Infinite Ryvius

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Infinite RYVIUS
無限のリヴァイアス
Genre	Adventure, Drama, Mecha, Psychological, Romance, Science Fiction
TV anime
Directed by	Goro Taniguchi
Studio	Sunrise
Network	TV Tokyo
Original run	6 October 1999 – 23 March 2000
No. of episodes	26
Manga
Authored by	Hajime Yatate, Yousuke Kuroda (writers) Shinsuke Kurihashi (art)
Publisher	Media Works
Serialized in
Original run	October 2004 –
No. of volumes	2

Infinite RYVIUS (無限のリヴァイアス, Mugen no Rivaiasu^?) is a 26-episode drama/sci-fi series produced by Sunrise Animation, the studio also responsible for other landmark shows in the space genre, in 1999. The series also refers to a manga.

It is often called a Lord of the Flies in Space crossed with The Hunt for Red October, as many of the characters, drama, plot, and theme resembles the former, while the action scenes mimicked the submarine battles of the latter. The high number of character and mecha designs in RYVIUS were the brainchild of a then-unknown Hisashi Hirai, whose success in this series led to work on s-CRY-ed and then the coveted position of character designer for the biggest and latest two mecha series from Sunrise, Gundam SEED and its sequel Gundam SEED Destiny.

The series is also noted for its music, a blend of western R&B/hip-hop music with J-pop vocals. This is most evident in the opening song, "Dis~", performed by bilingual Japanese-American singer Mika Arisaka, as well as the many thematic background instrumentals.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Ryvius Manga 3 Characters 4 Themes and Symbols 5 Episodes Titles 6 Soundtracks 7 External links

[edit] Plot

Set in the year AD 2225, mankind has spread from Earth to inhabit nearly all the planets or nearby moons in colonies and settlements. The reason for this rapid rise in space migration is the Geduld, a sea of plasma stretching from the sun to the outer reaches of the solar system. As a result, space travel has grown and improved to the point of being commonplace. For the inhabitants of the solar system, an astronaut career isn't out of the question, and one of the schools set up to train future space voyagers is the Liebe Delta, a space station positioned somewhere in Earth's orbit.

Kouji Aiba is a sixteen-year-old boy who packed his bags and left his home on Earth for the Liebe Delta and the training to obtain his Level 2 piloting license. He journeys to the space station accompanied by his childhood friend, Aoi Housen, whom Kouji discovers to his chagrin has enrolled in the Liebe Delta's flight attendant program. En route to the spaceport Aoi gives Kouji the unwelcome news that his younger brother, Yuki, is also to attend the Liebe Delta and in fact the brothers will be in the same flight class together. Aoi ends with quipping that the boys' mother Mrs. Aiba had asked Aoi to look after the brothers while at school. Kouji's unhappy moodiness does not improve.

Once aboard the space station, the students and teaching staff on the Liebe Delta were like any other school, normal and concerned with their own affairs and classes. They even had a vacation period, known as the Dive Break, when the ship ventured near the Geduld for system maintenance. Out of about 1000+ students, about 500 stayed for the break. Unknowingly to all, the space station, in the middle of the routine dive considered so regular that it was entrusted to the elite Zwei cadet class, was sabotaged and the majority of the staff gassed and rendered unconscious. Free falling into the depths of the Geduld Sea, where the resulting gravity pressures would crush the station and kill all aboard. The remaining adults, all instructors, sacrificed their lives to save the majority of students on board. When their heroic actions proved unsuccessful and the Liebe Delta hung on the verge of collapsing, a mysterious ship named RYVIUS, hidden within the Liebe Delta activated itself and surfaced from the Geduld Sea.

Stranded in space, with humanity's governments forsaking them, and within the ship anger, agitation and fear setting in, Kouji tries his best to maintain a semblance of order and peace in a time of crisis. But with fighting his own brother Yuki, dealing with his feelings for the beautiful Uranian aristocrat Fina S. Shinozaki, trying to avoid Aoi, and seeing the strange apparation of a girl in pink wandering the halls, will Kouji be able to help until the Ryvius reaches safety, or will he lose all that's dear to him in the process?

With an ensemble cast of nearly 500 different characters, Infinite Ryvius was an ambitious undertaking by Sunrise. Nearly all the characters have some screen time, be it cameo appearances or speaking roles, and each (with few exceptions) has his or her own personality. Ranging from the elite Zwei cadets to the piloting students to the flight attendants, nursing students, mechanical trainees and more, the crew of the Ryvius encompass a range of individual talents, quirks, and mannerisms that set each one apart. The average age of the Ryvius crew is 16, so the story, despite its space-age setting, is more of a coming-of-age tale than anything else.

[edit] Ryvius Manga

A companion manga was released in Japan in 2000. Created by Shinsuke Kurihashi, and released by MediaWorks Publishing, the manga details the voyage of the Ryvius from the character viewpoints of Aoi Housen, and to a lesser extent, her roommates Kozue Izumi and Reiko Ichikawa. This is in contrast to the anime, which had been seen through the eyes of the Aiba brothers, Ikumi Oze, and other mostly male characters. As such, the manga does not follow the anime "to the letter", but provides episodes and plotlines previously unseen.

