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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 20:13 | link | comments | Category: black magic

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