Zegapain (ゼーガペイン, Zēgapein) is a Japanese anime television series created by Sunrise staff and manga artist Takehiko Itō.
[1] Produced by Sunrise, TV Tokyo and Dentsu, it is directed by Masami Shimoda, with Mayori Sekijima handling series scripts, Takehiko Itō and Akihiko Yamashita designing the characters and Ayako Ōtsuka composing the music.
[2] As part of the 10th anniversary of the series, a compilation theatrical film with new scenes, titled Zegapain Adaptation (ゼーガペインADP), was released in Japanese theaters by Shochiku on October 15, 2016.
Using footage from the TV series interspersed with new animation and characters, Adaptation uses the concept of the server "loops" in telling its story, and is revealed by the end of the film to be a prequel to the events of the first episode of Zegapain.
The manga adaptation by Gou Yabuki, Zegapain Gaiden: AI AlWAYS, was serialized in the monthly magazine Dengeki Daioh from August 2006 to October 2006.
Zegapain File Salvage includes information on creation and conception of the series's plot and setting, initial and final designs for characters and mecha, and exclusive illustrations by various artists.
The guide also includes interviews by Shintaro Asanuma, Kana Hanazawa, Ayako Kawasumi (Shizuno); mecha designers Rei Nakahara, Sunrise DID, and Kozo Yokota; and staff members Masami Shimoda and Hiroyuki Hataike.
The first was published in June 2009 and features a recently awakened Cerebrant, Kurou Hayate, who finds Regina, a girl with an unusual meta-body, during an energy supply run aboard a Zega-tank; the story follows how they struggle to learn how they are irreplaceable even as data.
The second novel was published in December 2011 and focuses on Mao, a young man with amnesia, who finds himself fighting monsters in order to escape from a town in the desert and suddenly awakens as a Cerebrant.