Uchuu No Senshi Wiki

Starship Troopers (宇宙の戦士 Uchuu No Senshi, lit. "Soldiers of Space") is a six part anime OVA produced by Sunrise/Bandai Visual and released in 1988. It is based on the book Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein that was published in 1959.

This anime production is considered by many the "most faithful" to the original novel's plot, despite the fact that many liberties were taken with the characters and the original book's themes. For instance Johnny Rico, an Asian Filipino in the novel, is a blonde White Argentine in the OVA.

Interestingly, the main character's ethnicity in the OVA series has more in common with Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film than the source material — this despite their productions being wholly unrelated and having nearly a decade of difference. However, unlike the 1997 film, the most prominent link the anime has to the original book are the inclusion of power armor and drop pods that were absent in Verhoeven's film.

Miyatake Kazutaka of Studio Nue originally designed the power suits in the OVA for the Japanese edition of the 50s novel in the early 80s. The design also appeared uncredited in the Daicon III and Daicon IV fan made animated shorts in the early 80s, several years before the OVA was made.

uchuu no senshi

See also