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Appleseed Book 1: The Promethean Challenge

From The MSHP Archives:

Appleseed Book One: The Promethean Challenge ( First Published 1985 )
Author: Shirow Masamune
Publisher(s): Seishinsha Co. Ltd. / Dark Horse Comics + Studio Proteus.

Summary Guide Notes: Side notes and further explanations on the summary or interesting points from the manga.
J vs E: Japanese vs English editions. Significant differences between the two versions highlighted here. J represents 'Japanese version' while E is 'English version'.

Book One of Appleseed takes place after the Fourth World War. We meet Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires- a pointsman and first marksman team who experienced the war and shares more than a professional relationship. Vying for survival in the harsh landscape of Badside (war affected regions) the inseperable duo were approached by Hitomi, a Bioroid with an offer of staying as 'guests' in the newly constructed nation Olympus. What's the purpose of the invitation? Is Olympus really the Utopian society it claims to be?

Chapter 1: Triple Hound Hunting

Deunan and Bri arrives at a deserted town somewhere in the ruins of Badside, where they discovered most of the food and water to be poisoned and the population wiped out by Sarin gas. Planning to move on after a few days, they had an unexpected visitor in the night. An armored figure clumsily made its way to Bri and Deunan's place and it takes little effort to pin the intruder down. Searching, they found some love letters and a photo of themselves taken by a spysat on the armor. Popping the armor they met Hitomi, who tried in vain to explain her presence. She was sent by the Central Management Bureau (CMB) from Aegis to find Bri and Deunan. Before long, they were interrupted yet again. This time its the noise of a heavily armed war-tank. They were sent by another party of the Bureau to investigate Hitomi's mission and probably with instructions to act as appropriate. Setting up with Deunan as a decoy, Briareos set on to take out the tank. After an intense chase and battle through the ruins of the abandoned town, the tank was finally blown to pieces with a grenade- planted by the cute lil' Hitomi! Sitting down and hearing out Hitomi over a cup of tea (or whatever hot drink) Bri and Deunan decided to take the offer to go with Hitomi to Olympus City.

Notes: 1) Triple Hound Hunting- The hunt for Hitomi, Deunan and Briareos. 2) The Central Management Bureau 'unified' the earth under a single administration called 'Aegis', but much of the world is still Badside where chaos and disorder reigns due to the prolonged war. 3) Deunan's first and second 'Farmer Bri' joke in this chapter.

J vs E: 1) Opening prologue, E has its earth flipped (Is that really necessary / unavoidable?). Ever seen the African and European continent facing the other way? Its there. The effects of the war is THAT bad. J got the world in the right order. Otherwise insignificant.

Chapter 2: Civvy Street

As they left Badside, Deunan had a bad dream about her early training days under the strict, uncompromising guidance of her father, Carl Knute. Waking up, she and Bri were greeted by the majestic high-rise Arcology protruding from the clouds, before parting to reveal the breathtaking view of the spectacular Olympus city from the sky. Landing in Olympus, Deunan and Bri were put under quarantine for a short period of time. Meanwhile at the management bureau Administrative Director Athena hears out the report by Chief of Staff Nike. Learning of the outcome of Hitomi's mission, she decided its time to have a word about it with the Bureau chief himself. Worried about the application for Landmates and Hitomi's activities, she began to suspect that the Council is up to something. As Deunan and Bri started to feel out of place in this new city, Hitomi shows up in her motorbike and lets them know that they were to stay at her place for the time being.

Zipping through the city in her ultra-lightweight superbike, Hitomi explains to Deunan about the nature and philosophy behind the city and its administration. Everything in the city is cybernetic and based on a 'people first' philosophy. the city managers were under instructions to adhere to the 'functional simplicity, structural complexity: the best life for all' maxim. A little detour on the way as the trio stopped at Akechi Motors. Here they met Yoshitsune, Hitomi's boyfriend and super mecha-freak. Yoshi went about explaining the basics, construction and principles of how a Landmate works, before passing a set of catalogues for Deunan to decide if she is interested to get one. Back at Hitomi's place, Deunan and Bri learned of the others that Hitomi helped recruit from Badside. Finally settling down in their room, Bri talks to Deunan about her interest in getting the Guges Landmate and joining the force in Olympus. After much discussion Bri decided to let Deunan have her way.

Yoshitsune introduces the Landmate

Notes: 1) Civvy Street- The transfer from Badside to a civilized world. 2) Hitomi's mission is codenamed 'Doroci'. (Any significant meaning unknown. However Orochi is the nine-headed Naga / Snake-dragon in Japanese mythology. Also found in Orion) 3) A 'Landmate' is basically an exoskeleton (or synchro-protector) where the machine copies the exact movements of its driver. A kind of master-slave system. 4) The Deunan-Hitomi shower scene at the end of the chapter sees Hitomi passing out partly due to alcohol. But more because of missing her periodic longevity processing. This results in anemia (red blood cells deficiency) and a sharp drop in energy levels. Logically a Bioroid such as Hitomi should be able to cope with alcohol substances without much trouble. 5) Another 'Farmer Bri' joke by Deunan when she is discussing her plan to join the force with Bri in the room at Hitomi's.

J vs E: 1) Noticeboard inside Coffee House Onimal at Hitomi's, E reads 'Cerebus Rules OK | Mangaka Paranoia'. J reads ' Parkinson's Law 1755~1824 | Comicist Paranoia'.

Chapter 3: Even Bets

The third chapter begins with a Seven Elders' Council conference session. In the meantime, Admin director Athena is having a heated arguement with the Bureau Chief regarding the recent turn of events. Suspicious of the Council's study of how Homo Sapiens (humans) react to the present environment in Olympus, she is concerned with the necessity of making Landmates available in the open market. However the chief has other more important issues he'd rather Athena concentrate on than keeping watch of the Council's every move.

Back at the Seven Elders' conference, after screening the latest round of Data from embassy attachments around the world the discussion starts. The controversial subject of the Council's debate centers around the instability of humanity to cope with the present situation. Very soon, all the world would be modelled on Olympus and the Council elders felt that it can only work if the human race upgrades to Bioroid systems. This is the basis of Hitomi's Doroci mission, to prove that humans (guests from Badside) were unable to cope with Olympus' advancements and environment. That is the only hope for humanity's survival- left as it is they will eventually lose their biological vitality in three generations, morals collapse, society deteriorates, power hungry and provoking war- just too unstable to sustain any longer. The Elders came to this conclusion, and feels justified to proceed hastily on their planned proposal.

Athena leaves the Bureau headquarters in deep thought, and Chief of Staff Nike finally found her and offered her a ride. Athena tells Nike of the danger of the present situation. For the moment there is nothing they can do but to sit and wait.

Notes: 1) Even Bets- The controversial debate on replacing the entire human species with Bioroids. 2) The Seven Elders are the main members of the Olympus CMB Legislative Body who form an advisory body that aids Gaia (the central computer) in managing Olympus. In charge of making laws and policies. Refer to the Olympus CMB Organization page for more details. 3) Athena herself is a Bioroid, and is in charge of the Police Force, ESWAT and Internal Affairs of Olympus. 4) Bri, Deunan and Hitomi did not make any appearances in this chapter.

J vs E: 1) The Bureau Chief's bookshelf. In E, of course the book titles have been changed but I doubt that the Chief reads Akira... (in J that particular book is titled 'Terorizm') and if you noticed, he even had Appleseed (kanji title, and in J is The Byo Tech Book) there. Wonder if he saw the similiarity of his situation with those contained in the book.

Chapter 4: Hospitality

Its a girls' day out and Hitomi left Deunan with Chiffon (another guest from Badside) to roam the city as she heads off to work. The first stop for Deunan is Akechi Motors. She wants to place an order for her personal Guges. While Yoshi knows his stuff to the dot, he isn't exactly happy to know that Deunan wants a Landmate as he is against the idea of a girl running around in a machine designed specifically for heavy duty applications. However Deunan's persistence (and stubornness) prevails. Yoshi agreed to take care of all the necessary paperwork and get the Guges ready in about three hours. Meanwhile at Athena's office, the admin director is going through Deunan's records with Nike. Athena decided that it is time to make the first move. She ordered Nike to drug the Badside crowd's food to see what they will do. It is a risk she is willing to take- to gauge the danger and damage they could inflict in order to control and set up counter-measures.

Deunan wants her Landmate

Notes: 1) Hospitality- Getting comfortable in a safe, peaceful place. 2) Hitomi's flextime working hours allows her to start and stop work at her convenience, as long as the total number of work hours are fulfilled. 3) The Deunan-Yoshi exchange is a goldmine of Landmate specifications. 4) Athena's plan is unknown to the Council or the Bureau. She is drugging the 'guests' to incite violence rather than letting them react naturally to Olympus' environment as proposed by the Council.

J vs E: The Station in the second page of the chapter is 'Gakusha' in E and 'Pedantic' in J.

