Anime: Madan no Ou to Vanadis

Review
The season of late 2014 was promised to have plenty of major releases exploring a genre that japanese industry have historically failed to do so: medieval fantasy. There were a few big releases from important animation studios or hyped by the fandom that supported this promise.

Akame ga Kill! brought some suprising deaths and shock factor to a somehow generic setting filled with fanservice girls that made little sense. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis delivered your standard high-fantasy teen stuff with a good deal of technical quality. Hitsugi no Chaika mixed shy cute girls with a charming, yet simple, setting.

Then we get to Madam no Ou to Vanadis (Vanadis). Unlike those mentioned above, Vanadis is stuck in the last decade, blind to progression, inovation, or any kind of attempt to make medieval fantasy better than what the japanese industry typically delivers.

The tale is about a young noble, Tigrevurmud Vorn, Tigre for short, who ends up captured by the enemy commander and from there he uses his influence, protagonist charm, and leadership to turn the tide of the war and put his captor's army for his own use in order to defeat all villains plaguing his homeland.

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1. Ah... the protagonist...
   Perhaps Vanadis' downfall is its attempt to be a dating sim disguised in medieval fare. Tigre is your most basic protagonist as he has a super power for no reason and the unmatched capacity to make all girls around him horny by just establishing eye contact. Although he gets some development across the episodes in regards to his will to bring peace to his people, his ecchi-lead behavior tumbles and disrupts any attempts to make the plot look serious, much less epic.
   
   And the girls...
   Its attempt to be a dating sim also brings another huge problem: the girls. Instead of charismatic women capable of leading armies, nations, and having superb prowess, what Vanadis gives us is a bunch of lame excuses for fanservice and possible romances for the protagonist. I could even tolerate the skimpy armor with transparent skirts, but not a loli general, a dumb big-breasted girl, a shady princess, a submissive-old-friend maid, and so on. They are simply boring. The art style doesn't help as well, as their breasts and tighs shine as in hentai artworks, lots of boings and little combat coreography. Their personalities are also just that, excuses for romance options, deres of most kind with little to none sense in a medieval fantasy world facing war.
   
   The setting tries hard though
   The cast brings down any chance of success, but the setting itself, and even the idea of the tale tries to be charming. There are politics involved, a king that lost his son, wandering knights, mysterious nations to the south, territories led by women gifted with powerful magic items, treachery, and lots of excuses for massive combats. It could easily be a great piece of fantasy if not by its dating sim cast and also its narrative...
   
   Anticlimatic Battles
   Vanadis is a show with MANY massive battles. Tigre and his warrior girls will protect cities, invade castles, fend off pursuers, and even slowly disrupt colossal armies. However, instead of being the high point of an episode, they end up being quite the contrary due to the terrible use of a chess-like 3D animation, supported by a very standard and unispiring narrator, to demonstrate combat tactics and basically narrate the entire flow of combat. You get only a scene or two with Tigre firing his bow or Eleonora using her super powers, and then combat is resumed by this 3D animation. Although it is a valid attempt to make the scenes cheaper to make and somewhat different, it fails to work in the end.
   

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Comments
Vanadis is basically a large collection of "what you should not do in a medieval fantasy show". It had the potential because the setting was quite safe and didn't tackle any nonsensical mixture, but the execution, joined by a cast that completely clashes with everything around them, makes Vanadis as a basic medieval show as Rune Soldier Louie, Druaga, and many other failures or half-failures.

Things become even more complicated when you have shows of the same genre with better production values, some nice twists, or just plain better fanservice releasing in the same season. It can still offer some nice change of pace from schools or videogame worlds, but only if you come prepared to watch an average dating-sim inspired show.

Oh look, an anime based on light novels. Without watching a single episode, I can tell you with certainty it is about a bland protagonist with super amazing talents nobody else has, a collection of objectified girls for the audience to drool over, and a plot that is poorly conceived and exists just as lazily written empowerment fantasy. The end.

… Hm, what’s that? I am being biased? I condemn all light novels without giving them a chance to prove otherwise? You are right, I should give this one a chance. Maybe it’s going to be something completely different, fresh, original, and mind blowing which will forever change the way we perceive light novels.

… Nope, it’s one of the same shit.

“Oh but wait!” some will protest. “This storyline is actually very original! It has a protagonist who uses a bow instead of a sword!” Really, a bow instead of a sword; that is inconceivable. Does that mean that he doesn’t have broken powers only he possesses that magically own every opponent he fights; or that every girl he encounters is fully dressed, modest, and doesn’t want to suck his water hose; or that he is not a super special person that everybody roots for and the only one who matters in the plot?

