is a Japanese

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

television series created by

Sunrise Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects. Terminology A ...

. The series is set on a future, decimated Earth after the discovery of a mysterious, alien spacecraft dubbed "Orphan". A group of researchers scour the planet for Orphan's disc plates using

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japanese is ...

called "Antibodies" in order to revive the craft, an event that would result in the utter destruction of all lifeforms on Earth. The protagonists Yu Isami and Hime Utsumiya must utilize a special Antibody called "Brain Powerd" to counter the Orphan plans and save humanity. ''Brain Powerd'' was directed and written by

Gundam is a Japanese military fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with ''Mobile ...

creator

Yoshiyuki Tomino is a Japanese mecha anime creator, animator, director, screenwriter, songwriter and novelist best known for creating the ''Gundam'' anime franchise. He was born in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and studied at Nihon University's College of Art ...

. The series features mecha designs by

Mamoru Nagano is a Japanese manga artist, animator, and mecha and character designer. Born in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, he is noted for his work with anime studio Sunrise. He is married to voice actress Maria Kawamura. Career Mamoru Nagano made his profe ...

, character designs by Mutsumi Inomata, and music by

Yoko Kanno is a Japanese composer, arranger and music producer best known for her work on the soundtracks of anime series, television series, live-action films, video games, and advertisements. She was born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. She has wri ...

. The 26-episode ''Brain Powerd'' television series originally premiered across Japan on the

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

channel WOWOW between April 8 and November 11, 1998. The series was also aired across Japan on the anime network

Animax , stylized as ANIMAX, is a Japanese animation satellite television network, dedicated to broadcasting anime programming. The channel also dubbed other cartoons in Japanese language. A subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, it is headq ...

, which also later broadcast the series across its respective networks worldwide, including its English language networks in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

and

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

. Animax aired

Bandai Entertainment was a Japanese anime, film production, and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings. They focused mainly in international distribution of anime properties in North America. Most of the anime and f ...

's localization, the series' English language television premiere. The anime series was licensed by Bandai and distributed across the region on DVD under the title ''Brain Powered''. The series was also adapted into a manga, with art by

Yukiru Sugisaki is a Japanese manga artist. She has created numerous manga in several demographics, but is perhaps best known for creating the ''seinen'' series ''The Candidate for Goddess'' and the ''shōjo'' series ''D.N.Angel''. Career Yukiru Sugisaki star ...

, which was serialized in Japan's Kadokawa Shoten magazine '' Shōnen Ace'' and later published in the United States in English by

Tokyopop Tokyopop (styled TOKYOPOP; formerly known as Mixx Entertainment) is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed ...

. A series of

light novel A light novel (, Hepburn: ''raito noberu'') is a style of young adult novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students. The term "light novel" is a '' wasei-eigo'', or a Japanese term formed from words in the English languag ...

s, music CDs, and other merchandise relating to ''Brain Powerd'' also exist.

Plot

''Brain Powerd'' is set in a future time in which Earth has been afflicted by earthquakes and floods. The source of this is a traced to a gargantuan, alien spacecraft dubbed "Orphan", which sits deep beneath the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. Scientists Kensaku Isami and Midori Isami work within Orphan in order to uncover its vast knowledge, reach the Earth's surface with the craft, and travel the galaxy, resulting in the annihilation of all lifeforms on Earth. Their agents, the "Reclaimers", pilot living organic

s (or "Antibodies") in the army Grand Cher, and seek to retrieve Orphan's vital disc plates which are scattered across the planet. The series begins with the teenage lead Hime Utsumiya venturing upon such a disc plate, which revives into a unique Antibody, called "Brain Powerd", with which she forms a deep connection. Within a year, Hime joins a group wishing to counter the ideals of the Orphan researchers, stationed aboard the battleship Novis Noah. She is soon joined by Yu Isami, an ex-Reclaimer who leaves Orphan after learning of the catastrophe his parents seek to unleash. Hime and Yu soon enter upon an adventure which may decide the future of humanity.

