A Strange Tale of the Low City at Night
By Pedro Edogawa (AKA Patrick Macias)
1923...Charles Fort (played by Warren Ellis, in his screen debut) travels to the Mysterious Orient in search of anomalous phenomena to compile. En route to Jakarta, he hears rumors of unusual animal tracks found in Taisho-era Tokyo, and decides to make a stop in Japan for investigation. On the banks of the Sumida River, Fort has a chance encounter with a former acquaintance from New York: elegiac essayist and novelist Kafu Nagai (Tadanobu Asano). While visiting the nearby pleasure quarters of Yoshiwara, the pair discovers a mysterious set of footprints that become human before disappearing entirely in the foyer of the Asakusa Twelve Storeys building. As Fort connects the tracks to an extinct tribe from the Tsuyama area, Kafu is quickly convinced that a female shape-shifter is loose somewhere in the Shitamachi. Enlisting the help of Yoshiwara courtesan O-yuki (Natsuki Kato), the pair begins a private investigation of the area, which arouses the ire of officer Nishizaki (Hitoshi Ozawa), a former member of the Shinsengumi. Soon, the truth seekers find themselves at the center of a terrifying supernatural conspiracy that threatens the very makings of modern Tokyo.
.......
AND THEN?!
Don't forget..oh, wait, the whole Thule Society thing didn't kick in until Hitler and the 30's, right? nevermind....
Posted by: Steve Harrison | October 07, 2005 at 10:36 PM
And then to say anymore would require using that highly respected literary device known as the "spoiler warning."
**SPOILER WARNING**
Nagai and Fort discover that the Imperial family is decended from a pack of Korean werewolves. So is O-yuki, which leads to some personal problems and a love triangle and the need to keep it all quiet.
After the devistation caused by the 1923 earthquake, they decide it's better to simply let the country rebuild itself than to tear it down again from the inside. End of story, but this decision to leave the status quo in power leads to World War II, and the formation of the shadow Government of Darkness (G.O.D.), the lameness of the heisei era and finally, to the Yuna Jyu-pun Senso...but now I'm really getting ahead of myself.
Posted by: Patrick3 | October 08, 2005 at 10:23 AM