruined the crew's established dynamic and resurfaced past biases they had overcome, later leading to everyone nearly getting killed on multiple occasions and possible unnecessary redshirt casualties amongst the regular Dread pilot crew, until the group resolves its issues. The only comeuppance we see is her seeing her special birthday surprise dish smashed on the ground when the crew try to arrest Hibiki, with a guilty expression when she realizes what she has betrayed many of her friends over nothing.
- However heroic he may have turned out to be by the end, Rabat never answers for the severe beatdown he gave Hibiki when they first met.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: While the series largely uses energy weapons, during episode 4 of Season 2, when Jura tries firing an energy weapon at the harvesters invading the inside of a space station, it doesn't do anything to it. Barnette suggests that she use the guns she brought, which uses regular bullets, and are quite effective against those things. At least while they have ammo for them.
- Tarak in general seems to have retained the use of projectile weapons compared to their female counterparts.
- Lampshade Hanging Pyoro in episode four of Second Stage: He can smell the sexuality!!
- Also Gascogne yelling at Dita about her pulling off a No One Gets Left Behind.
"This isn't some third rate soap opera! Go on without me and then come back to get me!" - Large Ham: Hibiki usually falls into this territory, particularly when playing cards with Gascogne, or usually around Dita.
- Lovable Coward: Bart in season one; after he finds something (and someone) worth fighting for he becomes a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass in season 2.
- Lover Tug of War: Happens to Hibiki between Dita and Misty.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Nirvana's main weapon, with the added bonus of the missiles Roboteching around friendly fighters.
- Magical Native American: The telepaths on the planet in the middle of the magnetic storm on the way to the Tarak/Mejale system all have a definite southwestern Native American vibe, and they live in pueblos. The elder even does a sand painting while Hibiki's finishing his trial.
- Marshmallow Hell: Hibiki in one episode bumps in Jura's breasts while she is telling him to combine with her.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: Bart manages to give the Nirvana a Beam Spam attack in the second season, and the Super Vandread shows up as well, merging all three girls' Dreads with Hibiki's Vanguard.
- Minor Living Alone: One of Meia's traumatic flashbacks is absolutely laden with this - separated from both her parents due to an accident, as they chose to stay behind and send her out on a crowded escape vessel crowded with other children. After that, she was rendered a homeless orphan who was forced to become a street rat until she was recruited by Magno Vivan.
- Mission Control: BC usually performs this role, but Magno sometimes assists or takes command.
- Ms. Fanservice: Practically every female character but the captain, although it's implied she used to be quite the looker.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Hibiki during his card games with Gascogne. He always tries to place his cards down in a really dramatic fashion, only to have Gascogne nonchalantly beat his hand.
- My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Pyoro can smell the sexuality when he winds up inside the cockpit of Vandread Dita with the two pilots, much to their mutual embarassment.
- Naked Apron: While not completely naked Barnette seems to prefer not wearing a top underneath the apron when she cooks.
- Nerd Glasses: Worn by Wrench Wench, meganekko Parfait. As far as the show is concerned they're practically her eyes, since we never see what's behind the glasses.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Parfait, who even starts hooking up with Bishōnen doctor Duelo.
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Probably why Hibiki is put off by Dita's advances. Although it is unusual that Misty averts the trope, as he doesn't seem to mind spending time with her, much to Dita's chagrin.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Pyoro and Utan, Rabat's pet orangutan.
- Nose Bleed: Hibiki suffers one after Misty kisses him.
- Not So Above It All: The normally focused BC and Captain share in watching Dita and Hibiki being locked in the room to resolve their UST.
- Old Soldier: Tarakian General Kummel Ohzeki has been a soldier for years and has the scars to prove it. His skill and technique is good enough to take down at least one Dark Vandread and a speed ship that took Vandread Meia to destroy the first time.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The male elders of Tarak.
- Onee-sama: Meia; she literally gets called this way by Misty, causing her to break her stoic persona.
- One-Gender Race: This is accomplished through technology, however. Genetically, they're still human.
- One Head Taller: Technically applies between Hibiki and Dita. Mind you, Dita isn't even the tallest among the female cast. Hibiki's just that short.
- Onion Tears: The crew actually mutinied in the season one finale and tried to get rid of the male crewmembers because Hibiki allegedly made Dita cry, when the tears were due to the fact that they were slicing onions at the time.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish"
- Subverted; Who the hell sets a password to the sound of a baby's cry?
