Senjutsu Chou Koukaku Orion

"Tonight, somewhere on the planet Lurieh, flower of civilization, a malevolent deity is about to appear......" - Orion Notes Intro - I found this article in Wizard: The Guide To Comics Mag, #71- July 1997, under the 'Manga Scene: A Guide To Japanese Comics And Animation Both Past And Present' section by Mr. Carl Gustav Horn. I think this article is a really good summary of what Orion is all about... Take a look: Apocalypse Made Fun Masamune Shirow's 'Orion' means mass destruction and massive laughs. It's the end of the world as they know it, and they feel fine. Such is the mood of Orion, Masamune Shirow's fantasy creation that mixes black humor along with elements of Asian mysticism (such as Indian Tantric Buddhism), the legendary gods of Japan, the classic Chinese fortune-telling book I Ching, and a dash of author H.P. Lovecraft. Set in ancient times, the Earth is home to a great magical alien empire, the Yamata People's Empire that has colonized our world from the distant stars. But this magic is no simple wand-pointing and backwards-phrase mutterung mumbo-jumbo. Shirow ingeniously creates a "magic" with fundamental laws behind it, treating it as if it were physics. And just like physics brought us great ideas like the atomic bomb, the "psycho-science" of the Yamata People's Empire has come up with the dubious scheme to build a reactor which will collect all the bad karma in the galaxy and destroy it. Unfortunately, Earth could go with it... Caught up in this fast track to oblivion are two main characters: the reckless teenage sorceress Seska and the God of Destruction known as Susano. Seska works as a "transnav," using her mind powers to guide interstellar spacecraft, but her real interests seem to lie in drinking, lazing about and wondering how she's going to get the handsome Imperial Guard Ronnel to notice her. Her big chance comes when she literally stumbles into activating the negative karma reactor, which turns a bratty, shameless Seska into a bratty, shameless super-being. Only in this crazy situation could the God of Destruction be the good guy of the story, yet it's up to the hastily-summoned Susano (who wears a World War I flying ace cap and wields a 6-foot-long spiked club) to save the foolish mortals and stop their reactor from obliterating the galaxy. But it's too bad he's so pissed off about the whole insane situation he plans on teaching Earth's inhabitants what true power is like. And if his 'lesson' happens to kill a couple million people,so be it. Shirow's design work is just as diverse and intensive and in this wild flight into fantasy as it is in his "hard sci-fi" manga. The ship Seska navigates are slave galleys, physically "rowed" by long ranks of bottled, griping brains. In Orion's world, the characters don't use alarm clocks. Instead, they put a magical strip of paper with a delayed-action spell on their foreheads. The spell, when activated, will literally blow a character out of bed. If Shirow can do that for Orion's household appliances, you don't have to guess what he does for its weapons of mass destruction. Gods and mortals alike swing impossibly huge, rune-covered swords, vomit up wads of voodoo puke, and launch the dreaded "cubular warheads". As they used to say on "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," if you're not careful, you'll learn something before you're through. No violent or absurd act goes without a paragraph of dialogue, a handy diagram or chart, plus a lengthy footnote from the author to explain why this particluar situation couldn't happen in real life. Although Orion's nonsense lectures on "psycho-science" are not like the serious social or philosophical commentary of his Ghost In The Shell or Appleseed, you'll still find yourself reading and re-reading to get the full appreciation of the fascinating world Shirow creates in the story. So sit down, class. Open your copy of Orion and start reading. When Carl Horn gave Masamune Shirow an apple before class, Mr. Shirow stared at it and clocked Carl in the melon. FYI: Orion was originally published by Dark Horse Comics in a bimonthly, six-issue format from 1992-1993-- a period in which manga companies such as Dark Horse and Viz were abandoning the older practice of square-bound issues as not being cost-effective. This helps to explain why the six issues of Orion varied in price, page count, and binding, with #1 and #6 being $3.95, and #2-#5 being $2.95. The entire Orion series is available as a graphic novel from Dark Horse for $17.95.

Shirow's comments on Orion from Intron Depot: Orion is a light-hearted manga; sort of a comedy based on Japanese mythology, seasoned with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. It's the story of Earth's genesis (destruction?), triggered by sorcerers in super-ancient times who summon gods and use special nine-headed Naga rituals (this is obviously fiction, and I beg forgiveness of any Christian or Hindu readers- all religions have their own creation myths, after all). I may have gone overboard a bit with all the kanji double and triple meanings that I used, but its a rather conceptual story, and I had a lot of fun drawing it. Perhaps as a result, Orion also has a slightly raw rythm to it. Interestingly, the target readership turned out to be quite a bit different in the end than I had originally planned. I think of Orion as being in the same vein as Black Magic, and sort of a counterpart to Appleseed.

Introduction / Brief Summary From English Edition TPB: In the mighty Yamata Empire, magic and technology are one and the same. Now the Empire is preparing its ultimate feat of psycho-science: the destruction of all the negative karma in the galaxy. But will this mystical purification be the salvation of humanity -- or its ultimate destruction? Only one being can save the Empire from its folly: Susano, the God of Destruction. Wild, arrogant, and homicidal, Susano has come to teach the world the true nature of power!

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