Masamune Shirow's Appleseed stories takes place on earth in middle of 2100's. World have suffered from WWIII (non-nuclear war) but things are getting better. These stories tell mostly about man made island called Olympus in coast of northern Africa. Olympus is advanced utopian city that is run and largely inhabited by bioroids; genetically engineered human beings with their genes taken from several sources, raised in carefully controlled conditions. Olympus is a symbol of the new world order to all countries.

Appleseed's two main characters are a young woman named Deunan Knute and his cyborg-boyfriend Briareos. They are members of the Olympus ESWAT team 2. In Appleseed's world hard-suits and mech-suits are pretty popular. ESWAT's have their own mech-suits. So Appleseed is pretty much about police operations and relationship between Deunan and Briareos and their friends, including Hitomi and Yoshitsune. Hitomi is bioroid. She is working on Legislature. Legislature is team of seven elders who pretty much run the Olympus. Hitomi is sometimes pretty silly and that does give that certain type of humour into Appleseed. Yoshitsume is mechanic. He loves all kinds of mech-suits and motorbikes. He is very obsessed by mechanics what makes sometimes fights with Hitomi.

Appleseed Book One: The Promethean Challenge, is originally published in 1985 by Seishinsha is regarded as Shirow's "professional" debut, ensuring his position in manga's Hall of Fame. In the year it was published it won the Sejun Sho award (the Japanese 'Hugo') at the national SF convention. Later Dark Horse comics have published many editions of all 4 Appleseed books and Appleseed Databook. I simply love Appleseed in manga and anime. It contains right mixture of humour and action. It does have lot's of beautiful girls, brave men and mecha's. What more could one ask from a manga ^_^

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