Our blond bombshell, Tamayo, is so pissed with the skills of Rin with a RideBack that she challenges her to a cat fight/RideBack race out of pure jealousy. Who will win, Japan champion Tamayo or our newbie Rin? Who cares, it’s hawt girls in leather suits; it’s a win-win situation.

…It’s so hard to resist making a sexual connotation each time I read “Spread Legs Form”…

Times of Chaos and Conspiracy

A small note before starting the post: right after the OP and ED, the RideBack spinning around during Geneon titles changed from Fuego to RBZ ( the green RideBack that Tamayo owns).

An old man bedridden in a hospital room and a well dressed man are watching then news about the most recent attack of BMA (Borderless Military Alliance), some kind of rebel armed movement that opposes the GGP. Notice that the news are broacasted by SNN (lol) and that the BMA’s insignia is a skunk…(double lol). They discuss about the attack and how it fits under the GGP’s plans. It seems the chaos provoked by them is the perfect excuse to allow GGP to enter the subcommittee in exchange for the introduction of White RideBacks (in the police departments?) for public order. I’m not sure if the White RideBack refers to a particular model of military RB or it’s a RideBack squad.

They have a fucking skunk as a symbol? Something smells.

Even so, the younger man doesn’t seem very happy for the offer. The older man comments that the younger man sister went to ride the ridebacks even with the disapproval of the family. The sister is revealed to be Tamayo in the pictures the man has near him. The older man calls the younger man Ryunosuke as he leaves the hospital room. It’s most probable that Ryunosuke is the grandson of the older man.

After the Flight

We get a cafeteria scene where Suzuri goes lesbo again over Rin for her perfomance with the Fuego and her miraculous flight leap. Along with Shoko, they talk about how Okakura helped Rin (he seems to be the RideBack club advisor), when Hishida appears, along with another club member, a fatty bowl cut haired dude called Kawai. They introduce themselves to the girls as 2nd and 3rd year mechanical engineering students respectively. They bring a club application form for Rin but Shoko pushes them back, complaining they where reckless for letting Rin drive a dangerous and out-of-control vehicle and they should apologize.

She sure seems to know how to squeeze liquids out of anything.

Meanwhile, Okakura is on his desk, watching on his laptop a SNN news about a second attack of the BMA, this time with videos of them using Ridebacks in the attack. He then gets a cellphone call from Tamayo, who wants to talk about Okakura about Rin. She sends to his laptop a profile about Rin, revealing her ballet background, which she has been involved since she was 3 years old. She’s the daughter of the world-class famous Ogata Yuki. Tamayo also remarks that Okakura wouldn’t recognize the name since he’s a thick headed gorilla.

Imagine him together with Tamayo. There, I’ve just fscked your mind.

A Challenger Appears

Rin returns to the RideBack club warehouse and instead of Fuego, she finds the RBZ, a green RideBack. Tamayo appears behind Rin and challenges her for a race in the next Saturday, 10 AM. If Rin wins, she’s allowed to ride any RideBack from the club; if Tamayo wins, Rin will be her personal servant. If Rin doesn’t show up, it will be considered a defeat. Tamayo even gives an one lap handicap and Fuego as Rin’s ride for the race, after it comes back from the repairs. After all this, she gets on top of the RBZ and speeds aways, not even allowing time for Rin to answer back. A small note, is Tamayo wearing a mini-skirt while riding a Rideback???

*Insert joke about sexual connotation here*

Later that day, while talking to Suzuri and Shoko, our lesbian meganekko reveals that Tamayo is the club leader. She’s even ecxited that Rin made a RideBack expert jealous.

While talking on the phone with her brother Kenji, Rin asks him for Rideback tips. Kenji takes the chance and asks for the autograph of Tamayo since it appears she’s the winner of last year All-Japan RideBack race.

Evidence Nº 15 of Suzuri being a lesbian: Booty Book

Later in her room, Rin is caught looking for RideBack sites in her laptop by Shoko. Shoko asks her if she’s free next Saturday, but Rin replies she can’t because she needs to study, but Shoko wasn’t fooled by it. In the shower, Rin recalls the feelings she felt during her wild ride with Fuego.

It’s a Good Day to Race

Saturday arrives. Kawai is setting up electronic checkpoints along the rideable roads of the campus, Hishida is tuning up Fuego and Tamayo relaxing in a chair. Even Suzuri is there, dressed as cheerleader, pompoms included. Finally, Rin arrives with the same posture as a samurai reaching the site of his duel. Tamayo can’t help but smile when she sees Rin and asks Hishida to loan Rin one of her rider suits.

