Fafner (Anime/PSP)

Posted on Jul 30 in Activityby adminPrint

Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor (蒼穹のファフナー Dead Aggressor Sōkyū no Fafunā Deddo Aguressā) is a 26-episode anime series produced by Xebec. The story focuses on a group of children who pilot the titular Fafners in an escalating war against giant aliens called Festum.
At the beginning of the story, much of the world has been destroyed by the Festum and the remote Japanese island of Tatsumiyajima (竜宮島, lit. Dragon Palace Island) has only remained unscathed by virtue of an advanced cloaking shield. The island’s young people continue with their daily lives unaware of these events, but after many years of peace a lone Festum discovers Tatsumiyajima and attacks. The adults activate Tatsumiyajima’s hidden defence systems and attempt to repel the attacker but to no avail. In desperation they order the deployment of the Fafner Mark Elf but its pilot is killed en route to the hangar. Left with no further options, they send a young boy named Kazuki Makabe as the replacement pilot assisted by Soushi Minashiro from within the Siegfried System.
The Festum is destroyed but with Tasumiyajima’s whereabouts exposed the adults choose to abandon the island’s current location. Production is accelerated on the additional Fafner units and more children are recruited to pilot them. It is also revealed that the cloaking was not meant to conceal Tatsumiyajima from only the Festum, but the rest of humanity who would seek to use its technology in the greater war against them. Before long this is precisely what happens and Tatsumiyajima is coerced into giving the Fafner Mark Sechs to the Neo United Nations.

Fafner in the Azure was adapted into a video game released for the PlayStation Portable in early 2005. It follows almost directly to the storyline with two bonus missions and also features new weapons such as the dimension gun. It offers a unique style of gameplay being a 3-Dimensional, real-time Role-Playing-Game (RPG).
In 2009, the series made its debut into the long-running Super Robot Wars series as a part of Super Robot Wars K for the Nintendo DS.