Chapter 5: Hot Potato

The view from the high-rise Coffee House was breathtaking as Deunan and Chiffon settled down for some small talk over tea. After marvelling at the scenery and reminiscing, the two girls exchanged views on how it feels to be in Olymous. While Deunan is still somewhat overwhelmed by the peacefulness and sense of security, Chiffon felt dead. She agreed that Olympus is an ideal city for society to flourish but she felt it was like a zoo built by weird animals to keep themselves locked inside. (Maybe Chiffon sensed that they were brought here for some sort of experiment? - Lucas). Later in the day, Deunan met up with Briareos for a casual stroll through the park and recounted her conversation with Chiffon to her partner. Bri isn't too concerned with what Chiffon said as the peaceful life in Olympus is definitely much better than living dangerously back in Badside. Deunan is still doubtful but she put the thought to rest. As they parted company Bri headed off to hand in their applications to the police force and Deunan trots off to Akechi Motors... At the Olympus Police Station, Bri noticed a guy who he thought he knew from the war days, Verund. However he seemed not to recognize Bri. Shocked, Bri demanded information from the guy at the counter who told him that the guy's name is Arugess, a public sevant reporting straight to the director and has been here since before the war. The only explanation would be that he is a clone of Bri's old colleague. This is when Bri first learned about Bioroids and was told that they were basically the example that Olympus wanted the world to follow. And they are the majority - 80% - of Olympus' population (*More in the Notes section).

Flower Deunan gets Philosophical

Back at home as night falls, Bri contemplates what he had just learned. 80% of the population are Bioroids... is that why this is a Utopian society? By artificial rather than natural means? What Chiffon said to Deunan begins to make sense... then the phone rings. Its a call for Hitomi from the BCSC (BioControl Service Center) to inform her that she is two days late for her Periodic Longevity Processing. So, Hitomi is Bioroid too. Then it dawned on Bri... what need does a 'perfect' Utopian society of Bioroids for human residents? Deunan arrives home with her new Guges (and a pretty tight little outfit). Happy with their new condition, Deunan was shocked when Bri told her about the situation at hand and that something was very wrong with their presence in the Bioroid-dominated society. Refusing to believe that, Deunan stormed out angrily and headed off to Chiffon's for the night under Bri's instructions. However it appears that Hitomi herself have no idea of what the Olympus administration have in mind for the human guests from Badside.

Notes: 1) In the Coffee House conversation with Chiffon, Deunan mentioned Saint Elmo's Fire - The glow accompanying the brushlike discharges of atmospheric electricity that usually appears as a tip of light on the extremities of such pointed objects as church towers or the masts of ships during stormy weather. It is commonly accompanied by a crackling or fizzing noise. The name St. Elmo is an Italian corruption, through Sant' Ermo, of St. Erasmus, the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors, who regard St. Elmo's fire as the visible sign of his guardianship over them. (Source: Encyclopedia Brittanica. Copyrights theirs) Not the cute Elmo in Sesame Street mind you! ^_^ 2) A Clone is a human artificially created from the genetic pattern of a specific donor. When the genetic material is from various mother-sources, they are Hybrids, and after special processing become Bioroids. Bioroids are trained, conditioned and educated in a controlled environment, making them the most complex, compact and sophisticated robots imaginable i.e. their personality and emotion can be programmed to be 'human' with enhanced biological flesh and blood. 3) Deunan's skin tight outfit is to be worn under the Landmate armour for purpose of weight reduction. It is also heat and chemical resistant as well as tough enough to repel shrapnel. 4) Deunan 'Farmer Bri' joke No. IV at the park. 5) Hot Potato- Things are heating up! ^_^

J vs E: -None-

Chapter 6: The Battle of Titan

Sleeping on Chiffon's couch, Deunan was woken by mechanical sounds checking only to see Chiffon putting on her armour. Thinking nothing of it Deunan went back to sleep. The second time around, Deunan put on her dagger and went outside. Tracking the sound source downstairs of the house, Deunan saw a group of armed landmates piloted by Chiffon and others from Badside ready to leave. Bad timing as they spotted Briareos heading up the stairs to join Deunan at Chiffon's. Caught offguard, the terrorist landmates opened fire on the unarmed Bri to Deunan's horror. The commotion awakes a shocked Hitomi who immediately seeks out medical help. Realizing the situation at hand, Bri urges Deunan to get into action as the terrorist Landmates are too tough for Olympus' inexperinced police force to handle. Still worried about Deunan, Bri instructs Hitomi to contact ESWAT for help before being shut up by the temperamental Dr. Matthews. Meanwhile, Deunan powers up her Landmate as the terrorists rush their plan, pushed by the police force's earlier than expected response. While a team created a diversion in the city, two terrorists entered the Director's bedroom seeking the location of the Gaia Supercomputer. Getting the info, they left and the Director calmly intercoms his assistant to alert Gaia and the strike unit as well as Athena.

The Badside group soon crashed into Gaia's central processor with the intention of destroying it. However, it seems that Athena had a lead on them and cornered the two intruders. Not going to lay down without putting a fight, the terrorists engaged fire and blasted their way out, damaging part of the Supercomputer. What follows is an intense chase through the city where we first see Olympus' forces in action. Admittedly, they were a clumsy bunch and lacking in tactics, but the firepower and weaponry arsenal is overwhelming. Also, the competition between the Director and Athena doesn't make life easier for the hunted terrorists. As the strike force guns down the hostile Landmates one by one, the two Landmates fleeing from Gaia ran into Deunan and her machine. After much hand to hand combat and stalking, Deunan had the upper hand. Coincidentally, the last enemy standing was Chiffon who tried to reason with Deunan but was shot off (this is not revenge for Bri. Sensei Shirow explains in the Databook). The Director's team was first to arrive at the scene, and it appears that the Director and Athena were even in their little 'race'. In the aftermath of an intense night, Athena discusses with Nike about the source of the group's firepower and mindset, which she appears to conclude is backed by the Council all along. And back at the HQ, the Seven Elders sensed that the whole incident had been Athena's plan, but nevertheless it answered their questions and dispelled all doubts- it is time for the human race to make way for a full Bioroid society...

Notes: 1) The Battle of Titan - Huge things fighting against each other. Could be anything! ^_^ 2) While I mention Chiffon's group as 'terrorists' they are not exactly that, and their tactics are more guerilla style. Just that I thought their use of arms/weapons and violence to achieve their ends justify the use of the term. 3) Do keep in mind that beneath all those gadgets, cables, wires and accessories, Bri is flesh and blood human, which is why he bleeds and gets injured. 4) Note the two teams in action. The Special Forces are under the Director and the Police force listens to Athena. 5) I am not very sure why the supposedly drugged group from Badside would want to destroy Gaia. If its the Elders' plan all along, I don't know if they had a hand in the whole affair or they just let the humans draw out a plan all by themselves. If its Athena's then, it must be one powerful drug as the group cooperates and coordinates well to carry out their plan. 6) Deunan shooting Chiffon in the end was not trigger-happy on Deunan's part. Chiffon's cannon's were aimed directly at her ready to fire and Deunan has been involved in too many situations to put down her guard despite Chiffon's attempt to talk things over (as pointed out by Sensei Shirow in Appleseed Databook). Remember it was Chiffon who started the aggression, and despite knowing that Deunan was the enemy after knocking off the LM's cover she still tried to fire and then took a swipe at the off-guard Deunan.

J vs E: Dr Matthew's ambulance in J has the label 'M.D Mashu & Invincible Six Nurse' on the side body which I find highly amusing! ^_^. 2) The final panel after Deunan shot Chiffon was a sign 'That's All' on the floor in J which was reduced to an undecipherable 'Owaru'(?) in E.

Chapter 7: Rest

The ending to Book 1 sees Deunan visiting the hospitalised Bri, where the couple have the chance to rest and relax a bit. While Bri isn't very happy about the way things turned out, he has decided that its alright for Deunan to keep the Landmate, and they would settle down in this new city. Thus begins the life of Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires as citizens (or pawns, depending on the way you see things ^_^) in the Utopian city of Olympus. Happy life ever after? We'll find out next issue! ^_^

Notes: 1) Rest- Uhmm... taking a break! 2) Deunan got off the hook due to Hitomi and the Council's authority, but she is now trapped in whatever plot they are devising. Plus Bri's hospital debts and Deunan's LM repair bills will keep the couple plenty busy for a long time in Olympus!

Appendix: Book One

Shirow Sensei's typical way of rounding up an Appleseed book- with a mini side-chapter that is often hilarous and rich in information. In Book One's Appendix, Sensei Shirow highlighted Yoshi's obsession with all things mecha and how Hitomi decided to cope with the situation- by reading her personal Bioroid relationship and social interaction manual! Hah?!? Is there such a thing?? ^_^...

Note that in the English SP/DH Edition tradepaperback, there are extra materials at the closing of the book, namely articles written by Mr Toren Smith and Sensei Shirow himself. Mr Smith talks about the idea and the effort in bringing Appleseed to the English readership as well as his thanks to the many individuals and parties involved in making the translated work a success. Sensei Shirow on his part commented about the status of Appleseed in Japan, its progress and a general overview of what he is trying to portray and achieve with each book. Also a bit about his change in art styles between books 1 & 2 to 3 & 4, as well as explaining (an advanced warning actually! ^_^) to his US readers to expect a LONG wait for his works. Do you mind? I don't, cos' Sensei Shirow's mangas are worth waiting for! ^_^

- End - Updated: Jan 2005

posted by: Lucas at 01/31/05 19:27 | link | comments | Category: appleseed

Appleseed General Introduction

An introduction to Masamune Shirow's APPLESEED Series (the original manga version)

From The MSHP Archives:

All contents of these sections are personal understanding and opinions of the author (Lucas) and are in no way 'official' or represent the ideas, talents and genius of Sensei Shirow, who is 15 years my senior (and hence has far more experience in the ways of the world). Facts and information sourced and quoted from elsewhere will be mentioned as appropriate. Main references were the Dark Horse / Studio Proteus English editions, and the Japanese Seishinsha editions were also referred occasionally. Apologies for any errors and misinterpretations.

