Freezing + Freezing Vibrations

Number of Episodes: 12 (+ 6 mini-OVAs) + 12 (+ 1 special episode)

What Wikipedia says: "Set in a slightly futuristic world, Earth has been invaded and is at war with aliens from another dimension called the Nova. In order to counter them, Pandoras and Limiters, genetically modified girls with super fighting skills and their male partners who use special "freezing" powers to limit their opponent's mobility, are made to fight against the Nova. The series focuses on Kazuya Aoi, a Limiter whose late sister was a Pandora, and Satellizer el Bridget, a powerful Pandora with a cold personality, both who are enrolled at the West Genetics Academy, one of the many academies where Pandoras and Limiters are trained. In spite of the warnings of all his friends about Satellizer, who has intense aphephobia, Kazuya decides to be her friend and Limiter. They are later joined by Lana Linchen, a Pandora from Tibet in search for her Limiter who believes Kazuya to be her "soulmate", sparking a rivalry with Satellizer. The story follows Kazuya's Relationship with Satellizer, the students of the Academy, and Earth's war against the Nova."

What tTPO says: More to the point is what Wikipedia does not say - that this series has its fair share of blood and boobs. So if you are offended by nudity (no sex though - the worst it gets is some humiliation in episode 3) or reasonable amounts of violence I would be turning off about now. If you put up with this though what awaits is an interesting experience. The blood and boobs are often incorporated (as much as they can ever be) into the plot. The main characters have a fair amount of depth and backstory to them, and the mechanics of the Pandoras / Limiters / Novas are pretty well thought out - moreso if you freeze frame and read the Jinglish-ridden data screens that litter the episodes at various points. The pacing of the plot as it progresses to its inevitable climax is good, and even with the 'fight-of-the-week' phase it goes through I found myself looking to next weeks biff with anticipation. So much so that after watching 3 episodes of this on my own because I was indecisive about whether she would enjoy it or not, I introduced Mrs tTPO to it and she enjoyed it through to the end also.

The big weakness of the anime (as I discovered when I subsequently read the manga) was the lack of depth of the various secondary characters (with the exception of Ingrid Bernstein whose episode was one of the stronger ones as a consequence). In the anime they were often poorly developed charactures acting only as foils to the Aoi and Satellizer, with some of their redeeming battles in the final episodes in the manga, played right down in the anime. The other weakness of the anime in its adaptation of the manga is, that in contrast to what I said above, there were occasions when the fan service was gratuitous, and no more so than episode 8 (a prom queen episode with more wardrobe malfunctions than a Superbowl half-time show) which was an anime original. Or indeed any of the OVAs. Thankfully this episode is a stand alone and can be left out along with the OVAs without too many problems. If this sort of stuff floats your boat though you are in for a treat.

How About the Music?  There are occasions I don't need to listen back to remind myself how a song went. The OP (Color by MARiA, a cover of the Hatsune Miku song, and much much better) is one of these, a thumping piece of J rock with some awesome use of synthesiser. The ED (Kimi wo Mamoritai aka To Protect you by Aika Kobayashi) is another pumping electronic J-rock number and while full of energy not quite as catchy as the OP for me.

So how does it end? (Spoiler Free.): Pretty well, but at risk of repeating myself, not quite as well as the manga, with a little bit too much focus on the main characters. That notwithstanding, it's not disappointing.

Overall Grade: Grade B. Don't get me wrong - I liked Freezing a lot, and probably more than this grade would indicate. The story, action and main character development are good enough to carry this series through its weaknesses. But I am not sure the anime adaptation does justice to the source material. Watch this then go and read the manga, because the manga goes all sorts of places after the events covered by the anime finish. 

Addendum: Freezing Vibrations continued with a largely self contained story arc. Seeing the first series is not essential but it helps a lot. Unlike Freezing though, I had read the manga upon which this was based before seeing the series and I did wonder how they were going to do it and make it interesting since the 3rd and 4th arcs of the manga do stray away from Satellizer and Kazuya as the central characters and make it more of a ensemble story. So did it work?

For the most, yes. Some nifty writing meant the sometimes drawn out manga was condensed to a neat 12 episode arc, and they shoehorned the rather personal 2nd story arc from the manga into the middle of the 3rd manga arc which was more action oriented and made up the bulk of the story. There were good character moments for many, though Rana did not see much development this time around. There is after all only so much you can do in 12 episodes.  

On the downside there were a couple of clunky moments as a consequence of the rearrangement of the arcs (mostly involving Satellizer's step-brother) as well as a vanishing Nova which was forgotten about but in the main the pacing I though was actually better than the manga, leaving the ending neatly wrapped up while still leaving the door open for an eventual series 3. 

And there were boobs. And blood. And somehow it all just worked again. Still Grade B. And the OVA was still stunningly gratuitous and can be left out. 

KoanMan says: When KoanMan started watching this series (by director Takashi Watanabe as an extension of the manga written by Korean manhwa author Dall-Young Lim and illustrated by Kwang-Hyun Kim) it was immediately obvious that mammophiles will love this. The irony is that the stand-out feature (pardon the pun) of this pair (OK, no more from now) series was in fact not the décolletage, but the story, which could easily have carried the whole production on its own. Of particular note, is that one became strangely accustomed, almost desensitised, to the thoracic theatrics - to the point that by the end of the first series, they were simply there. Just participating as part of the wall-paper....part of the background.

That said, the clothing is linked to the character and their state of composure/health. An interesting detail that actually fits well with the plot, led by a first year student "limiter" Kazuya Aoi, and the aphenphosmphobic second year student "pandora" Satellizer el Bridget (for those interested also see haphephobia and haptephobia). They are joined by Tibetan exchange student "pandora" Rana Linchen to form a comical love triad that continues to entertain. This relieves a lot of the heavy themes of world cataclysm running almost continuously, as characters discover themselves and their place in the world.

Character development is good, and this continued to deepen throughout both series. With the variety of personalities it is easy to have favourites, KoanMan likes the "never give up" attitudes of Rana Linchen and Ganessa Roland. Fantastic!

The second series particularly impressed with its dark undertones, as concepts alluded to in the first are given texture. This, despite what appears to be a complete "changing of the guard" between the series - it is almost as if the whole crew were changed over, with different music, different character portraits, and a mild, though obvious, lower grade of animation production in the second series.

The series one music is awesome, the opening theme is "Color" by MARiA (a cover of a song voiced by a singing synthesiser vocaloid Hatsune Miku), while the ending theme is "To Protect You" by Aika Kobayashi. Awesome. Alas, in series two, the theme music is not so awesome (opening theme "AVENGE WORLD", end theme "The World Embraces Scars" both performed by Konomi Suzuki).

Overall, a good story, good plot and character development. KoanMan enjoyed this, not because of the fan service, but almost in spite of it. KoanMan rates this a solid B.