Production

''Brain Powerd'' was produced by

and directed and written by

, the creator of the long-running

franchise. ''Brain Powerd'' is often compared to the Gainax's popular '' Neon Genesis Evangelion'', a 1995 anime series with similar themes to ''Brain Powerd''. He was enthusiastic about his first attempt at the "organic" mecha subgenre in place of the purely metallic robots he had worked with for so many years in his career. He wanted to write an interesting story for ''Brain Powerd'' in order to allow those who watched it to do so without "having a nervous breakdown" and to show fans "that there were often other things out there better than anime". Tomino has wished that more animators would see themselves as entertainers, though he admitted that he felt that ''Brain Powerd'' was not very entertaining and thus a failure in this regard. Tomino was joined by a team of writers at Sunrise under the pseudonym

Hajime Yatate is a pseudonym for the collective contributions of the Sunrise animation staff. Name "Hajime Yatate" is considered to be named after a quote of Matsuo Bashō's ''Oku no Hosomichi'': Credited series This collective entity is credited as the ...

. Other staff included '' The Weathering Continent'' and ''

Windaria , also called ''Legend of Fabulous Battle Windaria'' and ''Once Upon a Time'', is a Japanese animated film produced by Kaname Productions and Idol. The film was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama in his directorial debut, and written by Keisuke Fujikawa. ...

'' character designer Mutsumi Inomata; ''

The Five Star Stories is a mecha manga series created by Mamoru Nagano, building on his work on the anime series '' Heavy Metal L-Gaim''. The story takes place cluster of four major planetary systems. Amaterasu, the immortal emperor of the Grees Kingdom on the pl ...

'' and ''

Heavy Metal L-Gaim is a mecha anime television series, begun in 1984, which was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino. Its characters and mecha were designed by Mamoru Nagano, who would later go on to create ''The Five Star Stories''. ''Heavy Metal L-Gaim'' takes place ...

'' mecha designer

; and ''

Macross Plus is a four-episode anime OVA and theatrical movie in the ''Macross'' series. It was the first sequel to the original ''Macross'' television series that took place in the official timeline ('' Macross II'' was quickly retconned by series creato ...

'' and ''

The Vision of Escaflowne is a 26-episode Japanese anime television series created by Shōji Kawamori and Sunrise Studios and directed by Kazuki Akane. It premiered in Japan on April 2, 1996 on TV Tokyo, and the final episode aired on September 24, 1996. Sony's a ...

'' music composer

. Nagano had also previously worked with Tomino ''

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a 1985 Japanese television anime series, the second installment in the ''Gundam'' franchise, and a sequel to the original ''Mobile Suit Gundam''. The show was created and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, with character designs by Yoshikazu ...

''. Kanno described Tomino as "not detailed at all" when compared to other directors with which she worked. She found that he was concerned with human "age" in regards to each piece of music so that viewers of all ages would understand. The opening theme "In My Dream" was written and performed by Eri Shingyōji. The ending theme was composed and arranged by Kanno, with lyrics written by Rin Iogi (a pseudonym for Tomino), and the song performed by Kokia.

Media

Anime

The 26-episode ''Brain Powerd''

initially aired weekly on Japan's

channel WOWOW from April 8 to November 11, 1998. The series was also broadcast on the Japanese

and the

Bandai Channel is a distributor and broadcaster of anime by broadband access. It was established on March 1, 2002, by Bandai in coordination with Sunrise, Bandai Visual was a Japanese anime, film production, and distribution enterprise, established by Ba ...

Bandai is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...

first released the series on DVD in two halves on June 25, 1999 and September 25, 1999 as the ''Brain Powerd Perfect Box''. Seven individual DVDs containing fewer episodes of the series each were released from July 25 to September 25, 2002. A "remastered" box set was released on August 24, 2007. Finally, Bandai released the entire series on DVD as ''Emotion the Best: Brain Powerd'' on April 7, 2011. The English-dubbed version of ''Brain Powerd'' premiered on Animax in South Asia and Southeast Asia. In late 2000,

acquired the rights to distribute a dub in North America with the spelling ''Brain Powered''. As with the licensed '' Silent Möbius'', only the first few episodes were released on VHS in the region as test marketing for the show. The original opening sequence, which largely depicts nude women, was completely redone for the release. Three separate bilingual DVD sets totaling all 26 episodes were made available in North American retailers May 21 to September 24, 2002. The unedited opening sequences was restored for the DVD version. On April 26, 2006, the company compiled and released the entire series as ''Anime Legends: Brain Powered Complete Collection''. Following the 2012 closure of Bandai Entertainment,

announced at Otakon 2013, that

Sentai Filmworks Sentai Filmworks, LLC or just Sentai, is an American entertainment company owned by AMC Networks. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is S ...

has rescued ''Brain Powerd'', along with a handful of other former BEI titles.

