"Furumachi", Basic Setting of the Story

This text has been translated by DeepL. I'm sorry if there are parts that don't make sense.

This is a documented text for a video I'm about to upload. I'm going to try to show the production process of the story in this way. I'm still working on it, so if you have any questions or requests, I'd appreciate it.

The story with the common world setting of the old town was published in a book called "Kaira" by Wani Magazine. The book is already out of print, but there are used copies available on Amazon. I hope to publish a re-release or electronic version soon.

https://amzn.to/3s6Cm6C

Old Town, the basic setting of the story

A planet whose rotation has slowed down. It repeats hundreds of years of day and hundreds of years of night.

The daytime realm is deserted and the nighttime realm is covered in snow. The few remaining humans live in the realm of dusk and the realm of dawn, on the border between day and night, slowly building cities and moving around in accordance with the slow rotation of the planet.

The city stretches long and thin like a river (in my work, I read it as "road"), and surrounds the stars.

In the daytime and nighttime realms, laborers called Utsuro, who are made from human corpses, roam about, sending water for humans in the nighttime realm and building cities in the daytime realm.

The brain of the Uturo is tuned in three ways.

In the daytime realm, the city is built. The compulsion to keep working for the good of others.

Range rules for emotions. No matter what I see or experience, I cannot despair of this world.

Processing of perception. I can't perceive the world correctly. We have not been able to determine exactly how this is incorrect. We will continue to work on this.

Human beings appear only as concepts and words in this story for the time being. I have yet to decide if I want to include them in the story.

This is about Lukit Meiou, who appeared in FLAT in 1998, and then in the serialized story "Jyusei" on Ace Next.

The manga is actually six pages long, since it's eight pages and has a spread. I tried so hard to cram the content in that it doesn't make sense when I read it now.

Lukit Meiou is a "half-dead" with an unprocessed human brain, created by a puppeteer, Gordroy Meiou, who tunes Utsuro. Because his brain has not been tuned, he has not been imbued with the compulsion to work for humans, and is able to see the world as it is and accept it correctly. Lukit's left arm belongs to the same individual as his brain, and it conditionally turns anything it touches into ash. The phenomenon is called ashy decay.

It is a phenomenon that causes discrepancies in the laws of physics, and it is possible that this world is a fake, or that Utsuro's brain is not perceiving the world correctly. Normally, this left arm is hidden by a glove lined with ashes from the ash decay. The conditions for the ash decay to occur are still being worked out.

In the FLAT version, he is not wearing gloves. In the FLAT version, he is not wearing gloves, which seems cold now that I think about it, but maybe he doesn't mind because he has no body heat.

Lukit is ordered to contact a human in the realm of the evening darkness. Only unprocessed human brains can approach the Realm of Evening Darkness. Reaching this realm of darkness is the first goal set for the protagonist in this story.

In the process, the story is motivated by the choice of whether Lukit will find hope in this world, or whether he will find no hope and destroy the human species, which continues to postpone its demise through warped means.

The creation of uturos like Lukit, whose brain has not been tuned and processed, is an act of grave treason against humans. Gordroy himself is a special kind of Uturo created by humans, but his brain is tuned to work for humans, so he cannot commit this kind of treason.

This was made possible by one of the puppeteers, Kichisel Cranach, who, like Gordroy, was made by humans. By means of Kikisel, Gordroy's brain was acquired and de-tuned, albeit imperfectly.

It was Kikisel who first de-tuned his brain, probably by accident due to a bug (tentative). The slightest flaw in the tuning process made him realize that he was not perceiving the world correctly, and he deactivated the brain tuning process of several puppeteers, albeit incompletely, and shared the understanding that humans are dying and that there is no hope left for humans in this world.

However, the realization that the world is doomed places a heavy burden on Kicksell's brain, and he tries to destroy himself. To prevent this, he insists that Mimishi, one of the Utsuro he created, amputate his limbs.

Kikisel, Gordroy and a few other puppeteers make contact with a more human-like senior puppeteer (tentatively) and obtain a raw human brain and left arm from beneath the City of Ashes. This area is the prequel to the FLAT version of Old Town.

This is also a long story, so I'll leave it for another time.

Based on the unprocessed brain and left arm obtained here, Lukit Meiou is created.