Introduction and Background Brief - Conflict and destruction had always been part of humanity's history. While the first two World Wars altered the geographical borders and power balance of nations, The Third World War in 1996 ultimately turned nuclear and ended with a U.S.- E.C. (United States - European Community) victory against the Soviet Union and the Middle East. The planet survives but damages were very severe. Before the rebuilding process even begun, the Fourth World War broke out in 1999, this time a major conflict between Asian nations and the U.S. - E.C alliance. The same year, two Urban Planning Group Conferences were held and resulted in an ambitious project termed 'The Appleseed Plan' and began construction. The war ended in 2026 with an Asian victory but taking the environment and huge chunks of the earth to the stages of irrepairable damage. In the aftermath of the devastation, survivor nations of the intense war pick up the pieces and get on with a doomed life on this dying planet. Amidst the chaos and turbulent conditions, a man-made island about the size of England emerges in the Mediterranean sea, between Azores and the Canary Islands. Called 'Olympus', the new nation was the result of the Appleseed Plan and much of its developments and details were kept secret from the international community. The Plan was only made known to the United Nations at the general meeting in 2125 and in 2127 officially announced to the world. Olympus' administration is centralized under a Central Management Bureau, and under this Bureau are four main departments taking care of various administration and security matters of the nation. The Management Bureau is run by bioroids with the aid of a supercomputer called Gaia, assisting in processing and making assesments, decisions, as well as networking the whole of Olympus.

Like any young nation, Olympus is plagued with internal security affairs and global terrorism threats, as it seeks to anchor its status as one of the most powerful and influential leader nations on earth.

Olympus promotes its technological advances, administration and legislature as a role model for developing and recovering nations, and seen as a threat to the old super-powers there is no short in attempts of disrupting peace and breaking in the secrets and intelligence of its highly efficient administration. For its citizens, a bioroid majority population, Olympus seeks to achieve a Utopian state, where peace prevails and everyone is content and happy with life. As a direct result of such policies mentioned, there is a pressing need for teams of skilled, deadly, and highly-trained forces to counter and combat the threats and attempts at Olympus' security and intelligence.

While on the surface Olympus is the envy and model of what a 'perfect world' would be, behind the scenes and in the dark are humans and bioroids scheming and working hard, overcoming violence with violence, covering up controversies and sensitive issues, crossing international borders in silent operations- all to maintain the Utopian impression. Which is the real Olympus- a powerful nation for the world, or against the world and humanity? How do you define Utopia and the perfect society? Appleseed explores the issues and captivates its readers.

---

The Appleseed Story - While Appleseed is a 'world building' effort by the author (Shirow Masamune) where we need to get into the feel of Olympus, its administrations and its citizens, as a manga book series it would never work without a good story to tell. The Appleseed story focuses on two main characters- Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires. They are a pointsman - first marksman team who survived the big war and is coping with the harsh life in post-war Badside. It is also no secret that Bri and Deunan share more than a professional relationship, but at the moment there are no further plans than just staying and being together. Recruited by Hitomi, one of the founding Bioroid citizens of Olympus, the duo settled down in the new nation with other 'guests' from Badside, unaware of the political crisis and controversy surrounding their presence. As the plots run deeper, Bri and Deunan gets more and more entangled in the web surrounding Olympus' administration. They joined the police force and were head-hunted to the ESWAT (Extra Special Weapons and Tactics) - the top secret military and intelligence security force in Olympus. Books 1 & 2 deals with the HOPE plan where the Council tables a controversial suggestion to replace humanity with bioroids to save the declining state of the planet. This provokes the supercomputer Gaia which decided to take matters in its own hands to uphold one of its primary commands- to defend humanity at all costs. Books 3 & 4 explores more of the operations of the ESWAT teams involving Deunan and Bri, as well as their day to day life at Olympus. Terrorism, hostage situations, international operations, training sessions and more. Shirow Sensei mentioned that he would hope to bring back the focus of the story to Deunan and Bri after such broad-reaching plots in the last two Appleseed books. Unfortunately though, it seems that the next installments of Appleseed (Book 5 and above), apart from a few stand alone and incomplete episodes, would not happen in the near future.

The Appleseed Books: Currently there are four volumes of Appleseed published. Aside from the main books, there is also a Databook and a Hypernotes collection. The Databook is a collection of chronological events, administration structure, character design and profile, essays, encyclopedia of terms etc. related to the Appleseed world. The Appleseed Hypernotes collects the unfinished episodes of Appleseed that ran in Comic Gaia around 1995, at the time supposed to be part of Appleseed 5 but Shirow stopped halfway. Infos and details about these books can be found at the Book Info section (to be posted later).

The Current Status of Appleseed: Being one of Shirow's most well-known work, Appleseed 5 has become quite a popular question every Shirow fan seem to ask about. The word from Sensei Shirow recently is NO. Appleseed 5 will NOT happen, and if it does, it won't be soon (and we all know how to define Sensei Shirow's 'soon'! ^_^). Shirow mentioned this fact in an interview conducted with Newtype Magazine (Kadokawa Shoten) in 1998 (September issue) in conjunction with the launch of his Intron Depot 2: Blades illustration collection. Many would consider Chapter 26: Called Game (included with Databook) and the extra chapters collected in Appleseed Hypernotes to be Book 5. While the materials easily make up almost half a book, they are more stand alone stories than any continuity on a major plot. But don't worry! Shirow handles Appleseed wonderfully. Most of his episodes work well as one-shot stories, and personally I don't feel that Shirow left the the Appleseed plot 'hanging' after volume four, seeing how he set up the plots and chapters. Remember Ghost In The Shell? It isn't necessary to have a sequel to the book, but a Koukaku 2 happened anyway and its the same case with Appleseed. If Appleseed 5 didn't happen that's fine, but if it did happen, all the better!

The Appleseed Hypernotes extra chapters have been translated to English by Studio Proteus (Toren Smith & Dana Lewis) for Dark Horse's Super Manga Blast, a monthly manga magazine. These chapters, unfortunately will not be collected into TPB form as per Shirow's request.

Also, November 2004 (and Jan 2005 in US) sees the debut of an Appleseed CG Animated Movie in Japan. Using pioneering 3D Live Anime techniques, producers Micott & Basara (Japan) and animation studio Digital Frontier transfomed Shirow's manga world into an action packed 3D animated feature. The story and characters though had been modfied to fit the Appleseed movie's 103 minute run. Hopefully with the hype and expected success of Appleseed both in Japan and internationally, it would translate into more goodness for us Shirow and Appleseed fans. 

If you still haven't got Appleseed- please get a copy! The 5 existing English edition books will keep you busy for a long long time and is more than enough Shirow goodness for you to handle! Existing Appleseed fans, well, all I can say is to keep up the enthusiasm, and remember what made you a fan in the first place. Appleseed has a very very high re-reading value, so if you re-visit the books every 3 months or so, you'll be amazed at how great it feels to read it again. Sensei Shirow Masamune deserves a break from Appleseed and I hope we will all continue to support Sensei Shirow in his future works and projects. - Lucas. 25th Sept. 2000 / Updated: Jan 2005.

posted by: Lucas at 01/30/05 19:36 | link | comments | Category: appleseed

Black Magic: The Manga Digest

From the MSHP Archives:

Summary
Black Magic, the first published work by Masamune Shirow in the fanzine Atlas, 1985. A classic science-fiction tale, where mechanical bioroids and humans co-exist in the search for utopia. However conflicts have always been part of humanity's history. Can they defeat the Mario-66 war-machines, programmed to destroy?

Masamune Shirow's Black Magic Manga Digest

Prologue 1: Black Magic
In the beginning, human civilization on Venus created the Nemesis Supercomputer, designed to handle government functions. Its primary mission: To achieve utopia. Nemesis needed agents- bioroids- to defend its administration and carry out its orders. Thus the world was divided among the bioroid 'executors' in charge of administrations and the Venusian citizens. Then Nemesis created Tantalos, a self-aware computer in charge of training of the executors. Tantalos created its own mobile Robot Terminal Uranus. The perfectionist Uranus eventually created Chronos- the most succesful of the bioroids which managed to take over power and governance from Nemesis.
At the time when legal restrictions were introduced to limit the size of the bioroid population, Zeus was created and defeated Chronos in a tightly contested election. Eventually, subsequent creations of bioroid generations were prohibited, but by this time Nemesis was wary of the potential of an over-powered government. Working with Tantalos in secrecy, it created Typhon. Zeus found out and she was destroyed in a savage battle in the Etona Mountains just after her birth. However, unknown to Zeus, Nemesis has again activated the Typhon program; raising her in the world of man...

