Vividred Operation Ep. 1

Initial impression – vividly brilliant

Winter 2013 (12 episodes) (more info)

Much like Nanoha, Vividred Operation is a magic girl show that hides its more supernatural elements under the guise of technology.  And it’s not a bad formula.  It helps alleviate some of the setting’s baggage that comes with the genre when it gets depicted in the more traditional sense like Sailor Moon, My-HiME or Symphogear.  For me at least, this is the way I usually prefer my magic girls.  The series also follows the mahou shoujo tradition of giving the heroine an adorable animal sidekick, but whether or not Vividred is going to give in to other magic girl tropes like having to collect a certain number of some unspecified substance remains to be seen.

The enemy that main character Akane is going to be fighting appears to be strongly inspired by the Neuroi from Strike Witches, which makes sense because the two anime have the same director and character designer.  The rest of the setting feels original and has some imaginative elements that the future could conceivably produce.  I particularly like its concept that an abundance of free, clean energy around the world has led to an era of peace.  And it’s no stretch of the imagination that an attack by forces outside the Earth would not only be more likely in such a situation, but targeting the world’s focal point of energy production would be the most logical first step in a larger campaign.  So far, Vividred Operation has shown itself to be well thought out and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

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