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For some reason, the future always seems to be a few decades away. 1984 was published in 1949. Terminator, which appropriately enough was released in 1984, set 1997 as the date for the apocalyptic “Judgement Day.” It seems strange now, after the turn of the Millennium (which happened rather uneventfully, with little more than an endless repeat of an old Prince song to mark its passing) to look back on things like Mad Max, Y2K, or the still older imaginings of such retro science fiction classics as Fahrenheit 451 or Soylent Green, but for decades, sci-fi imagineers alternated between the chills of gloom and doom and utopian fever.

Anime and manga embraced these themes with series like Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Vampire Hunter D. X 1999 represents Clamp’s foray into the dark future. Perhaps better known for their recent hit sister series, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and XXXHolic, the all female manga supergroup are...

In the world of giant mecha and space opera, it’s hard to find anything genuinely new. The genre is so defined, there are few trails left to blaze, and so a new series will most likely develop along one of two routes: it can either ride the coat tails an already established franchise, and present itself as a sequel/prequel/reversioning (the new — and Excellent — Evangelion titles are great example of this), or a show can strive to be a parody, preferably a really Good one, such as Galaxy Angel or Martian Successor Nadesico.

Vandread is in this latter category, and it doesn’t take long (approximately five seconds) to find out that this is space mecha action with a twist — forget aliens or angels, this is boys vs. girls! Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus, but after decades in deep space, the two don’t...