The second anime series from Anime no Chikara (see Sound of the Sky), Night Raid 1931 (Japanese title Senkō no Night Raid) is a 2010 anime set in China in 1931. It tells the story of a covert unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, the Sakurai Kikan, who use their various super-powers to protect Japanese interests. Intrigue abounds, both political and personal, since it seems everyone has their own reasons for being there. The team consists of Sonogi Yukina and her manservant Kagiya Natsume, who are looking for Yukina's brother who disappeared after seemingly defecting from the Imperial Army; stern Military Brat Iha Kazura, and laid back hero Miyoshi Aoi.
Tropes:
- Aloof Big Brother: Isao. In the flashback, he and his regiment suddenly disappeared during a mission in Manchuria. Because of this, his father fell ill and died, leading Yukina to join the Sakurai organization to find him. And despite meeting him, Isao
- Anime Chinese Girl: Fuu Lan
- Artifact Title: The English title Night Raid 1931 becomes this after episode 7 as the second half of the show takes place in 1932. The final scene of the last episode is in 1934, and the Panther in the Snow epilogue OVA is in 1936.
- Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Atomic bomb development was understandably significantly expedited in this show thanks to information about the finished product extracted from the future. While this would have helped considerably, getting from concept to working bomb remains a significant undertaking even for modern nations that have a solid grasp of the underlying technology. Since their device is never successfully tested, this license is not necessarily invoked.
- Attempted Rape: In the prologue episode, Yukina almost got raped by a drunk movie producer who is also one of the ringleaders of a human trafficking group
- Backstory: all main characters have one, revealed through flashbacks.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Kazura
- Badass Longcoat: Kazura, most especially in the epilogue
- Battle Butler: Natsume to Yukina
- Beware the Honest Ones: Isao
- Big Damn Heroes: Aoi in the epilogue episode where he saved Kazura from the Kempentatai.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- The series. So the gang manages to avert the imminent danger of first Isao then Sakurai using the A-bomb, but Natsume dies, Aoi disappears, Manchukuo is established and history goes on... and of course we all know what happened at the end of the war.
- The OVA epilogue Panther in the Snow as well, bordering on Downer Ending. Turns out Aoi is alive and is happily married to the love of his life... but she's lost all memories of their past together. Natsume's relatives are suffering from poverty, Yukina is lonely and Kazura's life is empty and aimless... until he ends up joining a rebellion of junior officers that eventually gets crushed. We never learn if he survived or not. Considering how this rebellion ended in real life,
probably not.
- Blessed with Suck: Shizune. Having powers to see the future caused her to abandon her normal life and leave Aoi heartbroken. Said powers also drove her predecessor Towa (Isao's fiancee) to suicide after she foresaw what would happen 14 years later.
- Blood from the Mouth: Natsume, after he got shot in the last episode
- Blood Knight: Kuze
- Bound and Gagged: Yukina found like this when the Dragon Lady tries to dump her off the ship in a box.
- Breather Episode: Episode 4 consists mostly of Aoi and Kazura taking pictures of food and chasing a cat.
- City of Spies: Shanghai, which is Truth in Television. Our protagonists are Japanese spies, and throughout the course of the story, come across Russian, British, and American spies, as well as Chinese spies from the Socialist Party and Communist Party.
- Code Name: The names of the main characters are all pseudonyms. Their real names are mentioned every now and then: Ono Souichirou (Aoi), Kishida Takuma (Kazura), Takachiho Setsuko (Yukina), and Tanaka Kichizou (Natsume). Yukina's closing narration reveals that she was never sure if she even knew Kazura's real name since it never appeared on the list of February 26 conspirators.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The opening, which includes (among other things) the names of the cast and crew being decrypted (in Roman Letters)from a numeric substitution cipher over a background of Hiragana typewriter keys.
- Doing It for the Art: In-universe example. A master violinist has been convinced to do spy work and forward information by encoding it in his music. Once the broadcast of his performance has been cut, he keeps playing anyway, for the music's sake.
- The Dragon:
- Kuze to Isao.
- Isao to Sakurai.
- Dramatic Irony: Used to great effect. Pretty much everyone's ideals get trampled on by history. The point gets hammered home when Kazura, in a fit of optimism, tells Aoi that the vision of the future seen by Shizune is perhaps just one of many possibilities, and only time will tell if it comes true or not. It will come true.
- Dreadful Musician: Aoi really sucks at playing the violin, but that doesn't stop him from playing it. He probably doesn't realize how awful he is.
- Dressing as the Enemy: How Aoi and Kazura infiltrated the warlord's base in episode 1.
- Elegant Classical Musician: Aoi and Shizune with the caveat that Aoi sucks at playing the violin. Turns out that Yukina is pretty good for an amateur - noticeably better than Aoi.
- Face–Heel Turn: Kazura got easily persuaded by Isao to join his side. But he had a Heel Realization when Natsume dies.
- Failed Dramatic Exit: Shizune appears in front of a group of soldiers to give them a gravely serious warning about the future during a blackout. When the lights went back on, they all assume that she magically disappeared; only to watch her have trouble opening the door.
- Faking the Dead: Shizune
- Fanservice:
- Episode 8's Sentou Scene.
- Yukina is almost always depicted wearing sexy qipaos in official art. She never wears one in the series itself.
- Faux Fluency:
- Every foreign language that appears, especially on part of the main characters. (Natsume's Chinese is pretty good, though.) At least they put some effort in it: the credits show that they had Chinese and English/German speech coaches.
- Averted in the case of most native non-Japanese speakers (except for Fuu Lan), most of whom got to be voiced by native speakers of their language, even Chinese walla.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: After Natsume's death and Sakurai Kikan dissolved, the remaining members (sans Aoi who is recovering from his injuries at the end of the last episode) broke up. When Yukina met Kazura again in 1936 and tries to reconnect with him, Kazura brushes it off and reminds her that they need to move on. They met again near the end with Aoi, who saved Kazura's life from the Kempentai. But Kazura has to break up from them again to join the rebellion.
- Flash Back: Used to reveal the characters' backstories and motivations.
- Food Porn: Episode 4, in which Aoi and Kazura spend a lot of time photographing delicious-looking Chinese food.
- Foregone Conclusion: Once it becomes clear that the series is not going to diverge into an Alternate Universe history.
- For Science!: Ichinose
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Aoi (Cynic), Yukina (Realist), Kazura (Optimist), Natsume (Apathetic)
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Aoi(Sanguine), Yukina (Choleric), Kazura (Melancholic), Natsume (Phlegmatic)
- Friendly Sniper: Natsume
- Government Agency of Fiction: Sakurai Kikan
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: There's Chinese, Russian, German, and English. Used for realism purposes and to emphasize the cosmopolitan setting, but tends to be rather poorly performed on the main characters' part. On the other hand, they had real foreigners (often native speakers) voicing most European characters, and also had native Chinese speakers voice native Chinese characters (except for Fuu Lan). Though why they are speaking Mandarin rather than Shanghainese is still a mystery. One should note that in context they're often doing a good job, as the characters are speaking foreign languages and it's natural that they have thick accents (although as spies, the main characters are supposed to be good at Chinese enough to blend in seamlessly). The only egregious example is Fuu Lan who is supposed to be a native but plays this trope straight. Apparently it's easier to have a Japanese VA fake Chinese-accented Japanese than train Chinese VA's to do Japanese lines and have the accent come naturally. The DVDs and Blu-ray feature a "dubbed" version of the show as an extra, where all scenes where originally foreign languages were used are dubbed over in Japanese.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Given the time period which is set in Real Life history, there are no good guys and bad guys. The antagonist, Isao Takachiho, wants to prevent World War II from happening after his late fiancée showed him the vision of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in order to do it, he built a prototype atomic bomb and threatened to use it on those at Emperor Puyi's coronation just to make a point. The four members of Sakurai Kikan are doing this for the sake of Imperial Japan, who would later be responsible for the various war crimes and atrocities in the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII. The members have different motives and beliefs for joining the group: Aoi is liberal-minded and disagrees with his country's policies; Yukina wants to find Isao who is her brother; Natsume tags along to protect her and Kazura is coerced by Sakurai to join the group because of the belief that his powers would benefit for the country.
- The Handler: Sakurai Shinichirou
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Fuu Lan thought that Yukina and Aoi were a couple. But Yukina and Natsume explicitly state that they're not.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Isao. See Taking the Bullet.
- Hidden Depths: The Picture Drama shows that Kazura has a sweet tooth.
- Historical Domain Character: By episodes 7 and 8, important figures such as the perpetrators of the Mukden Incident (Kanji Ishiwara and Seishirou Itagaki), Yoshitsugu Tatekawa (who failed to stop the invasion of Manchuria), Emperor Puyi and British diplomat Victor Bulwer-Lytton. Isao and Shizune are the only characters who get to interact some of them.
- Historical Fiction: Set in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Notably for a piece of Japanese entertainment, the show is far from historical revisionism.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Kazura and Shizune. For Kazura, he resents using his powers because they are the reason why he didn't get a chance to join the Imperial Army after his graduation. For Shizune, her powers and role forced her to fake her death and leave Aoi. She gets reunited with him in the epilogue, but the price is the loss of nearly all of her memories.
- The Infiltration: More than once.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Natsume, apparently.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: This is the power of Ichishi, Sakurai's attendant. He uses it on Shizuna in the last episode as her request.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the Picture Drama, Natsume, and Yukina lampshade how easily identifiable they are (Natsume with his height and peculiar hair, and Yukina with her beauty marks), and Yukina wonders what good they are as spies.
- The Man Behind the Man: Sakurai Shinichirou, to Takachiho Isao.
- Mind over Matter: Aoi's power, though his usage has some kind of time limitation.
- Mind Screw: The OVA episode Devil of the Opium Den, with a good dose of
Nightmare Fuel. - Misplaced Accent: Historical British diplomat Victor Bulwer-Lytton is in one episode, speaking with a distinctly North American accent. In later releases, he has been re-dubbed with a British accent.
- Mission Control: Yukina uses her powers to serve this role for the rest of the group.
- Mundane Utility: Their cover as photographers.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Kuze to Isao.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Subverted. The name of the weapon is never mentioned (mostly because most characters don't know exactly what it is, except for being a "new type of bomb"), but it is made clear in the context that they are talking about the A-bomb.
- Oh, Crap!: Aoi and Kazura's reaction in episode 4 when they found out that a cat stole the bag of films.
- Ojou: Yukina
- One-Man Army: Kazura, when he's not using his powers. Look at the prologue episode where he single-handedly defeated all the mooks including the Dragon Lady. But again, he did have some help from Aoi's powers.
- Opium Den: Devil of the Opium Den. Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Photo Montage: The ending credits is composed of displaying four pictures framed on walls one by one in slow motion; the first is a shot of a railway tracknote , the second is Kazura's graduation photograph from the military school, the third is a group photograph of Yukina, Isao, Towa (Isao's fiancee) and Natsume and the fourth is a photograph of Aoi and Shizune in wedding attire.
- Pistol-Whipping: Kazura does this in cool way on Kuse in episode 3.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Fuu Lan. The only time that she did something serious is in episode 5 where she witnesses Kazura, being held by the Kuomintang, and warns Aoi about it.
- Psychic Powers: The protagonist's powers, respectively: Mind over Matter (Aoi), Telepathy (Yukina), Teleportation (Kazura), X-Ray Vision (Natsume) and Seer (Shizune).
- Psychic Nosebleed: Happens to Yukina, when she's materializing an illusion of a nuclear bombing to the people in Xinjing.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Chief Shin'ichirou. Or so it seems.
- Recap Episode: In place of episode 7 which depicts the Mukden Incident and as such wasn't allowed to air on TV. Though the end of the recap episode show parts of the episode 7 where they revealed the perpetrators of the said incident. (Episode 7 was streamed online instead.)
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The dichotomy between Aoi (red) and Kazura (blue).
- Serious Business: Part of what makes the Breather Episode funny is that Aoi and Kazura act as if they are on a serious spying mission despite the mundane circumstances of the episode.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Kazura, when he's not in disguise. Isao also look good in a suit. Aoi is an aversion, he almost always appears with a loose tie, open collar, and rolled sleeves.
- Shown Their Work: The staff did some fine research on the historical events of the period, especially the Mukden Incident and the February 26 incident while ignoring the revisionist viewpoints favored by Japanese right-wing extremists. However, there are still some minor mistakes, such as Kazura claiming to have read The Little Prince (published in 1943) when he was a young boy.
- The Smurfette Principle; Yukina is the sole female in Sakurai Kikan while Shizune is the sole female member of Isao's faction.
- Spy Fiction: The first half (most especially the first episode) started out as Martini then it went to Stale Beer.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Aoi and Shizune.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: a big part of Shizune's schtick as the Oracle, at least until a balky door latch turns it into a Failed Dramatic Exit
- Tearjerker: Yukina's backstory.
- Taking the Bullet: Isao takes one in the final episode to protect Yukina from Sakurai. Sakurai even claims that he deliberately aimed at Yukina assuming Isao would take the bullet for his little sister.
- Telepathy:
- Yukina's power. She reads minds and coordinates the team by projecting her thoughts to them and moving bits of information from head to head. She also seems to have some small measure of psychometric abilities.
- As it turns out, the power runs in the family: Isao has something similar as well.
- Teleportation: Kazura's power. Kuze also has it.
- Theme Naming: The Sakurai Kikan members are named after various plants. Aoi: hollyhock, Kazura: kudzu, Yukina: a kind of vegetable, Natsume: jujube, Sakurai: cherry blossom.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: The TV version included a disclaimer at the end of each episode.
- The '30s: The series takes place in 1931 to 1932 while the epilogue is set in 1936.
- Trademark Favorite Food: The guys of the Sakurai Kikan like baozi.
- Throw-Away Guns: In episode 6, Kazura throws his gun at Kuse after it ran out of ammo and to test if Kuse has a limit on his teleporting powers.
- Tomato Surprise: Ichishi's true identity.
- The Unreveal: By the end of the Picture Drama, we never know what's under the microfilm that Natsume and Yukina had been passing on to Aoi and Kazura. Only Yukina seem to know.
- The Voiceless: Ichishi utters exactly three lines in the entire show.
- Waistcoat of Style: Kazura wears one under his jacket usually. But you get to see it in the Picture Drama.
- We Can Rule Together: Isao recruits Aoi and Kazura to join his side. Aoi refuses the offer but Kazura, on the other hand...
- Weaksauce Weakness: Each character with psychic powers has their own limitation. Isao, Ichishi and Shizune are the only ones whose limitations are not identified:
- Aoi can use his power for only a certain matter of time.
- Kazura can only teleport if he can see the point of destination.
- Yukina's ability can be enhanced if she smell flowers. The OVA episode Devil of the Opium Den seem to suggest that the opium affected her ability.
- Natsume's power can work best on a full moon and not on a new moon.
- Kuse can also teleport but only on a small radius.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Takachiho Isao.
- With Catlike Tread: Involving an actual cat, at that. Aoi and Kazura are preparing to infiltrate a gang hideout when Aoi steps on the tail of a nearby cat, who causes a ruckus by screeching and running down the alley (knocking over several things in its way) right into the hideout.
- Would Hit a Girl: In the prologue episode, Kazura throws off the Dragon Lady into the box.
- X-Ray Vision: Natsume has this power, which works best at full moon and is weak at new moon.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Kuse in episode 6.
