TOKYO--Bandai today announced a new science fiction anime series titled Aquarion, which will begin airing in Japan on April 4. The anime will also be making its way to the PlayStation 2 as an action game.

　　Aquarion will be an anime directed by Shouji Kawamori. The general public may not know Kawamori by name, but anime fans know him as the machine designer for classic hit titles such as the Macross (Robotech) and Cyber Formula series. In addition to working on the two series, Kawamori was also the designer of Sony's mechanized canine, Aibo. Also joining the Aquarion development team is music composer Yoko Kanno, whose work has appeared in Koei games as well as anime titles such as Cowboy Bebop.

　　Aquarion takes place in a postapocalyptic world where two-thirds of the human population has perished from a catastrophic incident that took place 11 years before the game's story. Mankind is now facing a new challenge, as mysterious winged beings called the Datenshi-zoku (the Fallen Angels) have appeared out of the melting ice in the South Pole. The Datenshi-zoku capture people and feed on their life energy, but civilization counters with three fighter jets called the vector machines, which supposedly defeated the Datenshi-zoku in a battle 12,000 years ago. The vector machines can transform into robots named Aquarion, but they require youths with innocent souls and extraordinary senses as their pilots. Aquarion's story rotates around the youngsters that have been recruited to fly the machines in order to save mankind.

　　Little detail has been released about Aquarion on the PS2. Only that it will play as a mission-based 3D action game where gamers take the role of the Aquarion pilots and control the mechanized warriors from a third-person perspective. The game is slated for release on June 30 at the price of 7,140 yen ($68).