Chirality



A Seinen manga series by Satoshi Urushihara, published from 1995 to 1997. It had an English translation published from 1997 to 2000, by the now-defunct company Central Park Media. There is also a sequel, Ragnarock City, published in 2001.

In the year 2022, human civilization was devastated by volcanic eruptions caused by an artificial intelligence called "Gaia" drilling into the Earth. The few survivors live in underground shelters. However, these shelters are threatened by the "GM", a swarm of robots (originally Gaia's repair subsystem) trying to either kill the humans or transform them into more GM. The story follows a group of people on their journey from their shelter to Gaia, where they intend to reprogram Gaia in order to stop the plague of GM and to prevent Gaia from destroying the Earth completely.

This series provides examples of:
 * After the End
 * AI Is a Crapshoot
 * Artificial Human -- Carol and Adam
 * Author Appeal -- as with most of Urushihara's works, future fashion includes (at minimum) transparent tops for women.
 * But Your Wings Are Beautiful -- Almost word-for-word Kaede's reaction to Rachel.
 * Childhood Marriage Promise -- Almost: Shiori and Carol met for the first time as children, and Carol promised to protect Shiori then.
 * Earthshattering Kaboom -- It's stated that Gaia would eventually cause this if left unrepaired.
 * Evil Counterpart -- Adam (of Carol)
 * Fan Service
 * Fun with Acronyms -- "Carol" is an acronym for Chirality Artificial Recombine of Life
 * Foreign Language Title
 * Girls Love
 * Gender Bender -- As part of Carol's shapeshifting ability
 * Has Two Mommies -- Rachel as the daughter of Shiori and Carol in the sequel.
 * Hand Wave -- Many things that happen in the story (Carol's shapeshifting, the human-to-GM transformations, etc.) have implausible or absent explanations.
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming -- It uses the word "case" in place of "chapter".
 * It's Not You, It's My Enemies -- Carol tries this when Adam threatens her travelling companions. She gives it up because Adam attacks them anyway.
 * Latex Space Suit -- Not actually space suits, because they're not in space, but several characters (including the main two) wear form-fitting suits.
 * Omake -- The two "SD Case" segments
 * Shapeshifting -- Carol's ability
 * Skinship Grope
 * Spell My Name with an "S" -- The about-the-author page in Central Park Media's edition refers to the sequel as Laguna Rock City.
 * That seems a bit more like an example of Blind Idiot Translation than Spell My Name with an "S"
 * Stripperiffic -- See Author Appeal above. Explained in Ragnarock City as showing off that the character has no cyborg parts; apparently making such components look like natural flesh isn't within their technological ability. Something of a problem for Rachel, who's a mutant of sorts, but then her wings are normally invisible, or hidden within her back, or something.
 * Superpower Meltdown -- Carol loses control of her shapeshifting ability at one point.
 * Transformation Trauma -- Humans infected with the GM parasite transforming into GM
 * The Virus -- The GM parasite