Infinite Stratos - General Discussion

[NeoSam]

The shounen(boy's) light novel series IS (Infinite Stratos) by Yumizuru Izuru (author) and okiura (illustrator) will be getting a TV anime adaptation:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moonphase/20100622

IS〈インフィニット・ストラトス〉
IS (Infinite Stratos)

Official anime site:
http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/

少年向けライトノベル.
Shounen light novel series (light novel series aimed at boys).

The light novel series is published under the shounen light novel label MF Bunko J (http://comipedia.com/light-novel-label/mf-bunko-j).
Currently there are 5 volumes released of the light novel series.

Covers:


http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/182/32232422.jpg http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3355/32296778.jpg http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2792/1102873093.jpg http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/1428/1102898517.jpg http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2307/is5cover3.jpg


Author: Yumizuru Izuru
Illustrator: okiura

A seinen manga adaptation is serialzied in the seinen manga magazine Comic Alive (http://comipedia.com/magazine/comic-alive). The manga is drawn by Akaboshi Kenji.
Currently there are no volumes released of the manga.

Genre: Shounen, Sci-fi, Comedy, Romance

[felix]

Sound familiar but can't put my finger on it.

[NeoSam]

An illustration from the first volume can be seen here:
http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/bunkoj/books.php?id=22085

An illustration from the second volume can be seen here:
http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/bunkoj/books.php?id=22823

An illustration from the third volume can be seen here:
http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/bunkoj/books.php?id=23668

An illustration from the fourth volume can be seen here:
http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/bunkoj/books.php?id=24496

[Kunagisa]

)wer)()@#$(@#*)@#$ YEAH!!!!!

ALL WORSHIP HOUKI NOW!

Better have a good studio animating this. *crosses finger for WHITE FOX*

EDIT: I'm just going to leave this here ... *ahem*

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/8016/img004nz.jpg

[MisaoFan]

Very similar to Strike Witches ?

[Kunagisa]

Very similar to Strike Witches ?

I can see the comparison, but this is more of a harem romantic comedy and the fanservice is kinda focused elsewhere. I think this should have better fights than Strike Witches too if animated properly.

[NeoSam]

It's really nice to see a pretty new light novel series (its first volume was published in May 2009) getting an anime adaptation...

I wonder how many more MF Bunko J light novels have the potential to get an anime adaptation, its really great to see another shounen label (MF Bunko J) getting many anime adaptations... and not just anime adaptations from the shounen label Dengeki Bunko (though it is my favourite shounen label, and has my favourite light novel titles: Shakugan no Shana, Toradora, ...).

[LoweGear]

Reading the premise from elsewhere it sounds interesting I guess, and the mecha themselves catch my eye. Although let's see how this goes...

[Mizuno]

This should be good. The reviews are pretty positive... at least on Amazon.

[Kunagisa]

It's really nice to see a pretty new light novel series (its first volume was published in May 2009) getting an anime adaptation...

I wonder how many more MF Bunko J light novels have the potential to get an anime adaptation, its really great to see another shounen label (MF Bunko J) getting many anime adaptations... and not just anime adaptations from the shounen label Dengeki Bunko (though it is my favourite shounen label, and has my favourite light novel titles: Shakugan no Shana, Toradora, ...).

There're a ton from MF Bunko now aren't there? Hidan no Aria, Asobi ni Ikuyo, MM! are getting animated, and from before there are Kampfer, Kanokon, Seiken no Katanakaji, Zero no Tsukaima, Kamisama Kazoku etc. I don't know why but I keep expecting Iconoclast to get one (just cause Ichiro Sakaki wrote it), but I would actually bet money that Kikou Shoujo wa Kizutsukanai will get an anime, and maybe Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai as well. As long as Dengeki isn't hogging all of the adaptation I'm happy as well too.

[Westlo]

What's Hitagi doing in this lol? Anyway looks interesting, will watch, hope it's attached to a good studio with a decent budget.

[Kana Futayo]

Somehow caught my attention. :heh:
Will be adding this on my wait list. :D

[NeoSam]

An illustration from volume 5 has been added:
http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/bunkoj/books.php?id=25429

There're a ton from MF Bunko now aren't there? Hidan no Aria, Asobi ni Ikuyo, MM! are getting animated, and from before there are Kampfer, Kanokon, Seiken no Katanakaji, Zero no Tsukaima, Kamisama Kazoku etc. I don't know why but I keep expecting Iconoclast to get one (just cause Ichiro Sakaki wrote it), but I would actually bet money that Kikou Shoujo wa Kizutsukanai will get an anime, and maybe Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai as well. As long as Dengeki isn't hogging all of the adaptation I'm happy as well too.

Yeah I know, I did start threads for all/most of these past and upcoming anime adaptations of MF Bunko J light novels :heh: ahhh in my post I meant what MF Bunko J light novels also have the potential to get an anime adaptation other than those that have already been announced/animated. I think that Dengeki Bunko might have met its competitor in anime adaptations of light novels... though its my favourite label, but still I would like to see diversity of shounen light novels from various shounen light novel labels getting animated.

Just looking each month at the covers of the new MF Bunko J light novels somehow makes me wish all of them will get animated :heh: :eyespin: sorry for my perversion... lol

[Kunagisa]

Just looking each month at the covers of the new MF Bunko J light novels somehow makes me wish all of them will get animated :heh: :eyespin: sorry for my perversion... lol

In that case, you're my perverted comrade! But really, a lot of those illustrations are better than their manga or anime counterparts :D.

What's Hitagi doing in this lol? Anyway looks interesting, will watch, hope it's attached to a good studio with a decent budget.

Make this happen! They can get pretty flashy with this.

Sound familiar but can't put my finger on it.

I've got this feeling too, and I finally remember. Definitely the My-Hime/Otome feel from this with the battle system (no partner though), just the armor equipment thingy.

[Bonta Kun]

Looks pretty interesting and seems it will be great eye candy so yea guess I'll put my name down for it:D

I don't judge a book by it's cover but there are times when I just go "yea, looks like fun, I'm in!":p

[asaqe]

So how is the male lead like?

[hayate-sama]

What's Hitagi doing in this lol? Anyway looks interesting, will watch, hope it's attached to a good studio with a decent budget.

Imagine Sunrise or Kyoani animated this for us, there is a high chance too, the illustrator of the light novel did do some gundam girl art. Now I see why the art seem so familiar (http://xxx0w.web.fc2.com/)

[Kunagisa]

So how is the male lead like?

He's the clueless nice guy archtype.

[MisaoFan]

I hope that Gonzo or AIC will animating.

[Same_Shark]

I hope that Gonzo or AIC will animating.

Not "I'm constantly filing for bankruptcy" Gonzo!!! They might file during production!

[Leo_Otaku]

Gonzo seriously :twitch: that is a first

[Nvis]

2 Pages after a couple days, must be hawt.

[Mizuno]

You have got a tsundere, DFC, and an android(?) piloting mechs. This will be hot. Story is just a bonus for this type of show. :p

[asaqe]

He's the clueless nice guy archtype.

Miyu Irino it is if they want a guy voicing him.

[asaqe]

Anyways, how long does a series gets animated after announcement for a LN company like this one?

[Midonin]

The most recent series from MF Bunko that's airing (Asobi ni Iku yo!) was announced over a year before it started broadcast. So it may be a while.

[Kunagisa]

Ho~~ (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/latio/20100726/p1)

Director: Yasuhito Kikuchi (Macross F director)
Animation: 8-bit (Macross F movie production)

Excellent, excellent news imo. I wanted high quality visuals and I probably won't be disappointed now.

[Mizuno]

I guess we can expect some awesome combat scenes. :)

[ZODDGUTS]

Hopefully it doesn't have the same writer of Frontier... though at least this is already based on a novel.

[Westlo]

Ho~~ (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/latio/20100726/p1)

Director: Yasuhito Kikuchi (Macross F director)
Animation: 8-bit (Macross F movie production)

Excellent, excellent news imo. I wanted high quality visuals and I probably won't be disappointed now.

Nice.... though 8-bit haven't done anything else by themselves apart from the Macross F Movie and I'm sure their budget will be a lot lower. But still positive news. I noticed the light novel sales were at a pretty high level for a series without an anime adaption, should boost this nicety when the anime comes out, even if it butchers the novels.

[kyouray]

Nice.... though 8-bit haven't done anything else by themselves apart from the Macross F Movie and I'm sure their budget will be a lot lower.
Actually 8-Bit studio comes from a Satelight's branch and they're famous to be talented people who worked on Noein, Sousei no Aquarion and Macross Frontier.
We could have a nice surprise since Gohands (an other young studio mainly coming from Satelight former staff) did nice animation with their first own project : Princess Lover! despite the ridiculous plot.

[duckroll]

8-Bit is a break away of Satelight's main studio. Similar to how BONES is a break away of Sunrise. Satelight seems to really be bleeding talent lately. I wonder if they'll be around for much longer...

[Haohmaru]

Actually 8-Bit studio comes from a Satelight's branch and they're famous to be talented people who worked on Noein, Sousei no Aquarion and Macross Frontier.
We could have a nice surprise since Gohands (an other young studio mainly coming from Satelight former staff) did nice animation with their first own project : Princess Lover! despite the ridiculous plot.
Noein was great. Sousei no Aquarion and MF were shit animation wise. Only a few decent episodes. It's like all of Satelights talent is going elsewhere, like Duckroll mentioned. I wonder if this new studio is any good.

[jzmagic]

Nice, looking forward to this one in the future

[duckroll]

Noein was great. Sousei no Aquarion and MF were shit animation wise. Only a few decent episodes. It's like all of Satelights talent is going elsewhere, like Duckroll mentioned. I wonder if this new studio is any good.

Well, unfortunately if you didn't like Aquarion and Macross Frontier, then you shouldn't have high hopes from this one. 8-Bit is made up of the main staffers from those afaik. Noein's main staffers went on to work on Birdy with A1, but I think most of them are freelancers.

[Haohmaru]

Well that's disappointing. I'll at least give this a shot though.

[Sinestra]

Whoa seriously this was the last thing i expected to read today

[tsunade666]

I actually like macross frontier for being a macross series fan. When will this be aired?

I'm also will be waiting for this one.

[asaqe]

I am planning to update Wikipedia...care to help me translate a few of the things in there?

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS_%E3%80%88%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E 3%83%8B%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B9%E3%83% 88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%88%E3%82%B9%E3%80%89

According to the information about Ichika, he basically has to raise two sisters by himself and is given a scholarship to study at the Academy.

[tsunade666]

..........Japanese wiki... I can't helped on that one.

[Angrypokstick]

I am planning to update Wikipedia...care to help me translate a few of the things in there?

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS_%E3%80%88%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E 3%83%8B%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B9%E3%83% 88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%88%E3%82%B9%E3%80%89

According to the information about Ichika, he basically has to raise two sisters by himself and is given a scholarship to study at the Academy.

Can't read too much Japanese and I only read the first volume.
I don't think he has 2 sisters. and also its his older sister who raised him. The 2 are orphans. His sister is also a legendary IS Pilot. Ichika got a scholarship because he is one of the few males who can pilot an IS.

[tsunade666]

so their are other male pilots? well it wouldn't be fun if his the only one out their. If his the only one male it would just turn into massive harem story.

[asaqe]

Well there are some of his guy friends, one of them is a rival in secondary school and another. Better than Kampfer I suppose

[Kunagisa]

Cast~~

Ichika: Kouki Uchiyama (guy really hasn't done much in fields of VA, but is Soul Eater from ... Soul Eater, or Natsuno Yuki from Shiki)
Houki: Youko Hikasa (Mio from K-ON)
Cecilia: Yukana (Tessa from FMP)
Rin'in/LinYin(?): Asami Shimoda (Chika from BGataHKei)
Charles: Kana Hanazawa (Nadeko from Bakemonogatari)
Laura: Marina Inoue (Natsuru from Kampfer)

Talk about mega harem selection huh.

[Mizuno]

Houki is the name of the girl on the first volume cover?

[Kunagisa]

Houki is the name of the girl on the first volume cover?

Yes she is.

[Angrypokstick]

Cast~~
Cecilia: Yukana (Tessa from FMP)

Perfect choice for Cecilia.

[tsunade666]

when will this be aired? I saw a picture for the fall anime but I didn't saw or notice IS their.

[Midonin]

The 2011 Winter Season. (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moonphase/20100807#p3)

[tsunade666]

thanks.

That's good I don't need to wait that long.

[asaqe]

Cast~~

Ichika: Kouki Uchiyama (guy really hasn't done much in fields of VA, but is Soul Eater from ... Soul Eater, or Natsuno Yuki from Shiki)
Houki: Youko Hikasa (Mio from K-ON)
Cecilia: Yukana (Tessa from FMP)
Rin'in/LinYin(?): Asami Shimoda (Chika from BGataHKei)
Charles: Kana Hanazawa (Nadeko from Bakemonogatari)
Laura: Marina Inoue (Natsuru from Kampfer)

Talk about mega harem selection huh.

Barnagher Links as Ichika...close enough to my prediction someone from Gundam will voice the guy.

Looks like some of the Idolmaster VAs are branching out of the VN field to anime now

[Registered Member]

A short PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv01.html) and a long PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv02.html) are out on the Official Website (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/).

[LoweGear]

The PV's rather slow loading and buggy... but from what I see, the animation is gloriously slick, heck the combination of CG and 2D animation is topnotch here. :eek:

[blitz1/2]

The mechs remind me strongly of busou shinki.

[Bonta Kun]

the animation is gloriously slick

In the words....or word of one great man, "Indeed"

Now I'll just go ahead and voice something that just needs to be voiced for the sake of it but doesn't mean I actually got a problem with since this being anime and all but why don't they have helmets in their awesomely cool mecha battle suit?:p

The music there is really good, I like it alot, very fitting given it's only a PV. Looking forward to that aspect of the show.

[Westlo]

Cast~~

Ichika: Kouki Uchiyama (guy really hasn't done much in fields of VA, but is Soul Eater from ... Soul Eater, or Natsuno Yuki from Shiki)
Houki: Youko Hikasa (Mio from K-ON)
Cecilia: Yukana (Tessa from FMP)
Rin'in/LinYin(?): Asami Shimoda (Chika from BGataHKei)
Charles: Kana Hanazawa (Nadeko from Bakemonogatari)
Laura: Marina Inoue (Natsuru from Kampfer)

Talk about mega harem selection huh.

Can you match the girls up with the volume covers? Obviously Houki is Vol 1 but the rest...

A short PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv01.html) and a long PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv02.html) are out on the Official Website (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/).

Liking that pv.

[Kunagisa]

Can you match the girls up with the volume covers? Obviously Houki is Vol 1 but the rest...


Yup, they're almost in the order of appearance

Houki is the Japanese big boob from V1 cover as mentioned.
Cecilia is the British blond from V2 cover.
Rin'in is the Chinese flat chest from V3 cover.
Charles is the French "guy" from V5 cover.
Laura is the German silver hair from V4 cover.

EDIT: Just watched the PV, that one line sums this up pretty nicely (Mecha x Pretty Girl haha). The visuals do look really nice. Looks like my good faith in this series hasn't been misplaced.

[BitColdSnow]

Houki is the Japanese big boob from V1 cover as mentioned.
Cecilia is the British blond from V2 cover.
Rin'in is the Chinese flat chest from V3 cover.

...My next most anticipated anime right here, folks.

Especially Rin'in. Delicious DFC is delicious. Her cover is alluring...*keeps muttering into creeper territory*

[dark998]

A short PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv01.html) and a long PV (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv02.html) are out on the Official Website (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/).

Excellent. Looking forward to this show now.

[Mizuno]

Rin'in looks like Lucchini out there..

[drobertbaker]

And Houki has Alicia's headscarf from Valkyria Chronicles.

[Angrypokstick]

In the words....or word of one great man, "Indeed"

Now I'll just go ahead and voice something that just needs to be voiced for the sake of it but doesn't mean I actually got a problem with since this being anime and all but why don't they have helmets in their awesomely cool mecha battle suit?:p

The music there is really good, I like it alot, very fitting given it's only a PV. Looking forward to that aspect of the show.

Yah i thought the lack of helmets was odd for these power armor. According to the novel all the suits got uber energy shields, and all the senor data/battlefield scans are send directly to the pilot's brain. Basically when they wear the suits they have 360 degree vision plus the HUD and all that jazz show up in their eyes.

I still would like helmets though especially considering its been mentioned that these things can go into space.

[Renya]

watched the trailer on youtube by mediafactory (dunno how to embed onto forums i always fail at it)
Looking forward when it comes out, don't think it will be winter this year but lucky if we do.

Edit: Realised no mangas for this right o.o?

[Kunagisa]

Edit: Realised no mangas for this right o.o?

There is actually one, just nobody's scanning it atm.

[LoweGear]

Youtube link of the PV:

jXAjCHK8k_A

[Renya]

There is actually one, just nobody's scanning it atm.

oh darn :( i guess i'll check the light novel then >.<

[Westlo]

EDIT: Just watched the PV, that one line sums this up pretty nicely (Mecha x Pretty Girl haha). The visuals do look really nice. Looks like my good faith in this series hasn't been misplaced.

One more question, any of those suits come equipped with missile packs.. need some Itano circus...

[MisaoFan]

Inifinte Stratos is not very compared to Strike Witches but to Buso Shinki.

[Kunagisa]

oh darn :( i guess i'll check the light novel then >.<

You can read chapter 1 online actually here (http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/files/d000155/IS/index.htm#). It's not the same as the novel intro though (you would have to ask someone to translate it but you sound like you can read Japanese so ...).

Coincidentally, it's the same place (http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/comic-alive/index.php?MD=new) where you can read first chapter of
Kikou Shoujo wa Kizutsukanai (as well as MM! and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai too, but those are scanned), but Mayo Chiki! is not uploaded yet =(.

One more question, any of those suits come equipped with missile packs.. need some Itano circus...

That's a good question, I remember lots of beams (including a DRAGOON type of thing as well as plasma blasts/laser) but I don't think there are actual missiles. Could be wrong though. My memory is spotty at best due to various issues at the moment.

[kenjiharima]

I thought at first this was a IS with Iori.....but I was surprised it was a mecha-musume anime.

[Renya]

You can read chapter 1 online actually here (http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/files/d000155/IS/index.htm#). It's not the same as the novel intro though (you would have to ask someone to translate it but you sound like you can read Japanese so ...).

Coincidentally, it's the same place (http://www.mediafactory.co.jp/comic-alive/index.php?MD=new) where you can read first chapter of
Kikou Shoujo wa Kizutsukanai (as well as MM! and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai too, but those are scanned), but Mayo Chiki! is not uploaded yet =(.



That's a good question, I remember lots of beams (including a DRAGOON type of thing as well as plasma blasts/laser) but I don't think there are actual missiles. Could be wrong though. My memory is spotty at best due to various issues at the moment.

hehe thxs for the link :P
looks interesting, my japanese isn't that - i still get confused on some words/sentences and need to read up on it >.<. Anyone know a rough date it will be airing?

I was thinking of winter/spring

[tsunade666]

I wish it would be winter.

dragoon type? what gundam? and lots of laser beams... hmm so it's a modern type so their wouldn't be a world war II weaponry.

Thanks for the link. The guy also reminds me of gundam pilots.

[Angrypokstick]

I wish it would be winter.

dragoon type? what gundam? and lots of laser beams... hmm so it's a modern type so their wouldn't be a world war II weaponry.

Thanks for the link. The guy also reminds me of gundam pilots.
More back ground info on the setting I learned from vol 1 that I decided to re-read again in detail instead of just skim through like i did the first time. I must say the thing still feels cliched as hell.

Yah it is a 20 minutes into the future kinda setting, the world's technology is mostly no more advanced than the present. Except for The IS which are such technological breakthrough that they are considered decades or even centuries ahead their world's technology. And of course Japan happens to invent these wonder machines and the Scientist who designed the Mechs happens to mysteriously vanish leaving designs for only a limited numbers of original suits, Plus the core blue print are all black boxed so the design can't be studied and analyzed and only replicated with limited success. Those original suits in question are hence distributed among the world's major powers to ensure no side abuse its power. A treaty is also set limiting the amount of IS allowed to exist. Currently only 467 are in service world wide.

The academy trains next generation pilot officers for militaries all over the world and the most promising cadet class rep are allowed to own a personalized original or souped up mass production copy pasta model IS.

If its anything to go by, the mechs in this novel are more powerful than some gundams. for one they all allow the pilots 100% battlefield and situational awareness and they all got Evangelion grade AT Fields, few conventional weapons can even hope to scratch the shields. It is said in the novel that should all the IS pilots decides to revolt , then the world's military would be utterly crushed within at best 3 days and worst 3 hours.:heh:

[Dahak86]

more powerful than gundams + Eva grade AT fields?! :eek: dam, Those IS machines are serious business indeed. :heh:

[tsunade666]

more serious than I thought and it's a good thing the most are female fighters. It's hard to imagine having a male psycho piloting it.

[Bonta Kun]

more powerful than gundams + Eva grade AT fields?! :eek: dam, Those IS machines are serious business indeed. :heh:

I think they need to come up with a new term instead of serious, it doesn't quite cut it.
I mean any time between 3 days and 3 hours for world conquest!? thats way way way beyond serious:eyespin::heh:

[blitz1/2]

I think they need to come up with a new term instead of serious, it doesn't quite cut it.
I mean any time between 3 days and 3 hours for world conquest!? thats way way way beyond serious:eyespin::heh:

It could be worse, they can make it in 6 hours, on the 6th minute on the 6th second. Well, that also aids in the symbolic meaning of end of world.

