Cute girls. Outer space. Faster Than Light ships. Will the anime be too fast for fanservice???
Anime
I wound up re-watching yet another older anime from 2006 recently which gives me a chance to put together some fanservice reviews. Oldie. But Goldie. But the surprise is that it’s a Type A show that has both nipples and yuri. And somehow didn’t get tagged as ecchi very often.
Fair warning: most of the good stuff takes place in the middle of the show which looks the be in my third review. So please be patient and please try to avoid posting spoilers in the comments…
Plot summary from AniDB:
In the distant future, mankind is divided into the two factions Union and Deague. They have continued a war for so long that no one is sure when it began. The Union uses manned weapons, mecha called Strain, while Deague uses unmanned weapons, the Tumoru.
The 16-year-old Sara Werec, is the daughter of an established Union family, who attends Grapera Space Armed Soldier Academy located in the Cranial Star System in order to become a full-fledged Reasoner (a pilot of Strain).
Her brother, Ralph Werec, was sent to the front line 130 light years away to accomplish a special mission when she was 11 years old. It takes 400 years of objective time to travel that distance — even by the fastest sub-light speed Union space craft. However, according to relativistic theory, it only corresponds to two subjective years (the time the crew experiences). Therefore, Sara needs to go to the same battle field to meet her brother. Since they lost their parents when they were quite young, Sara thinks of her bother as an individual dearer than a sibling, and she lives for their reunion.
One day, the planet Sara presently resides on is suddenly assaulted by Deague. Surprisingly, it is her brother Ralph who steals a mysterious girl sleeping in a capsule. To search for the truth, Sara gets in Strain and follows him. However, she is attacked by Ralph, and in the process the Mimic — a “copy” of the pilot’s brain, an essential part required to control the Strain — is severely damaged.
Tags from AniDB:
action, angst, mecha, military, new, piloted robot, science fiction
OP
Sara. Mc-chan #1. Really cute. Really gloomy. She has her reasons.
There are female nipples in the OP. Faint. But they are there.
Episode 01
Episode 02
Lottie. Mc-chan #2. Loli. Also gloomy. She also has her reasons.
This ass scene was one I did remember from years before. It was sort of burned into my brain. Especially since I never expected it at the time…
This ass scene looped a lot better than I expected it to…
Episode 03
This stitch was really hard to make. The girl on the right never stops moving…
Faster Than Light space travel means leaving her clothes behind??? XD Crying shame her boobs are blank though. Especially since they weren’t in the OP…. (Were nipples added for the DVDs?)
Omake
I found some but not a lot of omake for a 10-year old anime. I will be spreading those out amongst all my Soukou no Strain reviews. There are some good ones but I’m saving those for my middle review since they match up with the ecchi in the middle of the show.
Thoughts
Ironically, most viewers don’t seem to watch Soukou no Strain for the PLOT. They watch it for the plot instead. Myself included. So the amount of Type B stuff really sneaks up on you. I remembered the Type A stuff but had forgotten a lot of the ecchi and fanservice. So my recent re-watch was a pleasant surprise. Especially since there was enough material for a fanservice review. Including nipples and yuri. But please be patient. Once again, most of the good stuff happens in the middle of the show. Think of it as an intermission…
Another thing that surprised me during my re-watch is how pretty much every episode has a least a little fanservice. More than I had remembered. Unfortunately, too much of it happens off in the distance except during the good parts in the middle of the show.
Strain does try to be a serious show. Maybe that’s why we don’t see the ecchi tag too often. I really liked how the tried to be realistic about FTL (Faster Than Light) space travel. A lot of science fiction doesn’t even try…
Fair warning: Soukou no Strain is a Type A show not a Type B show. Don’t be surprised by blood or character deaths. Also, it does have cliffhangers so it’s sometimes hard to watch just one episode at a time.
I’m not usually a fan of gloomy girls but I did wind up liking both Sara and Lottie a lot.
Cute Girls. Mecha. Spaceships. Space battles. In a setting that has a pretty decent plot for anime. Ecchi. Nipples. Yuri. Fanservice. For thirteen episodes, Soukou no Strain does a pretty good job of checking off a number of check-boxes so ecchi fans might want to take a look…
Notes
I used Iznjie Biznjie 480p R2J DVD fansubs for my review. Most of the torrents for Soukou no Strain seem to be dead and these had the best video quality of the ones I could download.
All of my HD WebMs were included. But for downloading, you can find my albums here: 01, 02, 03 & OP
Updates
This review has been updated for the following:
- Fixed broken links for WebM albums due to Gfycat changing how albums work.
- Updated gfycat embed code from old WordPress plugin to newer Responsive Iframes.
