Night Raid 1931 (閃光のナイトレイド), is a Japanese anime television series produced by A-1 Pictures and Aniplex and directed by Atsushi Matsumoto. The 13-episode anime aired in Japan on the TV Tokyo television network starting April 5, 2010. Senkō no Night Raid is the second project of Anime no Chikara. Sentai Filmworks acquired the series and released it on Blu-ray and DVD in August 2011. Sentai Filmworks' license for the series later expired in 2018.

Premise

The year is 1931. The location is Shanghai, China. The Imperial Japanese Army has been dispatched to mainland China due to the relatively recent First Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. In this cosmopolitan city of intrigue, there is a special military spy organization called Sakurai and their deeds which are buried in history will be revealed.

Characters

Sakurai organization

Antagonists

Other

Anime

The opening theme is "Yakusoku" (約束) by Mucc while the ending theme is "Mirai e..." (未来へ…) by Himeka.

Reception

Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network found the story reminiscent of Ian Fleming's works, being in the pulp espionage genre, which he regarded as being a refreshing change from other anime series. Theron Martin felt the story seemed like a "particularly strong addition" to the "super powered secret spy" genre, and commended the attention to details in using Chinese dialogue, but felt the musical score did not always work with the show. Hope Chapman enjoyed that the stunts in the anime did not seem "implausible", and enjoyed the setting. Tim Maughan compared the show to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and felt the exposition to be difficult to follow at times. Maughan enjoyed the "convincing noir atmosphere" and "exhilarating" action scenes. Rebecca Bundy felt that the first episode wasted time on exposition and did not build a picture of the relationships between the characters. Christopher Macdonald felt it had "a lot of potential".