Vividred Operation ep2: feels like ep1 got its big sister ep2 to come outside and punch me in the face!

Episode 1

Is this the same show I pooped on just an episode ago? All over my Internets I’ve been seeing gifs and comments commending this show on how fun and weird it is. I just figured it was a poor Strike Witches/Nanoha amalgamation that would soon fade except for only the most pervy of fans. But with a round two given to this show I see I may have another fun exciting ride on my hand, a la Symphogear. Let’s go!

The episode starts off with Akane bequeathing new mahou shoujo powers to her friend Aoi, and the treat of a rather nice mahou shoujo transformation. I have to say, the strangely natural amalgamation of a mecha docking and a mahou shoujo transformation is pretty awesome! We get some ass kicking of the Alone with the combined powers of the two (why this dainty Aoi chick gets a hammer with rocket boost as a weapon is beyond me) and just as awesomely the help of the military fighter jets. It’s a pretty convincing victory.

Then crazy scientist in a stuffed animal grandpa insists the girls kiss in order to “dock”, in essence combine forms into one exponentially powerful super form. The idea immediately gives me Dragonball Z flashbacks. It fails though because one of the girls is holding back. Cue flashback to rich, timid Aoi encountering Akane for the first time. I’m a little disturbed at how great an ass Akane has to be honest. It all ends up going back to some nonsense about tomatoes and Aoi forcing herself to say she loves them when she hates them. While they’re doing that the way to quiet and angry looking little magical girl with dark hair from the first episode pops up out of nowhere and shoots a magical arrow at the defeated Alone. It doesn’t just revitalize it, but super charges it as well. It was some weird Evangelion style stuff. I half expected the super charged alone to sprout a face. The destruction is causes is ridiculous, too.

Luckily Aoi and Akane are able to get over Aoi’s little crisis of conscience successfully perfomr the “docking”. And like any truly good transformation sequence, it’s half awesome, half uncomfortably sexual. And wow, the results are something to be seen! Aoi and Akane combine to form Vividblue (convenient how they name these things before they actually happen so viewers don’t waste any time debating that fact). She’s beautiful, she’s pretty damn blue, and she wields an even more impressive hammer than Aoi did. From that point on, it was just a matter of crushing the super charged Alone with raw power. Nothing left for the mysterious dark girl to do but get pissed and leave.

The episode ends the next day with news of their local school’s destruction and Aoi, her sister and Akane’s imminent transfer.

Overall, I have to say I was pretty damn impressed by this episode. Overall, it was the most fun I had watching anime this week. And that’s saying something because I enjoyed episode four of OreShura quite a bit. I guess my problem with episode one was that it was way too slow, and stupidly technical for me. The amount of time it took for the show to rev up, even for a first episode, was unacceptable to me. In comparison, not only did the show pick up in the heat of the action. It carried that action and excitement through most of the episode. The scene where Aoi and Akane worked with the fighter jets was just great. And the scene where Vividblue wrecks the super charged Alone are both memorable, fun scenes. I still hate seeing that annoying grandpa in that stuffed animal body roam about. I still don’t find the characters engaging at all, just a pair of cute girl stereotypes.  And for now that’s OK. This show may just be dumb, quick and pretty fun. And I can live with that if that’s the expectation and the ceiling for its ambitions.