The English-language rights to the 'Ryvius' manga were acquired by ComicsOne, and the first volume of the English version, covering the anime episodes 1-13, was released in October 2004. The second and final volume, covering the remainder of the series, was expected to be released in January 2005. After ComicsOne was taken over by DrMaster, Volume 2 of the Infinite Ryvius manga was delayed. It was finally released under the new DrMaster label in May 2005.

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of Infinite Ryvius characters

[edit] Themes and Symbols

Compared to other anime series, Infinite RYVIUS has more underlying themes and symbolisms. Even the name of the ship itself, Ryvius, is a play on several English phrases, among them: "Revive Us", "Redeem Us", "Reveal Us", "Revise Us", "Ravenous", "Revolt Us", "Revert to us", "Reverie of Us", and "Reawake Us". The katakana in the title (リヴァイアス, ri-va-i-a-su) can also be Anglicized as "Leviath", an obvious allusion to the Biblical Leviathan [1], an immense and eldritch creature of the deep. These phrases can be seen as an insight into the ship's crew as a whole, and the subconscious pleas that the students harbour. Neya, picking up on these stray mental thoughts, gives voice to them and as such, exposes these ideas to the viewer.

In another view, Ryvius can be used as a representation of Earth itself. In fact, as stated by a government official, the Vaea project was designed and implemented as series of Noah's arks for the human race to escape the Geduld-encompassed solar system.

• Weapons and power: A subtle theme is about how one's action depends upon the amount of power they have.
  • For example, the reason why Blue was able to stage his coup on the Ryvius easily was due to his possession of the only firearm on the ship, as well as his gang of enforcers and usage of hostages as support.
    • Later on, Blue passed the needle gun to Kouji; as he was in hiding, Blue likely valued stealth, silence, and secrecy over firearms, the possession of which was no longer very useful to him. In turn, Kouji became the only one who was willing to confront Ikumi (who by then had gone somewhat insane).
  • Likewise, with access to the Vital Guarder, Ikumi used it to attack the ship to force its inhabitants to obey his rule.

In general, the gun and Vital Guarder represent the martial power of civilization.

• Past: Most, if not all characters, were defined by their respective pasts.
  • Ikumi fell in love with Kozue (and subsequently enforced a Nazi-like regime on the ship) because in the past, he failed to prevent his sister's suicide, and he never wanted to lose the woman that he loved ever again.
  • Fina escaped to the Ryvius because she could not handle the past. Indeed, she took to heart an extreme interpretation of her religious beliefs, stating that in order to cut off the past she had to literally cut it off. This unfortunately involved Fina murdering anyone that reminded her of the past, including her former boyfriend Michael, and her friend Sandy Aren, who was strangled and her body disposed of under cover of the celebrations of the Ryvius's party. However, as Fina found out from Kouji and Neya, the past will always linger.
  • The conflict harboured by the Aiba brothers is a strong subplot in the series, as most face-to-face meetings between Kouji and Yuki often lead to verbal and physical altercations. Yuki's unspoken resentment of his brother and Kouji's tunnel-vision tendencies merely made the situation worse. Only intervention from the boys' respective girlfriends (Cullen and Aoi) led to the feud abating, if not actually ending it for good.

[edit] Episodes Titles

(Japanese titles are shown first with their romaji renderings, followed by the literal translation of their titles. Some of the titles given by the series' North American distributor, Bandai Entertainment, differ from the literal translations; the Bandai-given titles appear in parentheses where applicable.)

• Sere 1 - きたるべきとき/Kitarubeki toki; A Time That Should Come (or The Forthcoming Time)
• Sere 2 - よけいなこと/Yokei na koto; Unnecessary Things
• Sere 3 - うなばらをこえて/Unabara wo koete; Crossing The Ocean (or Beyond the Vast Sea)
• Sere 4 - リヴァイアスのわ/Rivaiasu no wa;　Ring Of Ryvius
• Sere 5 - ちいさなまとまり/Chīsana matomari; A Small Settlement (or A Little Harmony)
• Sere 6 - ぼくのせつな/Boku no setsuna; My Moment
• Sere 7 - かわりゆくとき/Kawari-yuku toki; The Changing Times
• Sere 8 - なにもしらなかった/Nanimo shiranakatta; We Didn't Know Anything
• Sere 9 - ヴァイタル・ガーダー/Vaitaru Gādā; Vital Guarder
• Sere 10 - しんじられなくても/Shinjirarenakutemo; Even If It's Unbelievable (or Even If You Can't Believe)
• Sere 11 - まつりのあと/Matsuri no ato; After The Festival (or When the Party's Over)
• Sere 12 - みらいのありか/Mirai no arika; Whereabouts of the Future
• Sere 13 - ふれあうことしか/Fureau koto shika; We Can Only Touch Each Other (or If Only to Meet)
• Sere 14 - いしきしすぎ/Ishiki shisugi; Overly Conscious (or To Be Too Conscious)
• Sere 15 - ながされるままに/Nagasareru mama ni; As If We Were Set Adrift (or Swept Away)
• Sere 16 - ゆがむせかい/Yugamu sekai; Distorted World (or Deforming World)
• Sere 17 - じゆうのちつじょ/Jiyū no chitsujo; Free Order
• Sere 18 - わかりあえない/Wakariaenai; We Didn't Understand (or Incomprehensible)
• Sere 19 - えがおできみと/Egao de kimi to; Smiling With You
• Sere 20 - ゆずれないもの/Yuzurenai mono; Things You Can't Give Up
• Sere 21 - あしたなんかいらない/Ashita nanka iranai; We Don't Need Tomorrow
• Sere 22 - いきのこるために/Ikinokoru tame ni; For The Sake Of Surviving (or In Order To Survive)
• Sere 23 - ちぎれたかこ/Chigireta kako; The Torn-Off Past
• Sere 24 - あいばこうじ/Aiba Kouji; Kouji Aiba
• Sere 25 - おれであるために/Ore de aru tame ni; For The Sake Of Being Myself (or In Order To Be Me)
• Sere 26 - あした/Ashita; Tomorrow

