The year is 1931, and the place is Shanghai. In this tumultuous time when factions struggle for control of modern China, four super-powered Japanese - Aoi, a telekinetic who integrates his ability into his fighting style; Kazura, a former Imperial Army aspirant and current line-of-sight teleporter; Yukina, a telepath who also has talents in psychometry; and Natsume, a clairvoyant who is also a servant for Yukina's family – have assembled under the auspices of the Sakurai Agency, a secretive spy organization set up to support Japanese interests in the region. However, their real duty is to stop the ongoing plot of Takachiho Isao, a formal Imperial Army officer, who claims to operate for Japan's best interest. But can a team of espers stand against the ultimate force when the seeds planted by the first great global conflict begin to germinate, hatching into spiders weaving the complex web of plots and conspiracies destined to inevitably draw entire nations to the brink of destruction once more?
Take an important time in history (although, is there any other?), give your protagonists superpowers, and heap a fair bit of cash on the project, and you've got a recipe for a pretty good show, right? Well, in the end yes, but it certainly took its time. Superpowers aside, Night Raid's first few episodes are indeed set in fairly typical spy shenanigans, admittedly, it has the potential of a smartly written plot but was poorly executed. The same could go to the second half except the story shines brighter when the central villain enters the picture as it dwells in one of the deepest and most unforgettable period of history: the period before World War II where Japan was exerting its might on the Asian continent and where its future totalitarian elements were gradually gaining traction.
The series also suffers from a bland and undeveloped central cast. Yukina is defined by her petite appearance, her powers, her status makes her a perfect damsel-in-distress fit. She's not entirely underrated as her powers show to have strong support, but her characters show a little beyond expectation. Natsume, as the silent type is even showed less personality, only near the end, he gets his own share. Aoi and Kazura are a bit more developed, the two men are polar opposite of one another, their difference in principle and rivalry can be interesting but even so there is nothing complex about them. The villain's strong belief to lead Japan to the right direction and is willingly to take extreme measure to fulfill it are better than most, but that too, suffers from one of the most irritating cliche. There are a few good scenes, however, when the team combine their powers to accomplish a difficult task, or infiltrate the enemy base employ the sensibilities of well-choreographed live action adventure films in place of flashy and implausible anime antics.
Two elements are considered to be the main strength of the show. The first is the clever research. One particular event
is the start of the Mukken incident, a stage that was engineered by the Kwantung Army as a pretext to seize control of
Manchuria. That shifts the rest of the action to Manchuria in 1932, where spy activities continue while Takachiho
operates his schemes for the theory on atom bomb to avoid the inevitability. The last episode takes place in Japan 1936,
which involves a series of events that would be later known as the February 26 Incident, brings a final closure to the
series. Far more successful are its attempt to show Japanese element influenced China's internal conflict during
the time period; there aren't many series set in this period take historic events as detailed as Night Raid, even bringing the introduction of minor cultural references such as
chewing gum or ramune proves that the creative staff of A-1 Pictures deserve the credits for portraying the period at
its peak.
Rating:
The second strength of Night Raid is the use of artistry, A-1 Pictures also turns in one of their best artistic effort and animation to date. The character designs, which actually makes some effort to distinct ethnic Asian features, is certainly highlighted. Appealing backgrounds, period costumes, though in fairness the story and setting here are more the stars than the Sakurai Agency members. Yukina's petite figure, short-haired and double-moled holds plenty of her own cuteness, while the likes of Natsume's tall stature, dark-skinned charm, Kazura's proper look, and Aoi's messiness are very pleasing to the eyes. Setting on buildings, vehicles and clothings are superb.
And really, it is completely worth the effort. Production values are gorgeous, the whole show dripping in a convincing
spy atmosphere. The color scheme and lighting used for most of the series give it a dark, chaotic and doubtful feel for
the period settings and some neat coloring tricks are used with the series' opening scene.
Rating:
The musical score has an old-fashioned spy flick flavor which tastes faintly of James Bond themes and shows mixed result, but so far, it presents one of the catchiest piece used for the next episode preview or spy actions. As the plot begins to shift, the soundtrack changes into purely suspenseful and dramatic themes which hit the mark. OP "Yakusoku" and ED "Mirai e" are both melodious and pleasant to hear.
The voice work is good, its major roles are well chosen, especially newcomer, Ikuta Yoshiko as the young Yukina has no
trouble giving the character the tone she's supposed to have, or Kawasumi Ayako's performance as both the key
figure Prophetess and narrator to make sure the viewers understand what is going on are good, too. Hard to believe, but
Night Raid is probably the first to ever use Chinese dialog to start its first
episode. This is a remarkably well-researched piece as it earns bonus points for actually using Chinese, English and
Russian but is also criticized for its unsuccessful effort to perform Chinese dialogue with authentic Chinese accents
and for using very thick English in later episodes. The Russian accent works a little better, however, episode 6 which
involves a meeting on Pan-Asianism can be a hopeless case as it introduces many Asian leaders speaking English in their
respective tones. Not a smart move to keep seiyuu who aren't exactly fluent at the languages they're not
familiar with that A-1 Pictures should have hired native speakers to voice them (or they actually did except the major
characters).
Rating:
TV Tokyo and Aniplex's Anime no Chikara project aim to create anime series that are not based on any material, and
Senkou no Night Raid was the second in title. It can be ambiguous for its own good, it wants to be a hard-hitting
historical anime mixed with spy elements but some of the plot twist are not flesh, and the characters are left
undeveloped. Luckily, it has a better written second half and four DVD-only extra episodes to close the unsatisfying
ending after the thirteenth episode to form a solid climax. And the fact that it is set during the timeline when
there's one war ahead adds more dark resonance and throws enough strong content to be well worth a look. That it
kicks ass too is icing on the cake.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Story: 7
Characters: 5
Art: 9
Animation: 8
Voice: 7
Music: 9
Overall: 7.5
Good:
+Effective uses of animation and uniqueness of voice work.
+Very well-researched.
Bad:
+Weak on character development.
+Not strongly recommend for any history fan.
Rating:
7.1667 (above average)
Reviewed by Weskalia, Dec 17, 2011
Ah, spy stories. I've tried to get in to things about spies, and it just never works for me. ;_; And since this looks like it's not slap-yo-momma good, I'll probably pass on this anime. :(
As always, I felt like you were thorough with your review and seemed to give very fair scores. There were a handful of parts that were awkward to read because the grammar didn't flow very smoothly, but other than that nice job! It's nice to see some anime that I've never heard of getting some coverage. :)
Ah a spy anime huh? I've heard about this series, though not too much; I even watched it, though it was a while back. A-1 Pictures usually has good animation, so I appreciated that much, though this is a series I don't feel very inspired to go back and check out again.
I liked the attention you paid to the story and characters. Though there were a few grammar errors; that like Snicker-chan said, made certain parts of the review awkward to read. Overall a nice review though Weskalia^^
Honestly, I was really intrigued by the concept of the anime, but I just became so bored with the show after four episodes that I ended up dropping it.
Considering that it scored above average for you, I think that my decision was too hasty, despite how un-interested I was, and I shall be sure to check that out again in the future.
As for the review itself, I can't add too much more than what I've said before about your reviews, or what hasn't already been said by Misa and Snicker. Great job!
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