, abbreviated as , is a 2018 Japanese

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

monster A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, 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 Japane ...

television series co-produced by

A-1 Pictures is a Japanese animation studio founded by ex-Sunrise producer Mikihiro Iwata and it is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime production firm Aniplex. History The studio was established by SMEJ's animation production division, ...

and

Trigger Trigger may refer to: Notable animals and people ;Mononym * Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers ;Nickname * Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist * "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster ;Surname * Bru ...

and animated by Trigger and

CloverWorks is a Japanese animation studio that was rebranded from A-1 Pictures' Kōenji Studio. It is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime production firm Aniplex. Establishment On April 1, 2018, A-1 Pictures rebranded its Kōenji Studio ...

that premiered in January 2018. The series was announced at Trigger's Anime Expo 2017 panel in July 2017. A

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

adaptation by

Kentaro Yabuki is a Japanese manga artist, best known for his series ''Black Cat'' (2000–2004) and for illustrating ''To Love Ru'' (2006–2009) and '' To Love Ru Darkness'' (2010–2017) alongside author Saki Hasemi. Currently, Yabuki writes and illustrat ...

and another four-panel

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

manga began serialization in January 2018. ''Darling in the Franxx'' is set in a dystopian future where children are artificially created and indoctrinated solely to defend the remnants of civilization. The story follows a squad of ten pilots, particularly focusing on the partnership between Hiro, a former prodigy, and

Zero Two , also called and is a fictional character in the Japanese anime television series ''Darling in the Franxx'' by A-1 Pictures, Trigger, and CloverWorks. She was designed as the most prominent character and icon of the series. Zero Two is an arti ...

, a hybrid human and elite pilot who aspires to become entirely human. The animation began international distribution simultaneously upon its domestic release. The streaming service

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

internationally

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

the series, with

Aniplus Asia ANIPLUS is an Asian multinational television channel and anime distributor based in Singapore and South Korea. Launched on 7 December 2009, the channel is currently available on SK Broadband, LG Uplus IPTV service, and KT SkyLife. The company als ...

simulcasting the series in Southeast Asia. Service partner

Funimation Crunchyroll, LLC, previously known as Funimation from 1994 to 2022, is an American entertainment company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony as a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex that specializes ...

began the dubbed release of the series in February 2018.

Synopsis

Setting

''Darling in the Franxx'' takes place in a

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n post-apocalyptic future where the remnants of human civilization have abandoned the surface. Adults and children exist in contrasting environments from each other. Adults live in technologically advanced cities within Plantations and are immortal, but

procreation Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual org ...

and relationships among them have become obsolete and undesirable. Artificially-created children, termed "parasites", are deprived of individuality and are educated only for piloting Franxx in pairs to defend humanity. The children are kept in isolation from adult society in environments nicknamed "birdcages", which emulate that of a bygone era so that they can develop the emotional responses required to pilot Franxx. In the early 21st century, the progress of human civilization was accelerated by ground-breaking discoveries in mining technology, allowing the extraction of magma energy for a new low-cost, all-encompassing energy source. Scientists contributing to the breakthrough form "APE", an organization that would significantly influence world politics and the global economy as a result of their discoveries. After discovering human immortality, much of mankind opted to become immortal despite the side effect of losing their reproductive functions. A cult of personality surrounds Papa, the chairman of the APE, which all humans come to worship akin to a god. Now governing the remnants of civilization, APE leads humanity to abandon Earth's now desolate surface for the relative safety of mobile fortress-cities known as Plantations.

Plot

Pushed to the brink of extinction in a post-apocalyptic world, humanity is under constant threat from giant creatures known as , which are subdivided into at least four categories based on their size: "Conrad", "Mohorovičić", "Gutenberg" and "(Super) Lehmann". Pushed to the brink of annihilation, parasites are raised to pilot giant

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 (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

known as in boy-girl pairs. A male parasite is termed a "

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

", and a female parasite is referred to as a "

pistil Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

" (the male and female reproductive parts of a flower, respectively). Parasites are artificially created and have short lifespans. A team of ten parasites is assigned to the experimental Squad 13 of Plantation 13. One of them, Hiro (Code:016), is a former pilot-candidate prodigy who can no longer synchronize with his partner, and they both fail to complete the training program. While skipping his squad's graduation ceremony, Hiro encounters

(Code:002), an elite Franxx pilot with klaxosaur blood, red horns, and an infamous reputation as the "Partner Killer". It is rumored that Zero Two's partners are killed after pairing with her by the third time. Shortly after, a Klaxosaur attacks, disrupting Hiro's graduation ceremony and leaving Zero Two's partner killed in action. Despite the rumors, Hiro volunteers to become her new partner, or as Zero Two calls him, her "darling".

