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I knew virtually nothing about Senkou no Night Raid when I started watching it today and what little I heard of it made me very wary at first. It's a short anime series (short as in 13 eps + 1 DVD feature of ep-length) and set in 1931/32 Shanghai and Manchuria, using historical events and locations I had to research repeatedly for Mori background details (and other) - among them the Manchurian incident and the various factions in China, Japan, and Asia in general - as a backdrop for a paranormal spy & detective story, including a female prophet contacting people, whose decisions will put events deciding the country's fate into gear one way or another. (Sounds familiar, yes? No, she's not white-haired, locked-up, and blind, but still...)
The series starts slow, with the first six eps being used to introduce the main characters and explain the complex historical backdrop without any of the usual "glossing over the Japanese role" (or the roles of any of the other protagonists), before the actual plot is coming into gear in ep. 7 with the coming up of the Manchurian incident.
The animation is decent. While there are quite a few still frame pans and not as many moving details as there could be, the makers made up for it with going out of their way for historical and scenic precision: from hairstyles, clothes, vehicles, street and building layouts, street lighting, mechanical equipment, sounds...
If you have doubts about their attention to the historical background of their plot: the DVD feature is actually an ep-long composite summarizing the historical details and information given in the first six eps along with the character introduction.
A nice touch was the use of native speakers (or at least very talented speakers) for the voices of foreigners (which are then subtitled in Japanese), and having the seiyuu "break their tongues" when the Japanese characters were required to speak Chinese, English or German. It's unusual - and it adds to the series, imho.
Special detail: the title sequence mimics the workings of an Enigma style code machine in Japanese!
Overall, a firm thumbs-up for SnNR so far, which didn't seem to get much love from the international fandom so far. I don't know how the show did in Japan, but it's telling that there weren't any Chinese and Korean protests about this one. If you like historical context (and paranormal characters as in X), give Senkou no Night Raid a try. Just make sure you follow it long enough for the actual plot to begin! :-)
If you want to look into it some more: LJ's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xxxholic_wing did a nice review with screenshots.
The series starts slow, with the first six eps being used to introduce the main characters and explain the complex historical backdrop without any of the usual "glossing over the Japanese role" (or the roles of any of the other protagonists), before the actual plot is coming into gear in ep. 7 with the coming up of the Manchurian incident.
The animation is decent. While there are quite a few still frame pans and not as many moving details as there could be, the makers made up for it with going out of their way for historical and scenic precision: from hairstyles, clothes, vehicles, street and building layouts, street lighting, mechanical equipment, sounds...
If you have doubts about their attention to the historical background of their plot: the DVD feature is actually an ep-long composite summarizing the historical details and information given in the first six eps along with the character introduction.
A nice touch was the use of native speakers (or at least very talented speakers) for the voices of foreigners (which are then subtitled in Japanese), and having the seiyuu "break their tongues" when the Japanese characters were required to speak Chinese, English or German. It's unusual - and it adds to the series, imho.
Special detail: the title sequence mimics the workings of an Enigma style code machine in Japanese!
Overall, a firm thumbs-up for SnNR so far, which didn't seem to get much love from the international fandom so far. I don't know how the show did in Japan, but it's telling that there weren't any Chinese and Korean protests about this one. If you like historical context (and paranormal characters as in X), give Senkou no Night Raid a try. Just make sure you follow it long enough for the actual plot to begin! :-)
If you want to look into it some more: LJ's
xxxholic_wing did a nice review with screenshots.
