Firestorm
ファイアーストーム
Genre	Adventure, Mecha
TV anime
Director	Kenji Terada
Writer	Concept by Gerry Anderson and John Needham, written by Kenji Terada
Studio	TransArts
Licensor	noki Films]
Original run	April 2002 – late 2003
Episodes	26 episodes, 25 minutes each
Anime and Manga Portal

Firestorm (ファイアーストーム^?) is a Japanese anime series co-created by two British people: Gerry Anderson and his business partner John Needham. The series combines CGI animation for mecha and traditional cell animation for characters. Despite high-quality animation and an emphasis on futuristic vehicles traditional to Anderson productions (such as Thunderbirds), the series was not warmly received in Japan. Series availability in other countries has been limited.

[edit] The Story

By the year 2104, the nations of Earth have finally achieved world peace. However, that peace is threatened by a new worldwide terrorist organization called Black Orchid. To counter this threat, the United Nations has created a military peacekeeping force called Storm Force. Each Storm Force unit (8 total) acts independently, operating primarily from a large twin-hulled submarine. As the series opens, a new elite unit is formed called Storm Force 9, which is assigned a special mission code-named "Firestorm."

Early in the series, the Firestorm team discover that Black Orchid is secretly a front for a worldwide invasion of outer-space aliens who can disguise themselves as humans. The aliens have developed a drug which will turn humans into their mindless slaves, and scheme to put the drug into our water supply.

Each episode focuses strongly on futuristic vehicles (mecha). The Firestorm team operate primarily from a huge twin-hulled submarine, called the Ocean Storm. This submarine features a detachable jet aircraft called the Tornado, making it similar to SkyDiver from Gerry Anderson's 1970-71 series UFO. Visually, the Tornado resembles Thunderbird 2 from Anderson's 1965-66 series Thunderbirds. While Thunderbird 2 carried a variety of pods containing smaller vehicles, the Tornado carries a group of smaller vehicles at all times, including two jet fighters, a futuristic tank and several boats.

[edit] Main Characters

• Nagisa Kisaragi: Japanese, short black hair, mole under right eye. Arguably the central character. She is an "expert on nano-engineering." Nagisa set the world record in the 2096 Tokyo Olympics in the marathon and free-fall parachuting events. Her designation is 01.

• Sam Scott: American, age 28, blue eyes, dark brown hair, Caucasian.

• Wesley Grant: American, age 30, brown eyes, African-American, black beard.

• Laura Hope: Australian, age 25, Caucasian, green eyes, green hair. She is a bomb specialist and former Australian Navy commander.

• James Brady: British, age 29, Caucasian, gray eyes, blond hair.

The team is led by General MacAllister (an older caucasian man with brown hair and a brown beard with white streaks). All members of Storm Force wear snug-fitting, futuristic blue wet suits. Males tend to wear a blue military jacket over the wet suit when not working underwater.

[edit] External links

• (Negative) review by T.H.E.M. anime review
• Overview and brief episode guide from distributor Enoki Films