A failed assault on Typhon led her to meet up with Kongoki's band. A sword entrusted to Kongoki for safekeeping was handed to Typhon, signalling the initiation of her mission, Nemesis' mission. The sword was in sync with Typhon's power, making her all more dangerous and probably the reason why Zeus panicked and was eager to destroy her. The 'rebel' bioroid group disappeared into the night sky.

Chapter 1: Bowman
The Venusian Project: Terraforming the Third Planet. When Venus becomes inhabitable, the humans strived to build a moon-base for survival. This involves the creation of an artificial sun in space. One of the projects was Epimetheus- a research submarine built at the space station and transported to Venus to investigate the ocean depths. In reality it is a missle sub. Hijacked by Chief Investigator Pandora, interstellar missles were launched and destroyed the artificial sun project, on the grounds that humans can only do harm to new environments, similiar to what they did to the creatures that populated Venus before their arrival.
Apparently Pandora's actions were under orders from a superior... but who could that be?

Prologue 2: Open Up
Suspecting Zeus to be behind the destruction of the artificial sun and the eventual destruction of Venus by the expansion of the sun, Dunah Typhon decided it was time to put her plans in gear. Summoning Yasha and Sohn Goku to her shuttle, she lands the ship on the outskirts of the North Lobe. Typhon is about to perform her Black Magic, on Zeus and his cronies.

Chapter 2: Booby Trap Battlefield Part 1- Enter the M-66. The chapter starts with a covert military operation. Four M-66 robots are loose in the city. They are deadly robot soldiers used by the Venusian military. Typhon had caused the M-66s to break down in the mid east and on its way back to Central for servicing, reactivated them. Typhon sensed something wrong... Battlefield Part 2- The hunt for the M-66s are on the way. This chapter sees the use of the mobile suit Ishmael. Two M-66s destroyed so far, the rest still prowls in the city... How the M66s work: They attack and destroy everything that moves, bigger than a certain size and metallic objects operating above a certain heat-level as programmed with no over-rides possible. The only way is to send a 'Return-to-Block' order, where they will return to their achor beds. The plan was set to lure the M-66s... Battlefield Part 3- Typhon's plan. To alert Zeus on the escape of the M-66s, which the military has succesfully kept secret. In the meantime, the military has a new tool- the MA 77. A better, faster, deadlier combat robot, it made short work of the M-66s in no time, but Typhon intercepts again- destroying the MA 77's anchor bed. Now the city faces a bigger problem with the MA 77 on attack mode and no anchor... Battlefield Part 4- Holding itself up inside the Instellar Immigration building, the National Guard's efforts to disable the M-77 was pathetic. Eventually, Captain Adams and his unit decides to infiltrate the building with their powersuits. In a hand-to-hand battle with the M-77, a badly injured Captain Adams finally blasted off the robot's head.

There is a fundamental difference between the tool and the user. Science is just a tool... It is impossible to produce weapons that surpasses human in all ways. Anything that is the product of knowledge can always be controlled with the use of new knowledge. True? False? Or a booby trap?

Chapter 3: City Light
Fast forward to the future. A new outer-space colonization plan launched by Zeus is about to take off. A fleet of emigrant ship prepares to depart to a Saturnian Moon named Titan, with 12 million passengers on each of the Centaurus Starships. On board the S.S. Procrustes. Headed towards Titan, Typhon and Yasha decided it was time to act. Alerting the captain on the presence of Hermes, Zeus' son and his plan to blow up the ship, the Captain refused to believe Yasha initially. In the meantime, Typhon confronts Hermes and came face to face with a Hecatonchires model serbot. While it put up a good fight, Typhon is just too strong. Hermes escaped, but the explosives on the Procrustes went off hurtling the ship into Saturn's orbit.
Typhon did not use her magic to help the plunging ship (maybe to see if the humans have what it takes to survive, to do something for themselves), and finally the captain saw the way out. A gravity slingshot, using helium and hydrogen drawn from Saturn's atmosphere to power the ram engine, setting the ship back to Venus, all the passengers safe and Zeus' plan to destroy the human population exposed.

Epilogue:
At the Cafe Onimal... word was out that Zeus was finally being forced to step down. Dunah Typhon's mission was complete. Contemplating with tears of sadness/joy on the events that has transpired over a few drinks, Typhon left Venus the next morning.
Human governance began the second half of that year, with Nemesis as advisor. However, eight months later the Bioroid Liberation war broke out and once again conflict and destruction rampaged. This time, plant life on Venus was wiped out making assimilation of carbon dioxide gas impossible, saturating the atmosphere. Venus transformed into a scorching hell, and in two years was inhabitable...

-End-

Comments and Notes:
While reading Black Magic, one can't help but keep thinking- this is amateur work! But looking at the plot, the footnotes, the way events are held together; this is great story-telling, pure Science Fiction! Sensei Shirow's art was admittedly not as 'attractive' at this stage of his career, but the story and plot of Black Magic makes up for it. The idea of achieving Utopia by means of technology, human nature, conflict, and the irony of the destruction of Venus at the end. Very thought-provoking.
In both the Japanese and English (TPB) editions of Black Magic, there is an appendix chapter, 6 pages of essays and pictures by Shirow mainly on the structure, operations, and concept of the M-66 robots and the bioroids. And also, Shirow's personal viewpoints on related issues. This section of Shirow's mangas have always been interesting and it really shows the amount of homework and thinking Shirow put in working on the manga. Check out the endo-skeleton schematics and detailed explanations.

Masamune Shirow's Black Magic Manga Data:
Japanese
Publisher: Seishinsha
ISBN4-915333-24-8 C0079 P950E
Price: 950 Yen
Release Date: Nov 1985
English (TPB)
Publisher: Dark Horse/ Studio Proteus
ISBN 1-56971-360-X
Translation: Alan Gleason & Toren Smith
Price: US$16.95
Release date: November 1998

posted by: Lucas at 01/23/05 21:13 | link | comments | Category: black magic

The Original Laughing Man

One of the centerpiece of the GITS: Stand Alone Complex TV series plots is the "Laughing Man" case. This signature case (like the Puppet Master in GITS) is a memorable one in the world of GITS. Some of us might have noted that the Laughing Man quote is attributed to a particular writer, a JD Salinger. In fact, this GITS Laughing Man has its roots in Mr. Salinger's short story of the same title.

The Laughing Man was written in 1949 by Mr Salinger and tells the story of a boys' baseball team in New York, and a recollection of the Chief's fictional story to the boys about the son of a missionary couple, who was kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits in demand of a ransom. The boy's parents refused to pay the ransom out of some religious belief, and as a result the bandits tightened a carpenter's vice on the infant's head, deforming the baby's head. Hideously deformed with his mouth permanently open in an oval shape, the little boy grew up in company of the bandits, survived and became a master criminal- outsmarting his keepers and went international in his pursuits all the way to Paris, France. It was there that he met his fiercest enemies, the famous detective Marcel Dufarge and his daughter. The story continued on with the Laughing Man's brilliance and superior intellect in frustrating Detective Dufarge, but the ending is not a happy one....

Read the story in its entirety, I do not wish to spoil it for you guys :)

J. D. Salinger The Laughing Man
The New Yorker, March 19, 1949, pages 27-32

IN 1928, when I was nine, I belonged, with maximum esprit de corps, to an organization known as the Comanche Club. Every schoolday afternoon at three o'clock, twenty-five of us Comanches were picked up by our Chief outside the boys' exit of P. S. 165, on 109th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. We then pushed and punched our way into the Chief's reconverted commercial bus, and he drove us (according to his financial arrangement with our parents) over to Central Park. The rest of the afternoon, weather permitting, we played football or soccer or baseball, depending (very loosely) on the season. Rainy afternoons, the Chief invariably took us either to the Museum of Natural History or to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saturdays and most national holidays, the Chief picked us up early in the morning at our various apartment houses and, in his condemned-looking bus, drove us out of Manhattan into the comparatively wide open spaces of Van Cortlandt Park or the Palisades. If we had straight athletics on our minds, we went to Van Cortlandt, where the playing fields were regulation size and where the opposing team didn't include a baby carriage or an irate old lady with a cane. If our Comanche hearts were set on camping, we went over to the Palisades and roughed it. (I remember getting lost one Saturday somewhere on that tricky stretch of terrain between the Linit sign and the site of the western end of the George Washington Bridge. I kept my head, though. I just sat down in the majestic shadow of a giant billboard and, however tearfully, opened my lunchbox for business, semi-confident that the Chief would find me. The Chief always found us.)

In his hours of liberation from the Comanches, the Chief was John Gedsudski, of Staten Island. He was an extremely shy, gentle young man of twenty-two or -three, a law student at N.Y.U., and altogether a very memorable person. I won't attempt to assemble his many achievements and virtues here. Just in passing, he was an Eagle Scout, an almost-All-America tackle of 1926, and it was known that he had been most cordially invited to try out for the New York Giants' baseball team. He was an impartial and unexcitable umpire at all our bedlam sporting events, a master fire builder and extinguisher, and an expert, uncontemptuous first-aid man. Every one of us, from the smallest hoodlum to the biggest, loved and respected him.

