Soukou no Strain (Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry)
Title: 奏光のストレイン
Synopsis from AniDB.net Quote:
Anime News Network lists the airing date to November 2006, but I have checked the official site and only displays the name of the broadcasting network- WOWOW. The official site now hosts a preview movie trailer for the upcoming show. CAST Ai Nonaka* as Emily / Lavinia Liberus Ayako Kawasumi** as Sarah Willeck Takashi Kondo* as Ralph Willeck Asuka Tanii as Carmichael Junko Minagawa** as Melchiseddeck Kayo Sakata as Armie / Armengod Yunihatz Bekki Kishô Taniyama* as Decon Sidnok Miyu Matsuki* as Jesse Iges Nao Hanai as Martha Shubipauel Souichiro Hoshi** as Caris / Carisford Radflicks Yukana*** as Lotti Jouji Nakata*** as Dyufalj Mugihito* as Claiven * = :) ** = :p *** = :D |
For some reason I pegged this as 'Rozen Mecha' due to the imagery on the website, but I watched the trailer and was intrigued by what I saw. The mecha design is quite elaborate, reminds me a little of Zegapain, probably due to the combo of luminescent colours and CG. Good cast by the looks of it, Ayako Kawasumi (Shizuno in Zegapain incidently) and Yukana (Dominura in Simoun, C.C in Code Geass) in particular.
Here's hoping this will fill the 'mecha lite' gap left by Zegapain and The Third. BTW it airs 02.11.06 at 12 am, takes over from Innocent Venus. |
So its Rozen Madien meets Zegapain with a bit of Vandread thrown in the mix alrighty im game for it. the trailers sparked my intrest a bit. It looks like it has a pretty good budget from what animation looked like.
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The trailer definitely gives me a very welcome Vandread kind of vibe, as that became one of my favorite shows among my many years of anime watching despite my initial fears that it would focus on more of a harem-type show and instead became the awesome scifi action/drama/comedy it was with just enough
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Looking at the ANN page for the series makes it more clear to me as to why the CG sequences of the trailer have me hooked already, if they are accurate. Two very key members of the 3DCG mechanics staff from Vandread appear to be working on Strain in extremely key positions. Those guys did such fantastic work particularly on the second season of Vandread and I can already see some of their style in the elaborate (as was said above) CG ship designs and space sequences of the trailer. This show just shot up several notches on atleast my radar. :) |
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Yeah, I don't particularly like harem anime so the way they executed the show was outstanding especially with such strong scifi material and the inherent comedy/drama/character interaction in the men/women setting.
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I would love to see this show get that epic. |
Looks like the first two episodes will air on thursday, back to back in a one hour special. Some small screens from the first two eps can be seen on WOWOW's Soukou no Strain site.
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Cool, thanks for news on the update of the WOWOW page. Looks like some interesting shots, I like the large cast size. That's pretty neat that they are going to air the first two eps back-to-back for its premiere. I hope it turns out to be a good show since sci-fi is my favorite genre and now's a perfect time for one. I hope that it will have a similar primary dedication to the action, plot and character exploration and not let any "relationship drama" out-shadow the sci-fi storyline and the characters.
Heh, for another Vandread parallel, I hope it turns out good and that the story has a lot of scale and can potentially expand to a second season. It looks like the show is planned for 13 episodes. I'd rather it be longer but since it's currently 13 rather than 26 I hope that they'll take advantage of the pacing/budget that probably gives them just like that other series did in it's 13 part seasons. |
Here's a few screens from the first ep found on 2chan. Nothing too spoilerish.
Spoiler:
I never saw Vandread, but that Deague STRAIN (4th pic) reminds me of the Anti-Zega from ZEGAPAIN. Well, certainly looks interesting from these.:) |
Just like DangerMouse commented, having watched the pics, the CGI animation and mecha design draw a lot of comparison to the Vandreads.
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Nice. Seeing them use their style again on new designs reaffirms that I really love their design work. Now someone needs to sub this ;)
Somehow I know I'm going to end up downloading the raw just to see it in action despite that I won't be able to understand anything lol. |
Just watched the double-bill opener.
Wow... I like! The story-writers here certainly have guts. I like the mecha. The story and setting seem interesting too. The animation is great (so far). I certainly hope they can keep this up. |
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Rozen Maiden + mecha?!
I will definitely watch this! |
Whoa, quite impressed with the first episode for sure. The second half of the first episode was quite intense and unexpected. Gotta check out episode 2 now.
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The mech design reminds of the ones used by the Zaibalch empire in escaflowne.
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I'd rather post short, but since I can only judge the superficial stuff I guess I'll have to make do >_<
Unsurprisingly (LOL) I didn't even try to fight the desire and skimmed the raw since I can't really understand the dialogue. Wow I agree on the impressive event scripting so far. Even though I can't really understand what's being said, other than certain things I've heard in countless anime, one of my favorite aspects of this type of scifi show appears to be heavily included in the planning stages of the show, that being the world-building by the design staff, with the setting and tools and things all being rather thought out and integrated together. As I'd hoped given the staff I'm indeed drooling over the CG design and animation and direction of the "dogfight" scenes. I was unexpectedly very impressed with the traditional animation (Gonzo's slick work on the colorful cast of Vandread from Kuroda will be hard to consistently match ofcourse), the designs are very good and I love the vibrant colors and the attention to detail like the ways the tears came or the various expressions, not to mention the various military and pilot uniforms. The small glimpse of actual space background during one of the launches reminded me of the second season's more awe-inspiring space environment instead of the pure-black of season one, but it's a bit premature judging anything in space yet. I also liked how a lot of the air combat sequences weren't just one-on-one but groups, something that made for great space battles in Vandread with often larger scale dogfighting going on around the "bigger" battle. Looking at his credits I should have expected it (What I've seen of Kino is awesome with a very fitting score), but I really liked the music, particularly any of the fast paced tracks I really got into. As for the other music, I liked the OP better than the ED although I found the OP, while a nice song, perhaps a bit too relaxing for this type of show. It would make a really nice ED track if there was something little "bigger" (not necessarily faster) for the OP, though I'm glad it's more unique than a pop-type song. Emily's character design does remind me of Rozen Maiden's character designs, obviously the clothes too (like in the main image on the site). |
I generally do not like mecha, but I liked these first two eps. Well paced, with good voices (Kawasumi Ayako as Sarah and Yukana as Lotti, the crafty little redhead, in particular), good characters, emotion, and interaction, and interesting plot twists. I even started to appreciate the flight and fights. I still don't know why we need old-fashioned military uniforms and school buildings in shows set in the future, but whatever.
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I don't necessarily mind the old-fashioned military uniforms, since the space uniforms commonly seen in episode 2 are more what I expect from scifi, so I think it was interesting that episode 1 had people in both old-fashioned military uniforms and the space military uniforms (Both styles of the pilot suits so far are suitably scifi so I'm happy with them), but I very much agree with you about old-fashioned school buildings in scifi shows.
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