War. It's a grueling way to help your country. The lives of several thousand men sacrificed to help benefit one country's benefits. You hear about all the sorts of things wars have, but have you really understood the inner workings and tactical strategies? Well, that's where Madan no Ou to Vandis comes in. Let's take aim!
Story (6.00/10): The story of Vanadis follows from the perspective or Tigrevurund Vorn, or Tigre. On a battlefield one day, amidst the corpses of his fallen comrades, he takes aim at a woman riding on a horse, a war maiden, who has just demolished ... his whole army. After taking aim, he tries to shoot her down, only to become captive to Elenora, as she is called. Sending the two of them into a spiraling journey as tensions rise between their two countries.
The story basically sums up to following these two characters as they try and fight through a war, with each battle being a new battle and event in the ever going war, with each battle being a battle with usually a different opponent and progressing through their goals to fight and come victorious. The show gets props for deconstructing the idea of war by making every little event become crucial to the character's goals and ideals. There are however, some big flaws with this series, mostly with its execution and pacing.
The execution for the series wavers heavily, with some parts being rather well written, while other parts are written rather poorly. This problem is heavily shown in the transitions from one scene to another. Vanadis...has probably one of the worst scene transitions in anime period. The show constantly changes from scene to scene, and sometimes even changes the scene completely, leaving the audience dazed and confused as to what exactly is going on. In addition, the world of Vanadis is a very interesting place, talking about its lore and legends in some of its episodes such as the dragon gear and the goddesses in the realm. However, the show doesn't give you an opportunity to fully enjoy the show at all because they don't give enough explanation to the show's basic lore, which really takes away from an otherwise fantastic show.
In addition, the show's pacing is just awful. You don't get enough time to truly enjoy anything in the show, and you really don't have the chance to let the current scenario sink in. Mostly, the show just pokes in at a specific scene, than goes off to somewhere else without word or warning. The pacing really does take a lot of the show's credibility away because it rushes through its own story so much that you can't enjoy it very much (This really only applies beyond the first three episodes.)
Overall, Vanadis had a lot of potential. It showed us the prospects of war and the sheer amount of strategy and thinking that goes into it, but that's all it really does. You don't really get any semblance as to what the world of Vanadis, which really is a shame due to how well that could've worked conjunction into the story.
Overview:
+ Great story concept (the deconstruction of war that is)
- Untold world
- Awful pacing
- Very poor execution
Characters (6.00/10): In addition, the characters of Vanadis share a same downfall similar to the story.
First we have Tigrevurund Vorn, the main protagonist of this series, as well as an archer that would put Katniss Everdeen to shame. As the count of Alsace, the and of his birth, Tigre is caught by the war maiden Elen, and becomes her captive in her principality. From then on, Tigre asks his capturerer to help protect his homeland, and eventually gets the opportunity to do so. As the series goes on, you can see his development beyond his simple goal of protecting his homeland as he meets new characters that aid him along his journey. Beyond that, though, you really don't know very much about him. He has this weapon and lineage that you basically know nothing about, and only a small bit of his personality really comes out.
And then we have Elenora, the war maiden of the series. In Vanadis, we have individuals called war maidens, women who have been chosen by a dragon gear, a weapon with special abilities and power, all of which have control over their own principalities and people. Elen is an interesting character. A bit of a jokester, (and maybe a little bit perverted), Elen helps Tigre on his quest to help his people in exchange for power over his land. In the story, you get some details as to what kind of women she was before, and the connections she has between some characters, but you don't really get to learn about her very much. She's an interesting character that has no details put in, which really makes the show a bit disappointing.
As for supporting characters, we have constant characters that you see, such as Lim, Titta, Ludmila, and a few others, and then you have those characters that you don't really see at all, or get introduced at one point, before going away. The supporting cast, are basically a mystery since you don't actually get to see or know a lot of them since most of them REALLY only serve as plot devices in order to move the story along. This even includes the main villain of the story, Duke Thernardier, who supposedly is the one corrupting the country for his own purpose, but is a character you don't really see or know about since he shows his face only in the last two episodes, and even then, it's freaking disappointing. This also brings me to another point, which are the seven war maidens.
In the world of Vanadis, there are seven war maidens that exist in the lands, all of them holding a specific dragon gear. From the title art, and the opening, you'd expect to see them all at some point, right? Wrong. The series establishes that there are seven war maidens, but you really only get to know two out of seven of the war maidens. Most of them you don't even get to meet or know the names of, which just shows how much potential this show had, but failed to deliver.
