Super-Conductive Brains Parataxis (note ) is a Seinen Science Fiction manga serialized in Weekly Young Jump in 2001 for only six chapters. Although the creator, Shintaro Kago, is known for writing guro manga, this is relatively tame compared to his other works. However, because of the (non-pornographic) nudity and gore, it is still Not Safe for Work.
In a future age, giant humanoid creatures called Surdlers are used as basis for cyborgs that are employed in transportation, warfare, and construction. They are cloned and mass-produced like machines, and treated as such by societies, but some of them seem to have vestiges of their original minds. The story starts when one such Surdler breaks free of its mechanical constraints and runs amok, and follows the effects the event has on society from there.
Compare Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future. note
This manga contains examples of:
- Adam and Eve Plot: When Akira, Momoko, and Akihiko wake up from cryostasis, Akihiko assumes that there are no other survivors and uses it as an excuse to attempt to rape Momoko. This is later subverted when more "giants" wake up later.
- Artistic License – Biology: An especially unrealistic example is when all the Surdlers start giving birth on their own, despite their reproductive organs having been removed. The In-Universe explanation for this is that they are changing their reproductive system in order to prove that they are living beings.
- Body Horror: The modified Surdlers, as well as the abnormally raised fetuses, some of which don't even look remotely human.
- Final Solution: The manga ends with one of the humans wrecking the mainframe of the Lilliputians' brains.
- Formerly Sapient Species: Giant, unintelligent humanoids called "surdlers", the descendants of ancient humanity, are fitted with mechanical implants and used for construction and war.
- Genocide Dilemma: This comes up shortly before the end, but the humans decide to just kill them when Surdlers break into the room they're in.
- Gratuitous English: The use of the word "Parataxis" in the title and as Idiosyncratic Episode Naming.
- Human Popsicle: The latter two full chapters feature the "giants" waking up from this.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: There's a strange lack of a built-in security system in the room with the mainframe that all the Lilliputians' brains are connected to. Despite the presence of a video recording from Dr. Shimura in a different room to taunt the surviving humans, the mainframe room doesn't have any sort of robot guards stationed in it and is surprisingly easy for a normal-sized human to destroy.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter is titled "Parataxis 1", "Parataxis 2", etc.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: The Surdlers look like nude females, but humans treat them like machines, and they are not sexualized In-Universe. Their nudity is justified because they are clones of the original giants and of course they aren't going to come wearing clothes (which wouldn't be useful to machines anyway).
- Just a Machine: How ordinary humans treat the Surdlers, despite them just being large humans. It gets ironic when it turns out that the Surdlers turned out to be the original humans all along.
- Lilliputians: What the "ordinary", non-Surdler humans turn out to be.
- Meat-Sack Robot: Surdlers are made into cyborgs so they can be used as industrial machines or weapons.
- Near-Rape Experience: When Akira isn't looking, Unlucky Childhood Friend Akihiko tries to rape Momoko after waking up from cryostasis assuming an Adam and Eve Plot, but then Akira comes back and punches him, knocking him over. Akihiko stops because Akira threatens to kill him. Later, when Akira goes missing, Akihiko tries to rape Momoko again, but then stops because her screams could put them in danger of being detected by Surdlers.
- One-Gender Race: No male Surdlers appear. This is justified by the fact that they are all clones, so they could be clones of a single female specimen.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: The Surdlers. It turns out that the Surdlers are in fact ordinary humans, and the "ordinary humans" are actually Lilliputians.
- Secret Art: The process of DNA combination by which humans can reproduce. To ordinary civilians it seems like a Black Box.
- Tomato Surprise: The Surdlers aren't larger than real life humans, they just seem that way because the setting is a Mouse World. This is Foreshadowed early on by the use of large bugs as pets.
- Unusual Chapter Numbers: Parataxis 3½ and Parataxis 4½.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Surdlers don't start out as mindless machines; they are first cloned and have minds of their own, although not being raised as part of society, they're not very intelligent.
