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Title Info
- seen: 1-4 of 4
- type: manga
- grade: exemplary
- people: Shirow
- Other elements of this title:
- This title was never completed.
- This title is a personal favourite.
- source: Dark Horse
- made: unknown
- Review created: A while ago, i'll revise it eventually.
- mod: none
This title does have faults, the most serious being the improbability of Mr Shirow ever finishing the thing. On the other hand this is his masterwork, and has no shortage of strengths. The plot is in the far future in which the politics (and indeed surface) of the world has been dramatically changed by war and conflict which still bubbles in the background and in covert actions. Emerging onto the world stage is the super-tech city of olympus, but it has concerns of its own, many of which extend into the familiar shirow philosophy. We follow Deunan, a very talented ESWAT trooper and her long-term Cyborg partner briareous (8' tall, but he's the gentle, philosophical one). While they are certainly tigers stalking in Olympus it is always possible that they are tools, or possibly even involved in some bizarre experiment. This is surely the ideal stage for shirows idea's and talents. His superb depiction of technology and the military / police mind is intense. There simply is no female manga character more believably deadly than Deunan. The plots are monstrously complex, often with mysteries or politics making everything murky. This is a manga you have to read many times simply to work out what the hell is happening. The action scenes are also very well rendered, and believable. Shirow's detailed designs almost look like they could be used as blueprints and his characters are also great value. If you can live with the fact that it will remain incomplete, this is the Shirow title to look at. Interestingly one comment I saw said that the reason it remains on long hiatus is because Shirow is in demand for, and enjoying, doing technical design in games.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:15 WST 2009