Overview:
+ Interesting main cast
- Little to no detail for the characters you see or learn about
- Plot devices as the supporting cast
- War maidens not utilized though established
Art and Sound (7.11/10 and 8.88/10): The art for the series is what I regard as high quality. The artwork for the series is stunning and beautiful, accurately demonstrating a medieval war zone of sorts with its massive armor clad armies and detailed country banners held high. In addition, the character designs displayed are for the most part, very well done. The armors from the different bad guys, as well as the sword designs, and for the war maidens are very well done, with detail definitely not lacking from one scene to the other. However, the animation is, like everything else in this series, a double-edged sword.
In contrast to the stunning animation, there also exists the 3-D, which...ah...sucks. The series at times goes into a sort of planning board in order to accurately describe the thought processes of either side's strategists, using little dioramas of little figures to represent and describe what is going on. This is a plus for the series for those who don't fully understand what is going on and adds to the concept of war that this show excels at telling. However, the little figures used look very, very bad on account of the awful 3-D animation that constantly plagues this series, since they use the diorama constantly. Plus, they also make whole armies in 3-D sometimes, and it just does not look good.
And since this is an ecchi show, time to talk about the ecchi. To be honest, I was very surprised. The ecchi in this show is all but non-existent, mostly existing solely in the designs of its war maidens (since pretty much all of the war maidens have breasts that make you wonder how they can function in battle, and the only one with the normal-sized chest is considered flat. -.-) Apart from their questionable battlewear, there really isn't much ecchi in this show. Sure you have like three bath scenes in this show, and a couple accidental boob grabs, but that's basically it. Hell, you'd find more ecchi in a romantic comedy show that's not tagged ecchi that in this show.
As for sound, well, a little word. As long as there is at least one VERY memorable track in the soundtrack, the show gets decent high marks for the sound category. Vanadis succeeds this by giving us its opening. (Just listen to it.) The heroic and grand sound of Vanadis's opening literally gave me shivers when I first heard it, and has become one of my favorite tracks since. The loud fanfare, the triumphant tone of going to war and returning a hero; it fits the show so well that I could cry.
Apart from that, the rest of the show's soundtrack I would consider to be good, but not as memorable as the opening song. They all have a very similar flair of mixing medieval sounds and heroic voices, but nothing I could hear held a candle to the opening.
Overview:
+ Good normal animation
+ DAT OPENING
- Awful 3-D animation
- Rest of the soundtrack was meh
Personal Enjoyment (7.00/10): So, at the end of the day, what are my feelings about this show? I've stated before that this show is its own enemy, it's own double-edged sword. The show is interesting and grand, but doesn't really deliver with its execution. The characters are interesting, but there wasn't enough detail to them that really made them more real and three-dimensional. The art was good in one sense, and awful in another. And the music had a fantastic opening, and the rest of the tracks sorta lagged behind. I guess I could say that Vanadis was an interesting show for me to watch, in which I looked forward to every episode week after week.
DId I like this show?
Yes, absolutely. Regardless of its flaws, Vanadis enthralled me with its use of military tactics and really brought the idea of the battlefield in animated form. It succeeded very well in that regard and portrayed an entire war in the span of its runtime.
What didn't I like about this show?
The show had its fair share of problems in basically every category. As for personal dislikes, I felt as though many scenes shown in the show were handled so poorly that they shouldn't have even bothered to put it in. Some characters seemed virtually pointless, and the show attempted to make a character death seem more important than it actually was. I didn't really feel anything on account of the hoards of other characters that shared as much plot importance as the one that died, not to mention I honestly didn't really know his name cause he didn't really show up very often.
Would I recommend this show?
For strategists and fans of war and boobs, go ahead, go wild. The show does have its perks, with its stunning character designs and war strategies sprinkled in every single episode to make the core part of the show thriving and well. While it does this, it neglects its other parts such as building the world and its characters. So, if you don't mind somewhat one-dimensional characters or a world that you really won't get to know, then this will be a good watch for you.
Author's note: I still don't fully understand how Elen can function on the battlefield. Those things must weigh a ton.
Overall Score: 7.20/10
 Alternative Titles Synonyms: Madan no Ou to Senki, The King of the Magic Bullet and Vanadis Japanese: 魔弾の王と戦姫 (ヴァナディース) Information Type: TV Episodes: 13 Status: Finished Airing Aired: Oct 4, 2014 to Dec 27, 2014 Premiered: Fall 2014 Broadcast: Saturdays at 20:00 (JST) Licensors: Funimation Studios: Satelight Source: Light novel Duration: 24 min. per ep. Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity) Statistics Score: 7.111 (scored by 181,150 users) 1 indicates a . Ranked: #42232 2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #654 Members: 360,547 Favorites: 1,031 Available AtResources |
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