Both girls are geared up and on top of their Ridebacks. Tamayo proceeds to explain the rules: the course goes along the rideable tracks of the campus up to the water tower and back; the handicap is 1 lap, which means Tamayo needs to finish 4 laps but Rin only needs 3; before the start of the race they will make 2 test laps to memorize the tracks. The rest of the club members will be able to follow the race in their laptops thanks to the checkpoints that Kawai installed.

The race starts and surprisingly, both girls are riding along the track very fast for a test lap. Rin is managing to keep up with Tamayo and even forcing her to keep up the high pace. Using the embedded mics on the helmets, Tamayo tells Rin she was foolish to have come to the race since the results were already decided. But still, she came, being unable to step down from a challenge even knowing she would lose. Tamayo says she knows that Rin is like that because herself was exactly the same and the fact that Rin was racing was the proof. Rin replies that Tamayo is wrong, that she came to the race to check what was the level of an All-Japan champion. Tamayo interprets that Rin sees her as inferior, so she changes the handicap: Rin gets a 2 lap handicap but the race starts right at that moment.

Detours

The girls find a small obstacle: part of the course is temporally blocked because there is an inspection proceeding there for future construction and the path will only be available in 5 minutes. So the girls make a small detour through the 8th dorm. As the riders show us the 3d riding capabilities of ridebacks, Suzuri asks Hishida if it’s hard to ride them. Hishida replies that it’s very easy to ride them, since most of the complex operations like balance and turning are controlled by computer, like a Segway. But Tamayo and Rin are in manual mode, which is very hard to use, even for people with good reflexes. Suzuri begins to admire Rin and ridebacks even more for combining ballet moves like grand jeté in a miraculous way.

The race really begins when they pass in front of the RideBack club warehouse, where Shoko had already arrived to watch the race. Tamayo speeds up the pace by shifting into Spread Legs Form (S.L.F. for short), which Rin replies by also shifting to S.L.F. While Standing Form is more stable and easier to control, S.L.F. spreads the Rideback legs to thr front and back, giving it a lower gravity center, less air resistance and a look more close to today’s motorbikes. The counterpart is the Rideback is harder to turn and speed control.

Tamayo uses Rin’s inexperience and baits her into a trap. She keeps a high speed while entering a S-shaped turn and skillfully shifts between SLF in the curves and SF in the straight parts of the curve to keep a steady speed. Rin, having too much speed in her attempt to keep up with Tamayo, loses control and gets thrown off the road into a nearby road.

Ooops.

It’s Not Over Until I Say So

Hishida gets ready fish up Fuego out of the pond when Suzuri notices that Fuego beacon has moved. Rin has regained her composure and waits for Tamayo on the road to return to the spot, since she was already on the way to complete her 3rd lap. Tamayo gets impressed with Rin’s persistence and continues the race. Meanwhile, Okakura is on a nearby hill, watching the race from afar.

Rin improves her time and gets side by side with Tamayo when they reach a left-right 90º straight roads betweem buildings. Instead of reducing speed to pass safely, Rin enters the path at full race, making Tamayo fear for an accident . But Rin skillfully makes a tour en l’air from one corner to the other, while keeping a constant speed and regaining that sense of adrenalin she had when she made that grand jeté on episode 1 (a tour en l’air basically consists on a jump with one, two or three turns in mid-air. Normally it’s a male move and the landing is made with both feet).

Tamayo gets stunned with Rin’s crazy driving and barely misses a cat that was passing by. Unlucky, she crashed due to that and slams into a near wall. Rin rushes back to help her.

Recovery

The RideBack Club members are on Tamayo’s hospital room, which seems to only have suffered a mild concussion. Tamayo asks Kawai for a racer form for Rin, so that they can face off again, this time on a real race. Later that day, while watching the sunset, Shoko tells Rin that her performance made Suzuri sign up into the RideBack Club. She also gives her approval to Rin to officialy join the club too, since it seems to suit her.

Ep 3 Preview

Rin’s participating the race and oh boy, it looks more like a cross country marathon than a normal race. But that’s the epitome of RideBacks, to ride where there are no reads.

Impressions

Having read the manga, I’m happy how they’ve changed the plot. The producers are focusing on the action/race elements first, leaving the rest to the series climax. It makes the show much smoother and less confusing.

