Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry

This is quite simply one of my favorite anime series, ever. It's amazing how much tension, mystery, drama, romance, and anguish it packs into just 13 episodes. Occasional comedic interludes underscore the generally serious nature of the show. So, what is it about? Set in a far-off future, it tells the story of a fascinating young girl named Sara Werec. She is smart and competitive, yet kind and caring. She is also completely devoted to her older brother Ralph, who is all the family she has in the entire galaxy. Unfortunately Ralph, a mecha pilot, has been sent to theopposite end of said galaxy to fight. Because of the time-distorting effects of near-lightspeed travel, the only way Sara will ever see her brother again is by becoming a pilot herself. Of course if things could work out that easily, this series wouldn't be nearly as exciting as it is. Soukou no Strain is full of unexpected twists and turns, perfectly delivered. However, unlike other series that execute decent plots with cliche casts, this anime derives its impact from its strong and varied characters. Sara, Ralph, and a few others make up the core. The development of this group over the course of the series is in turns pleasant and horrifying, but always dramatic and interesting to watch. Even the support characters stick out in my mind; though superficially stereotypical, they are put in trying situations that expose an inner layer of thoughts and emotions. Ultimately the focus of this story is on the characters, and therein lies its power. At the same time, Soukou no Strain is a well thought out piece of science fiction. It uses non-trivial scientific concepts (ie. consequences of relativity) in a credible manner. The beautifully designed mechas are smoothly animated. Action sequences are exciting and involve an array of interesting tactics. There is actual thinking involved! If you are a fan of thrilling stories, real characters, or intelligent science fiction, you owe it to yourself to see Soukou no Strain. The first few episodes are especially intense, and I have no doubt that they will get you hooked. I re-watch them more often than anything else from any other series. Particularly, the scream at the end of episode 1 gives me shivers just from thinking about it. Incidentally, the character names and storyline of Soukou no Strain are loosely (and I mean, loosely) based off of Francis Hodgson Burnett's 1905 book "A Little Princess". Watching this anime inspired me to check it out at the library. I was delightfully surprised by a charming tale that wormed its way into my heart and remains a cherished favorite. I believe you can find the text online; I highly recommend you give it a try as well.

In the future there are giant robots (shocking, eh?). Humanity has been forced into a civil war (for some reason) and is battling each other in space (wow). There are two factions, arbitrarily named the Union and the Deague; about the only noticeable difference is that the Union uses robots called Strains, which have to be piloted by a cannon-fodder teenager--in this series named after characters from The Little Princess. The Deague is smarter and uses unmanned drones. Oh, yes, to pilot a Strain, you also need a mysterious black box which is the crucial plot element in this story. So, there's Sara Crews, Cruz, Werec,whatever. She wants to be a strain pilot. Her dream is dashed when her batshit crazy brother, Ralph, steals something from a research facility, pwns her and starts off a rather amusing trend of killing off characters you've just met. So Sara goes into space, now piloting a more ghetto cannon fodder robot, because she can't use her black box thingy, in search of her brother for revenge, reconciliation, big brother complex, whatever. What's more to say. There are stock characters with names from the Little Princess who otherwise share no commonality with the book, unless the part about giant robots was left out by my mother when she read it to me. There's an entire lesbian episode that does nothing to further the plot. Sara is obsessed with a mysterious doll she finds, which along with a superpowered Strain collecting dust in the ship seem to be the most coveniently placed deus ex machina elements in the story. The plot is clumsy and vascillates between people hating Sara, Sara being emo and withdrawn, pining for her brother, obsessing over her doll, and of course space battles which rely on a creative misiterpretation of time dilation. We're supposed to care, but with the throwaway chracters, lesbianity and streaking coming out of nowhere in a "serious" anime, and the critical plot "twist" of why Ralph went batshit insane in the first place which is poorly paced and thrown in near the end, and the show all falls apart. Sara and Ralph, and the rest of the cast, are terribly one dimensional. Oh, yes, and then there's the lolis. Without adding spoilers, there are these mysterious space lolis and how the show deals with that element is also cliched and tries to teach a lesson about humanity that is an overused and recurrent theme. This is a casual space robot jockey anime pretending to be serious. It'll make you laugh at all of the wrong times. It's beautifully drawn, tho, and the Strains are a strange and new mech design.

