briareos hecatonchires 1985 - mercenary cyborg ブリアレオス・ヘカトンケイレス, Buriareosu Hekatonkeiresu

A massive, skilled warrior yet an easy-going guy, the mercenary cyborg with the distinctive “rabbit” antennae on his metal skull and his blonde tomboy lover Deunan Knute are creations of Masamune Shirow in his early manga Appleseed, published in Japan by Seishinsha from 1985—1989 and in the United States by Dark Horse in 1995. After wandering across a war-ravaged globe in the twenty-second century in the aftermath of a devastating war, the pair find themselves in Olympus, a state watched over by enhanced humans, bioroids, whose long-term plan is to make every human just like them. Shirow’s story starts in 1988, after the Seoul Olympics, and he develops a complex political, social, and economic background involving real-world events and invented- world variations.

Over the first three decades of the third millennium, the technologically advanced powers tried desperately to bolster their own position after a terrible war, while the poorer countries were devastated by hunger, with wandering bands of mercenaries and child soldiers, and complete social breakdown. From 2030 onwards, the rulers of the island state of Olympus promoted the Appleseed Plan, a scheme to manage urban society through the use of enhanced cyber- organisms known as bioroids. Briareos was born in 2096; his parents are unknown but he is naturally dark-skinned with dark hair and eyes. By the time he was ten years old, he was already working for a living in the military, and the undersea cables and satellites that enabled communication to function were slowly being restored. When he was twelve, he killed his commanding officer and went on the run, working freelance thereafter. He met Deunan Knute and her father Carl in 2116, and joined Carl’s mercenary team. By 2122, seventeen-year-old Deunan had joined the Police Academy and Briareos’ past finally caught up with him, resulting in a mysterious explosion that almost killed him. The only way to save his life was to make him a cyborg. Despite his changed body, he and Deunan remain lovers. They are recruited by bioroid agent Hitomi for the Olympus Police Force in 2127. There, they find that not every citizen appreciates the careful, tactful, but total control exerted by the city, and that unaugmented humans are considered an undesirable underclass in some circles. Their new role is to try to keep Utopia from total breakdown, to stop it from either descending into the anarchy they left behind in the wastelands, or becoming a neo-fascist state. Not every cyborg is a total success. Just like unaugmented people, some have better motor control and mental skills than others.

Only one subject in a hundred adapts ideally to the changes and emerges from rehab with perfect co-ordination; Briareos is the one in a hundred, able to maintain a constant level of performance at all temperatures and under all stresses. His armored limbs are phenomenally powerful, he is a superb shot, and he is highly effective in combat. He has an auxiliary brain to function as a dedicated information processor, capable of conceptual evaluation. His skin is elastic and warm, and he can adjust its surface temperature. It’s still as sensitive as human skin. Although he has been extensively augmented, many parts remain human, including his central core nervous system, eyes, and reproductive organs. He still enjoys a glass of wine or six—there are jokey references in the manga to fiddling expense accounts to cover wine costs. The manga ended in 1989, having won numerous prizes including the prestigious Galaxy Award, one of Japan’s top science fiction honors. Appleseed was animated in 1988, in a much truncated version, far less rich and complex than the manga. A new CG animated version, written by Shirow, premiered in April 2004, as part of a planned Appleseed trilogy.