Fall 2005

Mushi are primitive beings that exist outside ordinary ideas of good, evil, and even life itself. They may appear as light, disease, sound, or phenomena resembling dreams, and most people cannot perceive them at all. When Mushi intersect with human lives, however, they can alter bodies, memories, and entire environments in ways few understand. Ginko is a wandering Mushishi who studies these beings and treats problems caused by contact between their world and humanity. He does not travel simply to destroy what he finds. More often, the answer lies in understanding what a Mushi is doing and finding a way for both people and nature to continue without one consuming the other.

Saya Otonashi lives quietly with her adoptive family in Okinawa, but she remembers almost nothing from before the past year. Her ordinary life breaks apart when a blood-drinking creature attacks her at school and a mysterious cellist named Haji appears. His blood awakens something inside Saya, allowing her to kill the creature with a sword in a way that feels frighteningly familiar.The attack draws Saya into Red Shield's hidden war against the Chiropterans, immortal monsters capable of blending into human society. Haji stays at her side as the conflict carries her far beyond Okinawa, and every battle brings another fragment of the past she lost. To understand why her blood can destroy these creatures, Saya must uncover who she was before her current memories began.

Train Heartnet is the “Black Cat,” Chronos’s elite Number XIII assassin, a man who follows orders with little concern for the lives he takes. His outlook changes after meeting Saya Minatsuki, a bounty hunter who lives freely and treats him like a person rather than a weapon, making Train imagine choosing his own future for the first time.He abandons Chronos and becomes a bounty hunter, but the organization does not accept losing one of its deadliest agents, and Creed Diskenth refuses to let him move on. Traveling with Sven and Eve, Train is pursued by the past he rejected and by a new group powerful enough to threaten the world around them.

Yuji Sakai believes he is an ordinary high school student until time suddenly freezes around him and a monstrous Crimson Denizen begins consuming the lives of people nearby. A red-haired girl wielding a sword destroys the creature, then tells Yuji something worse than death: the real Yuji has already been consumed, and the person standing there is only a Torch, a temporary remnant destined to fade from the world and from everyone's memory.Yet Yuji is not an ordinary Torch. A powerful treasure called the Reiji Maigo is hidden inside him, drawing new Denizens to Misaki City and binding his fate to the nameless Flame Haze who saved him. He gives her the name Shana, and together they enter a hidden war fought over human existence itself.

On Aqua, the terraformed planet once known as Mars, the canal city of Neo-Venezia preserves the beauty and leisurely rhythm of old Venice. Fifteen-year-old Akari Mizunashi leaves Manhome behind and joins the tiny Aria Company, hoping to become a Prima Undine, a professional gondolier who guides visitors through the city's waterways.Akari's training brings her close to fellow apprentices Aika and Alice, experienced Undines, curious travelers, and the many small wonders hidden in everyday life. Rather than rushing toward her goal, she learns to notice the warmth of each encounter, the changing seasons, and the almost magical character of Neo-Venezia itself.

A young Taiwanese assassin known as Glass Heart tries to end her own life, only to awaken after a secret heart transplant with memories and emotions that do not belong to her. The heart came from Kaori Makimura, and its lingering pull leads Glass Heart to Shinjuku in search of the people connected to the woman whose life now beats inside her.There she encounters Ryo Saeba, the legendary City Hunter who lost Kaori and has been living with that grief ever since. As Glass Heart flees the organization that trained her and becomes entangled with Shinjuku's criminal underworld, Ryo is forced to confront the impossible return of Kaori's presence while helping a damaged young woman discover a life of her own.

Tatsumiyajima appears to be a peaceful island hidden from the conflicts consuming the outside world, but its children have been raised beneath a secret they can no longer avoid. When the alien Festum discover the island, Kazuki Makabe and his classmates are drawn into the Fafner program and forced to become the defenders of the home they thought they knew.The battles bind Kazuki's fate to Soushi Minashiro and expose the cost of using machines built to confront an enemy that can invade both body and mind. As friends are lost, loyalties tested, and the truth about the island emerges, the struggle against the Festum becomes inseparable from the young pilots' fight to preserve their own humanity.

Six years after the kidnapping of Serano Genomics president Ernest Serano, the hacker known as the Laughing Man remains a ghost. The case once shook Japan's micromachine industry, yet no one has been able to explain who the Laughing Man was or why so many powerful institutions seemed eager to let the truth disappear.When a detective investigating the old case contacts Togusa and then dies in a suspicious accident, Section 9 begins pulling at the buried threads. The Laughing Man soon reappears in spectacular fashion, forcing Motoko Kusanagi and her team into a maze of corporate corruption, police interference, manipulated memories, and digital identities. Solving the case means determining whether the legendary hacker is one person at all, or an idea that has already escaped anyone's control.

The Choubimaru incident is finally over, but the Masaki household is far from quiet. Misao and Mashisu face the consequences of what happened, only for an unexpected marriage proposal and the Kuramitsu family's interference to turn the aftermath into another complicated family affair.At home, Tenchi learns more about the circumstances surrounding his mother's death, reopening emotions that threaten his relationship with his father and grandfather. At the same time, Noike's hidden past comes closer to the surface, forcing the family to confront truths they have avoided for years.

Across a succession of miniature worlds, ordinary objects, songs, mascots, and daily routines become tiny stories of their own. Some moments are playful and comic, others quiet or dreamlike, but each finds a spark of character in motion, expression, and atmosphere before giving way to the next unexpected scene.

Ryoutsu is saddled with caring for a lost puppy and quickly notices that bizarre strokes of good luck seem to follow the animal everywhere. Seeing opportunity, he names the dog Lucky and becomes determined not to give up his new source of fortune.His greed is complicated when Lucky's real identity comes to light: the puppy belongs to a princess who has secretly come to Japan. Ryoutsu's attempt to keep hold of his lucky charm spirals into a chase across Kameari, forcing him to decide whether the bond he has formed with the dog matters more than the fortune it brings.

Renton Thurston leaves his quiet home after the Nirvash typeZERO crashes into his life with its pilot, Eureka. Joining the outlaw crew Gekkostate brings him the adventure he imagined, but also exposes the resentment, violence, and responsibility hidden behind their celebrated image.As Renton and Eureka draw closer, their bond awakens unusual responses from the Nirvash and the mysterious Scub Coral covering the planet. Military attacks, Coralian manifestations, and revelations about Eureka's nature carry the crew toward a conflict in which understanding the world may be more important than defeating an enemy.

Kino wakes from a nap relieved to find that the impossibly tall tower on the horizon is still standing. Curious, Kino and the talking motorcycle Hermes enter the country surrounding it and discover that the inhabitants have been building upward for generations.No one can give them a convincing reason for why the tower must continue growing, yet the people labor on as if the purpose were self-evident. Kino and Hermes observe the country and its strange certainty, searching for the meaning behind a task that absorbs the efforts of generation after generation even though nobody seems to remember how it began.

Aliens known as Amanto have transformed Edo and pushed the samurai into an age where carrying swords is forbidden. Kotarou Katsura refuses to accept their rule and prepares an attack with a giant machine, hoping to strike at the Shinsengumi and restore pride to the fallen samurai.Gintoki Sakata has concerns of a far less revolutionary kind: he only wants to enjoy cherry-blossom viewing with Shinpachi and Kagura. When the Shinsengumi claims the same spot, the argument escalates into a ludicrous contest where rock-paper-scissors becomes far more violent than intended. Katsura's grand scheme and the two groups' petty rivalry soon collide in the chaotic way only Edo can manage.