[edit] Soundtracks

infinite RYVIUS Original Soundtrack 1

• VICL-60485
• Release Date: 16 December 1999

1. DIS (Club Mix version; performed by Mika Arisaka)
2. nani mo shiranakutemo (Unaware of Anything)
3. boku no setsuna (My Moment)
4. REVISE US
5. NOWHERE
6. mishiranu mono (The Unknown)
7. kokoro no sukima (Void in the Heart)
8. kuzureyuku mono (What is Decaying)
9. EASY LIVING
10. kobore ochite (Dropping Out)
11. yume o sugite mo (Even After Dreaming; Remix version; performed by Mika Arisaka)
12. communication
13. ALMOST BLUE
14. ikinobiru kanata (Beyond Survival)
15. FAINT HOPE
16. maemuki ni (In A Positive Mood)
17. COOL!
18. DIS (English version; performed by Mika Arisaka)
19. yume o sugitemo (Even After Dreaming; performed by Mika Arisaka)
20. DIS (karaoke version)
21. yume o sugitemo (karaoke version)

infinite RYVIUS Original Soundtrack 2

• VICL-60486
• Release Date: 1 March 2000

1. harakunaru sasayaki (Distancing Whisper)
2. nani mo shiranakutemo (Unaware of Anything)
3. toge (Thorn; performed by Mika Arisaka)
4. mukai aumono (Face To Face)
5. genjitsuto no haza made (Until Reality Shows Its Face)
6. kokoro no kakera (Fragments of the Heart)
7. itoshi sa no nakade (Into Beauty)
8. hayaru kokoro (Thriving Heart)
9. utsutsu narumono (Taking Revenge)
10. tawamurete (Flirting)
11. mitsumete (Watching)
12. shijirarerumono wa (Of Disbelief)
13. yume o sugitemo (Even After Dreaming)
14. mirai e no ippo (A Step Towards the Future)
15. aragaenumama
16. sasurai tsuzukete (Continued Wandering)
17. tsumugareta fuan (Spun Anxiety)
18. ketsui to koudou to (Decision and Action)
19. todoketai kokoro (Undeliverable Heart)
20. shinkirou no you ni (Like A Mirage)
21. ashita ga arukara (Because There Will Be Tomorrow)
22. yamikara no hohoemi (Smile From The Shadows)
23. shiritakatakoto (Things I Wanted to Know)
24. yume o sugimoto (Even After Dreaming; performed by Mika Arisaka)
25. todoketai kokoro (Undeliverable Heart; Reggae Phil Mix)
26. H (Mega Mix)

infinite RYVIUS Original Soundtrack 3

• VICL-60487
• Release Date: 23 March 2000

1. M.I.D. ANTHEM
2. DIS~ (Song Bird Mix; performed by Mika Arisaka)
3. BLUE WRECKAGE (performed by Noriko)
4. CODE-026
5. aoi tori no yukue (performed by Mika Arisaka)
6. menterae
7. GOING (performed by Kaori)
8. JUST (Interlude)
9. THE NEPHILIMS (performed by Bambaataa Afrika)
10. kanashiki hyouryuu (performed by DJ MA$A)
11. SEE THE LIGHT (performed by Smooth Bee)
12. tobira (performed by DJ MA$A)
13. GENERATION WAR
14. ENVIOUS
15. DIS~ (Terra Mix; performed by Mika Arisaka)

[edit] External links

• Sunrise's Official Infinite Ryvius Page: Official Infinite Ryvius page from Sunrise Animation. (Japanese)
• Future Without Limits: Infinite Ryvius: The most comprehensive English-language IR website.
• Mika Arisaka: Home page for the bilingual songstress who performed the opening and ending themes for IR.
• ComicsOne: Official page for the English-language version of the companion manga to the Ryvius anime series.
• Infinite Ryvius (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia