, is a Japanese anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 television series produced by A-1 Pictures

A-1 Pictures

is a Japanese animation studio, a subsidiary of Sony's anime production firm Aniplex.-History:The studio was established by Sony's animation production division, Aniplex, on May 9, 2005, to animate its anime series and productions. In 2006, it co-produced the original production Zenmai Zamurai,...

 and Aniplex

Aniplex

, formerly known as Sony Pictures Entertainment Visual Works Inc. and Sony Music Entertainment Visual Works Inc., is a Japanese anime and music production and distribution enterprise owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan and established in January 1997...

 and directed by Jun Matsumoto. The 13-episode anime aired in Japan on the TV Tokyo

TV Tokyo

is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...

 television network starting April 5, 2010. Senkō no Night Raid is the second project of Anime no Chikara

Anime no Chikara

is a joint project of TV Tokyo's anime department and Aniplex established in 2009 for the creation of original anime series, which are not based on previously published material such as manga, visual novels, or video games. The project was launched in January 2010 with the airing of So Ra No Wo To....

. Sentai Filmworks announced they have acquired the series and will release it on Blu-ray and DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in August 2011.

Plot

Set in Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 in 1931, the Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

 has been dispatched to mainland China due to the relatively recent First Sino-Japanese War

First Sino-Japanese War

The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

, Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

, and World War I. In this cosmopolitan city of intrigue, there is a special military spy organization called "Sakurai Kikan" that has since been buried in history.

Characters

A lively young man with a positive spirit and a great sense of justice who tends to act rashly in certain situations. To hide his identity as a spy, Aoi runs a photo studio together with Kazura. He has a telekinetic ability, which allows him to manipulate the speed of objects around him, and requires only that he is able to see the object he intends to effect. While it proves to be useful for situations such as dodging bullets, it appears to have a time limit on the duration of use from the moment he begins to use the ability. He is proficient in Chinese, Russian, German and English and used to study in Europe where he picked up a more liberal outlook on life. He also plays the violin but not at a professional level. His real name is .

A man with a great sense of pride, which often brings him into conflicts with Aoi. His strict manners and a conservative personality are reflective of his descent from a samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 family. Kazura is a teleporter, but tends to be reluctant to use his powers unless necessary because he believes that using his power gives him an unfair advantage against his opponents. His ability has limitations; Kazura is unable to freely teleport wherever he wants if he cannot properly envision his destination. While Kazura aspires to enter the Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

 in which he gains a lot of recognition, he is pulled out from the military and is forced to join the Sakurai Kikan because of his teleporting ability. Kazura is fluent in Chinese, German and English and is skilled in aikido

Aikido

is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to...

. His real name is .

An honest and sincere man with a tendency to be bumbling, Natsume was born in a family of poor farmers. In his youth, he used to work as a servant at a garden tree house, where he learned of his ability for the first time. He serves Yukina with genuine faithfulness. In public, they have a formal relationship to keep up appearances, but otherwise they treat each other as equals. He has clairvoyant abilities, which is useful for surveillance, and excels during moonlit nights. He also acts as the group's sniper

Sniper

A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....

. His real name is .

A mild-mannered young woman with a serious attitude, Yukina is the sole female member of the group and comes from a noble family. Upon hearing the news regarding her brother's disappearance, she joins Sakurai Kikan in order to locate his whereabouts. She can telepathically communicate with her teammates, allowing her to act as the coordinator of the group, and seems to have psychometric abilities, which can also be used in conjunction with Natsume and Aoi's abilities. Her abilities can be sharpened by the smell of flowers, especially lilies. Her real name is .

A supervisor from Sakurai Kikan and formerly an Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant colonel. He is one who usually give mission briefings to the group. He is a mild-mannered gentleman and speaks in a polite tone. Aoi describes him as a sly person.

A thin man who always wear a black coat and fedora hat. He is often seen with Shin'ichirou Sakurai, but his position is unknown. No details about him are certain except having the ability to erase the memories of a person by touching them; with this ability, he erased the memories of a lost girl Aoi saved from a bomb attack.

A girl who works in a Chinese restaurant near the photo studio where Aoi and Kazura work. She is known to have a cheerful and aggressive personality. She is Chinese, but speaks Japanese fluently.

Yukina's older brother. He was a member of the Kwantung Army but disappeared without a trace along with the platoon he was in charge of in Manchuria

Manchuria

Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...

, forcing Yukina to search for him. It is revealed that he has been acting in accordance to his own take on Pan-Asianism

Pan-Asianism

Pan-Asianism is an ideology or a movement that Asian nations unite and solidify and create a continental identity to defeat the designs of the Western nations to perpetuate hegemony.-Japanese Asianism:...

 and becomes the enemy of Sakurai Kikan. Like his sister, he also has telepathic abilities but much stronger than hers to the point of using it to knock his targets unconscious.

Isao's subordinate, assigned to pick up Yukina upon Isao's orders. When Yukina does not arrive at the rendezvous point, Kuse tests Sakurai Kikan by bomb threats. He also has the ability of telepathy and teleportation, but his teleportation ability is limited to a set number of fixed locations.

A physicist involved the development of nuclear weapons for Isao's organization. However, despite Isao's plans to achieve Pan-Asianism with the threat of mass destruction, Ichinose is unable to create an actual working atomic bomb, struggling over the mathematical formula required for the detonation mechanism.

Aoi's fiancée, who he believed to have died. She also skilled in playing the violin and is the one who taught Aoi on how to play. She is known as "the Prophet" by the Japanese officials, due to her ability of foresight. As a result, she fakes her death to Aoi and abandons her former life in order to bear the responsibility of helping guide rulers in every generation. Isao's fiancée, Towa, was Shizune's immediate predecessor as the "Prophet".

Music

The series' opening theme is the song sung by MUCC

MUCC

is a Japanese visual kei rock band formed in 1997. Named after a character from the Japanese children's TV show Hirake! Ponkikki, the band is also known by the nickname 69 since "six nine" can be pronounced "muku" in Japanese...

, and its ending theme is sung by Himeka

Himeka

Catherine St-Onge , better known by her stage name Himeka is an anime song singer of French Canadian descent. While fluent in English and her native French, she is moderately proficient in Japanese...

.

Episode list

>

#	Title	Airdate

Reception

Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network

Anime News Network

Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...

 found the story reminiscent of Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

's works, being in the pulp espionage genre, which he regarded as being a refreshing change from other anime series. Theron Martin felt the story seemed like a "particularly strong addition" to the "super powered secret spy" genre, and commended the attention to details in using Chinese dialogue, but felt the musical score did not always work with the show. Hope Chapman enjoyed that the stunts in the anime did not seem "implausible", and enjoyed the setting. Tim Maughan compared the show to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

is an anime television series produced by Production I.G and based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell. It was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, with original character design by Hajime Shimomura and a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno...

, and felt the exposition to be difficult to follow at times. Maughan enjoyed the "convincing noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 atmosphere" and "exhilarating" action scenes. Rebecca Bundy felt that the first episode wasted time on exposition and did not build a picture of the relationships between the characters. Christopher Macdonald felt it had "a lot of potential".

External links

• Senkō no Night Raid at TV Tokyo
  TV Tokyo
  is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...