Night Raid 1931 (閃光のナイトレイド, Senkō no Naito Reido, lit. Night Raid in Flash), is a Japanese anime television series produced by A-1 Pictures and Aniplex and directed by Atsushi Matsumoto. The 13-episode anime aired in Japan on the TV Tokyo television network starting April 5, 2010. Senkō no Night Raid is the second project of Anime no Chikara. Sentai Filmworks acquired the series and released it on Blu-ray and DVD in August 2011.
The year is 1931. The location is Shanghai, China. The Imperial Japanese Army has been dispatched to mainland China due to the relatively recent First Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. In this cosmopolitan city of intrigue, there is a special military spy organization called Sakurai and their deeds which are buried in history will be revealed.
Aoi Miyoshi (三好 葵, Miyoshi Aoi)
Voiced by: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Japanese); Greg Ayres (English)
A lively, optimistic young man with a great sense of justice, who tends to act rashly and impulsively. To hide his identity as a spy, Aoi runs a photo studio together with Kazura. He has a telekinetic ability, which allows him to manipulate objects and people around him, and requires only that he is able to see the object he intends to affect. While it proves to be useful for situations such as dodging bullets, it appears to have a time limit on the duration of use from the moment he begins to use the ability. He is proficient in Chinese, Russian, German and English and used to study in Europe where he picked up a more liberal outlook on life. He also plays the violin, but not on the professional level. His real name is
Soichiro Ono (小野 総一郎, Ono Soichiro).
Kazura Iha (伊波 葛, Iha Kazura)
Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese); John Gremillion (English)
A man with a great sense of pride and honor, which often brings him into conflicts with Aoi. His strict manners and conservative personality are reflective of his descent from a samurai family. Kazura's ability is teleportation; he is reluctant to use his powers unless absolutely necessary, as he believes that his power gives him an unfair advantage against his opponents. His ability has limitations: Kazura must envision the location he wants to teleport to, and is also limited to the number of teleports he can make within a short period of time. While Kazura aspires to enter the Imperial Japanese Army, in which he gains a lot of recognition, he is pulled out from the military and is forced to join Sakurai because of his ability. Kazura is fluent in Chinese, German and English and is skilled in aikijutsu. His real name is
Takuma Kishida (岸田琢磨, Kishida Takuma).
Natsume Kagiya (鍵谷 棗, Kagiya Natsume)
Voiced by: Takanori Hoshino (Japanese); David Wald (English)
A stern yet quietly earnest man, Natsume was born to a family of poor farmers. In his youth, he used to work as a servant at a garden treehouse, where he learned of his psychic ability for the first time. He serves Yukina with genuine faithfulness. In public, they have a formal relationship to keep up appearances, but otherwise they treat each other as equals. He has clairvoyance, which is useful for surveillance, and excels during moonlit nights. He also acts as the group's sniper. His real name is
Kichizo Tanaka (田中吉蔵, Tanaka Kichizo).
Yukina Sonogi (苑樹 雪菜, Sonogi Yukina)
Voiced by: Yoshiko Ikuta (Japanese); Brittney Karbowski (English)
A mild-mannered young woman with a solemn, introspective personality, Yukina is the sole female member of the group and comes from a noble family. Upon hearing the news regarding her brother's disappearance, she joins Sakurai Kikan in order to locate his whereabouts. She can telepathically communicate with her teammates, allowing her to act as the coordinator of the group, and seems to have psychometric abilities, which can also be used in conjunction with Natsume and Aoi's abilities. Her abilities can be sharpened by the smell of flowers, especially lilies. Her real name is
Setsuko Takachiho (高千穂節子, Takachiho Setsuko).
Shin'ichirou Sakurai (桜井 信一郎, Sakurai Shin'ichirō)
Voiced by: Ryūsuke Ōbayashi (Japanese); John Kaiser (English)
A supervisor from Sakurai Kikan and a former Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant colonel. He is the one who usually gives mission briefings to the group. He is a mild-mannered gentleman and speaks in a polite tone. Aoi describes him as a sly person.
Isao Takachiho (高千穂 勲, Takachiho Isao)
Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (Japanese); Andrew Love (English)
Yukina's older brother. He was a member of the Kwantung Army but disappeared without a trace along with the platoon he was in charge of in Manchuria, forcing Yukina to search for him. It is revealed that he has been acting in accordance to his own take on Pan-Asianism and becomes the enemy of Sakurai Kikan. Like his sister, he also has telepathic abilities but much stronger than hers to the point of using it to knock his targets unconscious.
Kuse (久世, Kuse)
Voiced by: Atsushi Miyauchi (Japanese); Scotty Fults (English)
Isao's subordinate, assigned to pick up Yukina upon Isao's orders. When Yukina does not arrive at the rendezvous point, Kuse tests Sakurai Kikan by bomb threats. He also has the ability of telepathy and teleportation, but his teleportation ability is limited to a set number of fixed locations.
Ichinose (市ノ瀬, Ichinose)
Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (Japanese); Josh Grelle (English)
A physicist involved the development of nuclear weapons for Isao's organization. However, despite Isao's plans to achieve Pan-Asianism with the threat of mass destruction, Ichinose is unable to create an actual working atomic bomb, struggling over the mathematical formula required for the detonation mechanism.
Feng Lan (風蘭, Fū Ran)
Voiced by: Saki Fujita (Japanese); Luci Christian (English)
A girl who works in a Chinese restaurant near the photo studio where Aoi and Kazura work. She is loud, boisterous and straight-forward. She is Chinese, but speaks Japanese fluently.
Shizune Yusa (遊佐 静音, Yusa Shizune)
Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Carli Mosier (English)
Aoi's fiancée, who he believed to have died. She also skilled in playing the violin and is the one who taught Aoi on how to play. She is known as "the Prophet" by the Japanese officials, due to her ability of foresight. As a result, she fakes her death to Aoi and abandons her former life in order to bear the responsibility of helping guide rulers in every generation. Isao's fiancée, Towa
(与和), was Shizune's immediate predecessor as the "Prophet".
Ichishi (壱師, Ichishi)
Voiced by: Ling Qingcheng (Japanese); Chris Patton (English)
A rapier-thin man with a crinkly mop of hair who always wears a black coat and fedora hat. He is often seen with Shin'ichirou Sakurai, but his position is unknown. No details about him are certain at first, except that he has the supernatural ability to erase the memories of a person by touching them. With this ability, he erased the memories of a lost girl Aoi saved from a bomb attack.
The series' opening theme is the song "Yakusoku" (約束, "Promise") sung by MUCC, and its ending theme is "Mirai e..." (未来へ…, "To the Future...") sung by Himeka.
Episode titles in light red are only available in the DVD collection of Night Raid 1931.
Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network found the story reminiscent of Ian Fleming's works, being in the pulp espionage genre, which he regarded as being a refreshing change from other anime series. Theron Martin felt the story seemed like a "particularly strong addition" to the "super powered secret spy" genre, and commended the attention to details in using Chinese dialogue, but felt the musical score did not always work with the show. Hope Chapman enjoyed that the stunts in the anime did not seem "implausible", and enjoyed the setting. Tim Maughan compared the show to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and felt the exposition to be difficult to follow at times. Maughan enjoyed the "convincing noir atmosphere" and "exhilarating" action scenes. Rebecca Bundy felt that the first episode wasted time on exposition and did not build a picture of the relationships between the characters. Christopher Macdonald felt it had "a lot of potential".