Suzuri is one heck of a raging lesbo…or she has one seriouc case of hyperactivity ( I hope it’s lesbianism, always good to have some around). Either way, this anime exclusive character is bringing some much needed craze to the show.

One thing that I’ve forgotten to comment in the previous ep: Fuego has a 670 gb HDD, which you can see when Rin’s starting Fuego for the first time. WHY THE HELL it needs so much space? Or is Hishida keeping his porn collection there?

Brief thought by jiff

Quick note: the only other person I’ve heard of who majored in the same thing as me in uni ^_^

I usually stay away from anything resembling mecha, but after reading Extrange’s post on the first episode of this, I was intrigued. After watching the first two episodes, I have some questions: has mecha always been this cool, or is it a new development? Where are the whiny, emo characters and the ridiculous and convoluted plots, or were those a figment of my prejudiced imagination as well? I doubt I’ll be watching Geass anytime soon, but I’m sure as hell hooked on Rideback.

I was immediately fond of the character design; it reminds me of Candy Boy, in that all the girls are cute, spunky, and bright, with adorable hair and wonderful clothes. Suzuri especially reminded me of Saku-chan, and I’m hoping they share more similarities as the show progresses…

I know we can never fully escape the shadow war throws over mecha shows, but the way it’s looking now is that Rin is going to be thrown into some illegal activity and perhaps even fight for the resistance (heroes always fight for the resistance ^_^;; I still think you’re a hero Crusader!) Extrange tried to tell me what happens, but since I haven’t read the manga yet I doubt I’ll start now that the anime is going on. I’m patient, and I like the buildup between episodes, so no spoilers, please! I can already smell some tension brewing between Tamayo’s family and the rideback club; perhaps her family wants to claim ridebacks as purely military devices and she opposes that purpose?

At the most basic level, I am enjoying this show because of Rin, Her attitude and her grace are not something I’m accustomed to seeing much of in anime girls these days, especially with Clannad ringing louder in my ears than any other show of this past season. To translate ballet to motorcycle riding is unique and thoughtful; I really am glad that they focus on balance and grace more than strength and nerves; perhaps the reason this appeals to me when other, similar show do not is that this is taking a decidedly female approach to a testosterone-laced genre – I feel like Rin must have felt, flying through the air: a skipp in my heartbeat and fresh wind in my face. I can’t wait for the rest of this show.

There are several examples of works of fiction that predict with an eerie accuracy what kind of technological advances the world will see in the future. A good example is the several books written by Jules Verne, on which he described submarines, helicopters, cars, the television and even the Internet, which is amazing considering he born and died in the 18th century. Movies these days seem to predict the emergence of holographic interfaces, nanotechnology and teleportation.

But if we consider RideBack’s view of the future, the next big thing will be two wheeled gas/electric hybrid vehicles that can change into bipedal forms, the perfect thing to allow girls wearing dresses to flash their panties when they ride it.

Damn, I love Japan’s visions on technology.

Let the Curtains Raise

We are introduced to the main character, Ogata Rin, when she’s abou to enter the stage of a ballet scene. While she flawlessly dances in front of the crowd, we are informed by her offscreen voice about the current world setting.

A world scale resistance group, the GGP, has managed to overthrow the superpower, achieving an historical victory. But most of the heroes involved in this war were erased from the records of those times. These are times of revolution, where the waves of revolt keep rising agaisnt the GGP and the militarist government. Not that Rin cares, because her worl is all about dancing and trying to achieve the same level as her mother, Ogata Yuki.

But suddenly during her perfomance, Rin tores a ligament, making her crash into the cold floor of the stage.

Opening

“RIDEBACK” by MELL

The opening song has a nice vibe with a style that reminisces from Euro Tech. Mell’s perfomance is quite good considering she only has 4 singles released.

Betting on a 3d animation Op is quite a gamble but thankfully this is MADHOUSE, not Gonzo, so the overall look actually matches in terms of textures and lightning (I still have nightmares with Dragonaut…).

But why the hell the OP’s called RIDEBACK? They’ve ran out of names so the have decided to name it the same as the anime?

A New Start

The anime jumps two years into the future; Ogata Rin and Uemara Shoko celebrate their entry into the theater department of Musashino University while watching the blossoming sakura trees. Strangely enough, the real life Musashino University doesn’t seem to have a theater department…

If you check closely, there’s a hanged sensei in the left corner.

