Stellvia | |
Cover art of Geneon Entertainment's DVD box set of Stellvia featuring main characters of the series
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宇宙のステルヴィア (Uchū no Suteruvia) |
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Genre | Mecha, Coming of Age, Romance, Comedy-drama |
Anime television series | |
Directed by | Tatsuo Sato |
Produced by | Gou Nakanishi, Shinichi Ikeda, Takatoshi Chino |
Written by | Katsuhiko Chiba, Katsuhiko Koide, Ichiro Okouchi, Miho Sakai, Tatsuo Sato |
Music by | Seikou Nagaoka |
Studio | Xebec |
Licensed by | |
Original network | TV Tokyo |
Original run | April 2, 2003 – September 24, 2003 |
Episodes | 26 |
Manga | |
Written by | Ryo Akitsuki |
Published by | MediaWorks |
English publisher | |
Demographic | Shōnen |
Magazine | Dengeki Daioh |
Original run | 2003 – 2004 |
Volumes | 2 |
Stellvia (Japanese: 宇宙のステルヴィア Hepburn: Uchū no Suteruvia?), also known as Stellvia of the Universe, is an anime series set in space. As a prelude to the series, the Earth of year 2167 AD is shown to be devastated by a powerful electromagnetic shockwave. This is caused by a nearby star, Hydrus Beta, 20 light-years away, going supernova. As a result, 3 billion of the 14 billion people on earth were wiped out. The series itself is set 189 years later, in the year 2356 AD. Civilization has been rebuilt with humanity having united together to face the coming of the second shockwave of the supernova. The second shockwave, unlike the first, is to contain a great deal of matter composed of the remnants of the star itself. Stellvia ran for 26 episodes and was produced by the animation studio XEBEC. It was distributed in the United States by Geneon. In September 2007 Geneon halted all distribution of anime DVDs in America, including Stellvia. A sequel was originally announced for 2005, but was canceled after internal difficulties.
Beginning with the May 2003 issue, a manga adaptation by Ryo Akizuki was serialized in Dengeki Daioh and has been published in the US as a two volume graphic novel series by DrMaster. The word Stellvia is composed of two Latin words, stella meaning star(s) and via meaning street or road. Therefore, Stellvia is roughly translated as The Road to the Stars.
The series makes references to things such as Theory of knowledge, CAS, and Extended Essay, which suggests that Stellvia might have been partially inspired by the International Baccalaureate program, or at least, included an Ex-IB student in its development.