Hmmm, I feel like I’ve seen this anime before…
Torrent. Seeders needed!
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Production Company: A-1 Pictures
Vintage: Winter 2013
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Notable Seiyuu:
Ayane Sakura as Akane Isshiki
Ayane Sakura is also known for her roles as:
Maaya Uchida as Rei Kuroki
Maaya Uchida is also known for her role as:
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As is often the case, fresh faced newcomer seiyuu are cast for fresh faced nubile moe characters. It’s not like most moe anime require much acting range or even personality, it only requires cute voices, which are a dime a dozen in the business.
Though made by a different company, Vividred Operation shared the same director and designer from the massively popular Strike Witches series, while carrying a similar theme of moe + flying girls who save the world from monsters + fanservice. The obvious connections between the projects led to a hefty buildup of expectations.
The interesting thing about this series to me is that it is was made by the stellar up and coming anime company A-1 Pictures, which was well on it’s way to establishing itself as a premier mainstream company. The top companies tend to sidestep nudity at all costs, or if they do venture into nudity, it is rare and brief. In the case of A-1 Pictures, they had never done nudity prior to this, in fact they’d never even really even flirted with doing so. In a lot of ways, A-1 Pictures kind of feels like the new BONES, in that they combine terrific art with bland, predictable stories that are friendly to general audiences. It’s an easy way to create massively successful mainstream anime hits, and A-1 Pictures has done a great job of it.
So when I saw they were getting this series, it was a real eyebrow raiser. To this point they had avoided animating nipples like they gave cancer, but you knew that with all the connections to Strike Witches, this series would have drawn substantial outrage from the Otaku fanbase if it had been strictly non-nude.
And if there’s one thing you want to do as an anime company, it’s keeping the Otakus happy. Under the current business model in a piracy dominated landscape, it’s Otaku purchasing habits and their supportive, magnanimous nature that keeps anime companies alive while scumbags like me just download everything and watch for free. So this put A-1 in a bit of a conundrum. Thankfully for all involved, they caved and finally showed the world what nipples drawn by A-1 Pictures look like. And hey, not bad A-1, not bad.
All that said, you did get a sense of hesitation from the nudity in this series, as it only occurs in a handful of scenes, is consistently “tasteful” in nature and is often very brief. Still, getting even one nipple sighting from A-1 pictures feels like a historic occasion, and despite their stingy ways regarding nudity, this series provided enough to satisfy. It may not be Strike Witches good, but then again, Strike Witches didn’t look quite this pretty, either.
A short time later, A-1 would include a pair of nipple sightings in the anime Magi, including one scene that aired on broadcast TV. We can only hope this becomes a trend.
As far as the video itself, it’s actually pretty sexy if, like me, you enjoy gratuitous butt shots. And by that I don’t mean pantsu or nopan, but honest to goodness shots of girls bent over with arched backs in perfect position for viewers to stare intently at their tight round asses.
If butt shots aren’t your thing, you have my deepest condolences, not just for this video but for life in general. It must be tough. To those who feel such things, there is enough upper body fanservice to still make this video a worthwhile gander, particularly towards the back end where I stacked all the nipple sightings one after another.
As usual, I redid the OP and ED segments to emphasize fanservice. I’m very proud of how the OP turned out, I think it’s right up there with Ikkitousen for the best OP montage I’ve done. The ED was also one of my better efforts. Rather than use any of the various OP songs for the new OP, I used the series theme song, as found on the BD menus. It may sound like a ridiculous ripoff of the Top Gun theme, but considering how awesome that movie soundtrack was, I’m going to say that’s a good call by A-1 Pictures.
One last thing I have to mention, because I always forget to say this. I loved the soundtrack from this series.