[Angrypokstick]

I think they need to come up with a new term instead of serious, it doesn't quite cut it.
I mean any time between 3 days and 3 hours for world conquest!? thats way way way beyond serious:eyespin::heh:

Whats great though. Is that the IS seems to have heralded an era of peace. As it seems that for the 10 years that IS have been around the world have never been so peaceful. though an international treaty exist to set on regulating the conditions for when the use of any IS outside of training is allowed.

Though there is an tournament every so often that happens where different country's IS compete for the title of number 1 in the world. The MC's sister was the winner of one such tournament. And Video games are made regularly to reflect these tournament(NHL, NBA series game like). Also is mentioned the huge and rather heated power level debate/ my country's IS is better than your country's or my country's IS pilot are hotter debates all over the internet due these video games.:heh:

[hayate-sama]

And here we have Ichika, the only male IS pilot in a academy full of female pilots, world domination sound easy to me now.:heh:

[blitz1/2]

If only the protagonist was like Sugisaki, it would be his dream come true.

[Kunagisa]

And here we have Ichika, the only male IS pilot in a academy full of female pilots, world domination sound easy to me now.:heh:

Seriously, considering the strongest military weapons are the pilots (especially the representative ones who are powerful enough to get their custom IS), but let's face it, anyone here right now isn't watching this show for serious plot anyway haha.

[Mizuno]

And here we have Ichika, the only male IS pilot in a academy full of female pilots, world domination sound easy to me now.:heh:
And world re-population if need be. :eyespin:

[kenjiharima]

Oh jezz...Another anime with one guy all females....

Was interested at first, but will watch this later on even when it airs.

[hayate-sama]

And world re-population if need be. :eyespin:

Well the reproduction process will be a problem consider that you only got one male :heh:

Can anybody translate this picture for me, I can read most of the hiragana but i can only know the 私　kanji :heh:
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z234/hayate-sama_vns/IS02_002-003.jpg

can anybody give some info about Cecilia, her IS design remind me of cherudim gundam ( sniper riffle and bits or whatever they call them) and especially this

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z234/hayate-sama_vns/IS02_325.jpg

[Angrypokstick]

can anybody give some info about Cecilia, her IS design remind me of cherudim gundam ( sniper riffle and bits or whatever they call them) and especially this

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z234/hayate-sama_vns/IS02_325.jpg

about the pic i m feelin lazy you can figure where these fit on the picture
houki: nnnn...nevermind, its ok you can put it in my mouth..... I won t mind
ichika: ohh? Fine then, open wide ahhhhhh...... How is it?
Houki:.... It tastes delicious.
Ichika: really?
Cecillia + Rin 'yin : ICHIKA-KUN!!!!!

About cecillia hmm,

well she is a British aristocrat(and not a tsundere either:D) who loves to win. She does see her self above the "commoners" students , though she does help them out alot in various things though she does it out of a sense of belief that nobles should help commoners because nobility are just that much better than the common populace.
Appears at first to be the stereotypical Rich chick but actually has some hidden depth to her character. She used to like her father, but due to the change in society's change of view towards women in the new Female dominant society her father has become meek and submissive to her mother she began to despise her father. Vowing to never marry a weak and submissive man, she of course falls for the MC because of his display of blunt hotbloodness during combat. Though she initially dislikes the MC for disrespecting her lineage and of Britain(the MC cracks a couple of jokes poking fun at Britain and how shitty their food is...lol). Though she soon realizes that this is exactly the type of man she's been searching for.

[tsunade666]

MC? who MC?

it looks interesting and fun but some of the characters remind me of little buster.

[BitColdSnow]

About cecillia hmm,

well she is a British aristocrat(and not a tsundere either:D) who loves to win. She does see her self above the "commoners" students , though she does help them out alot in various things though she does it out of a sense of belief that nobles should help commoners because nobility are just that much better than the common populace.
Appears at first to be the stereotypical Rich chick but actually has some hidden depth to her character. She used to like her father, but due to the change in society's change of view towards women in the new Female dominant society her father has become meek and submissive to her mother she began to despise her father. Vowing to never marry a weak and submissive man, she of course falls for the MC because of his display of blunt hotbloodness during combat. Though she initially dislikes the MC for disrespecting her lineage and of Britain(the MC cracks a couple of jokes poking fun at Britain and how shitty their food is...lol). Though she soon realizes that this is exactly the type of man she's been searching for.


If the bolded is true...then I'm going to love this series. A lead who's not afraid of insulting or afraid of combat.

[Kunagisa]

MC? who MC?

it looks interesting and fun but some of the characters remind me of little buster.

MC = main character not mind control, different acronym usage =).

[hayate-sama]

If the bolded is true...then I'm going to love this series. A lead who's not afraid of insulting or afraid of combat.

But I think that we only have mock battles in the light novel so far. So is there anything called "plot" in the light novel ?. As I checked volume 5, there is only fan service there.

[Mizuno]

lol I see we have to prepare for the obligatory fanservice episode in this anime as well. :D

[Bonta Kun]

(the MC cracks a couple of jokes poking fun at Britain and how shitty their food is...lol).


Well now thats your win right there!

I'm so so glad the japanese know the food here sucks!:p

I'm def really looking forward to seeing how this is handled.

[tsunade666]

But I think that we only have mock battles in the light novel so far. So is there anything called "plot" in the light novel ?. As I checked volume 5, there is only fan service there.

There's no real battles yet? only mock battles? no war?...... It's kinda tiring if their is no series of war battles. A true one. What's the use of IS if it's only pure light training and mock battles.

[LoweGear]

There's still the possibility of anime-only material which'll have actual battles, given how short the anime would obviously be compared to the novels. :heh:

[Angrypokstick]

yah it seems like so far its only about their training and school life. Who knows they might hint at possible conflicts in the other volumes i m not sure.

[tsunade666]

Theirs already 5 volumes but not much real life threatening fights yet.... Even if it's girls wielding powerful weapons I much prefer sky girls or strike witches over this one. Though both are not novels.... then hidan no aria. First volume starts with the main character in a life threatening situations already....

Though I would still watch this. But I prefer if theirs a real OPPONENT or STORY. Story really drives me on reading or watching stuff. I don't care much about fan service. Their aren't a plus or minus for me but too much and the story turns to crap then that's a minus for me.

[blitz1/2]

yah it seems like so far its only about their training and school life. Who knows they might hint at possible conflicts in the other volumes i m not sure.

Mai Otome was like that (anime-wise), isn't it? First half was about light hearted humour + school, last 10 eps was pure drama and war.

[asaqe]

How about Rin Yin?

[Kunagisa]

How about Rin Yin?

2nd most awesome character tied with the sister XD.

[Angrypokstick]

How about Rin Yin?

Lets see,
She is A DFC to start(its one of her berserk button), The representative from china. Cooks awesome food. One of the MC's childhood friends, Houki being the other. Houki doesn't know about Rinyin because she became the MC's friend after Houki 's family moved out. The MC often eats at her family's restaurant. Went back to china one year due to family issues before the start of the story and returns as one of the Chinese representative send to the Academy. A CQC powerhouse armed with powerful close range assault weapons and devastating oversized melee weapon (a large double sided Dragon Crescent moon Blade- Guan yu's weapon but darth Maul style:D ).

[hayate-sama]

then about time we get other characters Shinonono Houki (strange last name) Laura and Charles
crossdressing

Just read the recent manga on Comic alive, really funny to see how houki can remove her kendogi (the upper part) when she still have her hakama on which particularly weird for a kendoka :heh:

BTW seeing the main character in his IS seem very wrong to me, may be he lack of some certain parts in the chest area :uhoh:

[BitColdSnow]

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z234/hayate-sama_vns/IS02_002-003.jpg

Houki is...too cute in that picture. The anime hasn't even aired yet, and just judging by spoilers and the novel covers, I find it hard to pick between Houki, Cecilia, and Rin Yin already. :heh:

[Kunagisa]

Houki is...too cute in that picture. The anime hasn't even aired yet, and just judging by spoilers and the novel covers, I find it hard to pick between Houki, Cecilia, and Rin Yin already. :heh:

It's ok, they're all part of his harem and all equally lovable :D, so you don't really have to pick. I'm still rooting for Houki though.

But really Okiura does indeed do excellent character/mecha designs, it's really hard to not like them all. Though I must say they look the hottest in their IS (except for a few ... special occasions :heh:).

And like Bonta Kun mentioned (http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=3181352&postcount=55), the music's actually really, really good in the PV as well. I actually rewatched it again couple times today just to listen to the scores again.

[hayate-sama]

Houki is...too cute in that picture. The anime hasn't even aired yet, and just judging by spoilers and the novel covers, I find it hard to pick between Houki, Cecilia, and Rin Yin already. :heh:

Yeah, the anime design stay very close to the original novel :uhoh:.

Ichika: Let destroy the governments so everybody can "legally" married me.
Answer 01 : yes !!!!!!!
Answer 02 : Die you cheater :frustrated:

BTW: what are the fuel of the IS, don't tell me that they have unlimited energy.

[LoweGear]

A quick question: Does anyone know when this anime is slated to air yet, or has there been no announcement?

[hayate-sama]

A quick question: Does anyone know when this anime is slated to air yet, or has there been no announcement?

It starts airing in January 2011 according to the japanese wiki

[LoweGear]

If that's true, damn it'll be a while :eyespin:

[hayate-sama]

If that's true, damn it'll be a while :eyespin:

Well I think this is much sooner than expected, other titles form the same MF brand like Asobi ni Ikuyo! took us a year to actually watch the anime.

BTW Shana III which announced more than a year ago "might" be airing in October 2011, more than a year from now, make it around 2 years and 3 months to be actually aired. :heh:. IS is very lucky I my opinion

[Westlo]

If that's true, damn it'll be a while :eyespin:

8 Bit are working on the second Macross Frontier movie as well..

[asaqe]

Bumping this to know more about the other members of the cast since I am going to write some fanfics.

[kuroishinigami]

Hmm, I don't know if it's allowed to talk about the novel here. Maybe you should search for IS thread in the light novel section or make one if it's not available yet.

[pauldy]

I wonder how will this anime go, iirc it seems like a mecha musume oriented one...

[tsunade666]

what do you mean? what anime are you pertaining? well this one is lead a guy who is the only one on the world who can pilot that mech and his pretty hot headed and he also had a harem.

I'm not familiar with the source material but from the pv I'm interested on this one.

[pauldy]

@tsunade666: Forget what i said.. I'm talking about strike witches but I guess went overboard in the way i got disappointed about it..

Anyway, I'm interested in this one. Any anime with mecha musume is a must see for me ^^

[asaqe]

And the company made another announcement, they are beginning an advertising campaign for the upcoming anime from October 15 to November 20. Expect more updates for the site

[Ravenblitz]

http://imgur.com/Lkxyrl.jpg (http://imgur.com/Lkxyr.jpg)
http://imgur.com/2sFqX.jpg (http://imgur.com/2sFqX.jpg)

[Kotohono]

I saw the trailer for this series, the combat/action looked pretty promising, some of the weapons and mobility of it reminds of Armored Core mechs to some degree. The characters look nice too from the art in this thread, so I'll plan to be checking the series out once it starts for sure.

[tsunade666]

^ the picture above is that the picture from the novel or manga?

so 2 childhood friend and a british girl.

[DragoZERO]

This looks interesting. I just hope they draw a line between the comedy and action at some point.

[Kunagisa]

According to twitter, the homepage will be updated on the 27th, same date when Comic Alive goes on sale (the manga of this title serialize in this magazine if you don't recall from NeoSam's first post), which would release new information for the anime. Hopefully we get some new useful/interesting information.

Oh, the author's been discharged from the hospital (me: yay!) since the 13th (don't feel like bumping the other topic just for this news @__@).

[kuroishinigami]

And yet the latest novel volume is pushed back again. I start to really wonder if this will be another unfinished series like Haruhi.

[zephyr325]

Nice to meet you, everyone.

I'm an avid IS fan and just found this site while surfing the 'net.

It looks like lots of info regarding IS was posted, but I find some of it slightly misinterpreted...

Would it be Ok for me to write up somewhat detailed description of this novel? (such as story set-up stuff and etc)
(I don't mean the translation of the novel, although I could also do that if wanted...)


P.S.

Oh, the author was hospitalized? So that's why there's no news of Vol.6 after 4 months of break. New vol. usually came out every 2~3 months until Vol.5.

I thought the author was just busy with IS being made into Anime.

[LoweGear]

A good summary of the novels would be appreciated here, and it would help to give those of us who don't have the novel know what's coming up. :)

[zephyr325]

It's been over 11 years since I've been in US to study... So please understand if my English skill has deteriorated considerably. (typo and all)

Okay, here it is. a set of info that might help you understand the story better.



1. Debut

IS is a multi-purpose powered suit designed for outer space use, and is capable of flight in atmosphere (capable of hovering too)

IS was known to the world when a single IS provoked the military forces in the whole world (10 years prior to the beginning of the novel)and succeeded in fending off ferocious attacks(conventional) from several superpowers - the incident is later became known as 'The White Knight Incident.

It was revealed in this incident that IS is superior to any conventional weaponry, in terms of firepower, agility, and durability. It could take down a state-of-the-art air superiority fighter in a dogfight with an ease, and take on a MBT head on and demolish it instantly.
Simply said, IS could render any conventional weaponry obsolete.

Conventional weapons can't seem to penetrate IS shield, and on top of that, even scoring a direct hit on an IS with conventional weaponry became a challenge, due to its agility.

In short, the delicately maintained military balance of the world vanished altogether.



2. Changing the World

Right after the debut of IS, World superpowers demanded an establishment of new international treaty (later became known as "The Alaska Treaty") which effectively banned the militarization of IS.
(It's still a mystery how those superpowers (which didn't have IS back then) succeeded in making Japan to comply with the treaty. My guess is that they threatened Japan with massive nuclear war which would practically end the world unless the demands were met.
(Even if IS and pilots survive, there's no point if there isn't a world to live in)

In fact, the government of Japan didn't have anything to do with the invention of IS, and the WK incident, because IS was created by a single scientist - Shinonono Tabane, a female scientist and genius (with extremely weird personality) who happened to be Japanese (again, with no tie to the government)

Anyway, the demands in the treaty were met and were put in effect, somehow.

The main features of the treaty are as follows;

1. Countries are essentially prohibited from employing IS in any kind of conflict or war. Possession IS as military-grade unit is, however, allowed since they are the only means of deterring and defending against armed aggression involving IS.)

2. Any and all information and technology related to IS is to be disclosed to the world and shared openly. Any further R&D (beside the initial batch of technology information provided by Sinonono Tabane) is put under same restriction upon its actual field-testing, but if the field-testing of newly-acquired technology is done inside IS Academy, the researchers/developers are allowed to keep their technology confidential.

3. Trade of IS core is prohibited under any circumstance.

4. Japan and its government is responsible for creating an integrated IS pilot training facility and is required to accept any and all admittance of pilot candidates from any foreign countries, provided they are endorsed by legitimate government body or foundation. (This is the result of the inventor - Sinonono Tabane - being of Japanese nationality, and the government responsible for her should take appropriate action to ensure the balance of IS pilot in the world is kept in check. It basically means the Japanese government ended up paying all the money to build and maintain such facility reluctantly.

The treaty banned deployment of IS in armed conflict, but as this so called 'treaty' tend to lose its effect during a war (especially on the losing side) every country ended up building up IS force inside its military, which functioned as an effective deterrence to prevent involvement of IS.

The treaty also specified all information and technology related to IS be made open to the world, so no one country would monopolize this super technology.

As a result, every country in the world (at least the wealthy ones) could study and commence research&development of IS.

But there was one thing that was never revealed - the manufacturing process of IS core.

IS core is, in its essence, IS itself, because the powered suit (frame) is just an inanimate object without the core installed. The core is responsible for every function of IS, from power supply to operation of all abilities (such as articulation of frame, barrier, sensor and weapon)

Only Sinonono Tabane has the knowledge of core creation, and so far she has created 467 of them, but recently she began refusing the creation of additional cores, and withdrew herself into a recluse (practically becoming missing). Currently she is on the top of international wanted list.

Trade of any kind involving IS core is prohibited under Alaska Treaty, and existing 467 cores are evenly distributed (in a general sense) throughout the world to maintain power balance.

The rest of world's scientists kept their R&D, and while they still can't recreate the core yet, they became able to 'process the core,' which means they could transplant existing core to newer, more powerful frames they developed.

So, while the total number of core remains unchanged after 10 years of debut, IS itself faced major development, undergoing several generation shifts.

Currently, the last phase of 2nd generation ISs are in service, with a few 3rd generation ISs undergoing final test phase.
(Cecilia's 'Blue Tears' and Rin's 'Senron' are 3rd generation test-type IS)



3. Flaw in IS and the change in social structure

Since increase of IS force by quantity is not possible (due to limited number of cores) many countries concentrated on what they could do - increasing the quality of IS, and the quality of the pilots.

Now, these wonderful IS actually had a critical flaw - It only reacts to female.

And that practically meant the social structure would undergo a major change in terms of gender - almost to the point of being the opposite of the medieval times.

Of course, women still needs men to marry, bear children and so on, so males somehow survived this brutal challenge, but still, the weight of men's voice in society hit the rock bottom.

The educational system also faced major change.

Since early training for IS pilot candidate became important (to the point of deciding the future of one's country), many schools from junior high and up started incorporating IS related education curricula. Now, because accepting male students to these schools would be just a waste of money, they became girls-only school.

With increasing number of these kinds of schools, conventional co-ed schools faced shortage of female students, which resulted in increase in the number of boys-only school as well.

(Elementary school remained as co-ed, probably from ethical reasons)

The result? Majority of boys and girls(especially IS pilot candidates) are spending their early teen period without(almost) seeing opposite sex of similar age, and that leads to these kids not getting used to socialize with similar ages of opposite sex.

※In fact, these set-up causes many female characters(mostly students) in this story to appear as 'Tsundere' - although they have different characteristic individually.
A: they basically have high pride due to change in social structure.
B: they have very low immunity to opposite sex of similar age due to educational background.



4. About the IS

Designed as outer space use, IS contains very powerful sensor package, called 'Hyper-sensor' which directly transfer the data collected from IS to pilot's brain. As a result, the pilot of IS experience her normal five senses enhanced to an unsurpassed level.

Due to the nature of space navigation sometimes requiring acquisition of extremely faint visual cue from great distance, an optical sensor system of IS is highly developed, providing the pilot with highly enhanced vision.

For an example, even when the sensor is greatly limited for atmospheric operation, a pilot hovering 1000ft above ground could distinguish individual hair from eyebrow of person standing on the ground.

Basically, IS provides omnidirectional vision, covering every angle around the pilot, greatly enhancing her situational awareness. Additionally, the pilot isn't required to move her head for target acquisition, since visual data from every possible angle is already provided by IS.

However, due to the difference in perception of sensory input between IS and human body, the pilot is required to convert the sensory data to a format she can recognize.
(For example, a pilot would digest the visual data from front arc - which is natural for human – with ease, but might have trouble digesting visual data from behind, straight up, or down)

This conversion process requires time, and the faster she adapt, the higher the proficiency of IS operation.


Although the IS is designed for outer space use, it does not have the appearance of full body suit - such as those found in conventional space suit.

Since IS and its pilot are protected by energy shield, there is actually no need for full body-armor type suit.

So even though the visible armor seen in IS actually do protect the pilot, it is not as effective as the energy shield.

There are, of course, some ISs (or almost any IS with defensive Equalizer) equipped with extended armor or hand-held shield which actually do provide fairly high protection, but still, the main method of defense for IS is its shield and agility (to evade attacks).

Generally, IS shield is powerful enough to block most conventional weaponry, but it could be momentarily pierced by powerful weapons - especially those from another IS.

The shield itself is restored as long as there are shield energy remaining, but the frame (powered suit) and other equipment (such as armor, Preset or Equalizer) could be damaged and destroyed by these attacks. Once damaged or destroyed, it can't be regenerated - at least in the middle of combat.
(They are fully restored during maintenance process)

Also, every IS comes equipped with a special defense mechanism named 'Absolute Barrier.'
It's more of pilot safety feature than practical defense mechanism, since when activated, it consumes extreme amount of shield energy, to the point of completely depleting shield energy with just one or two activation.

In exchange for that, it provides an absolute defense against any kinds of attack.
(It is speculated that the absolute barrier could defend IS against a direct hit from a nuclear weapon)

The Absolute Barrier is activated by IS, not by the pilot.

When the IS senses an attack that threatens pilot with critical injury or even death, it automatically activates the Absolute Barrier, protecting the pilot.
(Which means when IS senses the attack as non-fatal or superficial, it wouldn't activate the Absolute Barrier even if the resulting attack damages equipment or wounds pilot slightly.

While not so practical as a combat defense mechanism, it is ideal for pilot protection.

IS equipment is divided between Preset and Equalizer.

The Preset is integrated into IS itself, and can't be changed without changing the frame altogether, so it is practically the deciding factor of IS type
(CQC, Versatile, Long range combat, sniper, etc.)