- Subverted again with the minefield (it had to be spoken by a high-ranking official).
- Parodied with the Nirvana's lockdown, when Barnette set it to something that crew members should be able to guess easily, but Hibiki still had no idea what it was. Though that one was justified, since it was in a language the captors couldn't read (and they only had the ship for a day, tops). The answer: Gascogne's password "smile."
- Perpetually Shiny Bodies: The fanservice-laden closing credits has the three main girls looking very shiny.
- Persecution Flip: In the Christmas Episode, everyone except Dita and Hibiki had this reaction to the video showing a man-woman couple and their daughter.
- Pirate Girl: The entire female cast.
- The Plague: The heroes come across a planet in the second season which had this done to them by Earth. Everything from the people to the plants and ground are tainted. While the crew cannot cure everyone, they do provide a means of giving people a safe place to give birth and avoid being contaminated for life with the disease.
- Planet of Hats: Tarak and Mejale as an aesop that men and women need each other. Also somewhat deconstructed in that the Planet of Hats were created to be worn.
- The Promise: Hibiki's promise to visit Dita's room.
- Pronouncing My Name for You: Gascogne wants you to know it's pronounced "Gas-Co-NYU". It may also refer to the fact that "Gas-cone" sounds like "Gas-Co", which was her older sister's nickname for her, and doesn't want her memory of her sister to change. In the original Japanese, it's not so much a pronunciation issue as her refusing to accept her nickname of "Gasco-san".
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The men from Tarak are generally portrayed as this: the commander of the Vanguard unit even goes out of his way to say "It is a good day to die" before drawing first blood in the most badass way during the final battle
- Rags to Royalty: Hibiki's in fact the son of the leaders of Tarak and Mejale. This allows him to have a say in regards to how both worlds should forge their own destinies instead of being cattle for Earth.
- Redshirt Army: Hibiki runs into a Space Navy one in Episode 11. Despite their actions, they get wiped out pretty easily. Perhaps they shouldn't have shared their backstory with him...
- While they are not given much focus, we do occasionally see shots of the Nirvana's regular, unnamed Dread team members taking damage or nursing their wounds.
- Refuge in Audacity Lampshaded by Gascogne about Bart when he was exaggerating his role in their adventure to the Littlest Cancer Patient. She stated, "When someone like him lies that audaciously, I don't even feel like scolding them."
- Re-Release Soundtrack: The original broadcast used the original Louis Armstrong version of "What a Wonderful World" at the end of one episode, as a callback to a music box from an earlier scene. In its subsequent DVD release, they changed it to a cover version. For the English track, they came up with a completely different song and changed the music box to match up with the new song.
- The Reveal: In episode 22, Hibiki is of the First Generation and he was on the Nirvana back when it was a colony ship.
- Running Gag: Pyoro constantly referring to Ezra's baby, Kahlua, as "Pyoro 2".
- Screaming Birth: The Second Stage, Ezra finally delivers her baby while trapped in an elevator in the middle of an attack and with her only help being Hibiki and Dita, and the advice of Duelo and Magno.
- Screw Destiny: The crew of the Nirvana tries to do this for every planet/space station they pass by whenever the Harvesters show up to gather the people living there. Some are thankful for their help, others slightly less so.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Hibiki launches into an epic speech near the end, hoping to rally support against the Big Bad that Tarak and Mejale's planetary governments have denied the very existence of. As a result, there's massive defections from the military of both planets, to form an impromptu defensive line against the forces from a degenerate Earth. It works.
- Sentient Phlebotinum: The Paksis is eventually revealed to be this, explaining a lot of really weird events earlier in the series.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Hibiki vehemently invokes this trope anytime others mention how close he is with Dita. Dita likes to think otherwise however.
- Shout-Out:
- When Dita first meets Hibiki, she does the Curwen hand gestures from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (goes with the Bah bi bah bom baaaaaaa). Also, there's a poster for the show on the wall in her room.
- Hibiki's hair, bandana, clothing, and cluelessness with girls (but not his size) are all reminiscent of a previous anime character named Hibiki.
- The doors aboard the Nirvana open with the "Star Trek" door sound effect.
- Shrine to the Fallen: The captain is shown to have a cupboard of women who presumably all died. It is seen when she adds Gasconge's picture after her death.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: When The Harvesters communicate, they use fear, doubt, and intimidation to disrupt the thoughts and spirits of the heroes. The only way to not be influence is for someone, usually Hibiki, to give one of these.
- Sitch Sexuality: Most of the women hate men as the enemy, but as the series progresses, many of them seem to have been in same-sex relationships due to a lack of options rather than preference. It also seems as though none of the men on Tarak pair off (this is, after all, a seinen fantasy show, not a shonen-ai vehicle).
- Possibly justified by the Tarakians' hat being over-the-top manliness, making Ho Yay, with the possible exception of Hard Gay, unlikely.
- Unless they model themselves on other warrior societies such as Samurai, Spartans, Romans, Athenians, the Big Nambas from Paupa New Guinea, the Vikings, Pirates. Actually almost all warrior societies come to think of it.
- There is some idle chatter in the first episode where some random Tarakian soldiers muse on making a baby together (in pretty much the same tone as going out for a beer).
- Also, in the start of the second season, Paiway observed that the day started with Dita chasing Hibiki, to which she says "I can't believe Dita would want to chase a man, what a weirdo." This suggests that most women prefer to go after other women.
- Jura, for all her attempts to combine with Hibiki and trying to have a kid with him, is quite obviously gay for Barnette.
- The two live together, spend most of their time together and when Jura first starts going on about having a baby, Barnette thinks she means -with her-. Yeah...I think they're a couple.
- ...With an open relationship. At the series' end, it's shown that Jura has become just as male-obsessed as Dita (she asks the departing guys to bring back men — but only the handsome and powerful — from Talark when they return to Nirvana) and even appears to have now transferred her attentions to Duero (much to Parfet's violent jealousy). Meanwhile, Barnette seems to not mind at all.
- An interesting Zigzag: Bart fell in love with BC/Tenmei believing them to be a woman, despite being raised in a culture that feared them. While it's up to a certain level of interpretation, as soon he learns they aren't a traitor them being from Tarak does not appear to have changed anything.
- It should be noted that none of the cast outside of Jura and Barnette are shown engaging in same-sex relationships, and only Meia is implied to have done so in the past. It is possible that the main characters, at least, are purely straight and never engaged in Situational Sexuality prior to the show's beginning. Though it can be safely assumed that other female crew members on the ship did engage in the past, it is very possible, even likely, that Dita, Hibiki, Duero, and Bart, at the least, did not.
- Possibly justified by the Tarakians' hat being over-the-top manliness, making
- Space Mines: Tarak's line of outer-system defense is an immense mine field that one must pass through to reach either planet. It takes a command-level code to allow safe passage.
- Space Pirates: Pretty much the entire crew of the Nirvana, although they don't do it very much after the first episode. Justified in that there's not much pirating to do when you are sent to the unknown side of the galaxy with hostile aliens on your trail. Rabat seems to play it straighter.
- Spaceship Girl: Bart, a Rare Male Example of this trope. He is the only one the ship will allow pilot her.
- Suggestive Collision: Hibiki seems to have incredibly bad luck in that many of the times he falls over, he ends up crashing into one of the female pirates. One of his accidents even ends up sparking a huge protest by the less-tolerant pirates who didn't like the presence of men on board.
- Supporting Harem: While Hibiki is clearly romantically interested only in Dita, Jura and Misty also want him. Jura seems more like The Tease, but Misty and Dita eventually butt heads about their rivalry regarding Hibiki.
- Telepathic Spacemen: A group of Native American Indian-like people can communicate with their minds because Earth took their vocal chords.
- Third Law of Gender-Bending: An extremely subtle example: want to know which character is the Gender Bent mole? Look for the one who always seems to be posing for a fashion shoot.
- Through His Stomach: Dita often uses this on Hibiki. It usually works, especially considering he only ate pills on Tarak. Misty does this as well in Season two.
- Touched by Vorlons: Hibiki, Dita, Jura, Meia and Pyoro, due to the influence of the Paksis. Bart also seems to have some of this, as he is the only person able to direct the Nirvana. After seeing the super Vandread, he wonders if he and the Nirvana will also merge with the other ships.
- Tragic Keepsake: Hibiki keeps the handkerchief Saron used to cover his wound.
- Meia has her old jewelry music box which was a Christmas present from her parents as a child when her family as a child was still together and happy as well as her headpiece, which was given to Meia by her Fama. After becoming a homeless orphan and joining the Nirvana crew she kept said items but covered the mirror in the box with a family photo of herself with her parents, with the previously cut off face of her Oma back in the photo, possibly a signal that she no longer holds a grudge against either of them anymore.
- Bart wears a doll of himself sans his hair as a necklace, which was made by Shirley, an ill girl who sadly did not make it as a reminder of his resolve to protect her.
- Tranquil Fury: Little seems to get under Duelo's skin more than seeing what Earth did to the plague planet all for some sick experiment.
- 12-Episode Anime: Originally, but then a second season was made which picks up right where the first left off and provides the real conclusion.
- Unexplained Recovery: Gascogne, who supposedly died in a Heroic Sacrifice that no one could survive. She comes back not only alive, but somehow having managed to get onto, taken over, and piloted a giant enemy mothership.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Bart Garsus, upon The Reveal that BC is a Gender Bender mole. This doesn't stop him, though...
- In all honesty, this probably got dropped on EVERYONE.
- Except the captain. She knew about it the whole time.
- Technically, since homosexuality would seem to be the norm back on Tarak (well, put a bunch of guys together on a planet without any women, what do you expect?), this would be an inversion. The Bart/BC relationship seems to be the Vandread equivalent of the typical shoujo plot of a heterosexual guy finding out the guy he's attracted to is actually a girl (cue sighs of relief). Unless you want to apply heteronormativity to people who think they are a One-Gender Race.
- Wrap your brains around that one.
- In all honesty, this probably got dropped on EVERYONE.
- Unstoppable Rage:
- Semi-subverted, as Hibiki cuts through a swath of smaller robots after seeing someone die in front of him, just to be swatted away by the enemy flagship.
- Also played straight when Bart's You Shall Not Pass! moment.
- Unusual Euphemism: If the proof of your existence lasts more than four hours, consult your physician.
- Unusual User Interface: Bart's station is a green pool of fluid that magically strips him bare and suspends him in a 3D display, reacting to his motions and emotions. The other Paksis-modified ships similarly react to the user's desires and actions.
- The Unwanted Harem: Not just the pilots are chasing Hibiki, after a while.
- Uterine Replicator: Used by the men to reproduce in the absence of women.
- Vanity Is Feminine: The women of Mejale use their greater resources on vanity projects. Wasting energy for example to make their homes look nicer than their neighbours. This resulted in a sector where many of the pirates used to live blacking out. By stark contrast the men of Tarak have no room for vanity on a world were resources are too precious and few to waste needlessly.
- Verbal Tic: Pyoro tends to say his name.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted. The Harvester fleet seems to put out newer and stronger ships to face the Nirvana crew. Whether some were already in commission or not is unknown, but even the simple cube enemies learn to deflect the dreads lasers by grouping together. Then they can combine to create copies of all three vandreads and the Nirvana.
- War Is Hell: While we never get to see Tarak fight Mejale directly (other than the first episode when the female pirates attack), as the show goes on, it shows how hectic and pointless fighting can be, and virtually everyone suffers from it in some way.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Features a lot of them, from Vandread Dita's twin shoulder-mounted cannons, to the Harvester motherships' main guns.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The crew of the Nirvana at first seem to have no luck convincing most of the groups they encounter about the imminent threat posed by Earth. But in the end, many of them show up to assist the Nirvana in the struggle when they all begin to realize that they in fact have a common goal, which is to not be used for parts by Earth.
- Wham Episode:
- What the Hell, Hero?: Hibiki’s Grandpa / uncle and Magno to Tarak and Mejale's planetary governments on denying the very existence of Harvest and sacrificing youth to Terrans’ organ harvesting in penultimate episode (12th) of the second season.
- The Worf Barrage:
- The Tarak minefield activates when the Harvester motherships enter the star system. In a mild subversion, it actually manages to destroy one. Unfortunately, there are three more.
- In the first wave. And here comes second, not to mention the flagship.
- Wrench Wench: Parfet Balblair is the chief engineer of her crew of all female Space Pirates.
- You Shall Not Pass!:
- Bart goes into Papa Wolf mode when the harvesters come to a planet where he befriended an ill girl.
- The final episodes of Season 2, when Earth's forces invade Tarak and Mejale space.
- You Will Be Assimilated: Well, not so much turned into Borg-like creatures as much as the Harvesters going to human colonized worlds and capturing them for their organs.
