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Experience the magic of grade school all over
again . . . with the help of a disintegrator ray.
Based on the hit TV series of the same name,
Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja-Educational
Preparatory Super-Elementary Fortress 555
chronicles the lives of children attending the
elementary school in the suburbs surrounding the
city at the center of the universe. The show was
a mixture of many types of children's Anime, but
there were also a smattering of elements from many
other influences (some from Anime, some from
Western animation, movies, and television programs).
The creators have attempted to tread the fine
line between homage and satire in the creation
of each of the characters, as well as the setting
itself, but you'll have to judge for yourself
how well they've done.
At the Center of the Multiverse there is a city
simply called The City. Here, all realities collide
and intermingle tumultuously. Little is constant
other than change, as reality itself is in constant
flux, as though the many paradigms are actively
fighting one another. Some locations are constant,
but what reality holds sway over them changes
from time to time. Most places, however, hold
tightly to their reality of choice, but tend to
shift location from time to time. Not only do
the relationships between one reality and another
change, but even the internal elements of a reality
are subject to change. So, one day you may live
in a quiet set of rowhouses on a side street,
with many of the kids you go to school with in
the neighborhood, and then the next you find yourself
the only house among high-rises in a mostly-commercial
district, with nobody you know in the area.
The further you get from the center of The City,
the less chaotic things become. In the 'burbs,
associations between locations are stronger, so
reality tends to shift in larger clumps, and whole
neighborhoods may remain undisturbed for months
at a stretch. It is here that Advanced Dimensional
Green Ninja-Educational Preparatory Super-Elementary
Fortress 555 is located -- part of the
Advanced Dimensional Ninja-Educational Preparatory
Super-Fortress System, run by the government and
paid for with taxpayer currency, and free to all
citizens (although the definition of "citizen"
has always been a bit of problem, what with the
difficulty of determining who has lived where
and for how long -- thus the City-wide school
system).
Navigating The City and surroundings is no mean
feat, and most rely on professional transportation
(buses, taxis, the subway, and so on) when they
need to go to anywhere less familiar than the
grocery store, work, or school. Many of these,
in turn, are "manned" by various and sundry Things
Whose Names Shall Not Be Spoken -- but whose bizarre
alien minds can comprehend the shifting and interlocking
realities as easily as you or I could contemplate
the route from one side of our kitchen to the
other. Ironically, the greatest, and thus most
dangerous, of the Things Whose Names Shall Not
Be Spoken are generally school bus drivers, because
everyone agrees that the most precious cargo shipped
on the public transit is their children. Every
parent's strictest instruction before a child's
first day of school is to never, under any circumstances,
look the bus driver in the where-its-face-should-be,
and, no matter what happens never, ever
read the bus-driver's name plate, not even silently
to yourself, and especially not
three times in a row. Oh, and never mind the tentacles
creeping down the aisle -- just bash them with
your bookbag if they get too close.
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