Opening songs
OP 1 - Energy (Earthmind)
Ending songs
ED* - Vivid Shining Sky (Ayane Sakura, Aya Uchida, Maaya Uchida, Rie Murakawa, Otsubo Yuka)
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
Episodes: 12
What do you get when the director for "Strike Witches" decides to do something similar? You get "Vividred Operation", a "version" of "Strike Witches" that seems to be even girlier, has more visual flair, more CG and more cheesiness. Honestly, its good that we got something similar to "Strike Witches" (which I f**king loved the crap out of), but I do think that "Vividred Operation" lacks the charm. It has its own charms, that's for sure, and it may be conceptually similar to "Strike Witches", but there's a different feel to it. Make no mistake, I too, like "Vividred Operation", but for a different reason. After all, its still about teenage girls, flying around with weapons and destroying big ass monsters that threaten the safety of mankind. Also, fan service, how can we forget that? Its all here.
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| Another tale about friendship |
With almost everything being similar to "Strike Witches", its no surprise that the songs don't sound too different. "Energy" by Earthmind is a great opening song that fits the anime's theme. It has this uplifting, techno beat that somehow gets me grooving along with it : | . There are actually many endings to the anime, but I'll pick the one that gets sang throughout the most of the episodes. "Vivid Shining Sky" is sang by all the seiyuus of every main girl in the anime, and I'd say that it sounds a lot like "Super Stream" from "Infinite Stratos". The multiple voices singing in sync makes it sound pretty good.
Rating: 7.5/10
"Vividred Operation" is, without a doubt, another different kind of "Strike Witches". If you've watched "Strike Witches", you'd kind of know what to expect. The same concept of a bunch of girls being best friends that have the power to defeat monsters and save mankind....its the very same magical girl concept that we've all come to know. However, it takes on a rather different theme. "Vividred Operation" is way more futuristic and sci-fi than "Strike Witches" ever could be, and while in "Strike Witches" everyone teamed up to fight this general race of monsters (the neuroi), "Vividred Operation" actually has a villain behind everything (though how they dealt with it was similar to how "Strike Witches" had everyone teaming up to fight the final big bad neuroi). Also, the amount of girls. There are way lesser characters than "Strike Witches" insane 11 character roster, this actually opens up more room for screen time for each of the characters, but on the other hand, there's less characters to love....
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| Erm...the awkwardness is over the top in this scene.... |
Isshiki Akane is a regular girl whose grandfather, Isshiki Kenjiro is the most successful engineer in the world. He invented the manifestation engine, which sits there to provide energy to the entire world. However since then he hasn't been doing much and has just been living with his granddaughters. One day, while living life as per normal, a signal appeared off shore and somehow Kenjiro expected it to come. After finding out that the signal turned out to be a giant robotic monster, it wiped out the military in an instant. Kenjiro calls it "alone", a species of intelligent life forms whose purpose is to attack the manifestation engine and destroy it, ruining the world's energy source. Akane wants to help stop it, and Kenjiro gives her a key to access the vivid system, which allows her to equip herself with the pallet suit, which gives her superhuman abilities and a weapon to fight the "alone".
Overall I do like "Vividred Operation", but as a series alone I prefer "Strike Witches". Lesser characters is good sometimes but I do find that there aren't as many likable characters here than in "Strike Witches". The combat and everything else is still pretty good, and I actually dig the docking sequences (yuri ftw). Well seeing as how everything ended, it should be the end of the series already. Its rather short, but I kind of enjoyed my time here.
Peace.
