| Stratos 4 | |
| Ja Kanji: | ストラトス・フォー |
| Ja Romaji: | Stratos4 |
| Genre: | Action, comedy, science fiction[1] |
| Type: | tv series |
| Director: | Takeshi Mori |
| Music: | Masamichi Amano |
| Studio: | Studio Fantasia |
| First: | January 5, 2003 |
| Last: | August 1, 2004 |
| Episodes: | 15 |
| Type: | ova |
| Stratos 4 Advance | |
| Director: | Takeshi Mori |
| Music: | Masamichi Amano |
| Studio: | Studio Fantasia |
| First: | March 25, 2005 |
| Last: | October 22, 2006 |
| Runtime: | 25–28 minutes (each) |
| Episodes: | 8 |
| Portal: | yes |
is a Japanese anime television series by Studio Fantasia and Bandai Visual, and directed by Takeshi Mori.[2]
See also: List of Stratos 4 characters.
Fifty years before the series begins, scientists learn that a group of comets will enter the Solar System on a collision course with Earth. The United Nations set up a two-tiered global defense system against the threat: the primary one being a space-based Comet Blaster group and the secondary being a ground-based Meteor Sweeper group. Most of the series takes place on an airbase on Shimoji Island in 2024, where Mikaze and her friends are tasked with defending the Earth from large fragments left over after a failed attempt by the Comet Blasters, who are based on one of seven space stations, to annihilate a comet. All is going well until a large meteorite crashes into a lightly populated island leading the girls on a run to find out the truth about the comets.
Originally spanning a 13-episode anime TV series, which premiered across Japan between January 5, 2003 to March 30, 2003, two additional episodes were later released diret-to-video in 2004. The series was then followed by an OVA series called Stratos 4: Advance (retitled as Stratos 4: Advance Final in the last two episodes), which spanned 8 episodes that were released from March 25, 2005 to October 22, 2006.[3]
The series has been broadcast by the anime satellite television network, Animax, across its respective networks worldwide, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America, and other regions. The original 13-episode television series and its first subsequent two-episode OVA series were licensed for North American distribution by Bandai Entertainment USA. However, when Bandai Entertainment USA shut down, the series became unlicensed.
The series is one of the "main JSDF collaborative anime works", as noted by scholar Takayoshi Yamamura. The show's producer, Sugiyama Kiyoshi, is said to have conducted "extensive research about JSDF" with Yamamura saying that Kiyoshi is considered an "industry expert regarding collaboration between anime and JSDF."[4]
The music for Stratos 4 was composed by Masamichi Amano.