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First, a bit of history. In the 1920s, China was consumed by infighting and civil war, mostly between the Kuomintang (China’s nascent central government) and various other parties (local warlords, communists, etc.). Also during this time, Japan had been acting out their imperial ambitions. Having established themselves as a world power after winning the Russo-Japanese War and the first Sino-Japanese War, Japan was working to establish an empire that spanned all of East Asia. In the early 1930s, they took advantage of Chinese infighting and invaded Manchuria, establishing the puppet state of Manchukuo. Senkou no Night Raid starts in 1936, a few years after the Japanese invasion, and revolves around a group of Japanese agents trying to ensure that Japanese interests are not threatened by the various Chinese factions.

I bring up the history because I want to highlight how ballsy it is for someone to make an anime about this time period. Even today, there is a sort of national malaise in China regarding its occupation by Japan before and during World War II. Senkou no Night Raid definitely sets itself apart by taking on this time period, as even on an aesthetic level it looks unique. Think Kung Fu Hustle except with less supernatural martial arts.

I say “less” because our heroes do actually have supernatural powers. Thankfully the first episode isn’t spent on long boring explanations about what they are, how they work, then they can be used, or any such nonsense. You see what you need to see, and through the dialogue you infer that there is some kind of drawback to using them. By the way, in case you were wondering, this work is fiction and not historically accurate. If the presence of superpowers made you suspicious, there is a completely unnecessary disclaimer at the end telling you that none of this stuff happened in real life.

The episode takes a bit of that cloak and dagger approach to the story, so you don’t fully understand what’s going on. The four protagonists, Aoi, Kazura, Natsume, and Yukina, are working for someone who is (for the moment) helping the Kuomintang maintain order in China. They also speak really hideous Mandarin—probably on the level of a first year college student studying the language. It’s one thing to say they are Japanese and thus expected to speak with an accent. But they try to pass as Chinese near the end of the episode, so those accents would never fly.

Aside from the somewhat confusing plot, we get to see a decent amount of action along with the aforementioned considered approach to superpowers. Aoi’s ability to deflect objects (think of Accelerator’s power from A Certain Magical Index) makes for some cool fight scenes. I kind of wish the personalities of the main cast came out more, since you don’t really get a fix on who these people are. But this first episode has been intriguing enough that I’m looking forward to watching more.

Tags: Senkou no Night Raid, Super Serial