About me

Name: Lucas...
is a hyper-advanced cyborg- his body consists of all of his active drives; his memory of all of his active sources. These are all variable, but on a periodic basis his bio components crave energy and sleep and remind him of his basic identity-layer (yes, I crave sleeping)...

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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 18:36 | link | comments | Category: appleseed

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