Media

Anime

Atsushi Nishigori directed the 24-episode anime series with Nishigori and Naotaka Hayashi handling series composition, Masayoshi Tanaka designing the characters, Shigeto Koyama acting as a mechanical designer,

Hiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese key animator and animation director and one of the co-founders of Studio Trigger. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. Prior to founding Trigger, he was an a ...

serving as action animation director and

Asami Tachibana is a Japanese composer, arranger, pianist and music producer. She has provided the music for several anime series, television dramas and video games. She is best known for composing the soundtrack for ''Darling in the Franxx'', as well as for ...

composing the music. The opening theme song, titled " Kiss of Death", was performed by

Mika Nakashima is a Japanese singer and actress. Five of her studio albums, one of her mini-albums and one of her compilation albums have reached number one in Japan's Oricon album chart. She also embarked on an acting career, most notably as Nana Osaki in the ...

and produced by Hyde, while the ending themes titled (ep. 1–6), (ep 7), "Beautiful World" (ep 8-12, 14), (ep 13), "Escape" (ep 16-20), and "Darling" (ep. 21–23) were performed by XX:me (read as "Kiss Me"), a unit consisting of the series' main female castmembers, Zero Two, Ichigo, Miku, Kokoro, and Ikuno.

simulcast the series, while

has licensed the series, and it was streamed with an English dub.

simulcast the series in Southeast Asia.

Manga

A manga adaptation written by Code:000, illustrated by

and another four-panel

spinoff manga by Mato started their serialization on the ''

Shōnen Jump+ is a Japanese online magazine for manga created by Shueisha, spin-off from its '' Jump'' line of magazines. Launched on September 22, 2014, the magazine operates as a free mobile app and website. The magazine serializes original titles and titl ...

'' website on January 14, 2018. The manga adaptation from volume 4 onwards differs significantly from the original anime. As of May 2, 2018, the manga has sold 400,000 copies in Japan. On July 1, 2021,

Seven Seas Entertainment Seven Seas Entertainment is an American publishing company located in Los Angeles, California. It was originally dedicated to the publication of original English-language manga, but now publishes licensed manga and light novels from Japan, as we ...

announced they licensed the manga for North American publication. Mato's four-panel spinoff manga ended on July 11, 2018, and was compiled into a full-color physical book released on October 4, 2018.

Soundtrack

The series' soundtrack is composed by Asami Tachibana and published by

Aniplex is a Japanese anime, music production and anime licensee company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Established in September 1995, Aniplex has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime series, such as both ''Fullm ...

. The first disc containing 21 tracks is enclosed with the first home video release volume of the anime which was released on April 25, 2018. The second disc also containing 21 tracks is enclosed with the fourth home video release volume which was released on July 25, 2018. The third disc containing 22 tracks is enclosed with the fifth home video release volume which was released on August 29, 2018. All three soundtrack volumes were released digitally on various online music stores on March 27, 2019.

Reception

Critical response

Reception to ''Darling in the Franxx'' in English-language media was mixed. Some reviews praised the large focus of the series on its coming-of-age and romance elements. Other themes with a more mixed or negative reception involved the heavy sexual innuendos of teenagers, the lack of plot development regarding the alien species VIRM, and the plot twists of the second half of the series, and the rushed pacing of the storyline following episode 15. Eric Van Allen of ''

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

'' described the series as having "moments of brilliance" with solid work on the early mech fights and the character of Zero Two, but disliked the plot developments in the second half of the series and the ending. Kyle Rogacion of ''Goomba Stomp'' called the series "an endearing character-driven coming-of-age story" but criticized it for having by the end "eschewed everything that made it great and settled for the easy way out". ''Random Curiosity'' voiced a more positive opinion to its ending, stating the series will be "well-remembered for seasons to come" and "kept us all fixated and eagerly anticipating every episode set to air". The reception to ''Franxx'' was more positive in Japan.

Awards and nominations

Newtype is a monthly magazine publication originating from Japan, covering anime (and to a lesser extent, tokusatsu, manga, Japanese science fiction, seiyuu, and video games). It was launched by publishing company Kadokawa Shoten on March 8, 1985, with i ...

Anime Awards 2018, Shigeto Koyama was awarded Best Mechanical Design, with Zero Two and the series itself being runners-up for Best Female Character and Best TV Anime, respectively.

Notes

References

External links

* * *

'
''Darling in the Franxx'' webpage
{{Shōnen Jump Plus Darling in the Franxx 2018 anime television series debuts 2018 manga Animated television series about extraterrestrial life Animated television series about teenagers Anime with original screenplays Aniplex franchises CloverWorks Coming-of-age anime and manga Coming-of-age television shows Crunchyroll anime Crunchyroll Anime Awards winners Fiction about memory erasure and alteration Fiction about reincarnation Funimation Japanese webcomics Rapid human age change in fiction Romance anime and manga Seven Seas Entertainment titles Sexuality in anime and manga Sexuality in television Shōnen manga Shueisha manga Super robot anime and manga Studio Trigger Teenage pregnancy in anime and manga Teenage pregnancy in television Webcomics in print Works about child soldiers