Equalizer is an additional equipment that is installed to Expansion Slot (Bus), which every IS comes equipped with.

Expansion slots enable IS to be equipped with various Equalizers, such as additional conventional weapons, spare ammo, armor parts or physical shield for better defense, additional thruster for increased speed or maneuverability, etc.

These Equalizers could be installed into IS via Expansion slot, and could be called out when needed.
(mainly there are primary type which is called out automatically when pilot calls out her IS, and secondary type which isn't initially called out, but could be called out when needed(such as spare ammo or sub-weapon)

Each Equalizer requires an empty slot, and the number of available slot is unique in every IS, depending on basic characteristic and initial performance level.

Equalizer is not a permanent modification, so previously existing Equalizer could be changed when needed (requires time to uninstall and install)

There is package type Equalizer specifically designed for certain IS which utilizes all empty slots with multiple equipments to fit a specific assignment.
(For an example, a bombardment Equalizer package might consist of 3 parts combined - heavy cannon + stabilizer + point defense system)



5. IS World Tournament - Mondo Grosso

There are world-class tournament involving ISs from many countries from the world.
Taking place once in every 3 year, the 'Mondo Grosso' is a World Cup for IS.

Each country admits one IS and pilot - called representative pilot.

The tournament is processed in an arena, with a basic rule being 1:1 match

The participants could use any kinds of weaponry - except for the kinds banned due to being unethical.
(Although Absolute Barrier prevents serious injury or death of pilot, it doesn't protect pilots from the kinds of weapon which is designed to rather torture opponent than actually inflicting injury.)

The match ends when either sides' IS is depleted of shield energy (practically becoming non-combat capable), which usually happens when a IS receives critical attack and is forced to activate Absolute Barrier.

The inner stage of arena (where two ISs duke it out) is surrounded by protective shield (the same kinds used by IS, but stronger) to prevent injury to gallery from any stray shot.



6. IS pilot training center and IS Academy

Since every country is undergoing independent IS R&D, many wealthy countries have their own training facilities.

However, according to Alaska Treaty, Japan was required to build and maintain an IS pilot training facility and accept request for admittance from all over the world.

As a result, IS Academy, a top-class IS pilot training center which doubles as high school, was created and began accepting request to enroll from both domestic and abroad.

Since the winner of the 1st Mondo Grosso was a Japanese (Chihuyu Orimura, older sister of Ichika to be exact), and also because the creator of IS was Japanese (although she had nothing to do with its government), many pilots from both domestic and abroad wanted to train in Japan, resulting tremendous competition rate for IS Academy, the best facility in the country.

But the most important reason for the popularity of IS Academy is that it is the only certified testing facility where the technology tested there could be kept confidential.



7. Personal IS and Designated Pilot. (Personal IS)

Since there are only 467 IS in existence, it is impossible for 1 billion+ potential candidates to actually 'own' an IS.
(Estimated from half of world total population - 6 billion for gender + 1/3 of that for right age group)

Naturally, the ownership of IS is limited to either government body or a few major IS R&D corporations.

However, it is possible for a pilot under such organization to be assigned a designated IS for extended period of time.

Basically, IS has its own consciousness capable of decision making process to a certain level.

Also, aside from outer input from R&D, an IS is capable of self-evolvement by optimizing itself to the pilot.

The optimizing process is called 'Fitting' in which the IS analyzes its pilot and transform itself to be more efficient for the pilot.

Apparently, this process is not practical for ISs with multiple pilots (such as IS configured as trainer), so this feature is disabled on most ISs, with the exception being Designated IS.

Designated pilots, on the other hand, could benefit from optimization with their personal ISs, putting them in an advantage compared to those without personal ISs.

Once an optimization is complete, the IS could be stored in a ‘Closed Form’ and be worn by the pilots in a form of accessories, and the pilots can instantly ‘Call In’ there IS when required.

However, use of IS without permission of the organization in which the pilot is currently under is strictly prohibited by international law, and violation of this law is punishable as a serious crime.

Normally, pilots with their personal IS are either;

1. Government approved IS representative (1 for each country)

2. Designated test pilot of major IS R&D corporation (number depends on the quantity of IS held by such firm)

3. Government approved IS representative candidate (could be more than one, but not all of them are given personal IS)

Acquiring a personal IS is considered as the utmost honor for any IS pilot due to harsh requirement and sheer rate of competition.






And here is the first 5 pages of Vol.1, roughly translated.
(If posting a translation on this thread is prohibited, please let me know. I'll delete it.)



Chapter 01 - My classmates are all girls


"Everyone seems to be present. Okay, then let's begin Short Homeroom now."

Yamada Maya, the co-homeroom teacher of the class at the front, said with a smile on her face. (she introduced herself a moment ago)

A bit short on the height, she is about as tall as students. On top of that, her outfit seem to be of wrong size, which makes her look even smaller.

The black-frame glasses she is wearing is also a little to large and a bit askew.

How should I describe this akward impression, 'a kid is trying to appear as an adult by wearing an adult clothes' stuff. Am I the only one who feels this way?

"Okay then, I hope we get along for an year."

"......"

Nobody in the class responded, however, since it was filled with a strange, tense atmosphere.

"Th, then, please introduce yourself. um, by sitting order."

I felt sorry for our-co-homeroom-teacher-in-a-distress and tried to assist her by saying something, but unfortunately, but I couldn't afford to be so relaxed.

Why?

The answer is simple. Everyone in this classroom except for me is girl.

Today is the first day of highscool, a beginning of new world. Day 1.

That itself is fine with me and even pleasuring.

But the problem is that I'm the only boy in this classroom.

(This is.... way more stressful than I imagened.)

It's not like I have an overinflated ego or something. It's just that I'm getting attention from almost everyone in the class.

Besides, the location of my seat is awful too.

Why does it have to be right in the middle of frontmost row? It stands out too much and ends up receiving unwanted attention.

I looked around casually.

It was a stare that was meant to call for some kind of help, but Shinonono Houki, my cold-hearted childhood buddy, evaded it and turned her face toward a window.

Now that is cold.

Is that how you treats a buddy that you haven't seen for 6 years?

Wait, maybe I'm being hated somehow?

"...hika. Orimura Ichika."

"Uh, Yes?"

I was called out of blue by a loud voice, and as a result, my answer came out as a shriek.

Now I could hear the sound of suppressed laugh from around which made me even more anxious.

It's not like I don't feel comfortable around a girl. It's not.

But you see, there is a limit to that.

A person who loves noddle wouldn't like it after eating it for 3 days straight.

Well, I'm not sure about that. I don't like noodle that much.... wait, that's not the point.

Anyway, I'm the only boy in the classroom. the rest - 29 students - is all girls. Co-homeroom teacher is a woman. Homeroom teacher is probably a woman too.

I say 'probably' becuase I haven't even seen her face yet. What's she doing now?

"Um, I'm sorry about calling out so loudly. Um, are you mad at me? I'm so sorry. But you see, um, It was your turn to untroduce yourself. Um, so, could you please introduce yourself? please?"

I could see Yamada Maya, my co-homeroom teacher, repeatedly and apologetically lowering her head. And her motion was threatening her oversized glassese - already precariously blanced - to fall down althogether.

And here I am, thinking only about such insignificant details.

By the way, is she really older than I am? She would easily pass as my age.

"Um, don't be so sorry about it, anyway, I'll go ahead and introduce myself, so please calm down."

"Re, really? really? really? you promised. you absolutely promised!"

She snapped her head up and held my hands, trying to confirm what I said.

Excuse me, now you are causing me to receive awful lot of attentions from around again.


Well, but I already said that I'd do it. A man shouldn't take back his word.

Furthermore, If I take care of this situation right now, I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

I swiftly stood up and turned back.

(Ugh....)

Now I could really feel the the attention that I was feeling on my back until now.

Even Houki, who heartlessly ignored me a moment ago, is staring at me.

Being stared like this, regardless of how much comfortable you are with a girl, is quite stressful.

A person who loves curry... Okay, enough with that metaphor.

"Um... My name is Ichika Orimura. Nice to meet you all."

I politely lowered my head, and pulled it back.

- Wait a minute. What's these 'Say something more' kind of look?

And what's this 'Surely, that was all, was it?' kind of atmosphere?

There's not much to talk about.

It's not like I don't have any hobby or anything, but my hobby is not something that I'd like to brag about in front of everyone,

Isn't it strange for a person to talk about his hobby to people he first met?

You see, I'd be slightly frightened if there was a girl introduces herself and suddenly say 'my hobby is cactus raising and division.'

Just in case, cactus rasing and division is not my hobby. .

"......"

I could feel the my sweat dripping down my back. What should I do?

What should I say? And foremost, Why the hell did I end up here?

[LoweGear]

Not much from the latter part, but damn... all that delicious data about the IS and their functions... :love:

[Ravenblitz]

very nice info there zephyr325! i read all of that :D

[Kunagisa]

Thanks to zephyr325, everyone should have an excellent idea of what this series is about now, and hopefully even more interested than before.

So this is the updated staff list


Moonphase Diary (メカニックデザイン：高倉武史[/B]
> CGIアニメーション監督：井ノ元英二
> 美術監督：吉原俊一郎(美峰)
> 美術設定：塩澤良憲(美峰)
> 色彩設計：中山久美子
> 撮影監督：荒幡和也
> 編集：木村佳史子
> 音響監督：三間雅文、中嶋聡彦
> 音響制作：テクノサウンド
> 音楽：七瀬光
> 音楽制作：ランティス

So in addition to Kikuchi as director as mentioned before, we also get Takakura for Mecha Design, Yoshihara as Art Director, Nakayama for Color Design, Mima for Sound Director, and most importantly Techno Sound for Sound Effects back from the Macross F movie. The rest of the staff is pretty stellar too. Nakajima from Kurau and Rideback who's Co-Sound Director with Mima; Nanase and Lantis for Music and Music Production etc.:love:

January can't come soon enough.

[MisaoFan]

Thanks to zephyr325, everyone should have an excellent idea of what this series is about now, and hopefully even more interested than before.

So this is the updated staff list




So in addition to Kikuchi as director as mentioned before, we also get Takakura for Mecha Design, Yoshihara as Art Director, Nakayama for Color Design, Mima for Sound Director, and most importantly Techno Sound for Sound Effects back from the Macross F movie. The rest of the staff is pretty stellar too. Nakajima from Kurau and Rideback who's Co-Sound Director with Mima; Nanase and Lantis for Music and Music Production etc.:love:

January can't come soon enough.

For the opening theme, why they imagine a artist (from Lantis) to perform the IS opening theme ?

[asaqe]

I presume the refused core was the first male operated IS, and for a good reason...the balance will be meaningless if a guy could use the I.S.

[dark998]

It's been over 11 years since I've been in US to study... So please understand if my English skill has deteriorated considerably. (typo and all)

Okay, here it is. a set of info that might help you understand the story better.



1. Debut

IS is a multi-purpose powered suit designed for outer space use, and is capable of flight in atmosphere (capable of hovering too)

IS was known to the world when a single IS provoked the military forces in the whole world (10 years prior to the beginning of the novel)and succeeded in fending off fericious attacks(conventional) from several superpowers - the incident is later became known as 'The White Knight Incident.

It was revealed in this incident that IS is superior to any conventional weaponry, in terms of firepower, agility, and durability. It could take down a state-of-the-art air supriority fighter in a dogfight with a ease, and take on a MBT head on and demolish it instantly.
Simply said, IS could render any conventional weaponry obsolete.

Conventional weapons can't seem to penetrate IS shield, and on top of that, even scoring a direct hit on an IS with conventional weaponry became a challange, due to it's agility.

In short, the delicately maintained military balance of the world vanished altogether.



2. Changing the World

Right after the debut of IS, World superpowers demanded an establishment of new international treaty (later became known as "The Alaska Tready") which effectively banned the militarization of IS.
(It's still a mystery how those superpowers(which didn't have IS back then) succeeded in making Japan to comply with the treaty. My guess is that they threatened Japan with massive nuclear war which would practically end the world unless the demands were met.
(even if IS and pilots survive, there's no point if there isn't a world to live in)

In fact, The government of Japan didn't have anything to do with the invention of IS, and the WK incident, because IS was created by a single scientest - Shinonono Tabane, a female scientest and genius (with extremely weired personality) who happened to be Japanese (again, with no tie to the government)

Anyway, the demends in the treaty was met and was put in effect, somehow.

The main features of the treaty is as follows;

1. Militarization of IS is prohibited under any circumstance.

2. Any and all information and technology related to IS is to be disclosed to the world and shared openly.
(This only includes the initial IS technology and information during the debut of IS. Any other technology and information obtained by independent R&D are not restricted by this clause)

3. Trade of IS core is prohibited under any circumstance.

4. Japan and its gorvernment is responsible for creating an intergrated IS pilot training facility and is required to accept any and all admittance of pilot candidates regardless of their nature(domestic and foreign), privoded they are endorsed by legitimate government body or foundation.
(This is the result of the inventor - Shinonono Tabane - being of Japanese nationality, and the gorvernment responsible for her action should take appropriate action to ensure the balance of IS pilot in the world. Basically meaning the Japanese government ended up reluctantly paying all the money to build and maintain such facility - and the tuition for all students)


The treaty banned militarization of IS, but as these so called 'treaty' tend to lose their effect during a war(especially if you are on the losing side... happened a lot in the past) - every country ended up building up a para-military class IS force, which is not an active military unit, but something that could be used to defend its soil in case of IS involvement.

The treaty also specified every and all information and technology related to IS be made open to the world, so no one country would monopolize this super technology.

As a result, every country in the world(at least the wealthy ones) could study and commence research&development of IS.

But there was one thing that was never reveiled - the manufaturing process of IS core.

IS core is, in its essense, IS itself, becuase the powered suit(frame) itself is just an inanimate object by itself. The core is responsible for everything, from power supply to operation of every abilities (such as articulation of frame, barrier, sensor and weapon)

Only Shinonono Tabane has the knowledge of core creation, and so far she has created 467 of them, but recently she began refusing the creation of additional core, and withdrew herself into a recluse(practically being missing). Currently she is on the top of international wanted list.

Trade of any kind involving IS core is prohibited under Alaska Treaty, and existing 467 cores were distributed evely(in a general sense) throughout the world to balance the power.

The rest of world's scientist kept their R&D, and while they still can't recreate the core yet, they became able to 'process the core,' which means they could transplant existing core to newer, more powerful frames they developed.

So, while the total number of core remains unchanged after 10 years of debut, IS itself faced major development, undergoing several generation shifts.

Currently, the last phase of 2nd generation ISs are in service, with a few 3rd generation ISs undergoing final test phase.
(Cecilia's 'Blue Tears' and Rin's 'Senrou' are 3rd generation test-type IS)



3. Flaw in IS and the change in social structure

Since increase of IS force by quantity is not possible(due to limited number of cores) many countries concentrated on what they could do - increasing the quality of IS, and the quality of the pilots.

Now, these wonderful IS actually had a critical flaw - It only reacts to female.

And that practically meant the social structure would undergo a major change in terms of gender - almost to the point of being the opposite of the medieval times.

Simply put: women are great, and mens are.... just a source of labor.

Of course, women still needs men to marry, bear children and so on, so males somehow survived this brutal challenge, but still, the weight of men's voice in society hit the rock bottom.

The educational system also faced major change.

Since early training for IS pilot candidate became important(to the point of deciding the future of one's country), many schools from junior high and up started incorporating IS related education curricula. Now, becuase accepting a male students to these school would be just a waste of money, they became girls-only school.

With increasing number of these kind of schools, conventional co-ed schools faced shortage of female students, which resulted in increase in the number of boys-only school as well.

(Elementary school remained as co-ed, probably from an ethical reason)

The result? Majority of boys and girls(especially IS pilot candidates) are spending their early teen period without(almost) seeing opposite sex of similar age, and that leads to these kids not getting used to sociate with similar ages of opposite sex.

※In fact, these set-up casues many female characters(mostly students) in this story to appear as 'Tsundere' - although they have different characteristic individually.
A: they basically have high pride due to change in social structure.
B: they have very low immunity to opposite sex of similar age due to educational background.



3. About the IS

Designed as outer space use, IS contains very powerful sensor package, called 'Hyper-sensor' which directly transfer the data collected from IS to pilot's brain. As a result, the pilot of IS experience her normal five senses enhanced to an unsurpassed level.

Due to the nature of space navigation somethimes requiring acquisition of extreamly faint visual cue form great distance, an optical sensor system of IS is highly developed, providing the pilot with highly enhanced vision.

For an example, even when the sensor is greatly limited for atmospheric operation, a pilot hovering 330 yards above ground could distinguish indivisual hear from eyebrow of person standing on the ground.

Basically, IS provides omnidirectional vision, covering every angle around the pilot, greatly enhancing her situaltional awareness. Additionally, the pilot isn't required to move her eye or head, since visual date from every possible angle is already provided by IS.

However, due to the difference in perception of sensory input of IS and human body, the pilot is required to convert the date to a form she can recognize.
(for example, a pilot would digest visual data from front arc - which is natural for human - but might have trouble digesting visual data from behind, straight up, or down)

This conversion process requires time, and the faster she adapt, the higher the proficiency of IS operation.


Although the IS is designed for outer space use, it does not have the appearance of full body suit - such as those found in conventional space suit.

Since IS and its pilot are protected by shield(a force-field type barrier that seems invisible to naked eye...?), there is actually no need for full body-armor type suit.

So even though the visible armor seen in IS actually do protect the pilot, it's effect is only marginal, and secondary at most.

There are, of course, some ISs(or almost any IS with add-on pack) equipped with extended armor or hand-held shield which actually do provide fairly high protection, but still, the main method of defense for IS is its shield and agility(to evade attacks).

Generally, IS shield is powerful enough to block most conventional weapony, but it could be momentarily pierced by powerful weapon - especially those from another IS.

The shield itself is restored as long as there are shield energy remaining, but the frame(powered suit) and other equipment(such as basic or additioanl weapons), if destroyed by attack, can't be regenerated - at least in the middle of combat
(They are fully restored during maintanance process)

Also, every IS comes euipped with a special defense mechanism, called 'absulote barrier.'
It's more of pilot safety feature than practical defense mechanism, since when activated, it consumes extreme amount of shield energy, to the point of completely depleting shield energy with just one or two activation.

In exchange for that, it provides an absolute defense against any kinds of attack.
(it is speculated that the absolute barrier could defend IS against a direct hit from a nuclear weapon)

The absolute barrier is activated by IS, not by the pilot.

When the IS sense a threat of critical injury or even death of pilot, it automatically activates the absolute barrier, protecting the pilot.
(which means when IS sense the attack as non-fatal or superficial, it wouldn't activate the absolute barrier even if the resulting attack damages equipment or wounds pilot slightly.

While not so practical as a combat defense mechanism, it is ideal for pilot protection.

IS equipment is divided between basic type and add-on type.

Basic type equipment is intergrated into IS itself, and can't be changed without changing the frame altogether, so it is practically the deciding factor of IS type
(CQC, Versatile, Long range combat, sniper, etc.)

Add-on equipment is an additional parts that is installed to Expansion Slot(Bus), which every IS comes equipped with.

Expansion slots enable IS to be equipped with additional equipment, such as additional conventional weapons, spare ammo, armor parts or physical shield for better defense, additional thruster for increased speed or maneuverability, etc.

These add-on could be installed into IS via Expansion slot, and could be called out when needed.
(mainly there are primary type which is called out automatically when pilot calls out her IS, and secondary type which isn't initially called out, but could be called out when needed(such as spare ammo or sub-weapon)

Each add-on equipment requires an empty slot, and the number of available slot is unique in every IS, depending on basic characteristic and initial performance level.

Add-on is not a permanent modification so previously existing add-on could be changed when needed(requires time to uninstall and install)

There are package type add-on specifically designed for certain IS which unilizes all empty slot with multiple euipment to fit a specific assignment.
(For an example, a bombardment package might consist of 3 parts combined - heavy cannon + stabilizer + point defense system)



4. IS World Tournament - Mondo Grosso

There are world-class tournament involving ISs from many counrties from the world.
Taking place once in every 3 year, the 'Mondo Grosso' is a World Cup for IS.

Each country admits one IS and pilot - called representative pilot of [country name]

the tournament is processed in an arena, with a basic rule being 1:1 match

The participant could use any kinds of weapony - except for the kinds banned due to being unethical.
(although absolute barrier prevents serious injury or death of pilot, it doesn't protect pilots from the kinds of weapon which is designed to rather torture opponent than actually inflicting injury.)

The match ends when either sides' IS is depleted of shield energy(practically becoming non-combat capable), which usually happens when a IS receives criticall attack and is forced to activate absolute barrier.

The inner stage of arena(where two ISs duke it out) is surrounded by protective shield(the same kinds used by IS, but stronger) to prevent injury to gallery from any stray shot.



5. IS pilot training center and IS Academy

Since every country is undergoing independent IS R&D, many wealthy countries have their own training facilities.

However, according to Alaska Treaty, Japan was required to build and maintan an IS pilot training facility and accept request for admittance from all over the world.

As a result, IS Academy, a top-class IS pilot training center which doubles as highschool, was created and began accepting request to enroll from both domestic and abroad.