… Nope, it’s one of the same shit.

“Oh come on!” those same some will keep saying. “The battles in this show are far better than in any other action anime. They have wars with huge armies, and they use field tactics, and formations, and plan ahead, and it has politics, and intrigue amongst factions!” Is that so, well that means it has to be amazing.

… Nope, it’s one of the same shit.

The battles look horrible. The budget is so small that they are using still images; they are closer to a picture book than actual wars. As for the so called field tactics, all they are doing is showing you a simulation with CGI chess pieces. Oh my god, this war is so fierce and bloody, look how the black peons are knocking down the white peons. Oh the inhumanity! Oh the cruelty!

And by the way, do you know how important these so-called wars are in the plot? As important as the garbage I threw away this morning. No matter how many soldiers fight and die, all the battles are eventually won by a showdown amongst the overpowered leaders. What is even the point to have these poor bastards dying by the thousands and pretending their struggles mean anything, as their CGI peons get knocked over by black peons? Just have a fighting tournament or something and spare their lives.

So yeah, it always boils down to the leaders, which are these super powerful magician chicks who dress as if they are cosplay whores. I mean, I understand that they need to look cool and sexy so they can please the otakus, but the animators are not even trying to present them in a respectable manner. Their uniforms are very revealing and completely impractical for battle, with their boobs bouncing as if they too are field tactics, trying to fool the enemy into looking at them instead of the gargantuan energy beams they are firing at them.

The only time they are not wearing those ridiculous armors is when they are naked and having a bath. And oh, what a coincidence, the protagonist is somehow always accidentally bumping on them for the first time, when they are naked in the bathroom. It must be some sort of field tactic too, right? It’s in no way objectifying them, so the audience can see them as nothing more than fapping material.

Anyways, these cosplay whores… oh sorry, I meant war maidens, are pretty much doing all the work. They waste armies with their magic, thus rendering the wars pointless, and then fight each other. But their fight is never ending with the death of one of them because the protagonist will always intervene and throw in a friendship speech which will make their privates wet and new additions to his fak hole collection. Which means, even the showdowns become pointless. Hell, the whole conflict is pointless if all it matters to settle the difference between these warring factions is a friendship speech by a bland harem lead.

Say, what exactly is the protagonist doing in this show, other than holding a bow instead of a sword? I mean, it is established that the war whores do all the work, and that he is not an elite warrior, or a major noble, or has an army under his command. Hell, the story begins with him being a hostage to the enemy faction. So what the heck is his role, if he has nothing to do in the show? Well, after bumping on the naked cosplay maidens and exchanging a few lines of boring exposition, they magically decide to help him protect his land, and give him a whole army, and defeat evil leaders. Basically no justification at all.

What a lovely bunch of people these evil leaders are by the way, laughing maniacally, raping women for fun, and abandoning their armies at the first sight of problem. You totally see the depth and attention the writer gave them so you will hate them ten seconds after they are introduced. But hey, they have huge armies, and control ferocious dragons, so they are definitely not gonna be pushovers if they encounter the protagonist, right?

… Nope, it’s one of the same shit.

You see, the protagonist has seduced all the war maidens (maidens my ass) so they do all the work for him. Also, his bow fires energy beams like it’s a freaking photon cannon. How does it do that? Never explained, it’s just there for plot convenience. He even combines its strength with that of the bed women for extra power, so no armies, or dragons, or elite black knights stand a chance against his very smart field tactics called “having overpowered weapons that the enemy doesn’t”.

Which also poses the question, why do they waste their time in field tactics that last for days and cost thousands of lives, instead of simply using the bow right away and be done with it. I guess they don’t do it because every battle would end immediately, instead of dragging unnecessarily and always ending with a cop out.

Although I haven’t read the novels (why the hell would I read that shit?) from what I heard they took out 90% of the plot but kept all the fan service scenes. That shows what priorities the animators had. We get another lazily made light novel adaptation, made solely for advertising the source material by showing us only the worst parts of it.

If you enjoy watching the exact same plot repeating every 3 episodes (see new girl naked, have pointless war, have meaningless showdown, have the protagonist sniping an assassin and using a friendship speech, repeat process) then go on and try this sucker. If on the other hand you want an actually good medieval title with wars, go rewatch the old Berserk series. It also had a small budget but at least it treated its characters with respect and doesn’t recycle the same harem plot every 3 episodes.