is a thirteen episode Japanese anime television series created by Takumi Tsukumo and directed by Hiroshi Negishi, with production by Operation EVE and animation production from Radix Ace Entertainment. The series is a science fiction story set in the far future, incorporating aspects of space opera. The character-driven storyline focuses primarily on the psychology of the main character, her social interactions, her inhuman abilities, and the conspiracy surrounding them. The technology is often secondary to this, but it is not ignored; several aspects, including their means of faster-than-light travel, are explained and loosely based on modern physics. The series was a hit in Japan, which led to the creation of a sequel, Misaki Chronicles, which also ran for 13 episodes. In North America, the television series was initially licensed by ADV Films and was released in three volumes on VHS and DVD. Sentai Filmworks re-released the series in a box set, including Misaki Chronicles. Plot In the year 2017, a satellite on Earth detects a gravitational imbalance in the direction of Lyra, initially believed to be a black hole. Its suspicious X-ray emissions are subjected to noise removal algorithms, revealing the voice message recorded aboard a fictional future Voyager spacecraft, still in the Solar System. Before the cause can be determined, additional identical signals are detected throughout the year from other distant gravity-based phenomena. This is considered proof of faster-than-light travel, and the wormhole responsible is pinpointed to be in the core of Saturn's moon Titan. By temporarily entering a baby universe still in a state of cosmic inflation, the signal was able to bypass the known laws of physics and travel at infinite speed. The wormholes themselves became known as Inflation Holes. Human travel follows almost two centuries later in 2197. With a tunnel dug into Titan's depths, and a prototype Inflation Drive on board, two astronauts make the first manned faster-than-light voyage, traveling almost three parsecs. Further exploration of Inflation Holes finds a planet 10 parsecs away with a wormhole core similar to Titan's, formerly inhabited by an extinct alien species. The planet is in a bizarre "apple core" shape, with all of the equatorial planetary mass consumed by frequent alien use of Inflation Drive technology. Three giant longitudinal rings surround what is dubbed as the Quantum Core, and ruins exist upon the fragmented Core itself, but electromagnetic radiation inside the Core is severely limited, making exploration slow