Since the winner of the 1st Mondo Grosso was a Japanese(Chihuyu Orimura, older sister of Ichika to be exact), and also because the creator of IS was Japanese(although she had nothing to do with its government), many pilots from both domestic and abroad wanted to train in Japan, resulting tremendous competition rate for IS Academy, the best facility in the country.

Almost all sutudents of IS Academy is either the most talented candidate(domestically) or endorsed by legitamate gorvernment or major IS related corporations.



6. Designated IS and pilot. (Personal IS)

Since there are only 467 IS in existance, it is impossible for 1 billion+ potential candidates to actually 'own' a IS.
(Estimated from half of world total population - 6 billion for gender + 1/3 of that for right age group)

Naturally, the ownership of IS is limited to either government body or a few major IS R&D corporations.

However, it is possible for pilots under such organizations to be assigned a designated IS for extended period of time.

Basically, IS has its own consciousness(more like AI...?), capable of decision making process to a certain level.

Also, aside from outter input from R&D, an IS is capable of self-enhancement by optimizing itself to the pilot.

The optimizing process is called 'Fitting' in which the IS analyzes its pilot and transform itself to be more efficient for the pilot.

Apparantly, this process is not practical for ISs with multiple pilots(such as IS configured as trainer), so this feature is disabled on most ISs, with the exception being Designated IS.

Designated pilots, on the other hand, could benefit from optimization with their personal ISs, putting them a step foward compared to those without personal ISs.

Once an optimization is complete, the IS could be stored on the pilots in a form of accessories, and the pilots can instantly call out their IS when required.

However, use of IS without permission of the organization in which the pilot is currently under is strictly prohibited by international law, and violation of this law is punishable as a serious crime.

Normally, pilots with their personal IS are either;

1. Gorvernment approved IS representative (1 for country)

2. Designated test pilot of major IS R&D corporation (number depends on the quantity of IS held by such firm)

3. Government apporved IS representative candidate (could be more than one, but not all of them are given personal IS)

Acquiring a personal IS is considered as the utmost honor for any IS pilot due to harsh requirement and sheer rate of competition.



And here is the first 5 pages of Vol.1, roughly translated.
(If posting a translation on this thread is prohibited, please let me know. I'll delete it.)



Chapter 01 - My classmates are all girls


"Everyone seems to be present. Okay, then let's begin Short Homeroom now."

Yamada Maya, the co-homeroom teacher of the class at the front, said with a smile on her face. (she introduced herself a moment ago)

A bit short on the height, she is about as tall as students. On top of that, her outfit seem to be of wrong size, which makes her look even smaller.

The black-frame glasses she is wearing is also a little to large and a bit askew.

How should I describe this akward impression, 'a kid is trying to appear as an adult by wearing an adult clothes' stuff. Am I the only one who feels this way?

"Okay then, I hope we get along for an year."

"......"

Nobody in the class responded, however, since it was filled with a strange, tense atmosphere.

"Th, then, please introduce yourself. um, by sitting order."

I felt sorry for our-co-homeroom-teacher-in-a-distress and tried to assist her by saying something, but unfortunately, but I couldn't afford to be so relaxed.

Why?

The answer is simple. Everyone in this classroom except for me is girl.

Today is the first day of highscool, a beginning of new world. Day 1.

That itself is fine with me and even pleasuring.

But the problem is that I'm the only boy in this classroom.

(This is.... way more stressful than I imagened.)

It's not like I have an overinflated ego or something. It's just that I'm getting attention from almost everyone in the class.

Besides, the location of my seat is awful too.

Why does it have to be right in the middle of frontmost row? It stands out too much and ends up receiving unwanted attention.

I looked around casually.

It was a stare that was meant to call for some kind of help, but Shinonono Houki, my cold-hearted childhood buddy, evaded it and turned her face toward a window.

Now that is cold.

Is that how you treats a buddy that you haven't seen for 6 years?

Wait, maybe I'm being hated somehow?

"...hika. Orimura Ichika."

"Uh, Yes?"

I was called out of blue by a loud voice, and as a result, my answer came out as a shriek.

Now I could hear the sound of suppressed laugh from around which made me even more anxious.

It's not like I don't feel comfortable around a girl. It's not.

But you see, there is a limit to that.

A person who loves noddle wouldn't like it after eating it for 3 days straight.

Well, I'm not sure about that. I don't like noodle that much.... wait, that's not the point.

Anyway, I'm the only boy in the classroom. the rest - 29 students - is all girls. Co-homeroom teacher is a woman. Homeroom teacher is probably a woman too.

I say 'probably' becuase I haven't even seen her face yet. What's she doing now?

"Um, I'm sorry about calling out so loudly. Um, are you mad at me? I'm so sorry. But you see, um, It was your turn to untroduce yourself. Um, so, could you please introduce yourself? please?"

I could see Yamada Maya, my co-homeroom teacher, repeatedly and apologetically lowering her head. And her motion was threatening her oversized glassese - already precariously blanced - to fall down althogether.

And here I am, thinking only about such insignificant details.

By the way, is she really older than I am? She would easily pass as my age.

"Um, don't be so sorry about it, anyway, I'll go ahead and introduce myself, so please calm down."

"Re, really? really? really? you promised. you absolutely promised!"

She snapped her head up and held my hands, trying to confirm what I said.

Excuse me, now you are causing me to receive awful lot of attentions from around again.


Well, but I already said that I'd do it. A man shouldn't take back his word.

Furthermore, If I take care of this situation right now, I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

I swiftly stood up and turned back.

(Ugh....)

Now I could really feel the the attention that I was feeling on my back until now.

Even Houki, who heartlessly ignored me a moment ago, is staring at me.

Being stared like this, regardless of how much comfortable you are with a girl, is quite stressful.

A person who loves curry... Okay, enough with that metaphor.

"Um... My name is Ichika Orimura. Nice to meet you all."

I politely lowered my head, and pulled it back.

- Wait a minute. What's these 'Say something more' kind of look?

And what's this 'Surely, that was all, was it?' kind of atmosphere?

There's not much to talk about.

It's not like I don't have any hobby or anything, but my hobby is not something that I'd like to brag about in front of everyone,

Isn't it strange for a person to talk about his hobby to people he first met?

You see, I'd be slightly frightened if there was a girl introduces herself and suddenly say 'my hobby is cactus raising and division.'

Just in case, cactus rasing and division is not my hobby. .

"......"

I could feel the my sweat dripping down my back. What should I do?

What should I say? And foremost, Why the hell did I end up here?

So much story and data. Im officially hyped for the anime now.

[asaqe]

And the character reaction faces in the main site is just a plain delight to see, along with the news they will have an Infinite Stratos pinup on Megami

[Kunagisa]

For the opening theme, why they imagine a artist (from Lantis) to perform the IS opening theme ?

The OP isn't, since it's by Ali Project; the ED on the other hand is from Faylan, who is a Lantis exclusive artist (so far). Source (http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-7029.html).

So you're half right =P.

[zephyr325]

Here is some more info about IS mechanic.




- More about IS


IS has its own self-consciousness, as mentioned before.

Whether it is a set of complex AI with self-evolving ability, or something more close to human soul, a living entity is currently unknown.

Every IS has its own characteristic, but it also has a unique, special ability called 'One Off' that could be unlocked as it evolves.

Once an IS is optimized for a pilot (by initiating 'Fitting' process), it transform itself to a form to better suit the characteristics of the pilot.

This transformation process is called '1st Shift,' and the resulting form is called '1st Form.'

As the IS and pilot gain more experience - maybe by getting to know each other better by spending more time together - the IS could optimize itself even further.

There have been several confirmed cases of '2nd Shift' and '2nd Form'

The interesting part is that upon reaching the 2nd Form, some ISs begin to exhibit special abilities, one per IS which is a unique characteristic.

This special ability is called 'One Off Ability'(or simply One Off) and no two ISs seem to have same abilities.

Attempts have been made to artificially generate same One Off for multiple ISs in controlled environment, without success. It seems the One Off is decided purely by the combination of pilot and IS factors alone.

Although One Off begins to manifest itself from 2nd Form, very few ISs have actually shown manifestation of One Off in reality, making this ability quite rare.

As time passed, numerous One Off abilities by various pilots were discovered, and after extensive R&D, scientists were able to artificially recreate some of less complex abilities.

Notable examples of equipment created from the harvested technologies are;

- Pilot Controlled Remote Intercept Drone - A.K.A. 'Bits' (the nickname is probably inspired by popular fiction work)
- Shock Cannon that compress and warp nearby space to create barrel and shoots the resulting shockwave as a projectile.



※ It is speculated that the research of One Off abilities enabled further development (and practical application) of advanced weaponry such as laser or particle beam possible, although the application is limited to IS, meaning conventional platform would not benefit from this result)

These technologies were then incorporated as the focus of design in developing 3rd Gen. IS.

As a result, 3rd Gen. ISs are equipped with basic weapon which more powerful than conventional ones.




Currently, IS is facing a generation change, with 2nd Gen. models being slowly phased out and a few 3rd Gen. models being introduced.

The 1st Gen. IS was more of prototype that were designed and built for various experiments to estimate (back then) newly-acquired IS technologies.

The 2nd Gen. IS was designed from the data collected from 1st Gen, and is used throughout the world as stable platform.

The 3rd Gen. IS is designed with application of technologies harvested from reserach of One Off abilities as focus.





The official terminology for Add-on equipment for IS is 'Equalizer.

My next posting is going to be about the characters.
(I'm currently reading the novel once more to collect info - which seems to be scattered throughout the novel.)

[LoweGear]

More awesome info as always, also LOL at explanation for advanced weaponry not being available in conventional platforms, something lacking in a lot of Robot Shows. :heh: The entire IS system reminds me of Zoid Cores for some reason...

Also, the Official Site just updated with Character Profiles (http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/chara/chara.html). :)

[kaizerknight01]

seem an interesting series

[dark998]

The OP isn't, since it's by Ali Project; the ED on the other hand is from Faylan, who is a Lantis exclusive artist (so far). Source (http://yunakiti.blog79.fc2.com/blog-entry-7029.html).

So you're half right =P.

Before that info was revealed, I was thinking "I really, really, really hope the OP is not by Ali Project"

And it is...damn. At least ED by Faylan is good news.

[asaqe]

A question for you zephyr, by low immunity to opposite sex, what does that mean?

[Kunagisa]

A question for you zephyr, by low immunity to opposite sex, what does that mean?

They get charmed easily by the male lead (unintentionally) since they don't really deal with men most of the time.

[zephyr325]

They get charmed easily by the male lead (unintentionally) since they don't really deal with men most of the time.


Yes, that was what I was trying to say. Thank you for clarifying the subject


Um, there are some misleading information in some of my previous posts.



- Correction regarding to previous misleading info

The previously mentioned information about less complex One Off abilities being recreated through R&D seems incorrect.
The novel specifies that 'One Off ability can never be copied.'

3rd Gen. IS is in designed around a new concept(mainly weapon) and therefore equipped weapon more powerful than conventional ones, but it seems that those weapons are another application of technological advancement in IS, called Image Interface.

It is mentioned in the novel that Sinonono Tabane, the creator of IS, knows more about IS than anybody else, yet she does not know about it all since she configured some of IS functions to self-evolve.

It seems that possession of IS and military force wielding IS is allowed. It's just that the actual military action involving IS is prohibited, allowing it to be valued mainly as a show of national strength and means of deterrence.

Since IS can neutralize any kind of conventional weapon (and even something that is not conventional - such as nuclear weapon) It has become the new and primary benchmark of national strength.

Also, the part regarding sharing of technologies apparently applies to those researched and developed after legislation of the treaty.

Any country or facilities that develop new technology related to IS is required to disclose the information. But since doing so would put the developer in huge disadvantage (since R&D costs money, and other countries and facilities copying it would save lots of money while getting same benefit) the initial developer is allowed to keep the technology confidential until actual field-testing of it.

And this makes IS Academy a very special place, since it is the only place in the world where any new technology tested inside does not have to be disclosed.
Simply put, IS Academy is the only testing facility in the world that guarantees both confidentiality and actual test of newly developed technology.
This is why there are so many new prototype ISs and representative pilot candidates piloting them in IS Academy.
Notable examples include: Cecilia Alcott with Blue Tears, Fan Rin In with Senron, and Laura Bodewig with Schwarz Regen.


Each generation of IS has its own specific theme and goal to achieve.

1st generation IS : The basic goal of 1st Gen. IS was the completion of IS. The R&D was focused on applying various IS related technologies to produce a stable, operational IS.

2nd generation IS : The basic goal of 2nd Gen. IS was the utilization of add-on capability, known as Equalizer. Application of various equalizer packages enabled the 2nd Gen. IS capable of various assignments.

3rd generation IS : The basic goal of 3rd Gen. IS is the application of advanced Image-Interface technology, enabling it to field more advanced weapons such as BT(Blue Tears), Shock Cannon and AIC.

4th generation IS : The basic goal of 4th Gen. IS is the application of Fold-Out armor, which enables the IS to configure itself to a form that maximize specific role, whether attack, defense, or mobility. This makes the 4th Gen. IS capable of performing various assignments just by switching its function in real time, not requiring the time-consuming process of changing Equalizer.


And here is some additional info about IS.



- Damage control and recovery of IS

Although IS is protected by powerful shield, and Absolute Barrier for pilot protection, it is not invincible, especially when it comes down to battle between ISs.

Since advanced weapons wielded by IS usually are capable of piercing the shield and strike the IS frame or pilot, ISs engaged in fight with another IS is likely to end up with damage to various parts, sometimes extensively.

The Absolute Barrier is only activated against a single, overwhelming attack that could seriously injure its pilot, which means it does not react to accumulation of minor damage or injuries received by repeated attacks (with each attack deemed non-fatal). In an extreme case, a pilot may face serious injury during extended battle.

In a case of Personal IS, when the pilot ends up seriously injured in a prolonged battle, the IS, as the extension of pilot protection function, force the pilot into a coma state and function as a life support for pilot in its deactivated(in a closed form) state. Since this is a forced process executed by IS, the pilot cannot be awakened by external means, and is automatically brought back out from coma state when the IS has recovered enough energy to be activated.

Maintenance of damaged IS is quite different from that of conventional machine. It mainly relies on self-recovering process of IS, since damage control and repairing process is also a part of self-evolvement of IS. Interfering with the natural evolvement is not recommended since it could hinder the evolvement process and prevent it from reaching 2nd Form and the manifestation of One Off ability which is the ultimate goal for any IS.

Forcing a heavily damaged IS into combat operation is highly undesirable since excessive stress to damaged area could result in serious defect which might bring a significant reduction of IS function or structural integrity, or worst, malfunction.
※ This is similar to human body since continuing to stress severe damage to body parts(broken bones or damage to internal organ) would end up damaging it further, often to the irreparable level.



- Detailed description of the White Knight Incident

When IS was first announced, it was utterly ignored by the rest of the world. The content of her announcement being 'IS is vastly superior to any conventional weapon,' the rest of the world either thought of it as nonsense, or refused to accept it as a fact.

A month from her initial announcement, every fire control system of long-range missiles belonging to 23 countries close to Japan were hacked, went out of control and launched total of 2341 missiles toward the mainland of Japan.

With the whole world terrified at this accident, every missile heading toward Japan was intercepted and destroyed by an unknown platform which later turned out to be the1st Gen. IS, White Knight.
This unknown IS, equipped with a single blade and platinum armor resembling a medieval knight, intercepted half of the incoming missiles with its blade while flying at supersonic speed. Then the IS suddenly summoned an experimental, large caliber particle cannon from thin air, destroying remaining missiles.

Shocked at the capability of this never-before-seen super weapon, numerous countries including world superpowers dispatched military units in order to analyze the target and either capture, or destroy it.

In total, 207 advanced fighters, 5 aircraft carriers and 7 cruisers were deployed in the theater of operation, with support from 8 military satellites, but none of them were a match against the IS, and all were completely neutralized.

What's more surprising is that throughout the incident, there was not a single fatality on both sides. The IS managed to neutralize opposing forces without killing the crew operating them, proving to the world that conventional weapons are indeed no match for an IS by further stating 'The only platform that can defeat an IS is another IS.'

It is speculated that the whole WK incident was planned by Sinonono Tabane herself, and the pilot of White Knight was her close friend, Orimura Chihuyu.
※ The pilot of White Knight was never identified since the pilot was wearing a helmet-styled Hyper Sensor prototype with visor covering her face.)



And the long-waited character profile!


- Orimura Ichika

Ichika is a 15 year old boy from Japan who accidently activated an IS.

He is currently enrolled in IS Academy as a freshman, classroom 1
(Due to his current status, he was half-forced into the IS Academy by the government of Japan)

He used to live in a house with Chuhuyu, his older sister.

Initially, he describes that he 'does not have parents,' but he later revealed that he and his sister were abandoned by their parents.' The whereabouts of his parents are currently unknown, and it is implied that he was abandoned when he was very young, since he does not remember their faces.

He is well versed in household tasks since he's been doing all the housework while Chihuyu was out making money.

After he accidently activates an IS, he becomes the subject of international news, being 'the only male in the world who can activate IS.'

He has a habit of assessing almost every situation (such as during conversation) he encounters with interior monologue (without actually saying it). This becomes a running gag in the novel as he assesses numerous situations he face with various thoughts, sometimes with ridiculous or completely unrelated ones which he mean as a joke.

Most of his friends and those closely related to him are usually able to guess what he is thinking on given situation, causing him to suspect whether they are mind readers(although limited to his interior monologue)

He becomes a representative of classroom 1, mainly due to curiosity from his classmates.


Byakku Shiki (白式 - literal translation is 'Type White')
※ Not to be confused with Hyakku Shiki (百式 - Type 100) which is a MS from Z-Gundam, a completely unrelated subject.

Byakku Shiki is the personal IS of Orimura Ichika, developed by Japanese Government.

Although initially estimated as 3rd Gen IS test-type, it is later revealed that Byakku Shiki is (at least partially) a 4th Gen. conceptual IS. it was originally designed with the goal of utilizing One Off ability without having to proceed to 2nd Form, but it was discarded when a serious defect was discovered, rendering the IS inoperable. Sinonono Tabane then acquired it through unknown route, and apparently fixed the defect. She also further customized Byakku Shiki by installing experimental Fold-Out armor on its weapon, Yukihira Type2, using it as a 4th Gen. IS test bed.

The basic armament (officially called Preset) of Bakku Shiki is a Yukihira Type2, a blade designed for CQC. It is later revealed that Yukihira Type2 is at least partially equipped with Fold-Out apparatus, a prototype of Fold-Out armor which is the prominent characteristic of 4th Gen. IS.
※ Yukihira is the name of similar blade Chihuyu used in the past.

Since 4th Gen. IS utilizes all available slots in order to be initially equipped with One Off ability, it is incapable of utilizing Equalizer.

Byakku Shiki is equipped with One Off ability named Reiraku Byakkuya(零落白夜 - a rough literal translation being 'white night of downfall')

This ability enables Byakku Shiki a special attribute - It could negate the effect of anything consist of energy (the kinds that does not have physical body.)

The most important point is that by activating this ability, Byakku Shiki can completely bypass the opponent's IS shield. Since the attack would not be weakened by IS shield (which is the key defense in every IS) a single direct it is often enough to force opposing IS to activate Absolute Barrier, effectively rendering it energy-depleted.

However, this ability does not come without a heavy cost. Activation of this ability requires vast amount of energy (which is much more than an IS can continuously supply) so in order to maintain the ability, additional energy has to be converted from its own shield.

When activated, Fold-Out apparatus opens up on Yukihira Type2, producing an energy-field with One Off attribute superimposed on the physical blade.

Since the Fold-Out armor in Byakku Shiki was installed when the technology was still in experimental stage, it does not benefit from the full capability of Fold-Out armor, and its application is limited to offensive role only.

Byakku Shiki is also capable of executing Ignition Boost, a high velocity charge which is usually followed by critical blow from One Off enabled Yukihira Type2.
When activated, the exhaust from thruster is absorbed inside a nozzle chamber and pressurized before being released, enabling a sudden burst of speed.

Byakku Shiki undergoes 2nd Shift shortly after Houki acquires AkiTsubaki. in the resulting 2nd Form named Byakku Shiki : Setsura, it is equipped with a multi-purpose unit (named Setsura, hence the name of 2nd Form) which has multiple functions including a large caliber charged particle cannon, an energy claw for CQC, and an energy shield with One Off attribute.
In its 2nd Form, Byakku Shiki also gains increase in mobility through addition of 4 large wing thrusters, enabling it to execute Double Ignition Boost.






- Sinonono Houki

Houki is a 15 year old girl from Japan and Ichika's childhood buddy. (1st)

She is currently enrolled in IS Academy as a freshman, classroom 1

Because her family runs a kendo doujo, she trained kendo from very young. She won a national kendo competition for junior high a year before entering IS Academy.

Due to her rather stern personality, (something like a samurai) she had trouble socializing with others when she was young. This often resulted in other classmates making fun of her which in turn resulted in Ichika helping her out. It was the cause of her developing a crush on Ichika who supported her when she was feeling lonely.

She is a younger sister of Sinonono Tabane, the genius and scientist who single-handedly created IS.
However, Houki dislike Tabane since her invention of IS and the following chaos caused her family to move out, distancing her from Ichika.

