At Anime Expo, about the thirty-some odd of us who showed up were privy to a special screening of the first episode of Coppelion. The show is exciting in a large number of ways. These are just some of my thoughts on this brief encounter.

If Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is both a lamentation and eulogism of the world’s twilight, and Sora no Woto marches towards the hope of the world’s rebirth after its end, the first episode of Coppelion may share more in common with those than your standard, grim post-apocalyptic fair. But where Coppelion holds hope, it also holds hopelessness. The city that Ibara, Aoi, and Taeko traverse is ravaged, gorgeous but devastated. The city is and should be a horror for anyone who would ever visit, the remnant of nuclear attack and fallout. But before that backdrop are these three high school girls. Their character art jarring against the landscape, thick bold outlines as if explicitly separating them from the doom that occurred, but also disturbingly pale. But they are young, and they are the hope within the radioactive destruction.

Leading the three is the “vice principal” – a title for a man whose duties are more military commander than school administrator. From a helicopter above the city, he directs the three young, genetically engineered girls. Make your way only to where you need to go. If you find any survivors, do nothing. The medicine is expensive to produce. It’s unlikely anyone could even be saved. He is the wartorn and the cynical, as any would be expected having seen that city. And he wants the world to see what he has seen, to break the innocence of the public and understand the crimes humanity has committed.

But the three heroines are far removed from his perceptions, despite being the ones actually marching through on foot. Taeko, voiced by Satomi Akesaka (Milky Holmes), sees the city, that there are animals that have adapted to the city. An idealist, she sees their genetically engineered existence as still humanity, and she sees hope in those animals.

In comparison, the loud and almost obnoxiously happy Aoi, played by Kana Hanazawa (Ro-Kyu-Bu), is simply denying their very existence. She rejects their militaristic lifestyle. She brings onigiri as food as if they’re just going out for a picnic. She complains and complains about their trek through the city. She longs for nothing but the comfort of a bed, wishing to stay in a hotel for a night instead of a worn shack. With this she guards her own soul and her own innocence from the city’s suffering.

The leader of the trio is Ibara, played by Haruka Tomatsu (Cross Game). Where the vice principal only sees the terror, where Taeko naively is unaware of it, and where Aoi emotionally runs from it, Ibara is prepared. She is ready to take everything. She is ready to build over the destruction and find some sort of renewal. The vice principal may have told her to ignore any survivors, but she knows her power. She knows that the three are the ones who have been created through questionable ethics. She knows that she is resistant to radioactivity, and the vice principal isn’t. Ibara can and will help anyone she finds, whether the vice principal or anyone else likes it or not. In Ibara, there is hope amid the ruin.

Through the trials the three face, Ibara holds herself to something different. In her eyes, the job is not simple reconnaissance, but to save whatever and whoever she can. True to her name, a thorn in the side of those who will oppose her, but also a thorn protecting the flower bud she hopes to bloom.

This is not really a real “preview,” but I will say that you should be excited for Coppelion when it airs in the fall. It is an absolutely gorgeous show, from its backgrounds, to its layouts, to its character designs, to its animation. The story and the world is gripping, and the characters and the implications surrounding them are compelling. If the hype train hasn’t started yet, it should very well start now.