by Timothy Georgi
I've been pleasantly surprised many times through the years, especially in the world of anime. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to think of this month's feature series, s-CRY-ed. I had first heard about it at the Bandai Entertainment panel at the San Diego Comic-Con but I was wary to get into a series that I wasn't sure about. My initial impression was that it seemed to be a typical, full-blown action fest that would be over the top with the amount of fighting scenes. It's amazing how wrong some initial thoughts can be... But first, some background on our story.
Twenty-two years ago, a catastrophe occurred in the capital of Japan. The Kanagawa Prefecture was wracked with a great shifting of the earth's crust and an area for a 20 kilometer radius was thrown into a world of chaos. The phenomenon created a near-desolate, hostile island located just off the coast of the Tokyo area. As a result, the day-to-day operation of the Japanese government was severely hindered, so the capital was relocated South to the Mie Prefecture. The island was later abandoned during the recovery of the government and was dubbed "The Lost Ground."
When the reclamation of the The Lost Ground was underway, the island was divided into two regions, the city area and the undeveloped district. The city area became the urban center of the island, redeveloped by funding from the Mainland and the United Nations. Redevelopment of the area outside the city never proceeded due to financial issues. That left the undeveloped region to the devices of the people that were left outside the walls of the city.
Along with the physical transformation of the land, another unique side-effect of the unexplained phenomenon began to manifest itself. A small number of the children born on The Lost Ground began to show signs of extraordinary powers. They were able to rearrange the matter around them into all sorts of different things, typically machine-like objects that would protect the creator. The created objects came to be known as Alters and the children that created them called Alter Users.
As is typical with something that people don't understand, the Alter Users began to be persecuted and feared by the people living on The Lost Ground and the Mainland. Prejudice and hatred enraged as the Alter Users came to learn of their strange powers. Eventually Alter Users had to use their Alters just to survive, which propelled their separation from "normal" humans to a higher level.
In an effort to bring order to the world of The Lost Ground, the government created a policing force known as HOLD. It was there responsibility to keep the peace throughout the island, both inside the City and in the undeveloped district. With the number of Alter Users growing, HOLD had to find a way to combat the threat of the destructive Alters. As a result, a small arm of HOLD was created, called HOLY. HOLY is a task force made up of a number of Alter Users dedicated to capturing any rogue Alter Users in the undeveloped district and re-educating them to be a normal member of society. With the formation of HOLY, the Alter Users left outside were called Native Alters to differenciate them from the Alter Using members of HOLD.