When she was 4th grade in elementary school, she asked Ichika to be her boyfriend, with the condition being that she wins the national kendo tournament for elementary school. Although handicapped by the fact that she would have to face strong opponents - including 5th and 6th grades who were physically stronger, she had confidence on her skill because she was very talented and was also extensively trained from very young age.

But the very same day of final match, the world was shocked by an announcement of unprecedented magnitude. Sinonono Tabane, a genius scientist, unveiled the existence of IS to the world. The announcement of powerful IS stirred the world, and rest of Sinonono family, closely related to such important person(perhaps the most important figure in the world) were put into strict protection program set up by Japanese government, and were forced to move from place to place for safety reason. Obviously, Houki was forced to withdraw herself from the match, resulting in an automatic defeat.

Being unable to contact Ichika due to so-called safety reason (the government couldn't allow Ichika - a unrelated stranger at the time since he was just an ordinary boy - to obtain information regarding whereabouts of Sinonono family) she blamed it on Tabane, her older sister who caused all this mess and conveniently went missing, and started venting her anger through kendo, the only connection she had with Ichika.

She admired the strength Ichika once showed to her, which she believed as the true form of strength. But as she began to vent her anger through kendo, but when she won the national kendo tournament for junior high school, she soon realized that what she was doing was not a show of strength, but just violence. Disgusted by herself, she decided to train once more to gain what she believed to be real strength. She later decided to enter IS Academy, and although she was not as talented as other representative candidates, (she scored C on IS aptitude test) being related to Sinonono Tabane seemed to have played a major role, since she was able to enroll in IS Academy.

Although she has been training kendo (which emphasize obtaining self-control as with most other form of martial arts) she is somewhat emotionally unstable, often resorting to be controlled by her own strength rather than controlling it herself, especially when she gains a new power. Therefore she has an admiration toward Ichika who shows steadfast sense of what's right and wrong, regardless of his strength (which goes through a drastic change)


AkaTsubaki

Initially, Houki is the only heroin who does not possess personal IS. During the first half of freshman year, she pilots Uchigane, a 2nd Gen. production model trainer IS, one of several ISs deployed in IS Academy for training purpose.

She gains her personal IS in mid-year, provided by none other than her older sister, Sinonono Tabane, the genius scientist who single-handedly created IS.

Personally designed by Tabane, AkiTsubaki is the first true 4th Gen. IS, built from the experiment data resulting from modification of Byakku Shiki.

Also, it cannot utilizes Equalizer due to same reason as Byakku Shiki, but it is designed as an all-round type, armed with two katana-style CQC blades which has secondary functions of firing advanced optical weapon(a red colored laser beam which has about same range as assault rifle), enabling it to be used as ranged weapon as well.

The blade on the right is named Amazuki(雨月) which is optimized for 1:1 combat. With its secondary function activated, it shoots out a shower of red colored laser beams from around IS, in a concentrated pattern toward a single target.

The blade on the left is named Karaware(空裂) which is optimized for combating multiple enemies. With its secondary function activated, it shoots out a shower of red colored laser beams from around IS, in a scatter pattern toward multiple targets around it.

According to Tabane, AkaTsubaki is currently the most powerful IS in terms of basic capability, since it is the first true 4th Gen. IS and therefore equipped with fully functional Fold-Out armor.

The Fold-Out armor of AkiTsubaki can be configured instantly to be optimized for various roles, such as attack, defense, and mobility. When fully optimized, the performance of AkiTsubaki becomes twice of the capability of normal status.

The creation of AkiTsubaki makes Sinonono Tabane the only person who can currently produce 4th Gen. IS, since the rest of the world is now beginning to develop 3rd Gen. test types. For the rest of the world, 4th Gen. IS is still a theoretical concept on a drawing board.

The advantage of wielding powerful 4th Gen. IS enables Houki - who is not as skilled as other heroines yet in terms of IS aptitude - to be on even ground with her rivals.

AkaTsubaki is equipped with One Off ability named Kenran Butou (絢爛舞踏) which enables Houki to recover the energy of her own IS, and also recover energy of other IS's she comes in contact with. It is presumed that Tabane specifically chose this ability so Houki could act as the primary support for Ichika's Hyakku Shiki, which usually suffers from high energy consumption rate.



- Cecilia Alcott

Cecilia is a 15 year old girl from UK.

She is currently enrolled in IS Academy as a freshman, classroom 1.

She is also a Representative pilot candidate for UK.

A Daughter of prominent family, she grew up under mother who was already an active, influential figure even before the debut of IS.

Her father, in contrast, was rather diminished figure even before the change of status. Moving into Alcott family after marrying her mother, he only had a minimal influence both inside and outside the family.

Considering her father as a prime example of weak, diminished man, she vowed to herself that she would never marry to a weak man that, unfortunately due to shift of social status, was abundant throughout the world.

Her both parents died from a train accident 3 years prior to entering IS Academy, and as the only heir to the family, she was left with massive inheritance which she fiercely defended from those who were trying to get a hand on.

As a talented IS pilot, she became the test pilot of Blue Tears, a 3rd Gen. prototype IS designed with the focus on Blue Tears system.
(Apparently the 'Bits' were named as Blue Tears, and the IS equipped with it became to inherit its name as well.)

When she met Ichika, she was surprised by his relentlessness despite being on disadvantage, but at the same time, she also saw the strength of man from his eye, something which she idealized for so long. This led to her developing a crush on Ichika.


Blue Tears

Blue Tears is a 3rd Gen. prototype IS developed in UK, with emphasis on Pilot Controlled Remote Intercept Drone - the official name is 'Blue Tears,' but is often referred as its nickname 'Bits'

Basic armament is Blue Tears system package which consists of 6 pieces of interceptor drones, 4 of which are armed with optical weapon with 2 armed with missile warhead.

It is also equipped with Starlight Mk.III, a medium-range laser rifle, and Interceptor, a pair of short blades designed for close quarter defense as Equalizer.

Since the Blue Tears system requires high level of concentration from pilot, activation of 'Bits' greatly restricts the mobility of IS if the pilot skill is not up to the task. However, experienced pilot is capable of controlling several Bits and IS simultaneously without apparent limitation. Also, the skill of the pilot is directly proportional to the performance of Bits, such as accuracy of onboard weapon and complexity of its movement.

The Bits, both laser and missile type, has limited ammunition onboard, which could be replenished by docking with IS. It cannot, however, regenerate if damaged or destroyed, and remain so unless repaired by recovery process.




- Fang Rin In

Rin is a 15 year old girl from China and Ichika's childhood buddy. (2nd)

She is currently enrolled in IS Academy as a freshman, classroom 2

She is also a Representative pilot candidate for China.

She moved into Ichika's neighbor soon after Houki family moved out. (Houki moved out at the end of 5th grade, and Rin moved in at the beginning of 6th grade)

Her family used to run a Chinese restaurant, which Ichika visited frequently. During this time, Chihuyu spent most of time outside working, and Ichika decided to go out to eat rather than cook for himself.

Due to her nationality, Rin frequently became a target for prank. She seems to have developed a crush on Ichika when he helped her by fighting against four kids bullying her in school.

She moved back to China during early 3rd grade of junior high, due to her parent's marital issue(they are now divorced), but transferred to IS Academy as representative pilot candidate for China.

Being one of very few students with a personal IS, she became a representative of classroom 2, mainly to stay close with Ichika.

Initially, she was mad at Ichika for not complying with the promise he made in the past. Her words were "If I become good at cooking, I will cook for you everyday" in which Ichika replied "Okay." What she actually meant was becoming his wife or at least a girlfriend, but Ichika interpreted her words as 'being able to eat decent food for free.'


Senron (甲龍 - literal translation is 'Armored Dragon')

Senron is Rin's personal IS, provided by Chinese government.

Being a 3rd generation prototype IS, it is optimized for CQC, and is equipped Souten Gagetsu(雙天牙月), a pair of Chinese scimitar which could be combined to double-bladed form.
(※ Not to be confused with the term double-edged. Double-blades mean a weapon with blades on both ends, with hilt between them.)

It is also equipped with Ryuhow (龍砲 - literal translation is Dragon Cannon), a state of the art Shock Cannon utilizing 3rd Gen. technology, a spherical device floating above each shoulder that forms a barrel by compressing nearby space and shoot out the resulting shockwave as projectile.

The trajectory is linear, but because both the barrel and projectile are invisible, taking evasive action effectively is a challenge for opponent.

Due to the nature of the projectile, it is most effective at close range, and begins to lose its effectiveness as the range increases.




- Charles (Charlotte) Dunoa

Charlotte is a 15 year old girl from France and a daughter of CEO of Dunoa Corporation.
※ Dunoa Corporation is the largest IS-related firm in France.

She is a leading test pilot working for Dunoa Corporation, and is also a Representative pilot candidate for France.

She is currently enrolled in IS Academy as a freshman, classroom 1

Initially upon transfer, she poses as a boy which created quite a stir for being 'The 2nd male IS pilot.'

However, it is revealed that she pretended to be a boy in order to be assigned as Ichika's roommate and stay close to him, so she could steal confidential data from his IS.

She is perhaps the only heroine without visible Tsundere attribute, always being polite and kind to others, especially toward Ichika.

She is a very talented IS pilot, with her specialty being a move called 'Rapid Switch.' She can instantly call out and switch weapon in the middle of combat. Choosing optimal weapon in given situation, coupled with her IS's wide range of arsenal, make her strong enough to fight more advanced 3rd generation IS on even ground.

After her true gender is discovered by Ichika (who apparently discovers it first since they are living in a same room) she confesses the true reason why she transferred to IS Academy. She is actually the daughter of CEO Dunoa's mistress. When her mother died 2 years prior to her transfer, CEO Dunoa had her brought to home but she was discriminated for being 'an illegitimate daughter,' especially from Dunoa's wife, and to some extent, even from Dunoa himself.

Since France was not a member of European Union, the country was lagging behind in IS R&D which required massive funding. This resulted in France entering the 2nd Gen. IS market very late with Rafale-Revive, the latest model 2nd Gen IS which gained popularity as a high-end IS among 2nd Gen. model. Although R-Revive was a success (because it was the latest to enter 2nd Gen. IS market, it was also had better performance compared to other competitors) - being license-built in 7 countries and commissioned in 12 countries, Dunoa Corporation, being weakly funded, needed to be a step ahead of other competitors(mainly EU) to survive.

The government of France, being the main source of IS funding for Dunoa Corporation, became anxious of not possessing a 3rd Gen IS when neighboring countries(members of EU) began to reveal their 3rd Gen. IS for test, and demanded that Dunoa Corp. produce a viable project for 3rd Gen IS. Failure to meet the demand would mean that Dunoa Corp. would have its license (to research and develop IS) revoked, which was practically a death sentence for IS department.

When Charles turned out to be a talented IS pilot candidate, Dunoa considered her value as a useful, yet expendable tool to further his career. He created the masquerade in which Charles is a male IS pilot - something that could stall the anxious French government from pressuring Dunoa Corp. for a while - and had her transferred to IS Academy, speculating that a 2nd male student would end up being roommate of 1st(and so far the only) male student, Ichika. That would put Charles in a prime position to acquire data of advanced IS - Ichika's Byakku Shiki - which then be used as basis for 3rd Gen. IS design.

In general, Charles would face charges consist of false identity (gender, to be exact) and espionage related to IS technology which, due to importance of IS, is a serious crime. Ichika, however after hearing her story, became disgusted with Charles' 'family' and decided to help Charles, suggesting that she stay in school until they could come up with a way to deal the problem. Since IS Academy is declared as extraterritoriality according to international treaty, she can't be subpoenaed even by her own government unless she agrees to.

As Ichika decides to help Charles, she begins to develop a crush on him, and later reveal her true gender to the school.

Her real name is Charlotte, with Charles being an alias she used while acting as a boy.


- R - Revive Custom II

Rafale - Revive Custom II is Charles's personal IS, provided by Dunoa Corporation.

It is a heavily modified version of Rafale - Revive, a latest-model 2nd generation IS, famous for sturdy design and ease of use.

While it lacks special equipment utilizing state-of-the-art technology found in most 3rd generation IS, it boast wide range of arsenal made of conventional weaponry.

Notable change from production variant is partial removal of armor plate and 2 pairs of multi-thruster wings, replaced with 2 modified multi-thrusters with overall increase in speed and maneuverability.

By stripping large portion of basic equipment (Official term is 'Preset') R-Revive Custom II possesses twice as many Expansion Slot as normal variant, and is equipped with around 20 different kinds of Equalizer.

The weapons stored in R-Revive Custom II includes;

Vent - .55 cal assault rifle with 16 rounds magazine.

Garm - .61 cal assault cannon capable of firing a non-explosive cluster round in addition to conventional ammunition.

Rain of Saturday - .62 cal dual barreled heavy shotgun.

Bread Slicer - a Blade designed for CQC (maybe the author didn't have enough time to come up with decent name for this weapon....)

Gray Scale - a CQC weapon categorized as pile banger which is a pointed battering ram propelled by explosive cartridge stored in revolver-type magazine for rapid firing. While being effective only at extremely close range, it is the most powerful weapon wielded by 2nd Gen. IS. Integrated into arm-mounted physical shield, it can be armed after purging the shield plates that encase is.



- Laura Bodewig

Laura is a 15 year old girl from German and the commander of 'Black Rabbit,' a special force IS unit in German.

She transferred to IS Academy along with Charlotte, and is one the most experienced IS pilots in Academy.

Born as a product of genetic enhancement project, she was one of the most skilled combatants in German, but for the same reason, she had difficulty in showing her emotion and lacks common sense in socializing with others.

When IS was introduced, she underwent further enhancement experiment in which installed nanomachine in her left eye in order to boost the efficiency of interface between her brain and Hyper Sensor of IS. The experiment turned out to be a failure, since the augmented function in her left eye was uncontrollable, causing it to stay active all the time. She ended up wearing an eye patch to protect it from overloading, and her operational efficiency regarding to IS began to drop significantly as well.

She was in despair since excelling at her assignment and becoming strong was the only reason to live. But all that changed when she first met Orimura Chihuyu. Admired by her strength, Laura found a new reason to live which was becoming like her some day. The strong admiration toward Chihuyu became more of a fanaticism, and when Chihuyu forfeited the final match of the 2nd Mondo Grosso in order to save her kidnapped brother, Laura began to hate Ichika, thinking he had disgraced Chihuyu's name.

For this reason, Laura initially hated Ichika, even planning to kill him in a duel. All this changes when she loses to him in a match. Despaired at her defeat, she unintentionally activates Valkyrie Trace system that was secretly installed in her IS, going out of control. Ichika once again defeat her, but at the last moment of the battle, she and Ichika find themselves in inter-IS subspace where they are able to communicate directly from their thoughts. She engages Ichika in an conversation where she ask him about the true strength, in which he answers 'being able to do what one wants to do' and 'being able to help those around him.' Hearing his answer, she remembers the conversation she had with Chihuyu in past (where Chihuyu warned her about the mysterious but true strength of her brother and that she be careful not to fall in love since his 'strength' tends to attract women.) and realizes that she just fell in love with Ichika.

On the next day, she begins to protect him (mainly from the threat of other heroines who often get mad at his insensitivity toward girls) and declares him her 'bride,' for she obtained somewhat misleading 'general culture in Japan' and 'common sense' from her lieutenant who is an avid fan of Japanese girls' comic.


※ Valkyrie Trace System is a program developed to increase the performance of IS by mimicking the former winners of Mondo Grosso. Due to various reason including pilot safety, the research, development, and application of this system is strictly banned by international treaty.


Schwarz Regen

Laura's personal IS and a 3rd Gen. IS prototype developed in German.

Designed around AIC (Active Inertia Canceller) which is capable of projecting an inertia negating field, it is based around CQC (where AIC is most effective) but is also equipped with several Equalizer which capable of ranged combat, making it a fairly stable all-round type.

Basic armament (Preset) consists of AIC projector and 6 wire-guided daggers. The wires connected to daggers are strong enough function as tentacles, capable of to immobilizing, constricting, and even throwing a target as large as IS.

Schwarz Regen is also equipped with a .80 cal heavy rail gun, mounted on shoulder.

It was initially installed with an illegal Valkyrie Trace system which was kept secret even to Laura, but was subsequently removed after its discovery.

[MeganeShounen]

So let me get this straight...

Ichika's IS is similar to the Stargazer Gundam, in that it can nullify and attack energy projectiles/attacks? Only with that handy "high energy requirement" part. Kind of willing to bet that the name was at least intended by the author as a homage...

Houki's IS is a... erm, "support type dual katana" unit that acts as the sister/brother unit to Ichika's IS?

Cecilia seems to be the classic tsundere, who uses the Quebeley?

I guess there aren't too many shows that feature two childhood friends.

Charles/Charlotte is/was a crossdressing Shirou that always has Unlimited Blade Works in effect? (See: Shirou's fight against Gilgamesh, UBW movie)

Laura and her IS seems to remind me of Kakashi (the Eyepatch of Power(tm) and the "mimicking the movements of stronger fighters")...

And no thanks to the writeup above by zephyr325, I've finally found my first (and probably only) show to look forward to next season. :D

[zephyr325]

So let me get this straight...

Ichika's IS is similar to the Stargazer Gundam, in that it can nullify and attack energy projectiles/attacks? Only with that handy "high energy requirement" part. Kind of willing to bet that the name was at least intended by the author as a homage...

Houki's IS is a... erm, "support type dual katana" unit that acts as the sister/brother unit to Ichika's IS?

Cecilia seems to be the classic tsundere, who uses the Quebeley?

I guess there aren't too many shows that feature two childhood friends.

Charles/Charlotte is/was a crossdressing Shirou that always has Unlimited Blade Works in effect? (See: Shirou's fight against Gilgamesh, UBW movie)

Laura and her IS seems to remind me of Kakashi (the Eyepatch of Power(tm) and the "mimicking the movements of stronger fighters")...





I don't remember seeing Stargazer engaging CQC, so maybe it is a little different, although the energy-negating part is similar.

the energy-negating ability is only activated when he uses One Off ability (and is limited to his blade which is mainly used to negate opponent's shield, and the energy shield projected from Setsura which is used to block energy-based attack) which drains his shield energy also.

I think the name of Ichika's IS strongly implies that it is (At least the core is) White Knight, the first combat-capable 1st Gen. IS ever built.

The letter 白 from 白式, which means 'white' is pronounced 'Byakku,' in this case, but it can also be read as 'Shiro.'
And the White Knight is 'Shiro Kishi' in Japanese

Shiro Shiki - Shiro Kishi

Also, White Knight was disassembled and was used as research material for the world in the past, but the current whereabouts of its core - Core No.001 - is unknown since it was reported missing after a break-in of laboratory it was stored.



I mentioned the support role of Houki's IS only because its One Off is ideal for Ichika's IS which has high energy consumption while activating its One Off.
Other than that, AkiTsubaki is an all-round type which - if handled properly - can perform most duties, from CQC, ranged combat to defensive assignment better than others.



And yes, Cecilia's IS is something like Quebeley, but it tends to appear rather weak, probably because she is not utilizing the full capability of BT system yet.
(It is mentioned later that by exploiting the potential of BT system further, the pilot can 'bend' the beams fired from the Bits with her will)



Charlotte only pretended to be a boy because she was forced to do so by her father, so after she reverts to true identity, she does not dress like a boy, at least willingly.
It is also because she wants to be accepted as a girl to Ichika, although the way she talks (which was a part of training to appear like a boy) seem to have stuck somewhat.

So I think it is a little different from crossdresser, although she could pass as a boy when she is wearing boy's clothes (And the author makes use of this by making her dress up as a buttler (half-against her will) in one of later episode.



In case of Laura, the 'mimicking part' was purely the function was Valkyrie Trace system which was soon removed since it is in violation of international treaty.

The function of her left eye (with nanomachine installed) is increased efficiency of interface between pilot's brain and Hyper Sensor of IS.

This means she is very well adapted to process the sensory data collected by IS.

As mentioned before, the IS has 360 degree vision, but because human(pilot) is not acustomed to do so, the sensory data collected from IS needs to be processed to a format the pilot can understand.

This process takes time, and less adaptive pilot takes more time to process, hence longer reaction time.

It also enhance her ability while not weilding IS, such as improved eye sight (with the adjustment from left eye, she can see and identify human-sized target up to 2km away) and faster reaction speed.

[MeganeShounen]

"Type White", huh? It's as if Shinonono Tabane turned it into the White Knight's successor or a White Knight Mk.II.
And she actually managed to pass on Chihuyu's original IS core to the younger Orimura. I suppose since it reacted well with his sister, that would also affect Ichika as well.

Activating the Byakku Shiki's One Off seems the most efficient (and safest) when Akatsubaki is around to supply power to it. It's never a good idea to drain your energy in the middle of a fight, especially draining your shields over for just an attack.

From what you said about Blue Tears's Bits, it doesn't just resemble the Quebeley in combat, it's more like the Psyco Gundam Mk. II (http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/z/mrx-010.htm). Excellent.

As for Laura... mundane usage of powers?

[asaqe]

Lower immunity to the other gender, why Noblesse Oblige's second pilot from Armored Core For Anwser would be able to easily woo Cecilia with his fame as a NEXT, his code of honor and . He and Cecilia would be more than a match made in heaven

And Lin Yin's already my confirmed favorite girl.

