I wanted to return for another genre-themed urban dystopia manga-short inspired by the iconic anime-film "Akira" [1988], which has become a cult-favorite symbol really of modern 'destiny' storytelling. Thanks for reading,
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The city in Asia in the year 2090 was cold and calculating. Governance was centralized for pure commercial efficiency, and Tan was a bike-riding hero of the streets, alongside his gal Jasmine and their bike-gang known as Akira. Akira had become known as a sort of vigilante-gang, taking out vandals and thugs and minions of the New Republic ruled by the ruthless crime-boss Darkman. There was narcotics and extortion and terrorism in random areas because of Darkman's activity, and Tan's Akira bike-gang used smoke-bombs, water-guns filled with acid, and tranquilizer-darts to mow down minions/vandals loitering in the Asian city streets creating fear, worse than the sectarian 'troubles' we'd seen in the last millennium (e.g., Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine) and terrorism and wars we'd seen such as the LA Gang War.
However, Tan and Akira now had a new darker presence to deal with all of a sudden in this new era Asian city of darkness, and it came in the form of a minister of crime and his mistress or 'siren' of evil. The minister is Rai, a ruthless chess-master of organized terrorism, and his siren, Jade, is an advocate of pure insanity and political corruption, seeping into official government levels and destroying credibility with carefully-placed scandal stories about adultery practiced by law officials. Rai/Jade were the official Minister/Siren of darkness, and Tan and Akira hoped to use some creative-thinking to destabilize this new 'platform' of evil. Tan wanted his gal Jasmine (the opposing-force of Jade really!) to intercept some fashion-world infiltrations strategized by the Siren Jade by placing more commercially optimistic street-ads about the value of teamwork in capitalism.
MINISTER: This city is ours, and Akira will be extinguished!
SIREN: These political-scandal reports will add to our aura, beloved.
You see, the Siren Jade was the person who herself created these horrifying scandal-reports about city law officials and corrupted politicians in the Asian world immersed in adultery, destroying the public faith in governance and thereby adding 'tinges' of prestige and mystique to the face of Minister/Siren. It was Jade herself who seduced these officials/politicians, wearing masquerade-masks and luring them into her bed while having photos taken in secret by Minister's henchmen to be distributed to the press. Who'd resist the charms of a Siren luring lustful/corruptible men into her bed-chambers wearing masks and claiming, "You won't regret the one-time experience of carnal sin which will be 'erased' once you're 'absorbed' into the underworld activity of Minister and enjoy his good graces, man."
TAN: Perhaps this is the sort of Apocalypse we read in the Bible.
JASMINE: We have to keep vigilance to dismantle this form of insanity!
As Akira continued to patrol the city-streets and use careful 'blood-diamond heists' of bank-safe boxes owned by the new face of evil, Minister, Jasmine used commercial lines and the media to reinvigorate the darkened Asian city with a newfound sense of purpose and capitalism rhetoric. Tan knew the best cure to the vices that Minister/Siren created was to forcefully create the real 'supernatural magic' of engaged teamwork-driven social creativity. If the Asian city was to survive the dawn, Tan/Jasmine and their beloved Akira-gang on bikes would have to find the right method to undo the layers of rotten d that Minister/Siren hoped to stamp upon Earth as the new age of deformity.
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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)
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