Review for Infinite Stratos - Series 2 Collection

Introduction

It’s been eighteen months since MVM released Season 1 of Infinite Stratos in the UK, while Season 2 has been out in the US for over a year now. That would normally be more than long enough for an Australian company to license, PAL convert and release the show down under, and for said PAL masters to come to the UK. As I type this, only now have Madman announced that they’ve finally licensed the show. I guess season 1 must have sold well enough for MVM not to wait on Madman, for once again this month, following Flowers of Evil, they’ve opted to go straight to Sentai in the US and source their NTSC masters for the UK release. Although given the lack of UK Blu-ray for season 1, you won’t be surprised to hear that Season 2 is DVD only, with the US Blu-ray locked to Region A. Eighteen months is also more than long enough for me to completely forget what this show was about, so I’ve merely copied and pasted the synopsis from Season 1, and I hope it’s still relevant.


It’s the future, and scientists have developed a new form of revolutionary machine to help mankind; the Infinite Stratos, or IS for short. A remarkably adaptable and symbiotic technology, the powered suits would have revolutionised all manner of activities, they were initially developed for the space programme, but there turned out to be a couple of snags. For one thing, the creator holds on stubbornly to the technology, and keeps hold of the core control units with an iron grip, rationing them out sparely. There are only a few hundred IS machines in existence. The second thing is that for some reason only women can operate Infinite Stratos. While the technology might shift the odds in the battle of the sexes, the end result is Infinite Stratos is little more than entertainment, powered suits used in sporting tournaments, pitting teenage girls against each other for national and personal prestige.


And then there’s Ichika Orimura, who for some unexplained reason is the only male who can operate an IS machine. Whether this has something to do with the fact that his sister Chifuya is a former world champion is unclear. What is clear is that Ichika gets to go to the Infinite Stratos Academy, where he can develop his skills, and become strong enough to represent his country in the tournaments. The Academy is a boarding school. I’ve already mentioned that only girls can pilot the IS machines. Ichika is the lone male in a school full of teenage girls. Forget all that sci-fi crap I just spieled out. Infinite Stratos is a harem comedy!

Season 1 had a whole lot of comedy, and a couple of episodes of seriousness, the nature of which I can’t recall at this point. Hopefully watching season 2 will jog my memory.

This release collects all 12 episodes of Infinite Stratos, and extras across three discs from MVM.


Disc 1
1. One Summer’s Memories (Extended Version)
2. Heart Pain Killer
3. Translucent Chord of Cinderella’s Heel

Disc 2
4. The Mysterious Lady
5. Lovely Style
6. The Secret Base
7. Sisters

Disc 3
8. Open Your Heart
9. The Requirements for a Hero
10. Cooking My Way
11. Looking For Memories
12. Girls Over

Picture

Infinite Stratos gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, now encoded as progressive NTSC on these discs for its second season. In terms of image quality it’s on a par with the first release, a little crisper, smoother, and less prone to artefacting than the Season 1 discs which crammed their content into just two discs, but you do sacrifice a few lines of resolution for the NTSC format. Infinite Stratos certainly needs a decent presentation, as it’s a detailed sci-fi setting, with a whole lot of action, and it effectively blends 2D animation and 3D CGI. It has a nice clean future setting with a whole lot of technology to play with, a lot of holographic displays and the like, and the screen can often get crowded with animated eye-candy. The DVD doesn’t do too badly at presenting all this. Of course Blu-ray would have been better, but the only English language release at this time is the Region A locked Sentai release.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. I went with the original language as always, and was happy enough with the experience. There are some enjoyable performances, even if the characters conform to the usual fan friendly stereotypes, and Sentai’s subtitle translation is accurately timed, flows well, and is easy to read. The English dub exists on the disc, but that is about as far as my experience with it went.

Extras

Season 1 really came up a treat when it came to extra features, with Japanese audio commentaries, a making of featurette, and an extensive radio show segment. US fans were even more gifted, with soundtrack CDs bundled in their releases. Season 2 is barren in comparison, but we do get a few extra features here.

The discs present their contents with static menus and jacket pictures on compatible players. Each episode concludes with a translated English credit reel. Also, for some reason, Sentai have started going the Kazé route when it comes to User Prohibited Operations, although in this case it’s just the player timer which is locked during playback. That’s really only a hassle for a reviewer who’s noting down runtimes, and who now has to use copy protection defeating software to easily capture screengrabs for the review.


Disc 1

Episode 1 (Broadcast Version). The extended version at the head of the disc runs to 40:36, there’s quite a lot of added fan service to that episode, but it’s nice to also have what was broadcast to the world when the show was first aired. The broadcast version runs to 25:13 (including translated credit scroll), and is more tightly edited for the most part, but reduces the show’s swimsuit antics to a brief montage at the end.

You’ll find the textless opening and three textless endings.

There are also trailers for The Ambition of Oda Nobuna, Reideen, Majestic Prince, Bodacious Space Pirates, and Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse.

Disc 2 and Disc 3 just hold 9 more textless endings.

Conclusion

Infinite Stratos would be a pretty decent harem comedy, replete with the usual fan service, if it weren’t for the pesky story, mecha suits and action sequences. I may have mentioned this in the review for season 1, but it’s even more apparent here, where the action and the narrative seem clumsily tacked on to the usual awkward non-relationship antics. In a world of milquetoast male characters in harem comedies, Ichika Orimura is the most neutered and sexless of them all. With all the women (two more in this season) throwing themselves at him, he never responds, other than to avert his eyes and apologise profusely. Of course, he’d stop being the male otaku proxy character the minute he got laid, which would end the series pretty quickly, so he remains comfortably hands-off and oblivious to all the female attention that he gets. But there comes a point where the joke goes too far, it stops being funny, and you start yelling at the TV “For god’s sake man, will you grow a pair?!” That point comes a few episodes into Season 2, and from thereon, the harem comedy is more often greeted with a weary eye-roll rather than laughter.


In between all the harem hi-jinks, there’s a bigger story about the Phantom Task group and their machinations. I assume that Phantom Task is the villainous group that was encountered at the end of Season 1, although it’s been so long that I can’t remember, and there’s no easy recap at the start of season 2 that would have helped. Every so often, they will show up, attack, try to steal an IS or two, and then vanish back into the darkness after facing stronger resistance than they were expecting. The one interesting development is the introduction of the Madoka Orimura character in Phantom Task, quite obviously another sibling to Ichika and Chifuya, and someone who holds a big grudge against Chifuya. Infinite Stratos falls flat on its face in this regard though. There are so many questions about this character, but none of them are answered in this season, and the show shies away from common sense too. You’d expect Ichika to at least ask his big sister if there’s another sibling in their family that he doesn’t know about, but he’d much rather spend his time trying not to get laid.


The animation is good, better than the first season, and the action sequences impress. The show is paced well, and if you can bear the utter soppiness of Ichika, the harem comedy could be considered top-notch stuff if you know your harem comedies and appreciate the face into boobs trip-up. But really Infinite Stratos Season 2 makes the mistake of trying to add even more narrative to the comedy than the first season did, but fails to satisfactorily deliver on the story. It may be pretty looking, it may be funny, but Infinite Stratos Season 2 is wholly average show. And once again, it’s left wide open in the hope of a season 3, so there’s no satisfaction there either.