Manga and light novels

A manga prelude to the ''Brain Powerd'' television series, featuring the original story penned by Tomino and illustrations by

, was serialized monthly in the Japanese Kadokawa Shoten magazine '' Shōnen Ace'' beginning in the January 1998 issue. A total of four ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' chapter collections were released from May 27, 1998 to January 29, 2001. A series of three

s written by Tomino and Akemi Mende were also published in Japan by Kadokawa Haruki Corporation: on December 15, 1998; on January 14, 1999; and on February 13, 1999. The original manga was licensed for English translation and publication by

in early 2003, also with the spelling ''Brain Powered''. All four volumes were published between June 17, 2003 and January 6, 2004. Tokyopop replaced the Japanese version's color pages with highly saturated monochrome for their English release. As of May 2, 2005, the manga is out-of-print in North America.

CDs and other merchandise

A two-volume soundtrack featuring a total of 38 background and vocal tracks from the ''Brain Powerd'' anime series was published by

Victor Entertainment , also known as in Japan, is a subsidiary of JVCKenwood that produces and distributes music, movies and other entertainment products such as anime and television shows in Japan. It is known as JVC Entertainment in countries where Sony Music Ente ...

in Japan on August 5, 1998 and November 21, 1998. CD singles featuring the opening theme by Eri Shingyōji and the closing theme by Kokia have also been released. A non-scale model kit of Hime's Brain Powerd mecha was released by Bandai shortly after the show's debut. A single

artbook Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

titled ''Brain Powerd Spiral Book'' was published by Gakken in Japan on June 28, 1999. Characters and mecha from ''Brain Powerd'' have been featured alongside other Sunrise properties in

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s published by

Banpresto (formerly Coreland Technology Inc.) was a Japanese video game video game development, developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It had a branch in Hong Kong named Banpresto H.K., which was headquartered in t ...

including ''

Another Century's Episode is a 2005 third-person shooter video game published by Banpresto in Japan for the PlayStation 2. The player controls a mech from one of nine different anime robot franchises to destroy opposing forces before they steal a prized energy source fo ...

'' for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, '' 2nd Super Robot Wars Alpha'' for the PlayStation 2, and ''Super Robot Wars J'' for the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

Reception

''Brain Powerd'' has received mostly mixed reception.

Jonathan Clements Jonathan Michael Clements (born 9 July 1971) is a British author and scriptwriter. His non-fiction works include biographies of Confucius, Koxinga and Qin Shi Huang, as well as monthly opinion columns for ''Neo'' magazine. He is also the co-auth ...

and

Helen McCarthy Helen McCarthy (born 27 February 1951) is the British author of such anime reference books as ''500 Manga Heroes and Villains'', ''Anime!'', ''The Anime Movie Guide'' and '' Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation''. She is the co-author o ...

of ''

The Anime Encyclopedia ''The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917'' is a 2001 encyclopedia written by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy. It was published in 2001 by Stone Bridge Press in the United States, and a "revised and expanded" edition ...

'' summarized ''Brain Powerd'' "as if Tomino and his crew were thrown in at the deep end and told to wing it", though still found it "curiously watchable, thanks largely to Yoko Kanno's wonderful music".

References

External links

Official Website

''Brain Powerd''
at the

* {{Monthly Shōnen Ace 1998 anime television series debuts 1998 Japanese novels 1998 manga Animax original programming Anime with original screenplays Apocalyptic anime and manga Bandai Namco franchises Bandai Entertainment anime titles Kadokawa Shoten manga Light novels Mecha anime and manga Post-apocalyptic animated television series Sentai Filmworks Sunrise (company) Tokyopop titles Wowow original programming Yukiru Sugisaki