The Chief's physical appearance in 1928 is still clear in my mind. If wishes were inches, all of us Comanches would have had him a giant in no time. The way things go, though, he was a stocky five three or four--no more than that. His hair was blue-black, his hair-line extremely low, his nose was large and fleshy, and his torso was just about as long as his legs were. In his leather windbreaker, his shoulders were powerful, but narrow and sloping. At the time, however, it seemed to me that in the Chief all the most photogenic features of Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and Tom Mix had been smoothly amalgamated.

Every afternoon, when it got dark enough for a losing team to have an excuse for missing a number of infield popups or end-zone passes, we Comanches relied heavily and selfishly on the Chief's talent for storytelling. By that hour, we were usually an overheated, irritable bunch, and we fought each other--either with our fists or our shrill voices--for the seats in the bus nearest the Chief. (The bus had two parallel rows of straw seats. The left row had three extra seats--the best in the bus--that extended as far forward as the driver's profile.) The Chief climbed into the bus only after we had settled down. Then he straddled his driver's seat backward and, in his reedy but modulated tenor voice, gave us the new installment of "The Laughing Man." Once he started narrating, our interest never flagged. "The Laughing Man" was just the right story for a Comanche. It may even have had classic dimensions. It was a story that tended to sprawl all over the place, and yet it remained essentially portable. You could always take it home with you and reflect on it while sitting, say, in the outgoing water in the bathtub.

The only son of a wealthy missionary couple, the Laughing Man was kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits. When the wealthy missionary couple refused (from a religious conviction) to pay the ransom for their son, the bandits, signally piqued, placed the little fellow's head in a carpenter's vise and gave the appropriate lever several turns to the right. The subject of this unique experience grew into manhood with a hairless, pecan-shaped head and a face that featured, instead of a mouth, an enormous oval cavity below the nose. The nose itself consisted of two flesh-sealed nostrils. In consequence, when the Laughing Man breathed, the hideous, mirthless gap below his nose dilated and contracted like (as I see it) some sort of monstrous vacuole. (The Chief demonstrated, rather than explained, the Laughing Man's respiration method.) Strangers fainted dead away at the sight of the Laughing Man's horrible face. Acquaintances shunned him. Curiously enough, though, the bandits let him hang around their headquarters--as long as he kept his face covered with a pale-red gossamer mask made out of poppy petals. The mask not only spared the bandits the sight of their foster son's face, it also kept them sensible of his whereabouts; under the circumstances, he reeked of opium.

Every morning, in his extreme loneliness, the Laughing Man stole off (he was as graceful on his feet as a cat) to the dense forest surrounding the bandits' hideout. There he befriended any number and species of animals: dogs, white mice, eagles, lions, boa constrictors, wolves. Moreover, he removed his mask and spoke to them, softly, melodiously, in their own tongues. They did not think him ugly.

(It took the Chief a couple of months to get that far into the story. From there on in, he got more and more high-handed with his installments, entirely to the satisfaction of the Comanches.)

The Laughing Man was one for keeping an ear to the ground, and in no time at all he had picked up the bandits' most valuable trade secrets. He didn't think much of them, though, and briskly set up his own, more effective system. On a rather small scale at first, he began to free-lance around the Chinese countryside, robbing, highjacking, murdering when absolutely necessary. Soon his ingenious criminal methods, coupled with his singular love of fair play, found him a warm place in the nation's heart. Strangely enough, his foster parents (the bandits who had originally turned his head toward crime) were about the last to get wind of his achievements. When they did, they were insanely jealous. They all single-filed past the Laughing Man's bed one night, thinking they had successfully doped him into a deep sleep, and stabbed at the figure under the covers with their machetes. The victim turned out to be the bandit chief's mother--an unpleasant, haggling sort of person. The event only whetted the bandits' taste for the Laughing Man's blood, and finally he was obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly decorated mausoleum. They escaped from time to time and gave him a certain amount of annoyance, but he refused to kill them. (There was a compassionate side to the Laughing Man's character that just about drove me crazy.)

Soon the Laughing Man was regularly crossing the Chinese border into Paris, France, where he enjoyed flaunting his high but modest genius in the face of Marcel Dufarge, the internationally famous detective and witty consumptive. Dufarge and his daughter (an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite) became the Laughing Man's bitterest enemies. Time and again, they tried leading the Laughing Man up the garden path. For sheer sport, the Laughing Man usually went halfway with them, then vanished, often leaving no even faintly credible indication of his escape method. Just now and then he posted an incisive little farewell note in the Paris sewerage system, and it was delivered promptly to Dufarge's boot. The Dufarges spent an enormous amount of time sloshing around in the Paris sewers.

Soon the Laughing Man had amassed the largest personal fortune in the world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local monastery--humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising German police dogs. What was left of his fortune, the Laughing Man converted into diamonds, which he lowered casually, in emerald vaults, into the Black Sea. His personal wants were few. He subsisted exclusively on rice and eagles' blood, in a tiny cottage with an underground gymnasium and shooting range, on the stormy coast of Tibet. Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty sticky attitude toward crime. The Laughing Man issued his orders to the crew through a black silk screen. Not even Omba, the lovable dwarf, was permitted to see his face.

I'm not saying I will, but I could go on for hours escorting the reader--forcibly, if necessary--back and forth across the Paris-Chinese border. I happen to regard the Laughing Man as some kind of super-distinguished ancestor of mine--a sort of Robert E. Lee, say, with the ascribed virtues held under water or blood. And this illusion is only a moderate one compared to the one I had in 1928, when I regarded myself not only as the Laughing Man's direct descendant but as his only legitimate living one. I was not even my parents' son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their slightest blunder as an excuse to move in--preferably without violence, but not necessarily--to assert my true identity. As a precaution against breaking my bogus mother's heart, I planned to take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but appropriately regal capacity. But the main thing I had to do in 1928 was watch my step. Play along with the farce. Brush my teeth. Comb my hair. At all costs, stifle my natural hideous laughter.

Actually, I was not the only legitimate living descendant of the Laughing Man. There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man--all of us circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing up elevator operators as potential archenemies, whispering side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels, drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic teachers. And always waiting, waiting for a decent chance to strike terror and admiration in the nearest mediocre heart.

One afternoon in February, just after Comanche baseball season had opened, I observed a new fixture in the Chief's bus. Above the rear-view mirror over the windshield, there was a small, framed photograph of a girl dressed in academic cap and gown. It seemed to me that a girl's picture clashed with the general men-only decor of the bus, and I bluntly asked the Chief who she was. He hedged at first, but finally admitted that she was a girl. I asked him what her name was. He answered unforthrightly, "Mary Hudson." I asked him if she was in the movies or something. He said no, that she used to go to Wellesley College. He added, on some slow-processed afterthought, that Wellesley College was a very high class college. I asked him what he had her picture in the bus for, though. He shrugged slightly, as much as to imply, it seemed to me, that the picture had more or less been planted on him.

During the next couple of weeks, the picture--however forcibly or accidentally it had been planted on the Chief--was not removed from the bus. It didn't go out with the Baby Ruth wrappers and the fallen licorice whips. However, we Comanches got used to it. It gradually took on the unarresting personality of a speedometer.

But one day as we were on our way to the Park, the Chief pulled the bus over to a curb on Fifth Avenue in the Sixties, a good half mile past our baseball field. Some twenty back-seat drivers at once demanded an explanation, but the Chief gave none. Instead, he simply got into his story-telling position and swung prematurely into a fresh installment of "The Laughing Man." He had scarcely begun, however, when someone tapped on the bus door. The Chief's reflexes were geared high that day. He literally flung himself around in his seat, yanked the operating handle of the door, and a girl in a beaver coat climbed into the bus.

Offhand, I can remember seeing just three girls in my life who struck me as having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight. One was a thin girl in a black bathing suit who was having a lot of trouble putting up an orange umbrella at Jones Beach, circa 1936. The second was a girl aboard a Caribbean cruise ship in 1939, who threw her cigarette lighter at a porpoise. And the third was the Chief's girl, Mary Hudson.

"Am I very late?" she asked the Chief, smiling at him.

She might just as well have asked if she was ugly.

"No!" the Chief said. A trifle wildly, he looked at the Comanches near his seat and signalled the row to give way. Mary Hudson sat down between me and a boy named Edgar something, whose uncle's best friend was a bootlegger. We gave her all the room in the world. Then the bus started off with a peculiar, amateur-like lurch. The Comanches, to the last man, were silent.

On the way back to our regular parking place, Mary Hudson leaned forward in her seat and gave the Chief an enthusiastic account of the trains she had missed and the train she hadn't missed; she lived in Douglaston, Long Island. The Chief was very nervous. He didn't just fail to contribute any talk of his own; he could hardly listen to hers. The gearshift knob came off in his hand, I remember.

