Vexille

The dark secret of future Tokyo!

For ten long years, Japan has hidden itself from the world behind an electronic curtain. Since the UN adopted strict limits on the development of cybernetic and biological technologies to avoid possible scientific abuses, Japan has chosen to continue the research hidden from the world's eyes. All the world knows of Japan comes from the Mega Corp that runs the country, Daiwa, which continues to export state of the art robotic weaponry to the highest bidder. Until now.

Tipped off about a clandestine meeting between a Japanese official and representatives from various governments, the agents of S.W.O.R.D. are on a stakeout to see what has changed. After the council is massacred, they move in to discover the Daiwa executive, Saito, is perfectly willing to cut off his own leg to escape... a thoroughly replaceable leg.

Now S.W.O.R.D. must do the unthinkable, infiltrate Japan without government backing to discover the secret they have been hiding from the world.

This completely CGI Anime is also from the creators of Appleseed.

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This work contains examples of:

• America Saves the Day: Yeah, actually. The heroes are a special forces group from the U.S navy.
  • Of course, everyone but Vexille and the captain are killed minutes after reaching Japan by rocket launcher mooks. It then falls to the snobby and nationalistic Japanese La Résistance to save the day with the help of Vexille. That said, they probably would have failed without the outside help.
• A God Am I: Kisaragi.
• Body Horror: The people of Japan are completely inorganic, needing neither food nor sleep. Also they're slowly turning into 'perfect' androids, incapable of emotion and independent thought.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Both averted, and later justified. The surviving cybernetic population are all completely normal-looking and feel emotions, despite being understandably depressed and despondent. However, when the Final stage converts/destroys the brain, they become mindless obedient zombies (a non-contagious type P, or cybernetic type V), loyal to the company.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: An entire country locked away from the outside world?
• Dying Like Animals: The chairman of the refugees in Tokyo blabs about the resitance's plan to avoid reprisal.
• Everything Is an iPod In The Future : Averted and played straight in the opening battle. The 'bodyguard' robots of the bad guy are slightly grimy, and look rather worn. On the other hand the S.W.O.R.D. robots are shiny, bulbous, and translucent white.
• Evolutionary Levels: What Kisaragi thinks he's accomplished by turning the Japanese into androids.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Kisaragi.
• Fighting for Survival: Also a Crowning Moment of Awesome. The chairman changes his mind, and with the consent of the citizens of Tokyo they make a Heroic Sacrifice by letting the Jags pass through and devour them alive so that they can destroy Daiwa's floating island.
• For Science!: Kisaragi used all of Japan for test subjects, killing what must have been the vast majority of the population and destroying everything organic on the surface due to Jags.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: The Jags. Depending on how Kisaragi saw it, the catastrophic mortality rate and tendency to destroy the subjects mind (useful for creating willing slaves, not so much since he couldn't avoid it if he injected himself).
• Hypocrite: Kisaragi, again. He harps on about creating the next step in human evolution, but did not inject himself with nanites because the process was still very risky. Saito, who is infected, did not like this about his boss.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Maria shoots adorable kid Takashi when he loses his 'shards of humanity,' so that he won't reveal the resistance's plans.
• La Résistance
• Loss of Identity: What will happen to just about everyone in the slums of Tokyo. Once the nanomachines reach and convert the brain, the 'shards of humanity' will be extinguished and the human will die, leaving only a robotic body.
• Love Triangle: Maria, Leon, and Vexille.
• Pet Monstrosity: The villain keeps a tiny Jag in a sandbox in his lair. Probably an insanely dangerous thing to do, considering the are tornados of scrap that devour metal, but he's a pretty crazy guy.
• Powered Armor: The S.W.O.R.D armor.
• Relationship Voice Actor: Leon and Vexille are Roy and Riza.
• Sand Worm: The Jags, giant whirling tunneling tornadoes of metallic scrap. They can sense, seek and eat anything metallic, but die when immersed in water.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Kind of. All that's left of Japan and the Japanese that isn't Jag food are holed up in a ghetto over what was Tokyo, surrounded by a gigantic ceramic fence.
• The Virus: The nanomachines which roboticized the population.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: The 'vaccine' was designed to spread the Nanomachines that did this.
• Villain's Dying Grace: While dying of a bullet to the brain, Saito manages to command two robots to free Maria and Vexille so they don't die as the base collapses.
• What Happened to the Mouse??: The fate and actions of the American official that was infected (or possibly replaced with a cyber-clone) is never revealed.