Vexille 2007

In the 2060s, robotics and cybernetics have advanced to a level that changes how people think about technology and control. Global opinions grow uneasy about autonomous machines, and in 2067 the United Nations issues a unilateral ban on further robotics research. Japan, home to the powerhouse Daiwa Heavy Industries, pushes back with strong protests but cannot overturn the ban, ultimately withdrawing from international politics. To safeguard its secrets, Daiwa drives a bold, cloaked program led by Toshiyuki Morikawa as Kisaragi, a figure whose research pushes the envelope even as the rest of the world looks away. At the same time, the world watches as the R.A.C.E. network—270 offshore installations—casts a vast energy field over Japan, severing all external communications and making satellite surveillance nearly impossible. In effect, Japan vanishes from the global stage, living behind a shimmering barrier while its people and prospects become the subject of quiet, watchful concern.

A decade later, the United States Navy’s elite SWORD unit pursues a Japanese informant tied to Daiwa’s secretive program, traveling to Colorado in a high-stakes chase. The informant, known as Saito, escapes by cutting off his own leg, which researchers later reveal is made of bio-metal. The raid hints at a hidden, forbidden spectrum of technology that Japan might be concealing, and SWORD vows to uncover the frequency of the oppressive R.A.C.E. network to learn what Daiwa has truly accomplished behind the veil. In this moment of tension, the fate of a whole nation hangs in the balance as the mission risks triggering a broader global confrontation.

Among the few who slip through the net is Vexille, a capable SWORD operative portrayed by Meisa Kuroki. She is almost unique in her ability to move within Daiwa’s shadowed world, and she survives where others fall. Her only ally in the chaos is her lover, Leon, played by Shosuke Tanihara, who endures long enough to be brought into Daiwa’s inner circle. When Vexille awakens in Tokyo, she finds a city that has transformed into a stark, lawless town ruled by the corporation, while a stubborn resistance remains. The resistance is led by Maria, portrayed by Yasuko Matsuyuki, who reveals a decade of calculated secrecy and the chilling truth behind Japan’s post-2067 landscape: a supposed pandemic was really a pretext for unleashing nanotechnology that would convert everyday citizens into obedient life-like machines. The result is a desolate archipelago where the only line of defense is a ceramic wall guarding Tokyo, the last bastion of life on the islands.

As the resistance strengthens its stance, Vexille and Maria plan to draw the unfeeling Jags—vast, spinning constructs of semi-sentient metal—toward Daiwa’s corporate stronghold, a fortress now standing in the middle of Tokyo Bay. Vexille agrees to pilot her flight-enabled armor in a dangerous staging of evacuation and attrition, guiding the Jags toward the service bridge that links Daiwa to the outside world. The plan succeeds only up to a point: the bridge is detached from the headquarters, and the Jags tumble into the sea, while Vexille and Maria are captured and brought before Kisaragi, the master of Daiwa. The stalwart leader boasts that his research is nearly finished and calculates a future expansion—an invasion of America—before his own test subject networks turn against him. In a brutal turn, Saito secretly strangles him, exposing the fragility of even the most ambitious schemes.

The town council then forces open the ceramic gates, allowing the Jags to storm Daiwa’s headquarters. Kisaragi, though presumed dead by the audience, appears to have survived and manages a final act of escape by shooting Saito and slipping away with the research. With the gates open and the city overrun, the Jags flood into the Daiwa stronghold, yet Vexille and Maria remain unbroken. The remaining resistance fights on as Daiwa’s fortress collapses into the bay, taking with it the last of the lifelike machines that once ruled the land. In the end, Vexille and Leon are rescued by a SWORD helicopter, lifting away from a Japan that now lies quiet and lifeless beneath a vanished horizon. As they depart, Vexille reflects on the persistence of human spirit, insisting that no force can ever extinguish it.