When we got out of the bus, Mary Hudson stuck right with us. I'm sure that by the time we reached the baseball field there was on every Comanche's face a some-girls-just-don't-know-when-to-go-home look. And to really top things off, when another Comanche and I were flipping a coin to decide which team would take the field first, Mary Hudson wistfully expressed a desire to join the game. The response to this couldn't have been more clean-cut. Where before we Comanches had simply stared at her femaleness, we now glared at it. She smiled back at us. It was a shade disconcerting. Then the Chief took over, revealing what had formerly been a well-concealed flair for incompetence. He took Mary Hudson aside, just out of earshot of the Comanches, and seemed to address her solemnly, rationally. At length, Mary Hudson interrupted him, and her voice was perfectly audible to the Comanches. "But I do," she said. "I do, too, want to play!" The Chief nodded and tried again. He pointed in the direction of the infield, which was soggy and pitted. He picked up a regulation bat and demonstrated its weight. "I don't care," Mary Hudson said distinctly, "I came all the way to New York--to the dentist and everything--and I'm gonna play." The Chief nodded again but gave up. He walked cautiously over to home plate, where the Braves and the Warriors, the two Comanche teams, were waiting, and looked at me. I was captain of the Warriors. He mentioned the name of my regular center fielder, who was home sick, and suggested that Mary Hudson take his place. I said I didn't need a center fielder. The Chief asked me what the hell did I mean I didn't need a center fielder. I was shocked. It was the first time I had heard the Chief swear. What's more, I could feel Mary Hudson smiling at me. For poise, I picked up a stone and threw it at a tree.

We took the field first. No business went out to center field the first inning. From my position on first base, I glanced behind me now and then. Each time I did, Mary Hudson waved gaily to me. She was wearing a catcher's mitt, her own adamant choice. It was a horrible sight.

Mary Hudson batted ninth on the Warriors' lineup. When I informed her of this arrangement, she made a little face and said, "Well, hurry up, then." And as a matter of fact we did seem to hurry up. She got to bat in the first inning. She took off her beaver coat--and her catcher's mitt--for the occasion and advanced to the plate in a dark-brown dress. When I gave her a bat, she asked me why it was so heavy. The Chief left his umpire's position behind the pitcher and came forward anxiously. He told Mary Hudson to rest the end of her bat on her right shouder. "I am," she said. He told her not to choke the bat too tightly. "I'm not," she said. He told her to keep her eye right on the ball. "I will," she said. "Get outa the way." She swung mightily at the first ball pitched to her and hit it over the left fielder's head. It was good for an ordinary double, but Mary Hudson got to third on it--standing up.

When my astonishment had worn off, and then my awe, and then my delight, I looked over at the Chief. He didn't so much seem to be standing behind the pitcher as floating over him. He was a completely happy man. Over on third base, Mary Hudson waved to me. I waved back. I couldn't have stopped myself, even if I'd wanted to. Her stickwork aside, she happened to be a girl who knew how to wave to somebody from third base.

The rest of the game, she got on base every time she came to bat. For some reason, she seemed to hate first base; there was no holding her there. At least three times, she stole second.

Her fielding couldn't have been worse, but we were piling up too many runs to take serious notice of it. I think it would have improved if she'd gone after flies with almost anything except a catcher's mitt. She wouldn't take it off, though. She said it was cute.

The next month or so, she played baseball with the Comanches a couple of times a week (whenever she had an appointment with her dentist, apparently). Some afternoons she met the bus on time, some afternoons she was late. Sometimes she talked a blue streak in the bus, sometimes she just sat and smoked her Herbert Tareyton cigarettes (cork-tipped). When you sat next to her in the bus, she smelled of a wonderful perfume.

One wintry day in April, after making his usual three o'clock pickup at 109th and Amsterdam, the Chief turned the loaded bus east at 110th Street and cruised routinely down Fifth Avenue. But his hair was combed wet, he had on his overcoat instead of his leather windbreaker, and I reasonably surmised that Mary Hudson was scheduled to join us. When we zipped past our usual entrance to the Park, I was sure of it. The Chief parked the bus on the comer in the Sixties appropriate to the occasion. Then, to kill time painlessly for the Comanches, he straddled his seat backward and released a new installment of "The Laughing Man." I remember the installment to the last detail, and I must outline it briefly.

A flux of circumstances delivered the Laughing Man's best friend, his timber wolf, Black Wing, into a physical and intellectual trap set by the Dufarges. The Dufarges, aware of the Laughing Man's high sense of loyalty, offered him Black Wing's freedom in exchange for his own. In the best faith in the world, the Laughing Man agreed to these terms. (Some of the minor mechanics of his genius were often subject to mysterious little breakdowns.) It was arranged for the Laughing Man to meet the Dufarges at midnight in a designated section of the dense forest surrounding Paris, and there, by moonlight, Black Wing would be set free. However, the Dufarges had no intention of liberating Black Wing, whom they feared and loathed. On the night of the transaction, they leashed a stand-in timber wolf for Black Wing, first dyeing its left hind foot snow white, to look like Black Wing's.

But there were two things the Dufarges hadn't counted on: the Laughing Man's sentimentality and his command of the timber-wolf language. As soon as he had allowed Dufarge's daughter to tie him with barbed wire to a tree, the Laughing Man felt called upon to raise his beautiful, melodious voice in a few words of farewell to his supposed old friend. The stand-in, a few moonlit yards away, was impressed by the stranger's command of the language and listened politely for a moment to the last-minute advice, personal and professional, that the Laughing Man was giving out. At length, though, the stand-in grew impatient and began shifting his weight from paw to paw. Abruptly, and rather unpleasantly, he interrupted the Laughing Man with the information that, in the first place, his name wasn't Dark Wing or Black Wing or Gray Legs or any of that business, it was Armand, and, in the second place, he'd never been to China in his life and hadn't the slightest intention of going there.

Properly infuriated, the Laughing Man pushed off his mask with his tongue and confronted the Dufarges with his naked face by moonlight. Mlle. Dufarge responded by passing out cold. Her father was luckier. By chance, he was having one of his coughing spells at the moment and thereby missed the lethal unveiling. When his coughing spell was over and he saw his daughter stretched out supine on the moonlit ground, Dufarge put two and two together. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he fired the full clip in his automatic toward the sound of the Laughing Man's heavy, sibilant breathing.

The installment ended there.

The Chief took his dollar Ingersoll out of his watch pocket, looked at it, then swung around in his seat and started up the motor. I checked my own watch. It was almost four-thirty. As the bus moved forward, I asked the Chief if he wasn't going to wait for Mary Hudson. He didn't answer me, and before I could repeat my question, he tilted back his head and addressed all of us: "Let's have a little quiet in this damn bus." Whatever else it may have been, the order was basically unsensible. The bus had been, and was, very quiet. Almost everybody was thinking about the spot the Laughing Man had been left in. We were long past worrying about him--we had too much confidence in him for that--but we were never past accepting his most perilous moments quietly.

In the third or fourth inning of our ball game that afternoon, I spotted Mary Hudson from first base. She was sitting on a bench about a hundred yards to my left, sandwiched between two nursemaids with baby carriages. She had on her beaver coat, she was smoking a cigarette, and she seemed to be looking in the direction of our game. I got excited about my discovery and yelled the information over to the Chief, behind the pitcher. He hurried over to me, not quite running. "Where?" he asked me. I pointed again. He stared for a moment in the right direction, then said he'd be back in a minute and left the field. He left it slowly, opening his overcoat and putting his hands in the hip pockets of his trousers. I sat down on first base and watched. By the time the Chief reached Mary Hudson, his overcoat was buttoned again and his hands were down at his sides.

He stood over her for about five minutes, apparently talking to her. Then Mary Hudson stood up, and the two of them walked toward the baseball field. They didn't talk as they walked, or look at each other. When they reached the field, the Chief took his position behind the pitcher. I yelled over to him. "Isn't she gonna play?" He told me to cover my sack. I covered my sack and watched Mary Hudson. She walked slowly behind the plate, with her hands in the pockets of her beaver coat, and finally sat down on a misplaced players' bench just beyond third base. She lit another cigarette and crossed her legs.

When the Warriors were at bat, I went over to her bench and asked her if she felt like playing left field. She shook her head. I asked her if she had a cold. She shook her head again. I told her I didn't have anybody in left field. I told her I had a guy playing center field and left field. There was no response at all to this information. I tossed my first-baseman's mitt up in the air and tried to have it land on my head, but it fell in a mud puddle. I wiped it off on my trousers and asked Mary Hudson if she wanted to come up to my house for dinner sometime. I told her the Chief came up a lot. "Leave me alone," she said. "Just please leave me alone." I stared at her, then walked off in the direction of the Warriors' bench, taking a tangerine out of my pocket and tossing it up in the air. About midway along the third-base foul line, I turned around and started to walk backwards, looking at Mary Hudson and holding on to my tangerine. I had no idea what was going on between the Chief and Mary Hudson (and still haven't, in any but a fairly low, intuitive sense), but nonetheless, I couldn't have been more certain that Mary Hudson had permanently dropped out of the Comanche lineup. It was the kind of whole certainty, however independent of the sum of its facts, that can make walking backwards more than normally hazardous, and I bumped smack into a baby carriage.

After another inning, the light got bad for fielding. The game was called, and we started picking up all the equipment. The last good look I had at Mary Hudson, she was over near third base crying. The Chief had hold of the sleeve of her beaver coat, but she got away from him. She ran off the field onto the cement path and kept running till I couldn't see her any more.