The girls discuss a bit about their new dorms and the fact they are roommates. after this, the scenes skip from the welcoming speech of the university and again into their new dorm. While Shoko’s taking a shower, Rin is on the phone talking with her grandmother, Itou Miyuki. They speak about Rin’s brother, Kenji and if Rin has regretted quitting ballet, which she answered negatively.

Memories of the Past

While having lunch in the cafeteria with Shoko, Rin is approached by Uchida Suzuri, a 1st year arts student who is a fan of Rin and her mother. It’s at this time that we are revealed that Ogata Yuki has died in a earthquake six years ago. When some friends of the girls join the talk, Rin takes the chance to leave.

Is this a new way to say you are a lesbian?

Meanwhile, Shoko and Suzuri talk about Rin’s absence from ballet, which is explained by the injury she suffered while performing Regina. While some dancers recover, Rin’s goal was her mother, which is impossible now.

Red Iron Horse

It starts to rain, so Rin seeks shelter in a nearby warehouse. She notices a gorilla looking man leaving the warehouse doors mounting a stumpy humanoid robot with wheels on it’s feet. She takes the chance and peers inside the warehouse by sheer curiosity. It looks like a garage, filled with tools and gear. Going deeper into the garage, she notices a red version of the machine that Gorilla Man was riding. This one is slender and and looks more like a normal motorbike….that is, if motorbikes had robotic arms attached to the sides.

Meanwhile. Haruki Hishida enters. He looks like the typical otaku, with scruffy hair and glasses. He confuses Rin as a prospective new club member and introduces Rin to RideBacks (the humanoid vehicles she’s been seeing). He tries to convince Rin to experiment the new red RideBack. Since most of the operations are controlled by the internal computer, no special license is needed, although they are still not allowed into regular roads since there’s no legislation. They are described as a two wheeled humanoid vehicle which allows for traveling in 3 dimensions. There’s also a computerized wristwatch unit that auxiliates identification and control.

The model in front of Rin is a Teryan Kaduro manufactured mountain trail RB, Type L “Fuego”, a model that’s a bit rough but simple to ride. Since it’s still raining outside, she decides to test it and jumps on top of Fuego with a nice twirl of legs, flashing her panties momentarily to a stunned Hishida. He proceeds explaining Rin how to start Fuego and get it into Standing Form, similar like being on someone’s back. He also explains that Ridebacks can follow simple voice commands.

Wild Ride

Since it has stopped raining, Hishida decides to teach Rin how to start the engine mode and take her outside for some testing. But the brakes seem not to be working and before she smashes into a wall, Rin speeds out to the right, out of Hishida’s range. Instead of being scared of driving a machine without brakes, she seems to enjoy herself on finding how to control Fuego using the balance of her body, even finding out how jump with it. Her driving is like a dance, obviously inspired in her expertise on ballet. But she starts to be in trouble when the RideBack changes into his motorbike form ( Spread Legs Form) due to the low height of the tunnel she passed by and she drives down some stairs.

This is why all girls should drive bikes while wearing skirts.

Hishida is right behind in his scooter and meets up with Tamayo Kataoka, a blond girl who’s also a member of the RideBack Club. They suspect that a cable on the control board has got loose, making the brakes inoperable.

Rin passes by the gorilla man (he’s named Tenshirou Okakura), which notices the distressed Rin and proceeds to chase her in his RideBack, SARU. While avoiding some obstacles, he detects the trouble on Fuego and fixes it, but they have entered into a overpass in construction. Okakura shouts Rin to hit the brakes but Rin instead makes a jump into the air, with a stunned Kataoka and Hishida watching her from the scooter.

I believe I can fly.

Ep 2 Preview

Well it seems that Rin hasn’t died from her daredevil flight and she’s racing against Kataoka. Hmm tight suits…..

Ending

“Kioku” by Younha feat. GOKU

It’s a nice mellow song that has a animation that actually doesn’t suck. What else can you wish for?

About the Manga

If you have read the manga, you will notice that there are differences as usual when you adapt it into an anime. Most of the times, when this happens, they tend to result in crap (Damn you Gonzo and Kurogane no Linebarrel.). Instead, the changes turned out to be a major improvement. For example, in the manga there is no chase scene, but a manifestation scene instead, which had less impact. Most of this episode was filled with content that wasn’t present or had lack of dynamism in the manga.

Oh, by the way, after a 7 month break…..I’m back.