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Sentai Filmworks Adds Infinite Stratos 2 Anime

North American licensing company Sentai Filmworks announced on Monday that it has licensed the romantic-comedy/action anime Infinite Stratos 2. Sentai Filmworks will release the series on home video in 2014 after streaming the series "through select digital outlets." Crunchyroll is currently streaming the series as it airs. The series premiered in Japan on October 3.

The sequel is once again adapting Izuru Yumizuru's original Infinite Stratos light novel series:

Ten years ago, the development of the revolutionary Infinite Stratos powered exoskeleton changed the world's balance of power overnight. Unfortunately, while the distribution of IS systems to every nation on Earth has ushered in a new era of peace, the fact that only women have thus far been able to pilot the Stratos systems has sent the relationship between the XX and XY-chromosomed halves of the human race into a spiraling tailspin!

When fifteen-year-old Ichika Orimura is suddenly discovered to be the first male with the ability to control an IS, whatever plans he might have had for his own future are tossed out the window even as he's thrown to the wolves and enrolled at the otherwise entirely female Infinite Stratos Academy by order of the Japanese government!

The sequel has two more characters from the light novel series:

Chiwa Saitō (Bakemonogatari, Puella Magi Madoka Magica) plays Tatenashi Sarashiki, the strongest student in the academy and the student council president. She is an energetic girl who loves playing tricks on people, and although she often teases Ichika, she has many mysterious points.

Suzuko Mimori (Btooom!, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes) plays Kanzashi Sarashiki, Tatenashi's younger sister and Ichika's classmate. She has an introverted and reserved personality. Although she is a candidate for the representative of Japan, for some reason, her mecha is still incomplete.

Yasuhito Kikuchi is once again directing at 8-Bit, but Kumi Horii (Student Council's Discretion, Zone of the Enders) is now handling the new character designs. Takeshi Takakura is joined by Kōichi Mugitani or CHOCO (Busou Shinki) on mechanical designs. (CHOCO replaced okiura on the illustrations for the original novels going forward.) Hikaru Nanase is also back to score the music, and voice actress Yōko Hikasa and other singers are performing the anime's "BEAUTIFUL SKY" ending theme.

The light novel series already inspired a 2011 television anime season. Sentai Filmworks and Section23 Films released the first anime season in North America