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Starship Troopers (OVA)

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Starship Troopers
Cover of official handbook on the series showing Johnny Rico inside the power armor design from the OVA.
宇宙の戦士
(Uchū no Senshi)
GenreMecha, military science fiction
Created byBased on Starship Troopers
1959 novel
by Robert A. Heinlein
Original video animation
Directed byTetsurō Amino
Produced byHironori Nakagawa
Minoru Takanashi
Written byTsunehisa Ito
Shō Aikawa
Music byHiroyuki Namba
StudioSunrise
Released October 25, 1988 – December 17, 1988
Runtime25 minutes
Episodes6 (List of episodes)

Starship Troopers (宇宙の戦士, Uchū no Senshi, lit. "Warriors of Space") is a six-part anime OVA produced by Sunrise and Bandai, and released in 1988. It is based on the 1959 book Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. The OVA was dedicated to Heinlein, who died before the first part of the series was released.

Plot

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Johnny Rico, who was a very ordinary high school student, hears that his longing classmate Carmencita will join the army upon graduation, and he himself also decides to apply. Rico learns from his best friend Carl that the Earth Federation is at war with an unknown alien life form, but his determination only grows stronger. Rico says goodbye to his parents and joins the military.

Rico, who is being trained as a soldier while facing the reality of his fellow soldiers being discharged during the training process, not being praised for violating orders even if he saves a friendly army, and the death of his mother, is undergoing simulated combat training as a platoon leader. Unexpectedly, he engages in a battle with an alien life form, experiences his first actual battle, and is officially recognized as a soldier even though he has lost his comrades-in-arms.

However, as soon as he deepens his exchange with Carmencita, who reunites with him after the difference in temperature between the military and civilians and the friction with the navy, her ship collides with the ship of the enemy alien life and sinks. As a result, Rico descends to the enemy's base planet Kurendatsu, and is confronted with the fact that his friends who died in battle and the enemy are also living like themselves, and eventually he arrives at the answer that he fights to live.

On his way home after a fierce battle, Rico reunites with Carmencita, who was thought to have died in action, at a military hospital. The story ends when he speaks of his feelings for her, which he has been unable to convey for a long time.

Cast

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Mecha design

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Kazutaka Miyatake of Studio Nue originally designed the mobile infantry powered armors in the OVA for a Japanese edition of the novel (published by Hayakawa Publishing, Japan's largest science fiction publisher) in the early eighties.[1] A mecha based on this design also appears on the DAICON III and IV Opening Animations from 1981 and 1983, a few years before the OVA was released.

Episode list

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  1. "Johnny"
  2. "Hendrick"
  3. "Maria"
  4. "Greg"
  5. "Cherenkov"
  6. "Carmencita"

References

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  1. ^ Gundam Century (1st Edition), p.146. Minori Shobo. September 22, 1981.
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