The Chief didn't go after her. He just stood watching her disappear. Then he turned around and walked down to home plate and picked up our two bats; we always left the bats for him to carry. I went over to him and asked if he and Mary Hudson had had a fight. He told me to tuck my shirt in.

Just as always, we Comanches ran the last few hundred feet to the place where the bus was parked, yelling, shoving, trying out strangleholds on each other, but all of us alive to the fact that it was again time for "The Laughing Man." Racing across Fifth Avenue, somebody dropped his extra or discarded sweater, and I tripped over it and went sprawling. I finished the charge to the bus; but the best seats were taken by that time and I had to sit down in the middle of the bus. Annoyed at the arrangement, I gave the boy sitting on my right a poke in the ribs with my elbow, then faced around and watched the Chief cross over Fifth. It was not yet dark out, but a five-fifteen dimness had set in. The Chief crossed the street with his coat collar up, the bats under his left arm, and his concentration on the street. His black hair, which had been combed wet earlier in the day, was dry now and blowing. I remember wishing the Chief had gloves.

The bus, as usual, was quiet when he climbed in--as proportionately quiet, at any rate, as a theatre with dimming house lights. Conversations were finished in a hurried whisper or shut off completely. Nonetheless, the first thing the Chief said to us was "All right, let's cut out the noise, or no story." In an instant, an unconditional silence filled the bus, cutting off from the Chief any alternative but to take up his narrating position. When he had done so, he took out a handkerchief and methodically blew his nose, one nostril at a time. We watched him with patience and even a certain amount of spectator's interest. When he had finished with his handkerchief, he folded it neatly in quarters and replaced it in his pocket. He then gave us the new installment of "The Laughing Man." From start to finish, it lasted no longer than five minutes.

Four of Dufarge's bullets struck the Laughing Man, two of them through the heart. When Dufarge, who was still shielding his eyes against the sight of the Laughing Man's face, heard a queer exhalation of agony from the direction of the target, he was overjoyed. His black heart beating wildly, he rushed over to his unconscious daughter and brought her to. The pair of them, beside themselves with delight and coward's courage, now dared to look up at the Laughing Man. His head was bowed as in death, his chin resting on his bloody chest. Slowly, greedily, father and daughter came forward to inspect their spoils. Quite a surprise was in store for them. The Laughing Man, far from dead, was busy contracting his stomach muscles in a secret manner. As the Dufarges came into range, he suddenly raised his face, gave a terrible laugh, and neatly, even fastidiously, regurgitated all four bullets. The impact of this feat on the Dufarges was so acute that their hearts literally burst, and they dropped dead at the Laughing Man's feet. (If the installment was going to be a short one anyway, it could have ended there; the Comanches could have managed to rationalize the sudden death of the Dufarges. But it didn't end there.) Day after day, the Laughing Man continued to stand lashed to the tree with barbed wire, the Dufarges decomposing at his feet. Bleeding profusely and cut off from his supply of eagles' blood, he had never been closer to death. One day, however, in a hoarse but eloquent voice, he appealed for help to the animals of the forest. He summoned them to fetch Omba, the lovable dwarf. And they did. But it was a long trip back and forth across the Paris-Chinese border, and by the time Omba arrived on the scene with a medical kit and a fresh supply of eagles' blood, the Laughing Man was in a coma. Omba's very first act of mercy was to retrieve his master's mask, which had blown up against Mlle. Dufarge's vermin-infested torso. He placed it respectfully over the hideous features, then proceeded to dress the wounds.

When the Laughing Man's small eyes finally opened, Omba eagerly raised the vial of eagles' blood up to the mask. But the Laughing Man didn't drink from it. Instead, he weakly pronounced his beloved Black Wing's name. Omba bowed his own slightly distorted head and revealed to his master that the Dufarges had killed Black Wing. A peculiar and heart-rending gasp of final sorrow came from the Laughing Man. He reached out wanly for the vial of eagles' blood and crushed it in his hand. What little blood he had left trickled thinly down his wrist. He ordered Omba to look away, and, sobbing, Omba obeyed him. The Laughing Man's last act, before turning his face to the bloodstained ground, was to pull off his mask.

The story ended there, of course. (Never to be revived.) The Chief started up the bus. Across the aisle from me, Billy Walsh, who was the youngest of all the Comanches, burst into tears. None of us told him to shut up. As for me, I remember my knees were shaking.

A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go right straight to bed.

You might have noticed that those famous Laughing Man quotes 'I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes' did not appear at all in the story above, however it is rightly attributed to Mr Salinger. Those quotes were taken from another of Salinger's books, the more famous The Catcher In The Rye. The quote was delivered by the rebellious, immature but insightful teenager named Holden Caulfield who somehow desires isolation from the world around him:

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198

An interesting read I'm sure, and I can understand after this why our Laughing Man (or boy, Aoi) in GITS SAC is very much obsessed with JD Salinger's works, especially the Laughing Man story. I am on the lookout for The Catcher In The Rye, which is on my to-buy booklist now. Hope this is informative for hardcore Shirow, and especially GITS SAC fans. :) More on the TV series next time.

posted by: Lucas at 01/18/05 23:38 | link | comments | Category: ghost in the shell

Shirowgraphy - The Dark Horse Interview

Since there is little information or write up available on Masamune Shirow, one of the best ways to know and understand the personality of this legendary manga creator is through various interviews published in many magazines. Unfortunately for us English-literates, most of these already rare interviews are in Japanese. However, the few that are available are really great insights into the life and works of Shirow. Necessary PR on Shirow Sensei's side, but in a way valuable for us fans seeking to comprehend deeper beyond the Land Mates and Sailorettes of Shirow's personality.

The following undated interview was taken from Dark Horse Online, simply titled: Masamune Shirow. A good generic, cover-all-points interview where Shirow talks about his background, hobbies, working, influences and Japan's manga industry. For those who have come across this before, it doesn't hurt to do some refreshing on Shirow knowledge, eh? ^_^ Plus, I would comment and highlight certain points after the interview article. Read on...

Masamune Shirow

Fans of manga need no introduction to Masamune Shirow. His works are legend. It is our hope that during Manga Month at Dark Horse, we will bring some new readers into the fold... and no introduction to manga is complete without an introduction to Shirow. His published works include Black Magic, Appleseed, Dominion, Ghost in the Shell, Orion, Neurohard, and the deluxe illustration collection, Intron Depot.

The animated version of Ghost in the Shell is scheduled for theatrical release in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom in late 1995. It is expected to be a very high quality work, employing a great deal of computer graphics, and the best animation staff in Japan. Mr. Shirow is currently working on Ghost in the Shell Part 2, and he plans to serialize it in Kodansha's Young Magazine in the fall of 1995.

Almost all of his works have been translated into English by Studio Proteus, and are currently available through Dark Horse Comics. Ghost in the Shell will be released in March 1995.

Dark Horse: How would you describe your background?

Masamune Shirow: One way you can look at it is that since I was born in 1961 in Japan, I am a member of the color TV generation; it first appeared and became popular while I was growing up. As for Kobe, it is a long, narrow city hemmed in by mountains and the ocean, at the corner of an industrial region that stretches out from Osaka, Japan's second largest metropolis. Kobe is the second largest port city next to Yokohama, and historically it was an early port of entry for Western culture. In Japan today Kobe has a reputation of being a tourist city. When I made my debut with Appleseed, I lived only a few meters from the breakwater, but I drew Ghost in the Shell while living in a town in the mountains about nine kilometers from the sea, and I continue to live there today.

Dark Horse: What did you do prior to your professional debut as an artist?

Shirow: When I was in elementary school I used to do water colors without thinking about it much, and for fun I often went out to draw in the local mountains or at the seashore -- taking complicated illustrated reference books with me that I didn't really understand at all. When I was in junior high and high school I didn't draw much, and I instead devoted myself to sports (judo). Since I was fond of art, though, I later chose to enter the Osaka University of Arts, and I studied oil painting there. In college I met a friend who was a manga fan and was also doing self-publishing¹. And that's how someone like me -- who had never even bought a manga magazine before -- wound up drawing them.

Perhaps because of this, there's very little of the usual manga "know-how" in my work. Some people kindly refer to my style as "unique," but others say it's immature and lacking in understanding of some important and basic points that would make it more commercial. At any rate, after drawing manga for around two years, I was able to issue Black Magic -- my first manga paperback -- through the self-publishing group to which I belonged. Black Magic was noticed by a man named Harumichi Aoki, who is the president of a small publishing firm in Osaka called Seishinsha, and he invited me to make my official debut from his company. Thus began my first contact with the real manga world.

Since I wanted to concentrate on painting until I graduated from college, I had Mr. Aoki wait for a while. Then, upon graduation, in 1985, I drew Appleseed specifically for his company, Seishinsha, and made my commercial debut. Unlike others, I thus began my career never having working as an "assistant" for an established artist, and never having gone through the arduous process of submitting work to publishers as an unknown. I loved to draw and create stories and do research, and I knew that I wanted to enter a profession where I could do all those things, but it took a while after my debut for me to realize that this is, after all, what a comic artist is really all about.