[faiz blaster]

It's just me or anyone else also thinks that the premise of this show is way to similar with that of this series (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=10393).

[asaqe]

It's just me or anyone else also thinks that the premise of this show is way to similar with that of this series (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=10393).

That was what some of /m/ thought when they thought of this series, when not comparing it to Sky Girls or Strike Witches (which is seen as "terrible").

To be honest, only the Tenchi Muyo director ever tried to make a harem series with mecha mixed in along with Vandread. But this genre is notably rare, and even moreso with Light Novels which doesn't lend well to original mecha series.

[MeganeShounen]

Due to me going to a "certain imageboard", I've gotten a little confused about Ichika.
The IS that Ichika touched that started him on his journey of female conq- I mean, journey of being an IS pilot:
Was it because the equipped IS core itself was designed to react to males (contrast to the normally female-use-only IS cores) or was it a normal IS core, and that Ichika was the "special" factor... probably due to his relationship with his sister Chihuyu?

If it was the former, then further research on the core itself would yield male-usable ISes... which would probably defeat Shinonono Tabane's aim.
If it was the latter, then Tabane could have probably did it as a favor for Chihuyu, the supposed pilot of the first IS ever created.

(Hot damn, that's a lot of guesses...)

[zephyr325]

Due to me going to a "certain imageboard", I've gotten a little confused about Ichika.
The IS that Ichika touched that started him on his journey of female conq- I mean, journey of being an IS pilot:
Was it because the equipped IS core itself was designed to react to males (contrast to the normally female-use-only IS cores) or was it a normal IS core, and that Ichika was the "special" factor... probably due to his relationship with his sister Chihuyu?

If it was the former, then further research on the core itself would yield male-usable ISes... which would probably defeat Shinonono Tabane's aim.
If it was the latter, then Tabane could have probably did it as a favor for Chihuyu, the supposed pilot of the first IS ever created.

(Hot damn, that's a lot of guesses...)



Since most of these (including what I wrote below) are just guesses and the only author knows about the truth, we will just have to see how the story turns out.
Discussion of IS material is always welcome, as long as it doesn't become a fight.



The information regarding that subject is still unknown, although some of it is hinted during the conversation between Chihuyu and Tabane, at the end of novel Vol.3

Tabane might have engineered the whole plot including;

1. Ichika enters exam site for IS Academy by mistake, which happened to be right next to the exam site for Aietsu Academy.

2. The test subject IS was deliberately modified to appear as if it reacted to Ichika
(Possibly remote controlled or temporary effect)

3. Ichika ended up being assigned Baykku Shiki, an IS which seems to be built with Core No.001, the very same core Chihuyu used in the past, and has some secrets related to capability of reacting to Ichika.
But as to 'how could he still activate IS if his first activation was a ruse' part, it is still appears unknown (Tabane said that she doesn't know why, but since she denies knowledge of lots of stuff while actually knows about many of them, this could just as be one of those lies.)



Sinonono Tabane cares deeply for her younger sister, Houki. In fact, there are only 3 people in the world that she acknowledges as worthy of her interest and care. (Houki, Chihuyu and Ichika)
However, Houki hates Tabane because her invention of IS caused Houki into government protection, separating her from Ichika.

So, maybe Tabane's whole scheme is intended to bring Houki and Ichika together again, so she could be forgiven by Houki.

Tanabe seems to have vast knowledge of IS technology although she acts as if she doesn't know about it.

In that sense, not everything she says can be accepted as truth, but it is mentioned in the novel that she did not intentionaly created IS as female-only, and it was just a side effect, which she didn't really care.



One of a few mysteries involving Ichika is that his One Off is exactly same as the one used by Chihuyu in the past. (while she was piloting her second IS, Kurezakura) Since no two One Off can't be the same, it suggests irregularity.

It is hinted that Ichika's Byakku Shiki(Core No.001) is somehow linked with the core used in Kurezakura, Chihuyu's 2nd IS (possiblity Core No.002), and somehow inherited Chihuyu's One Off, Reiraku Byakkuya.

In the middle of novel Vol.3, Ichika ends up heavily injured when he protects Houki from Silverior Gospel, a rogue military grade IS that was being tested by joint USA/Isreal military project.

While in a coma state (he was forced into coma as a protective measure by his IS, which acted as life support while being deactivated) he wakes up in a dream-like world, where he meets a little girl. And then he meets another woman(this one resembling Chihuyu in appearance, without the face shown) wearing a white knight armor and holding a large swrod.

The little girl tells Ichika that 'she has to go' (probably to help Ichika's friends who are in the middle of combat, fighting aginst Silverior Gospel)
Then the woman in white armor asks Ichika if he wants to be stronger, and if so, why.
Ichika answers by saying 'I want to be stronger because I want to help my friends.'
This conversation result in Byakku Shiki attaining the 2nd Form and becoming more powerful.

Since the conversation between Ichika and the girls were immediately followed by changes to his IS, it is speculated that each one of them might be the consciousness of IS.

So, it could be speculated that he is somehow linked with 2 separate cores(with 2nd core in some place remote), or Byakku Shiki is actually equipped with 2 cores.

The latter suggestion, if turned out to be true, could be the reason why Ichika was able to activate IS while being male.
(Since there are so few cores in the world, it is very unlikely that anyone would ever attempt to accomodate multiple cores in a single IS.)


BTW, I'm dying for the publication of Vol.6, which author apparently intends to finish before the end of year.

The title of epilogue for Vol.5 is 'The beginning of the story' which suggests that the main story arc covering the whole work is just beginning...

[asaqe]

BTW, I'm dying for the publication of Vol.6, which author apparently intends to finish before the end of year.

The title of epilogue for Vol.5 is 'The beginning of the story' which suggests that the main story arc covering the whole work is just beginning...

Maybe we will learn more about it soon enough. And thanks for the info. I need it for my IS/Armored Core Crossover Fanfic

[kuroishinigami]

I'm also dying for Vol 6 ><. The student council president seems like a fun character and I want to see more of her XD(and whether she will be converted into the harem or not :P). Anyway, due to the author's health it seems the next volume is pushed back into unknown date ><.

[asaqe]

I'm also dying for Vol 6 ><. The student council president seems like a fun character and I want to see more of her XD(and whether she will be converted into the harem or not :P). Anyway, due to the author's health it seems the next volume is pushed back into unknown date ><.

He confirmed it will be out during December or so.

[zephyr325]

I'm also dying for Vol 6 ><. The student council president seems like a fun character and I want to see more of her XD(and whether she will be converted into the harem or not :P). Anyway, due to the author's health it seems the next volume is pushed back into unknown date ><.



The name of student council president is Sarashiki Tatenashi.

Tatenashi is not a name usually given to a girl. It seems the name 'Tatenashi' is a title given to the current head of Sarashiki family, and she is the 17th holder since the foundation of the family.

The Sarashiki family is actually an underground peacekeeping organization that thwarts secret, evil plots of other secret (and probably evil) organizations which tries to adversely influence the world.

Although I would love to see Tatenashi becoming a member of Ichika's harem, I think it is highly unlikely.

The reason is simple... she is way too strong to maintain any kind of balance among previous heroines.

Let's face it.

She is much stronger than Laura in hand-to-hand / IS battle.
She is at least as much attractive (visually) as Houki.
She is as much influential as Cecilia is.
She is as much sociable as Charlotte is.
She appears as much open to Ichika as Rin is. (in terms of skin-ship).

Each of those is the prominent strong point of the 5 heroines.
On top of that, she doesn't seem to have any of the weakness so far.

Sure, it's possible that she may turn out to be even worse cook than Cecilia (Currently the worst among 5 heroines), but that's not even close to being handicap enough to offset her numerous strong points.

BTW, the cooking skills (and ranking) of 5 heroines are...

======= Safe Zone =================
1st - Houki/Charlotte - Looks great & delicious

3rd - Rin - Looks weird but delicious
(Except for Chinese food in which she is on par with Houki)

======= Danger Zone =================

4th - Laura - Looks weird but somehow edible.

======= Kill Zone =================

5th - Cecilia - Looks exactly same as the picture from cookbook, but tastes like cookbook too.

===============================
※Ichika's position (Looks good, tastes good) would probably be slightly above Rin.


Personally, I can't think of a situation with Tatenashi in distress, asking for, or requiring Ichika's help.

Also, she doesn't seem to actually love him. It's more like she treats him as an 'interesting subject' and nothing more.

Yes, she temporarily moves into Ichika's room, but it's because she is protecting him from an unknown (therefore probably evil) organization which tries to steal Ichika's IS (and also attack him directly)

She acts as his bodyguards by sharing the same room and also trains him to be stronger so he could better protect himself - all the while flirting with him which angers other heroines greatly.



As for Ichika.... I don't know how he is going to be stronger any more.

His IS is already in 2nd Form, and he already has One Off.
(The ISs of other heroines are in 1st Form, and except for Houki, they still don't have One Off)

Since accumulation of experience between pilot and IS plays a large role, so 'switching to much stronger IS' plot seems highly unlikely.

So it's either his IS somehow become stronger (sprouts multi-core capability perhaps, and gains a second One Off, maybe?), or Ichika himself turns out to be something special, other than 'being the only male in the world to pilot IS' stuff which, while being a great advertisement, does not actually help much in battle.





P.S.

Still, it's still possible that Tatenashi ends up becoming a member of Ichika's harem, but it would require re-balancing of at least 6 people(the heroines and Tatenashi)

It's either Ichika and his girls become much stronger or Tatenashi becomes weaker...

Fortunately, the girls could power-up sufficiently by attaining 2nd Form and One Off
They could also count on their countries for additional support.
(Houki can neither attain One Off(she already has one) nor count on support from major organization, but since she has the 'God of IS tech' as her personal support, it wouldn't be a problem)
※ Since Ichika is also one of 3 people Tanabe cares, he could also benefit from her support.


The current IS battle ranking among IS Academy freshman is...

1st - Laura
2nd - Charlotte
3rd - Rin
4th - Houki
5th - Ichika
6th - Cecilia

Laura is very skilled pilot, and she has experience in IS operation due to her military background.

Charlotte is about equally skilled although she is not as much experienced as Laura.

Rin is also a very skilled pilot. Considering the fact that she has the shortest training background among 5 heroines, she is not only talented but also a hard worker.

Houki is not as skilled as others, (she got C for aptitude test, while most rep. candidates usually get an A or S) and she often lose her cool-headedness during the combat, but these are somewhat offset by her powerful IS (fielding the latest technologies) which is personally designed by Tabane to maximize her strength.

Cecilia is currently (at the time of novel Vol.5) suffering the most since she is not yet able to utilize the BT system to proficient level. Also, her IS is armed mostly with energy-based weapon, which makes her IS ill-matched for Ichika's Byakku Shiki, which can negate energy-based attack with its shield.

[asaqe]

Lin Yin's open to skinship? Oh my god...she screams love when I already liked her character design and personality from the get-go...god my crossover has so much potential.

[zephyr325]

Lin Yin's open to skinship? Oh my god...she screams love when I already liked her character design and personality from the get-go...god my crossover has so much potential.




Um... Sorry. Maybe I need to clarify the subject.

It's not the skin-ship as in general (between a couple) but as in friends.

She mainly sees Ichika as her love interest, and she is every bit as shy as other girls.

But because she is Ichika's childhood buddy (2nd), she is more likely to engage in the kind of activities that involves (unintentional) physical contact with Ichika while fooling around with him.

An example of such case is mentioned in Vol.3 where Rin hugs Ichika from behind(Not the kind of hug between lovers) while they are both wearing swimsuit in the beach, and ends up mounting on his shoulder, referring it as mobile (human) watchtower, which is intended as a joke.

One of monologues by Ichika specifies that He is somewhat accustomed to Rins joke (involving physical contact) and the one of main reasons for it is because she has no boob (an assessment strictly kept secret from Rin since any mention of it is guaranteed to greatly anger her) and therefore wouldn't stimulate him.

[asaqe]

Um... Sorry. Maybe I need to clarify the subject.

It's not the skin-ship as in general (between a couple) but as in friends.

She mainly sees Ichika as her love interest, and she is every bit as shy as other girls.

But because she is Ichika's childhood buddy (2nd), she is more likely to engage in the kind of activities that involves (unintentional) physical contact with Ichika while fooling around with him.

An example of such case is mentioned in Vol.3 where Rin hugs Ichika from behind(Not the kind of hug between lovers) while they are both wearing swimsuit in the beach, and ends up mounting on his shoulder, referring it as mobile (human) watchtower, which is intended as a joke.

One of monologues by Ichika specifies that He is somewhat accustomed to Rins joke (involving physical contact) and the one of main reasons for it is because she has no boob (an assessment strictly kept secret from Rin since any mention of it is guaranteed to greatly anger her) and therefore wouldn't stimulate him.


Oh well...I can work around that, but thanks for the clarification.

[zephyr325]

Here is a couple of illustrations from IS novel and details of a new character.





http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f2/is4_004-005.jpg

An illustration of Ichika's Byakku Shiki in its 2nd Form - Setsura

New multi-purpose arm unit 'Setsura' is mounted on left arm, so Ichika wields Yukihira Type2 with his right hand. (In 1st Form, he wielded it with both hands)





http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f3/1432_006.jpg

Houki with her newly-acquired 4tn Gen. IS, AkiTsubaki.
You can see the secondary function - ranged attack - of weapon, probably from the right-hand sword 'Amazuki' which shoots multiple beams in a concentrated pattern.





http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f4/IS02_019.jpg

And Gotanda Ran, a prime candidate for Ichika's harem.
She is younger sister of Gotanda Dan, a close male friend of Ichika.
(Dan is one of very few male characters in this novel)

Ichika, Dan and Rin were close friends during Junior High.

Needless to say, Ran has some serious crush on Ichika.


The 'before' part is when she being casual, but when she is meeting Ichika, she dresses up as 'after' part.

Her behavior also changes drastically when she is near Ichika.
To Ichika, she appears polite, kind and shy.
Without his presence, she turns into her natural, casual self which is somewhat similar to Rin's personality.

Ichika, on the other hand, feels somewhat uncomfortable since she tends to become polite and shy when he is around, thinking that she is avoiding to be friendly (and open) to him.

She is a year younger than Dan (and Ichika), currently enrolled in a renowned girls-only junior high school of fairly high academic standard.
(I believe they call it 'the ladies' school')

She is also the president of student council in the school.

She obtains information regarding current welfare of Ichika from Dan, and after hearing from Ichika (he visited Dan's house during a weekend) that he recently shared a room with a girl (Houki), she decides to take entrance exam for IS Academy the next year.
Since she already took preliminary aptitude test for IS pilot (in which she scored an A) she has already planned going to IS Academy even before this event.

[kaizerknight01]

zephyr325

thx for the info btw any news when will the anime be airing ??

[Bonta Kun]

Before I start diving into all these spoilers do they actually contain spoilers from the LN?
Cause I don't really want to be spoiled on this series.
Since I knew bugger all about it, I'd figure I'd keep it that way till the anime starts so I'm in for a surprise.

For that matter LN spoilers really shouldn't be in here.

[zephyr325]

zephyr325

thx for the info btw any news when will the anime be airing ??

I believe it's been decided to begin airing on Jan 2011.

[asaqe]

Okiura drew another artpiece for IS. Would this be in the official art of the next volume I wonder.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/14354851.jpg

"Insert perverted joke here"

[zephyr325]

Okiura drew another artpiece for IS. Would this be in the official art of the next volume I wonder.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/14354851.jpg

"Insert perverted joke here"

My guess for Vol.6 cover would be either Ichika or Tatenashi since all 5 current heroines have already posed for the previous covers.

Maybe it could be two-shot, like Chihuyu & Tabane, Ichika & Chihuyu or Chihuyu & Maya

[asaqe]

My guess for Vol.6 cover would be either Ichika or Tatenashi since all 5 current heroines have already posed for the previous covers.

Maybe it could be two-shot, like Chihuyu & Tabane, Ichika & Chihuyu or Chihuyu & Maya

I was thinking more of the Full Color art with a good dose of fanservice in each one.

[MisaoFan]

Okiura drew another artpiece for IS. Would this be in the official art of the next volume I wonder.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/14354851.jpg

"Insert perverted joke here"

Oh ! I see areola on the bottom right of this image.

[zephyr325]

Novel Vol.6 release date (scheduled) announced!!


http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f5/yeah.JPG

December 24th... wait, on Christmas Eve?

[kuroishinigami]

lol XD. Maybe to boost sale? Anyway, glad that it don't get pushed back again.

[zephyr325]

lol XD. Maybe to boost sale? Anyway, glad that it don't get pushed back again.

Nah~ It's just the way they release novels.

MF Bunko J does batch release on every 25th of month.

In this case, I think they are doing it a day earlier because 25th is holiday,

I believe most light novel publishers do that way.

[tsunade666]

so is the author fine again? because the book is finally been released.

[asaqe]

Yep, he is pretty much fine now and Okiura is working on more I.S artwork as with that sexy art of Lin Yin with her shirt open

[tsunade666]

-_- I don't see any possible perverted stuff on the image.... maybe I should wash my face. And it's a good news to know the author is fine again.

[OkamiNoKaze]

Cool show, Haven't seen any Mecha/Harem anime since Dual: Parallel Trouble Adventure, kind of similar in that women are the only mech pilots, except the main character.

[asaqe]

And a guy who doesn't look like Tenchi, I somehow don't like that hairstyle.

[Kleeyook]

The world where female dominate is hell for me. I'd prefer the world in Fallout series much more. :(

[asaqe]

The world where female dominate is hell for me. I'd prefer the world in Fallout series much more. :(

That is how LNs work nowadays, we are already quite lucky to get some more mecha musume this season and as a light novel. The whole Dual Parallel inspiration was icing on the cake.

And if you got a problem, just drop Noblesse Oblige into I.S. universe and watch as Gerald Gendlin outalphas Ichika.

[Kleeyook]

That is how LNs work nowadays, we are already quite lucky to get some more mecha musume this season and as a light novel. The whole Dual Parallel inspiration was icing on the cake.

And if you got a problem, just drop Noblesse Oblige into I.S. universe and watch as Gerald Gendlin outalphas Ichika.

Seems like most mecha fans hate male casts, well, we're annoyed of the rotten yaoi fangirls in Gundam anime where they want to pair up male x male. But this time it'll be girl x girl instead. Luckily it's a harem anime.

But dude, the world where female really dominate, I can't imagine living in a hell like that. :(

I'm not a fan of Armored Core series btw. I want to play Another Century Episode R though. But I doubt those series will ever reach EU.

[Arbitres]

December 24th... wait, on Christmas Eve?

I suppose so. I can imagine people that have taking a liking to I.S will get it for a present. :D Marketing, methinks.


Also I've been meaning to ask this: Has the list of seiyuus been confirmed?

[MeganeShounen]

According to the PV and ANN's cast list...
Kouki Uchiyama as Ichika Orimura
Yōko Hikasa as Houki Shinonono

Asami Shimoda as Rinin Fan
Kana Hanazawa as Charles Dunois
Marina Inoue as Laura Bodevihhi
Yukana as Cecila Olcott

So, in order, that's...
Banagher Links from Gundam UC
Mio from K-ON

Ameri from Tayutama
Nadeko from Bakemonogatari
Alicia Melchiott from Valkyria Chronicles
CC from Code Geass

... Personally, I'm not against this set up at all. Getting Kana Hanazawa and Yukana's already a plus in my book. :D

[RRW]

i read JP wikipedia a bit and have some quetion about it

how many Mondo Grosso we have until now?

What is Kigyo?

what significant of America and their IS "Silver Gospel"?

[zephyr325]

i read JP wikipedia a bit and have some quetion about it

how many Mondo Grosso we have until now?

What is Kigyo?

what significant of America and their IS "Silver Gospel"?




Here are the answers for your questions.

Warning!!
The answers contain some spoiler from novel for the obvious reason, so read them on your discretion.



A1.
According to the information from the novel, Mondo Gross is held once every 3 years. Considering the fact that 10 years have passed since the announcement of IS, if the first Mondo Gross was held the very same year IS was announced, I'd guess there have been 3 of them so far.



A2.
Kigyo as in 企業 or 機業? (they both have same pronunciation)

Both of them basically mean same thing - a company or corporation.
The latter word is sometimes used to mean textile industry specifically.

But Boukoku Kigyo (亡国機業 - literal translation is Fallen Nation Corp. AKA FNC) mentioned in the novel (first revealed in vol.5) is a name of supposedly evil, secert organization that wield IS (basically stolen from various countries)



A3.
Silverior Gospel is a military-grade IS, jointly developed by USA/Isreal. The IS is optimized for mid-range high-speed combat, equipped with numerous energy-based burst cannons mounted on the surface of its wing which is attached to its head.

In vol.3, it went out of control during field trial in Hawaii, and the students from IS were ordered to intercept it when it came close to their current location.

Ichika and 5 girls(Cecilia, Rin, Laura, Charlotte and Houki with her newly received AkaTsubaki) intercepted it but the first battle ended in defeat with Ichika heavily injured. During the second fight, 5 girls(without Ichika, who was in a forced coma state) engaged Silverior Gospel and overwhelmed it with coordinated attacks, but it went through 2nd shift and turned the tide of battle again. Right before the defeat, however, Ichika recovered from the coma and rescued the girls, fighting Silverior Gospel with his IS in the 2nd Form - Setura, finally defeating it.