this show was fantastic! not good enough to be called a masterpiece, but very close. as to be expected, a mecha anime usually has action in it. this is no exception. you'll get all the action you want in the short 13 episodes it has. but lets break this series down a bit. the art was very well drawn. the drawings seemed to be rather sharp, and a wide variety of vibrant colors were used so it never seemed to get boring. in simple terms the art was great! the way the design team meshed the computer generated design of the ship with the standard art ofthe show itself was astounding. if your not really sure what i mean, there are several shows where your watching it and suddenly the robot comes on and its blatantly 3D when everything else is 2D. that fallacy was kept to a minimum here, i couldn't tell 99% of the time the main show from the computer aided design, and that made me very happy. aside from that, the design of the characters themselves were very well done. the lines seemed quite soft and the drawings were very pretty. the only real difference i can find between this show and the very picturesque art seen in Haruhi or Kanon was the lack or ambient lighting, some shading and a little detail on the clothes and walls but that didn't take away from how well it looked as a whole. As for the story and plot, i though that it was surprisingly well written and entertaining. i found myself very drawn to it. something about the series made it very easy to get enraptured by. the story, plot, maybe both mixed with the characters. either way i found it very enjoyable and thats all that matters. the plot was well organized, so confusion was kept to a minimum. which is good for a short show like this one. it didn't leave you with nagging questions, and any nagging questions you did have were cleared up posthaste in some way or form. as for the story, it was...well...rather dark. not sad enough to make you cry over it but the emotion and story were so well put together that i got hung on it very quickly. you could almost taste what the characters were feeling. THAT brings me to character development! the characters weren't developed to the point of learning their amazing back stories, the show wasn't really long enough to allow it. but what they did give you was enough detail to understand the character and what kind of person they were without the need of a detailed history, just enough to develop a liking for a character without drowning you in back story. it also managed to create a true sense of emotion that i felt had been lacking in action shows for the past few years*. when something happened, the characters let you know how they felt. you didn't have to guess what the macho hero was feeling. the emotion in that sense was so incredibly realistic that the characters developed themselves without the need of a life story. the humor, however, could use some work. it often timed seemed misplaced or overworked. really just timing issues. several times i hand to shake my head at the attempts to make a funny. however it wasn't horrible, and it didn't ruin the series at all. aside from that, the amount of realism used in this show was astounding. the concept of physics and space-time relativity was implemented fully. the fact that the design team put their understanding about the structure of light speed and how it effects time made me extremely happy. I'm an astronomer so thats mostly why it excited me. but don't get me wrong. even though it was a mecha anime they went through the trouble to add a very good level of realism to the show and thats pretty awesome. the music was normal. nothing new here. the opening, and to an extent the ending, theme was smooth and catchy (the OP is still playing in my mind as i write this) and seemed to tie into the show well. i don't listen to the lyrics. no offense but most of the lyrics i read seem silly. i listen to the music itself and how the voice meshes with it. to that extent it went good with the theme of the show. i want to make an effort to point out the sound. i'm trying to think of a good word for it, but i have to settle for "awesome." not so much that the explosions and what not were deafeningly loud or well used, but that every sound was different. i didn't hear the same crackling noise every time something sparked, and the sounds that were used repeatedly were changed and bent to fit the situation, so you never recognized it from before and if you did it made sense for that situation. very well planned! what else...ahh. the only real complaint i have is that i wish the series could be longer. i would have liked to see more of it and learn more about the characters. overall, i give this a 9/10. in essence it should be a 10 but it just didn't seem to reach high enough, granted how very close it was. all it was missing was a little more detailed artwork and a few episodes longer and it would more than qualify. *my experience with mecha shows really only extends past Gundam Wing, 8th MS Team, and a few episodes here and there. so i'm not sure what to expect from new ones like SEED or...what have you. the mecha anime types doesn't really interest me that well and, honestly, i started watching this show completely in the dark about what it was about. i knew nothing. boy was i surprised! but don't let that dissuade you, i loved this show!

Summary: This is the perfect epitome of a good anime. It has a handful of unique and fantastic moments but for the most part is fairly straight forward and forgettable. It isn't bad, it isn't great... it's good. If you're looking for a middle of the road mech anime that focuses more on character development than fighting you will likely enjoy this, but I doubt you'll be moved. One thing I should emphasize is this is NOT ecchi. This is a mech anime. There are a few topless scenes for... reasons... and if you come in thinking high school dxd meets mobile suit gundam youwill be VERY disappointed. Story: 6/10 The story is pretty typical. Sara Wernec becomes a space cowboy because her brother is a space cowboy and she wants to follow in his footsteps. She develops mostly superficial relationships with characters (they are disguised as deep relationships but feel very superficial). She has an arch rival who she needs to overcome to ensure the safety of the world. The reason for the main antagonist existing is to watch the world burn because of some terrible thing humans did. These are all very typical tropes and I don't think there is enough difference to make this anything but good. Art: 7/10 The art is good. The mechs look cool and the mech combat flows nicely. The characters all have diverse models and the art is drawn well. I likely how the MC Sara had a kind of butch haircut... it felt unique and I thought it was a good look for her. Sound: 7/10 Again... good. There were a few songs I liked and the acoustic guitar rift playing during the climactic fight was an interesting take. You likely won't download the OST but you may grab a song or two. Character: 6/10 The conflict between protagonist and antagonist was intense and the one scene with Sara and Lottie was fantastic (you'll know it when you see it). That said, all the rest of the relationships were trite. Nothing new, you've seen every one of these relationships 10 times at a minimum and they were likely done better at least a few times out of those instances. Enjoyment: 7/10 At this point you may think I didn't enjoy this. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much. It was paint by the numbers but that didn't mean it didn't have a few unique elements and certainly doesn't mean it was bad. I almost never watch mech anime so these types of anime aren't as played out to me. There is enough unique elements to keep you watching to the end. The ending was a smidge rushed but it was a single season anime with a clear and established ending... considering how many anime can't get this right in several sceasons I'm going to cut this one a break. Overall: 7/10 Overall, a good mech anime. If you a connoisseur of the genre you will likely see how generic and lackluster it is. If you're not huge into mech but like a story driven narrative and don't mind a bit of the familiar in regards to plot and character relationships I suggest giving this a watch.