Lukit's brain does not fully reproduce his memories, and what he can remember is the sight (tentatively) of his five bodies being cut into pieces by a strangely shaped axe. I may lose this setting. Perhaps the setting is connected to another manga called Shirasame, and the strange axe is a setting that was created for a scene in Shirasame. But it was 20 years ago, and I don't remember how it was supposed to be connected (laughs).

From here, I continued on to a manga I serialized in Ace Next, called Jyufury. When I think about it now, I wonder how it got published in a commercial magazine. I don't think it was completely in line with the format of commercial manga. Unfortunately, the magazine was closed after three issues, and it ended unfinished.

From here, if I were to draw something about this world, I have a few options.

Continue with the FLAT version of Old Town

Continuation of Ace Next and Tree Burial

Prequel to the FLAT version

Continuation of White Rain

I think it would be something like that, but there's another thing I'm thinking about. I had a dream about a month ago that was like a fragment of a story, and it looked like the world of Old Town.

I can only vaguely remember what the dream was about, but based on the image I had at that time, I created something like a scene from the story.

A girl is walking through a city covered with snow.

The girl is carrying a large bag on her back.

The girl opens the door of an abandoned house and enters a dark room.

Inside the room, there is a box big enough to hold a person. The girl opens the box. It is too dark to see what is inside.

The girl grabs something.

It is a human arm that has been cut off and drained of blood.

Inside the box, there are eleven left arms that seem to belong to the same person.

The girl, surprised but not afraid, examined the arms, opened the bag on her back, took out a cylindrical container and stored the arms.

Suddenly, the dried-up arm moved and her fingertips touched the girl's elbow. Suddenly, the girl's arm turns to ashes and collapses.

While losing her arm, the girl manages to close the lid of the container and lock it. She takes her bag on her back and leaves the place.

There was no blood flowing from the section of her arm that had crumbled into ashes, but her body tissue was slowly disintegrating. The girl continues her journey for a while with her arm missing, but eventually runs out of energy and collapses.

A pause.

Someone is standing beside the girl, who is being covered by the snow. A man of unknown age. The man kicks the girl in the shoulder and turns her over on her back. The girl does not react like a corpse.

Is she still conscious?

The girl moves her eyelids slightly.

She flickers her eyelids slightly, "This area is already snowed in. You can't work for humans here. Any sane Uthero would have moved on.

The girl did not answer.

The girl did not answer. "I heard that there is a Uturo wandering around whose brain has been illegally de-tuned. Is that what you are?

The girl moves her mouth slightly. You are not one of them?

It is in the best interest of humans to dispose of the rebellious Utsuro.

The man laughs.

The wound on your arm is a phenomenon called ashy decay. There are only a limited number of materials that can do this. Did you ever meet a Uthero named Lukit Meiou? Or his corpse?

The girl did not answer.

The man picks up the girl's thrown out bag and opens it. A cylindrical container.

If anyone other than me tries to open it, the contents will be incinerated.

Unlock it and I will cure you.

Heal me first.

You will soon be incapacitated by malignant deficiency.

When that happens, this vessel will never be opened.

I have Lukit Meio's blood. If it's Lukit's left arm you have, I'll give you this blood in exchange.

"Lukit Meiou's blood ....... If you transfuse it, it will be .......

It will recreate the memory of Lukit Meiou in your brain.

The girl thought for a moment and said the unlocking code.

Of course, I didn't dream what I have written so far, but this scene was generated from the image of a large box in a dark room filled with a large number of arms of the same person, and the image of negotiating with someone who forces you to beg for your life without any fear at all.

Now, I'm thinking of expanding this to create a short story. I have a feeling it's going to be a long story. ......

I'm still trying to decide whether to turn it into a manga or a novel.

I think a manga would take too much time, so I think a novel with lots of pictures would be better, but I'm also hesitant because it might be hard to read.

I would be happy to hear your opinions.

I'm currently editing a video that summarizes these details and the process of designing characters for a short story based on the dream scene. It's over 3 hours long, so please take a look at it at your leisure.

I'll post the URL here when it's uploaded.

I hope to be able to make this kind of video a few times a week.

Here are some of the rough sketches I did for the video.

https://youtu.be/bWdMxqJwbgY

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)