The reason for the accident is unknown, but it is strongly suspected that Sinonono Tabane, the creator of IS who was delivering newly developed AkaTsubaki for Houki at the time, deliberately managed to foul the system of Silverior Gospel, creating a perfect opportunity for real field-test of new AkiTsubaki (and to help Houki gain combat experience)

There are not much mentioned about USA(America) and its IS force, but since all ISs (467 of them in total) were distributed more or less evenly throughout the world, USA doesn't appear as a superpower as it once was before.
The fact that it is doing a joint 3rd Gen. IS R&D with Isreal might suggest that it is on more or less equal status in terms of IS technology and research, maybe a little more advanced than European nations, but not the leading nation since at least China and Russia appears to have developed 3rd Gen. IS independently.

It is later mentioned that USA also developed 2nd Gen. IS code-named Arachne, a IS featuring 8 multi-joint legs mounted on its back - with each leg equipped with both conventional ammo-type rapid firing gun for ranged combat and blade for CQC - hence the origin for its name.
It was used by an agent from FNC, and it appears that FNC somehow stole the IS from USA in the past.

[zephyr325]

The world where female dominate is hell for me. I'd prefer the world in Fallout series much more. :(




Well, the novel says the social status for women is far greater than that of men, but actually, men still manage quite a bit of upper echelon of society.

For an example, the IS Academy, perhaps the most prestigious facility in the world, is run by a woman (chairman of board, wait, chairwoman?) on the surface, but it is her husband who is actually running it. The wife is just a cover to comply with current social trend.

The novel also says that the social value of men falls to the point of being a convenient pet for women, but this is a very rare case (such as being news-worthy), and the actual social status of men is not in such jeopardy.
I admit exaggerating the point somewhat in my past postings.

Considering the fact that most of the female characters appearing in the novel are students of IS Academy - the school for the most elite aristocrats from all over the world - I believe it is quite acceptable that many girls (or women) in the novel appear arrogant and discriminating.


Come on, many of so called aristocrats(or elite) generally act that way in many other fictional works.

[RRW]

Why only female (an a boy) able to use IS?

what happens in Summer Kidnapped accident?

German involvement (according to wikipedia they hold strongest military and have special IS force)?

About "live and cherry?" (not sure about this name 暮桜) IS, Russian IS, and Nobody IS?

what Striper and IS/VS system?



if you don't want to spoiled other you can PM me

[asaqe]

Seems like most mecha fans hate male casts, well, we're annoyed of the rotten yaoi fangirls in Gundam anime where they want to pair up male x male. But this time it'll be girl x girl instead. Luckily it's a harem anime.

You mean female casts? And female dominant mecha anime has been produced a couple of times, Dangaizer 3, Idolmaster Xenoglossia, Soukou No Strain, Sky Girls and "shudder" Strike Witches, hell we tried making a female lead for an esstablished Super Robot Series. There was only one problem: Obscurity

They are not very "popular" or well known, jokingly some people talked about how Dancouga Nova has zero rule 34. And most of them are made by Obari, which puts them in even further obscurity.

The reason why IS is getting anticipation by many fans is because MF Light Novels pretty much is nothing but harem/Visual Novel style storylines. Infinite Stratos is an attempt to see if you can combine two mostly contrasting genres in a mostly untested genre (Mecha-Harem, which honestly, had only Vandread and the two series was done by Kajishima) in a LN publisher which mostly does romance/harem-esque settings.

[zephyr325]

Why only female (an a boy) able to use IS?

what happens in Summer Kidnapped accident?

German involvement (according to wikipedia they hold strongest military and have special IS force)?

About "live and cherry?" (not sure about this name 暮桜) IS, Russian IS, and Nobody IS?

what Striper and IS/VS system?






Here's the answer.



A1.
The reason why only female can activate IS (and why Ichika is the only male who can activate IS) is currently unknown.

But it is hinted in the novel that Sinonono Tabane, the creator of IS, did not deliberately configure IS to be female-only platform.
She mentions that it was a accidental side-effect, and since she didn't really care about that factor, she didn't see any reason to bother with it.




A2.
I think you are talking about the incident where Ichika was kidnapped.
(the Chinese character for Ichika contains 夏, which also means summer)

He was kidnapped by a unknown organization during the last phase of 2nd Mondo Grosso.
(It is later revealed that the 'unknown organization' was actually 'Fallen Nation Corps'.)

Since Chihuyu was the champion of 1st Mondo Grosso, she was a very high profile personnel.
Chihuyu earned the title 'The strongest woman in the world' by winning 1st Mondo Grosso, so any direct attack on her would have been suicidal.
So, Ichika(who was just an ordinary boy back then), being the only blood-relative of Chihuyu, would have been her only weakness and thus a natural target to harm Chihuyu.

He was kidnapped just before the final match of 2nd Mondo Grosso, and Chihuyu was one of the finalist. With her previous record, almost everyone betted on her victory.

Since she was such high-profile figure, her every movement(including that of her family) was being monitored by various military/intelligence agencies, and the German military happened to be the first to discover the kidnapping of Ichika, so they immediately notified Chihuyu of the incident.

Chihuyu ended up forfeiting the match and went to rescue Ichika, literally flying(by using IS) to where he was being held, and succeeded in rescuing him.

In that way, she ended up being in debt to Germans, so she worked as IS instructor for German military for a year.




A3.
Germany possess strong IS force, but not so much to threaten the balance in Europe.
German itself is lagging behind in 3rd Gen. IS development, experiencing some difficulty with pushing 3rd Gen. test-type IS (Schwarz Regen) into production phase.

The part about 'strongest military' is not about Germany as a nation, but it's special force unit, Schwarz Hase (Black Rabbit)
If I'm not mistaken, Gemany has total of 10 ISs, and 3 of them are assigned to this unit. That basically means Schwarz Hase has 30% of the total national military power, making it the most powerful single-unit entity in Germany.




A4
First, correction here.
Live and Cherry -> Kurezakura
Russian IS -> Mysterious Lady
Nobody IS -> Unmanned IS

Kurezakura is Chihuyu's 2nd personal IS.
(The 1st personal IS for Chihuyu was the legendary White Knight)
Since the White Knight was used up as R&D material according to Alaska Treaty, she needed a new IS, and Sinonono Tabane provided a new IS for Chihuyu.

She used Kurezakura for quite a long time, winning the 1st Mondo Grosso and probably until becoming the finalist in 2nd Mondo Grosso.
The current whereabout of Kurezakura (both the frame and the core) is unknown.


Mysterious Lady is a Russian made IS, probably 3rd Gen. type.
It is the personal IS for Sarashiki Tatenashi, the student council president for IS Academy
(In IS Academy, the strongest student earns the title of student council president, so that means she is the strongest among the current students)
It features nanomachine-controlled water molecule stored in various part of fuselage, which allows the IS to practically control any nearby water.
Externally, it has small coverage by physical armor, but the IS can project layers of water and wrap itself around to form effective shield.

In a confined environment, the IS could project the water as thin mist and trigger steam explosion on target that comes in contact with the mist.


Unmanned IS is first show in the last part of vol.1 in novel, appearing as a hostile IS that attacks Ichika.

By its principle, IS must have a human pilot to be active. So the existence of unmanned IS is quite new. It is speculated that either some organization has the advanced technology to activate IS without pilot input (true automation) or has technology to remotely control IS (with pilot placed elsewhere)
It is speculated that the latter theory is more likely, since the former theory would negate the principal setting of IS - that only female could activate it.




A5.
Stripper -> Remover
IS/VS -> Infinite Stratos - Vast Sky
VT -> Valkyrie Trace System


Remover is either an equipment or a program that extracts IS core from oppenent IS by force.
Obviously, IS is non-functional without its core, so in addition of stealing core, it is also effective method of neutralizing enemy IS.
However, it is not an effective combat tactic since the extraction process requires time. The target IS has to be immobilized first.

Any transfer of ownership involving IS core (either trade or stealing) is strictly banned by Alaska Treaty, so the technology that enables core extraction itself is illegal as well.

It is used by Fallen Nation Corp. - the evil organization - in order to obtain IS cores for their purpose.


Infinite Stratos - Vast Sky is the title of video game released after 2nd Mondo Grosso.
Since IS has world-wide popularity, it is also massively popular.
(It is mentioned that it recorded sales of 20 million copies in just first week or release.)

It emulates the 2nd Mondo Grosso, with 21 IS as participants of 21 countires that entered the tournament.
Since there are 21 playable IS in the game, game fans from each participating countries complained that IS of their respective nationality should be stronger.
This resulted with the developer making 21 different version of the game, just by adjusting the parameter for each respective IS for given nation.
(So that Italian ver. would have Italian IS as the strongest etc etc.)

There were attampts for international match, but they couldn't decide on which version to use for the match, and as a result, it was canceled.



Valkyrie Trace System is a equipment/program that emulates the performance of winners from Mondo Grosso.
Basically, it tries to copy all aspects of previous Mondo Grosso champion, theoretically enabling any IS to fight like the champion - who is basically the world's strongest.

Obviously, the system is flawed that it strains the pilot to extreme level, often threatening her life.
As the result, R&D and emplyment of VT system is strictly banned by Alaska Treaty.

[RRW]

Here's the answer.



A1.
The reason why only female can activate IS (and why Ichika is the only male who can activate IS) is currently unknown.

But it is hinted in the novel that Sinonono Tabane, the creator of IS, did not deliberately configure IS to be female-only platform.
She mentions that it was a accidental side-effect, and since she didn't really care about that factor, she didn't see any reason to bother with it.




A2.
I think you are talking about the incident where Ichika was kidnapped.
(the Chinese character for Ichika contains 夏, which also means summer)

He was kidnapped by a unknown organization during the last phase of 2nd Mondo Grosso.
(It is later revealed that the 'unknown organization' was actually 'Fallen Nation Corps'.)

Since Chihuyu was the champion of 1st Mondo Grosso, she was a very high profile personnel.
Chihuyu earned the titled 'The strongest woman in the world' by winning 1st Mondo Grosso, so any direct attack on her would have been suicidal.
So, Ichika(who was just an ordinary boy), being the only blood-relative of Chihuyu, would have been her only weakness and thus a natural target to harm Chihuyu.

He was kidnapped just before the final match of 2nd Mondo Grosso, and Chihuyu was one of the finalist. With her previous record, almost everyone betted on her victory.

Since she was such high-profile figure, her every movement was being monitored by various military/intelligence agencies, and the German military happened to be the first to discover the kidnapping of Ichika, so they immediately notified Chihuyu of the incident.

And Chihuyu ended up forfeiting the match and went to rescue Ichika, literally flying(by using IS) to where he was being held, and succeeded in rescuing him.

In that way, she ended up being in debt to Germans, so she worked as IS instructor for German military for a year.




A3.
Germany possess strong IS force, but not so much to threaten the balance in Europe.
German itself is lagging behind in 3rd Gen. IS development, experiencing some difficulty with pushing 3rd Gen. test-type IS (Schwarz Regen) into production phase.

The part about 'strongest military' is not about Germany as a nation, but it's special force unit, Schwarz Hase (Black Rabbit)
If I'm not mistaken, Gemany has total of 10 ISs, and 3 of them are assigned to this unit. That basically means Schwarz Hase has 30% of the total national military power, making it the most powerful single-unit entity in Germany.




A4
First, correction here.
Live and Cherry -> Kurezakura
Russian IS -> Mysterious Lady
Nobody IS -> Unmanned IS

Kurezakura is Chihuyu's 2nd personal IS.
(The 1st personal IS for Chihuyu was the legendary White Knight)
Since the White Knight was used up as R&D material according to Alaska Treaty, she needed a new IS, and Sinonono Tabane provided a new IS for Chihuyu.

She used Kurezakura for quite a long time, winning the 1st Mondo Grosso and probably until becoming the finalist in 2nd Mondo Grosso.
The current whereabout of Kurezakura (both the frame and the core) is unknown.


Mysterious Lady is a Russian made IS, probably 3rd Gen. type.
It is the personal IS for Sarashiki Tatenashi, the student council president for IS Academy
(In IS Academy, the strongest student earns the title of student council president, so that means she is the strongest among the current students)
It features nanomachine-controlled water molecule stored in various part of fuselage, which allows the IS to practically control any nearby water.
Externally, it has small coverage by physical armor, but the IS can project layers of water and wrap itself around to form effective shield.

In a confined environment, the IS could project the water as thin mist and trigger steam explosion on target that comes in contact with the mist.


Unmanned IS is first show in the last part of vol.1 in novel, appearing as a hostile IS that attacks Ichika.

By its principle, IS must have a human pilot to be active. So the existence of unmanned IS is quite new. It is speculated that either some organization has the advanced technology to activate IS without pilot input (true automation) or has technology to remotely control IS (with pilot placed elsewhere)
It is speculated that the latter theory is more likely, since the former theory would negate the principal setting of IS - that only female could activate it.



You miss last question

for Q 1 i speculate that actually IS can be used Both female AND male. but Tabane configure it to female only (possibly she lie about that she not manually change it) since male tend more dangerous and more likely start the war. Ichika was only one that can use it because he is Chihuyu's bother and "nice guy" arc type.

So What country is most advance in IS technology other than japan?

[zephyr325]

You miss last question

for Q 1 i speculate that actually IS can be used Both female AND male. but Tabane configure it to female only (possibly she lie about that she not manually change it) since male tend more dangerous and more likely start the war. Ichika was only one that can use it because he is Chihuyu's bother and "nice guy" arc type.

So What country is most advance in IS technology other than japan?


Answer for your questions.

BTW, I added the answer for last question in the previous post.



Well, since the side-effect part is mentioned in narration(directly to reader), not in dialogue(talking to other character), I'd think it is true. She could lie to other character, but it would be rude to lie to the reader directly...

However, she seems to know why Ichika is able to activate IS.
(This part she says to Chihuyu, that she doesn't know why Ichika can activate IS. Because this part is in dialogue, I'd say that she could be liying)


As for which country is the strongest.... I dunno. Not all countries, even the information about all 21 nations of Mondo Grosso is not mentioned here, so information is sketchy at best.

It is hinted that Italia is quite strong since it probably won 2nd Mondo Grosso.
(Actually Chihuyu would have won again, but she resigned in the final match)
the Italian IS - Tempest - in IS-VS is described as a powerful IS.

The members of European Union - UK, German, Italia etc... - are all about equally powerful.
At least UK, German, Italia is field-testing their own 3rd Gen. ISs.

UK has Blue Tears (bits), German has Schwarz Regen (AIC) and Italia has Tempest Mk.II(?)


America(USA) doesn't seem to have independent 3rd Gen. IS yet(no info as of now) but the military grade IS - Silverior Gospel would probably pass as a powerful 3rd Gen. IS
(It's developed jointly with Israel, but it is also undergoing preliminary field test in military, so it could be in the step of entering production phase.)

Russia probably has its own 3rd Gen. IS - It's not confimed whether Mysterious Lady is actually 3rd Gen. IS. But I'd think it is because it is equipped with special weaponry.
(The basic concept of 3rd Gen. IS is application of special weaponry that acts as the basis for IS design)

China also has its own 3rd Gen. IS, Senron, equipped with demension-manupilating Shock Cannon.


Japan has its own 3rd Gen. IS, which is Byakku Shiki.
It is actually a 3rd Gen. IS with 4th Gen. weaponry, but because the weapons became 4th Gen. spec after being modified by Tabane herself, Japan doesn seem to have the technology necessary to develop 4th Gen. IS.

However, it can't stop them from studing Byakku Shiki (because the IS is basically theirs) and learn the concept and knowhow of 4t Gen. technology.
(And other countries can't examine Byakku Shiki because it is inside IS Academy)
So in that sense, Japan is a step ahead of every other nation in the world in terms of technology.


Among the newest ISs, Houki's AkiTsubaki is actually the most powerful IS, because it is the first and only true 4th Gen. IS, built by Sinonono Tabane.

The problem is that Houki dosn't belong to any organization or country
Technically, she is Japanese citizen, but because she received AkiTsubaki from Tabane, not from goverment of Japan, Japanese government can't simply declare the ownership of the only 4th Gen. IS in the world - All other countries and organizations wouldn't allow it.

Also, nobody want to mess with Houki because she is the sister of Tabane.
Who knows what Tabane would do if some countries tried to abduct her or something...

So, the ownership of Houki's AkiTsubaki currently remains vacant (practically belonging to Houki, which is an unprecedented event), and since she is a student of IS Academy, and because IS Academy is immune to any jurisdiction(according to Alaska Treaty) the Academy is currently holding at least a partial responsibility and right to manage the IS.

[RRW]

Answer for your questions.

BTW, I added the answer for last question in the previous post.





It is hinted that Italia is quite strong since it probably won 2nd Mondo Grosso.
(Actually Chihuyu would have won again, but she resigned in the final match)
the Italian IS - Tempest - in IS-VS is described as a powerful IS.

T


So you have IS/VS video game? it is good?

Or it is fictional?

either THANK YOU SO MUCH for big information

[asaqe]

So you have IS/VS video game? it is good?

Or it is fictional?

either THANK YOU SO MUCH for big information

It's fictional silly. But great to see another fan around these parts

[RRW]

i found bit more about the illustrator: okiura

he or she is my favourite mecha musume artist. S/he also seem to be fan of nanoha, Haruhi, and other moe anime along with mecha one like gundam and code geass.

those how want to see his work

here (http://xxx0w.web.fc2.com/) Press hangar to see more illustration

twitter (http://twitter.com/is_anime)

[Kleeyook]

So women believe that men are the cause to war hmm!? What about the amazons, mama bears, violent women!?
The reason why men cause wars is simply because it's male that dominates the world as of now. Wars will exist as long as there is ...... life in the world.
All living organisms need to struggle for their life, bacteria cause illness to others, predators and preys, male animals fight against each other to claim the female animals to mate, human killing animal to eat (or because they want to, but spiders that don't eat human still kill humans right?) and the stereotypical, hatred.

Gundam pilots are hopeless to eliminate wars. Conflict will always exist, and war is just another form of it. The solutions to end wars? There's two of them.
A: Destroy all lives! :p
B: Control all life forms with something like mind control like computer. That's a living hell imho though. :p

Why can't anyone just understand something as easy as this anyway!? War and conflict are the same. People (and same to non-humans) will always suffer because of conflict. The thing is that the damage from conflicts can be reduced to naught (not with some though). That's the best thing we can do.

So screw the thinking that men cause wars! :(

[SoFarGone]

so how many episodes are there going to be? I'm guessing 24-26.

[Midonin]

You might want to cut that number in half.

[SoFarGone]

12 or 13? Well thats a disappointment. Mecha series with harem cast with only 12 or 13 episodes seem short to me.

[Midonin]

There's only five light novels' worth of material, and ~13 episodes isn't necessarily bad. There's still a lot that can be accomplished in that span of time.

[asaqe]

So women believe that men are the cause to war hmm!? What about the amazons, mama bears, violent women!?
The reason why men cause wars is simply because it's male that dominates the world as of now. Wars will exist as long as there is ...... life in the world.
All living organisms need to struggle for their life, bacteria cause illness to others, predators and preys, male animals fight against each other to claim the female animals to mate, human killing animal to eat (or because they want to, but spiders that don't eat human still kill humans right?) and the stereotypical, hatred.

Gundam pilots are hopeless to eliminate wars. Conflict will always exist, and war is just another form of it. The solutions to end wars? There's two of them.
A: Destroy all lives! :p
B: Control all life forms with something like mind control like computer. That's a living hell imho though. :p

Why can't anyone just understand something as easy as this anyway!? War and conflict are the same. People (and same to non-humans) will always suffer because of conflict. The thing is that the damage from conflicts can be reduced to naught (not with some though). That's the best thing we can do.

So screw the thinking that men cause wars! :(

As I said, this series at heart is published by MF Bunko J, so it has a certain "Fighting Bishoujo" feel when it allows it, remember the serialization also published Kampfer and Zero no Tsukaima. IS isn't any different from other MF Bunko J series really, just one of the few with a strong mecha theme to it.

[Kleeyook]

I guess the reason why there are less male is because most MALE audience in Japan prefer ecchi theme and afraid of shounen-ai possibility so they cut off. We don't have to worry about those rotten fujoushi but instead we got a crappy show with almost no substance.
But Zero no Tsukaima still has much more important male figures. Kämpfer is another thing though, pure fan-service.

[Kagura89]

I guess the reason why there are less male is because most MALE audience in Japan prefer ecchi theme and afraid of shounen-ai possibility so they cut off. We don't have to worry about those rotten fujoushi but instead we got a crappy show with almost no substance.
But Zero no Tsukaima still has much more important male figures. Kämpfer is another thing though, pure fan-service.

>Less male audience
>Japan prefer ecchi theme and afraid of shounen-ai
>Rotten fujoushi
>Zero no Tsukaima still has much more important male figures

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.JPG

[asaqe]

>Less male audience
>Japan prefer ecchi theme and afraid of shounen-ai
>Rotten fujoushi
>Zero no Tsukaima still has much more important male figures

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.JPG

I sorta agree, but I do find it odd that the casts in Light Novels for boys (At least MF Bunko J) is so lopsided that it is not funny at all. I want more light novels to be about mecha (not just mecha musume which uses cute girls to drive the concept foward) or adventures without a huge harem of girls. Maybe I am just stuck in the 90's or something when the main character didnt had more girls as their friends than guys

[Mizuno]

It's totally ok. That's a trend I can live with. :D

[asaqe]

And a taste of Crimrose Lin Yin Version. Also, Zephyr, is this illustration supposed to show Lin Yin's openess to skinship with Ichika?