In parallel with my manga debut with Appleseed, I also became a high school teacher. I taught for five years, but I eventually realized that school education merely demands that teachers transmit information², and that I could have a much more direct and deeper dialog with people as a manga artist, so I'm now taking a break from teaching. Around the time I stopped teaching I began drawing Ghost in the Shell and Orion (Seishinsha), and that brings us up to the present. Since my debut, I've been supported by many people and by fortunate circumstances around me, and I feel that I've been incredibly lucky. I'm enormously grateful, for example, for all those at Studio Proteus and Dark Horse who have helped make it possible for my works to be read by my fans in America.

Dark Horse: What are your primary influences?

Shirow: Rather than manga, I think I've been more influenced by animation and TV dramas (especially those from the U.S. and the U.K.)³. Gundam is an example that comes to mind of one influential animation work. Of course I do believe that my work is original in its own way, but there's always some past experience or memory that triggers the ideas I come up with. I may be able to build on ideas, to adapt them, and thus come up with something new, but I have doubts about whether it's truly possible for anyone to create something completely new and original. Emphasizing a combination of females and mecha, as I do, is something that's been around for a long time, and neither the idea of computer brains nor Special Forces units are themselves new, either. But as with cooking, even if the ingredients are the same, the way they are mixed together and the goal of the person doing the mixing creates a different flavor. In that sense, if the result of cooking can be called original, so, too, can my work. I always try to draw manga that are true to myself.

Dark Horse: Are there any foreign artists whose work you particularly enjoy?

Shirow: Unfortunately, there are very few non-Japanese comics sold in Japan, so we have very little opportunity to get to know foreign artists. I'm really happy that I've recently, finally, been able to obtain DC Comics' Arkham Asylum and Moebius' Made in L.A., but I've only been able to catch three episodes of Max Cabanes' Colin-Maillard⁴, which was serialized in one of Kodansha's magazines. Someday when I can find the time I want to take a vacation and tour bookstores throughout Europe scouting for comics⁵.

Dark Horse: Would you ever consider working off another writer's script?

Shirow: I personally like working alone. I like thinking up my stories (even if I'm not very good at it...). Whether using scripts is good or bad is a case-by-case situation, and it would depend on each writer's circumstances and involve some judgment. (From my experience, though, script writers all too easily specify "a young girl so beautiful one falls in love at first sight" or "a heroic clash of mounted armies," and frankly as the person who has to draw the pictures, I'm not very interested in working with them then⁶. Of course, it does depend on the writer, though).

Dark Horse: How do you view the relationship between manga and animation?

Shirow: I do believe that commercial success with manga makes it much easier to get animation projects off the ground. But there are too many people who think that they only have to do a half-way decent job of animating the drawings of a best-selling manga, and I don't agree. I think there are ways to demonstrate and produce animation that are unique to animation. Also, in order to establish animation as a truly unique medium of expression, I think it's better to work from an original concept than to base the work on a manga, or, if producing animation based on a manga work, I think it's better to at least rewrite the story for the animation⁷. It's also true that there are some manga that are truly superb when read, but that are not necessarily suited for animation because of their pacing, style, or length of story. Rather than stressing the "animation of manga," I think it's better to evaluate each work on its own merits (as either manga or animation), and see whether it is good, or whether there is room for improvement.

Dark Horse: What do you consider your best work?

Shirow: I think of my works as my own children, so they're all equally precious to me, and I can't say which is best. But in an overall sense I suppose that Appleseed⁸ stands out the most.

Dark Horse: What do you do in your spare time?

Shirow: I take photographs of spiders and make paper-mache figures (unfortunately, I haven't been doing much of this recently). Since I have always loved to draw, it's hard for me to differentiate between work and play⁹.

Dark Horse: Some of your color work includes very unusual textures. How do you achieve these effects?

Shirow: I use a color copy machine and copy rock or metallic images onto a "transparent film with an adhesive on one side," (reversing or flipping positive and negative images, altering colors, and changing sizes), and then cut and paste them into the drawing. I usually use acrylic paint and apply several thin layers... I avoid a high contrast look with sketches, because when I draw very realistically "the flat, deformed, and unrealistic-looking" faces of my characters¹⁰ tend to dissolve into the surroundings there, and appear odd.

Dark Horse: Do you work together with anyone?

Shirow: I have no drawing assistants or special manga production staff. Even if I wanted to, in the Kobe City area, unlike Tokyo, there are almost no such people anyway. For business matters such as accounting, handling rights, and general negotiations, I have formed a company, however. This allows me to leave business matters up to the company and to concentrate on my creative work. As far as my comics are concerned, it's easier for me to work on my own.

Dark Horse: How much money do manga artists in Japan make?

Shirow: Manga are quite established as a creative medium in Japan -- although they are not given a great deal of public recognition -- and there are many different genres. There is also a vast gap between the lowest and the highest incomes of manga artists. (For your information, although Japan is said to be an economic superpower, it is really the corporations that have all the money, and not the individual citizens. Japan is a peaceful and fortunate place, all right, but to buy a house typically takes between 20 to 30 times the average white-collar worker's annual pay). According to a rumor I have heard (and I can't guarantee its veracity), the annual income of a certain top manga artist is $3 million (perhaps half of this is taken by taxes, but it's still more than 70 times the average white collar worker's annual pay!) and the lowest annual income is around $500 (which would obviously require depending on one's family). But with a page rate of $100, a thirty-page work serialized in a monthly magazine for a year comes to around $36,000, or almost the same as the average salaried employee's annual wage of $40,000. And if the artist draws 200 to 300 pages, he or she can issue a paperback volume and enjoy royalties as well, with almost no limit as long as the work sells well. Major publishers usually demand that artists produce between 20 to 30 pages a week, and they pay more than $100 per page. Artists are also generally paid between $500 and $5000 for the rights to use a single illustration for a video game package, etc., so with talent and luck (depending on whether the masses love you or not), you can see that it can be considerably more profitable to work as a manga artist than as the salaried employee of a company. Nonetheless, things don't always go the way you expect in this business, so a manga artist is definitely an occupation with a considerable element of gambling to it.

Finally, it takes considerable expense to hire the multiple assistants necessary to meet the volume-production demanded by publishers, and to set up and maintain a production space. You have to do good work in order to succeed commercially, but whether you'll succeed commercially just by doing good work involves a gamble.

For Ghost in the Shell I drew an average of forty pages per episode and it took me around forty days to do one episode. But the number of hours I can work, and the efficiency of my work fluctuates, so it's not always possible to do a page a day. It's a real struggle simply to adjust my schedule to "meet the deadlines...!¹¹

"As with cooking, even if the ingredients are the same, the way they are mixed together and the goal of the person doing the mixing creates a different flavor. In that sense, if the result of cooking can be called original, so, too, can my work. I always try to draw manga that are true to myself^.12"

1. I suppose this is the much-mentioned Atlas fanzine.

2. Shirow doesn't mention whether he teaches art or something else in high school. Yes, being a teacher in Japan, or for that matter any Asian country can be a pretty rigid profession. The focus is always priority on Exam Results, not the learning process. This is speaking from experience! ;-)

3. I wonder what kind of US / UK TV dramas does Shirow watch.... Maybe something like Monthy Python or Dallas or CSI or what?? :-)

4. I have absolutely no idea what is this Collin-Maillard & Max Cabanes..... I suppose I'll need to look this up.. (note, note).

5. Shirow specifically mentioned that he wants to shop for comics in Europe... I gather he must have seen some really good stuff from there, because otherwise I suppose most of the popular comics are US-based, even Arkham Asylum... Or could be that for the scenery and experience Shirow prefers Europe, and comic shopping is a secondary purpose.

6. "a young girl so beautiful one falls in love at first sight" ..... somehow I find this portion of the interview really amusing!... :-) However, looking at Shiow's current selection of works, something in the key of "a young greasy girl so beautiful one falls in physical love at first sight"... (damn that sounds so wrong! No offence to Grease fans though, whatever floats your boats :-)) I just find Shirow's selection these days quite mysteriously questionable...

7. Perhaps this is the reason why Mamoru Oshii's GITS and Innocence doesn't quite ring a bell with Shirow's original manga. However, I think Stand Alone Complex with the Laughing Man plot seriously deserves praise, and in my opinion is a very successful animation of GITS.

8. There you have it. Appleseed is the Shirow-defining work, from the master himself. After all its Shirow's eldest 'child', not necessarily as successful as the youngest though (Ghost In The Shell). Considering the period of time when Appleseed was conceived, and seeing how it has progressed with Shirow's career through the years, Appleseed is the title that is in every way uniquely represents Shirow.

9. Shirow plays alot of video games too! But that is another interview for another time.

10. One can't help but appreciate Shirow's skills when dealing with this. Shirow's characters are still sketched out first I believe, and then only the colouring and fine-tuning done in CG. Its different from say creating an entirely 3D character, so to achieve the quality of work Shirow managed to, its very impressive.

11. Do the maths. I think Shirow's main issue is mainly deadlines. Financially I think he is doing very well thank you! ^_^ In this sense I understand the Grease Gals. Shirow needs to eat also I suppose...

12. "I always try to draw manga that are true to myself" Its precisely this kind of attitude and quality control that makes Shirow's w