Somewhat NSFW

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/CrimroseLinYin.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/IS02_301.jpg

[SoFarGone]

^Is she taking a bath with the main character or is that just the shadow of herself?

[asaqe]

That's Ichika

[Kagura89]

I sorta agree, but I do find it odd that the casts in Light Novels for boys (At least MF Bunko J) is so lopsided that it is not funny at all. I want more light novels to be about mecha (not just mecha musume which uses cute girls to drive the concept foward) or adventures without a huge harem of girls. Maybe I am just stuck in the 90's or something when the main character didnt had more girls as their friends than guys
Frankly what i mean in my last post is my reaction of Kleeyook immature response :eyebrow:

But yeah need more mecha/action-oriented light novel that not having huge harem of girls & more balanced number of cast (Also male casts aren't so retard or look like an idiot). Durarara,Densetsu Yuusha no Densetsu,BakaTest and etc. is one of few light novels that have balanced casts.
Personally i don't mind harem as long as it well done but i more prefer a story that lead character have one or two love interests and one of the male lead friend/secondary lead have his own love interests.

[MisaoFan]

Because there's a moe boom crisis, there's many manga/anime/light novels featuring females as main characters like Queen's Blade, so there's less male audience, the sub characters have less importants moments than heroines.

[zephyr325]

And a taste of Crimrose Lin Yin Version. Also, Zephyr, is this illustration supposed to show Lin Yin's openess to skinship with Ichika?

Somewhat NSFW

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/CrimroseLinYin.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/IS02_301.jpg


Here's the answer

Um, the girl in the bottom (in the public bath tub) is Charlotte. At this time, her identity as a girl was known only to Ichika - who, after hearing her story, aggreed to keep her secret - and she had to act as a boy to the rest of people in school.
Since they are allowed to use the public bath in a very limited occasions, not entering the place might buy suspision from others. So she entered the bath - initially saying that she would stay in the locker room while Ichika was taking bath (Ichika loves the large public bath, BTW) but she eventually enters the bath and have a talk with Ichika.



I think I misused the term 'openness' while describing Rin's character.
Because they(Rin and Ichika) are childhood buddies, there are moments when they view themselves not as a possible couple, but just old friends.

I believe Rin's 'openness' is only apparant when wearing a swimsuit, since she is the only one who aggressively attempts physical contact with Ichika
(That's when she treats him as a childhood buddy, not a love interest - rather, momentarily forgetting about having a crush on him - so it is not a physical contact as in a romance, but rather like fooling around (mock strangling or riding on his shoulder... something like that))

Normally, Ichika would blush and would not know what to do when suddenly hugged by a girl, but Rin seems to be an exception (even in her swimsuit) mainly because of her lack of glamour...
(He strictly keep this impression to himself - or tries not to think about it at all - since Rin would go berserk if she hears this from him or even catch him thinking about it (especially about the boobs))

However, when she views him as a love interest - quite easy to distinguish because she would shows the sign of shyness and strong 'Tsun' while conversing with Ichika in this manner - the change in her manner would cause him to view her as a girl, sometimes making him blush.

It could be a little confusing because Rin is every bit as shy as other girls (maybe except for Laura who doesn't seem to understand the embarrassing aspects of romance) when it comes to the aspects of romance. It's just that there are moments when she doesn't(forget?) see him as a love interest.

The other girls, however, mostly see him as a love interest - except when they get mad at him and treat him like a punching bag - so they would hesitate to initiate even the modest form of physical contact out of embarrassment - such as holding his hand or taking his arm which they accept as an external signs of romance between a couple.
(It might be just an act of friendliness to casually hug or receive a hug from friends (of opposite sex) in American culture, but apparantly that's not the case in this part of the world - although people here (especially young ones) seem to become more and more open to those trends nowadays.)



^Is she taking a bath with the main character or is that just the shadow of herself?

That would be Charlotte, sitting back-to-back with Ichika inside the dorm public bath tub. (the color of Ichika's hair is black)
That's the part where she thanks Ichika for helping her and stuff like that.
Nothing overtly naughty happened in that part...

[asaqe]

Wha? She looked so much like Lin Yin in that picture (Or just oversights on Okiura's part), so Lin Yin and Laura is the only one we haven't seen bathing yet? Hope Vol. 6 rectifies that with a Lin Yin and Laura bathing pic

[zephyr325]

Wha? She looked so much like Lin Yin in that picture (Or just oversights on Okiura's part), so Lin Yin and Laura is the only one we haven't seen bathing yet? Hope Vol. 6 rectifies that with a Lin Yin and Laura bathing pic


Remember the 'maybe except for Laura who doesn't seem to understand the embarrassing aspects of romance' part that I wrote in the previous post?

After she declares Ichika her "Bride※1," she regularly sneaks into his room at night in order to sleep together with him (I mean literally... she just sleep next to him... nothing naughty happens...), and Ichika usually finds out about the break-in when he wakes up in the morning - to find Laura sleeping next to him... totally naked※2 (she doesn't have pajama and is accustomed to sleep naked, saying 'It's more comfortable not to wear anything when sleeping.')

In that sense, Laura is way ahead of other heroines in terms of exposure... (almost on par with Charlotte)

As the story progresses, Laura eventually begins to learn about the 'embarrassing aspects of romance' and starts to show signs of blushing or overreacting with strong 'Tsun' elements.


※1
The correct word in this case would be 'husband' instead of bride, but she lacks common sense and worse, was educated by her lieutenant(now an acting-commander of the special force unit in German) before she transferred, learning a somewhat twisted Japanese culture where the method of proposing to a loved one is 'I'll take you as my bride' - apparantly regardless of gender.
This is due to the lieutenant being an avid fan of Japanese shojo(Girls') manga, where the frequent love propose would involve a prince charming telling the princess(or heroine) 'I'll take you as my bride.'

※2
Well, except for a black thigh-band that she always wears - it's the close(in standby) form or her IS.

[asaqe]

What I mean was by the illustrations for the LN, you know the art that sometimes accompany the story?

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/gyrobot/1290157292021.jpg

[asaqe]

Update: New VAs confirmed, Of the seiyuu cast hired, the notable ones are Megumi Toyoguchi and Yukari Tamura who will be voicing Chifuyu and Tabane respectively.

Nanoha just developed a power suit!

[Midonin]

On the music front, the OP will be by Minami Kuribayashi ("STRAIGHT JET") and the ED will be by Yoko Hikasa and others (presumably the rest of the main girls), titled "SUPER∞STREAM".

This suggests Lantis for the music.

[blitz1/2]

Update: New VAs confirmed, Of the seiyuu cast hired, the notable ones are Megumi Toyoguchi and Yukari Tamura who will be voicing Chifuyu and Tabane respectively.

Nanoha just developed a power suit!

Well, at least we know that Nanoha has plans to mass produce her Fortress system from force. :heh:

[asaqe]

Also Klan Klan shows how a Metrani kicks ass.

[dark998]

On the music front, the OP will be by Minami Kuribayashi ("STRAIGHT JET") and the ED will be by Yoko Hikasa and others (presumably the rest of the main girls), titled "SUPER∞STREAM".

This suggests Lantis for the music.

Ah, good to know. I like Kuribayashi quite a bit.

Plus, website update + new PV scheduled for 11/22

[Mizuno]

Update: New VAs confirmed, Of the seiyuu cast hired, the notable ones are Megumi Toyoguchi and Yukari Tamura who will be voicing Chifuyu and Tabane respectively.

Nanoha just developed a power suit!
I think I found the pic of Tabane, but does anyone have a pic of Chifuyu?

[Kunagisa]

I think I found the pic of Tabane, but does anyone have a pic of Chifuyu?

Only for you.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8043/ceca035a57a1b3e39d82040.jpg

[asaqe]

As well as any Lin Yin/Laura fanservice scenes (Damn that pic being Charlotte and not Lin Yin)

[Washi]

Screencaps posted on Akiba Blog, http://blog.livedoor.jp/geek/archives/51096211.html

[tsunade666]

Only for you.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8043/ceca035a57a1b3e39d82040.jpg

Who's the girl with glasses?

[Kunagisa]

Who's the girl with glasses?

Maya, Ichika's assistant teacher.

[kuroishinigami]

Hmmm, I wonder how much of the original material they're going to cover in 13 episode(more or less), or maybe they're going to use original story instead ....

[MisaoFan]

Hmmm, I wonder how much of the original material they're going to cover in 13 episode(more or less), or maybe they're going to use original story instead ....

The anime will be consisted of 12 episodes. The first 9 episodes will be based on original material (light novel) and follows the story more closely until that the last three episodes will contains a original story. The light novel isn't finished for this reason.

[RRW]

The anime will be consisted of 12 episodes. The first 9 episodes will be based on original material (light novel) and follows the story more closely until that the last three episodes will contains a original story. The light novel isn't finished for this reason.

How did you know that?

[asaqe]

And PV 3 is out

http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv03.html

[MisaoFan]

How did you know that?

When the titles have in original material 5 to 7 volumes, the anime adaptation did in 12-13 episodes. If the original titles have original material for more than 7 volumes, it will be scheduled for 24-26 episodes.

[dark998]

And PV 3 is out

http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/is/pv/pv03.html

Looks good enough, with fluid battles and nice sound effects. OP is standard Kuribayashi stuff. Thumbs up :cool:

[kuroishinigami]

When the titles have in original material 5 to 7 volumes, the anime adaptation did in 12-13 episodes. If the original titles have original material for more than 7 volumes, it will be scheduled for 24-26 episodes.

That's not what happened in baka to test to shoukanjuu. That is why I'm kinda wary whether they're going to do the same thing here too or not.

[kaizerknight01]

nice PV one of the anime that i am eagerly waiting but cautiously optimistic hopefully the main protagonist is likable

[MeganeShounen]

After watching that PV...
They seemed to be fighting a silver IS that has no visible pilot (or possibly a very well armored one).
Would that be Silverior/Silver Gospel?

Does that mean they'll stretch the story up to the Silverior Gospel fight and Byaku Shiki's evolution?
(First half of the PV had Houki using a gray trainer IS, while the latter one had her wearing a red one, possibly Akatsubaki.)

That would set things up nicely for a sequel.... except that there's not enough material afterwards... :heh:

[RRW]

that one awesome PV. seem it use similar technique that makoto shinkai used


When the titles have in original material 5 to 7 volumes, the anime adaptation did in 12-13 episodes. If the original titles have original material for more than 7 volumes, it will be scheduled for 24-26 episodes.

then why did you predict they will have original EP. they can do 12-13 with original 5 volume

either way, Can anyone have brief summary of each 5 novel volume?

[asaqe]

After watching that PV...
They seemed to be fighting a silver IS that has no visible pilot (or possibly a very well armored one).
Would that be Silverior/Silver Gospel?

Does that mean they'll stretch the story up to the Silverior Gospel fight and Byaku Shiki's evolution?
(First half of the PV had Houki using a gray trainer IS, while the latter one had her wearing a red one, possibly Akatsubaki.)

That would set things up nicely for a sequel.... except that there's not enough material afterwards... :heh:

That is Silverior Gospel

[zephyr325]

After watching that PV...
They seemed to be fighting a silver IS that has no visible pilot (or possibly a very well armored one).
Would that be Silverior/Silver Gospel?

Does that mean they'll stretch the story up to the Silverior Gospel fight and Byaku Shiki's evolution?
(First half of the PV had Houki using a gray trainer IS, while the latter one had her wearing a red one, possibly Akatsubaki.)

That would set things up nicely for a sequel.... except that there's not enough material afterwards... :heh:




Yes, it is Silverio Gospel.

The design, weapons, and the backgrounds all matches the battle with SG in vol.3
(Houki is wielding AkiTsubaki, and Ichika's new weapon is also visible)

[hayate-sama]

OMG the preview look good but the sound seem a bit off to me :p may be because of the preview quality.

OMG The girls in the training IS actually do kendo right, the detail they put in the technique is wonderful. FYI the move the girls practice at the beginning called zenshin kotai shomen uchi (http://www.kendo-guide.com/zenshin_kotai_men_strike.html):D an actual kendo move that every kendo participants knew, seeing it here make me getting teary eyes all of the sudden :upset: is kendo a requirement subject for IS Close combat training in IS academy ? :D

I have a question here how can the IS go berserk, the silver gospel need a pilot right ? then that mean the pilot of silver gospel went berserk ? Akatsubaki color seem a bit off compare to the picture on the 3rd volume, more like orange than deep red/crimson. BTW akatsubaki mean red camellia if somebody wonder what it mean

Who is the girl kissing ichika at the end of vol 3, silver gospel pilot ?



OP single will be released on Jan 26th while ED single will be out on Feb 9th according to amazon.co.jp, btw has the cover for volume 6 out yet ?

[SoFarGone]

I prefer the OP music in PV 2 but this one was fine too.

[asaqe]

Yes, it is Silverio Gospel.

The design, weapons, and the backgrounds all matches the battle with SG in vol.3
(Houki is wielding AkiTsubaki, and Ichika's new weapon is also visible)


I noticed that from the novel I got, some of the artwork isn't there, So which ones were that of Lin Yin fanservice?

[ars89]

that preview was awesome

[applejuice]

TAT PREVIEW

If action scene will continue with this quality (+more fan-service), this will definitely get my points.

[MeganeShounen]

I have a question here how can the IS go berserk, the silver gospel need a pilot right ? then that mean the pilot of silver gospel went berserk ? Akatsubaki color seem a bit off compare to the picture on the 3rd volume, more like orange than deep red/crimson. BTW akatsubaki mean red camellia if somebody wonder what it mean

If I remember correctly and according to what zephyr325 said, the Silverior Gospel is an experimental unmanned IS whose AI has gone berserk.

Whether super IS genius Shinonono Tabane has a hand in the incident, it's not completely sure. Is it? :heh:

[hayate-sama]

If I remember correctly and according to what zephyr325 said, the Silverior Gospel is an experimental unmanned IS whose AI has gone berserk.

Whether super IS genius Shinonono Tabane has a hand in the incident, it's not completely sure. Is it? :heh:

as he said the unmanned IS appear in vol 1 while Silver gospel appear in vol 3, if it have a pilot, how can it go berserk ? Valkyrie trace system ?

hello we need you here Zephyr325

[zephyr325]

If I remember correctly and according to what zephyr325 said, the Silverior Gospel is an experimental unmanned IS whose AI has gone berserk.

Whether super IS genius Shinonono Tabane has a hand in the incident, it's not completely sure. Is it? :heh:


as he said the unmanned IS appear in vol 1 while Silver gospel appear in vol 3, if it have a pilot, how can it go berserk ? Valkyrie trace system ?

hello we need you here Zephyr325





According to the novel, SG was deprived of decision-making ability, and the connection linking it to every other IS's core was severed.
This caused SG to treat every other IS as hostile, and either escaped from, or fought off the oppossing force in order to protect its pilot.
(The oppossing side - basically the rest of the world - probably did not know about this specifics, and treated SG as a rogue IS)

Every IS's core in the world is linked by a special network. By severing the inter-core linkage, Ichika and others were unable to contact SG directly and find out what's wrong with it (and if possible, settle the matter peacefully.)

After the incident, SG was marked as rogue and was put in cryogenic state.
(The core seems intact, but it is unknown if the core met the same fate as the frame, since it is extremely valuable asset.)


Sinonono Tabane is suspected to be involved in this incident, or worse - that she engineered the whole event - since she is the only one in the world with intimate knowledge of IS core.

She knew about Houki's concern - that she was lagging behind in the rivalry among the 5 heroines - and also knew that the most critical reason was absence of her personal IS. (at this point, every other heroines had personal IS)

When Houki contacted Tabane, she had already finished building Houki's personal IS.
(It seems that although Tabane is known as 'missing,' at least two people - Houki and Chihuyu - have means to contact her at any moment.)

Considering the past that she allegedly caused the launch of more than 2 thousands missiles (and destruction of lots of military hardware - including 5 aircraft carriers) just to prove that IS is as powerful as she said, it is also likely that she engineered the whole SG incident just to help Houki get familiar with her new IS. (and also help Houki score some points on the heroines' race to win Ichika)




P.S.
Natasha Files (Philes...?), the pilot of SG, was angered greatly that someone caused her IS to lose its 'wings' (it would never be able to fly again) saying that she would never forgive the one responsible for it.

Natasha appears to be an acquaintance of Chihuyu (probably from past Mondo Grosso.)
This places Chihuyu in somewhat difficult situation, since she is an acquaintance of Natasha(the victim) and also a close friend of Tabane (the culprit)

[ZODDGUTS]

That's not what happened in baka to test to shoukanjuu. That is why I'm kinda wary whether they're going to do the same thing here too or not.

Don't believe what MisaoFan always says. Some of the "facts" he says really isn't.

[tsunade666]

even if the original material had 7 more volumes it won't warrant a 24-26 episode. It's all up to the production of the material or just the staff and studio.

I think this one can range variously from 12-13 to 24-26. It has enough volumes to do so but we should wait and see.

I just saw the preview and it looks awesome.

Btw what's with the glowing claw of ichika in the preview? looks like a hadron canon which never fired and stay only at the claws. Reminded me of other palm/hand strike moves.

[LoweGear]

Btw what's with the glowing claw of ichika in the preview? looks like a hadron canon which never fired and stay only at the claws. Reminded me of other palm/hand strike moves.

Do you even need to ask? It's HISSATSU SHINING FINGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

*shot*

[MeganeShounen]

According to zephyr325's notes in the past pages, it's the Setsura arm unit, which is also the IS's new namesake.

It does invoke some hot blooded headcrushing, doesn't it? :heh:

[zephyr325]

Btw what's with the glowing claw of ichika in the preview? looks like a hadron canon which never fired and stay only at the claws. Reminded me of other palm/hand strike moves.




It's the new 4th Gen. weapon module for Byakku Shiki, acquired after becoming 2nd Form.
Because the 4th Gen. module can configure itself to various roles, it can shift shape to fit the task.

CQC : Energy claw
Med~Long Range : Large caliber charged particle cannon
Defense : Directional energy shield (With Energy-negating attribute)

Provided that the anime would follow the story from novel, there are at least one scene where Ichika shoots particle cannon. It's just not included in the PV.




http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f7/1432_289.jpg

Here's a shot of new member of Ichika Harem.... just kidding. She is Natasha Files, the pilot of Silverio Gospel.
After the incident, she is rescued by Ichika's party and thanks him by giving a peck on his cheek.
(and endangers Ichika's life in the process by getting the other heroines mad)

It seems that the standard for IS pilot also includes physical attractiveness... not a single ugly pilot so far...

There seems to be a mistake in the picture. Rin should not be there since she is on the other bus (she is in a different classroom)
So Laura should be in Rin's place. (Maybe the illustrator liked Rin better)

[MisaoFan]

Natasha is American ?

[kaizerknight01]

hmmm any IS Light novels translated into English ?? anyone?

[hayate-sama]

http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f8/IS05_123.jpg

Here's Rin wearing China dress. (from Vol.5)


Seriously that is NSFW

since you bring up vol 5 here, what happened in the two illustration on page 81 and 99, those illustration are really NSFW, and why houki wearing a maid outfit ?

BTW should her family name spelled "Shinonono" or "sinonono"

[MisaoFan]

Seriously that is NSFW

since you bring up vol 5 here, what happened in the two illustration on page 81 and 99, those illustration are really NSFW, and why houki wearing a maid outfit ?

BTW should her family name spelled "Shinonono" or "sinonono"

Since Houki is Japanese, her name was spelled as Shinonono.

[asaqe]

You know that While Rin Yin lacks breasts she does have a nice ass.

[hayate-sama]

You know that While Rin Yin lacks breasts she does have a nice ass.

Ass over breast, everybody watch ookami-san knew that big breast won't last for 10 years but plat chest last forever :D, blame gravity for that :heh:

BTW IS pv 3 for download (http://www.mediafire.com/?s4g1sxk6y4ysjh4) I know there are people out there like me, looping this preview endlessly and since the mediafactory video in youtube only viewable in japan and the quality is !@#$ anyway :heh:, here is the one caped from their website.

BTW did Ichika say something about houki's bra at the end of the preview ?

[Kunagisa]

Found a nice MAD =)

b8D47hexT-A

[SoFarGone]

Rin Yin is super cute.

[zephyr325]

since you bring up vol 5 here, what happened in the two illustration on page 81 and 99, those illustration are really NSFW, and why houki wearing a maid outfit ?

BTW should her family name spelled "Shinonono" or "sinonono"




Here's how the names are spelled in English. (Ought to be official since it's from the novel.)

http://hompy-img0.dreamwiz.com/IMAGE/zephyransys/f00006/f9/IS02_007.jpg

There is school festival in Vol.5 and Ichika's class decides to open Maid Cafe
(Rin's class - classroom No.2 - ends up opening Chinese style cafe, hence her outfit)

[yuiichi9]

How did Ichika got his personal IS when there is a high rate of competition to acquire one.