Set on Earth in the early 24th century, the comic revolves around an all-female cadre of Humongous Mecha pilots. Recruited from all over the world, their job mainly consists of marketing the Achilles program: finding the 1 in 3,500 people with the ability to link with an Achilles mech through a Brain/Computer Interface called the singularity anchor, and trick the brain into accepting the mech as part of their own body.
On New Year's Day of the sixth year of the program, they finally learn the reason why when an alien mothership descends from the sky. The assembled phalanx of mechs they worked so hard to recruit is wiped out in an instant by the Ur, heralding a swift and bloody conquest.
Fourteen years later, the Shieldmaidens are the leaders of a desperate resistance movement against the Ur, fighting to take Earth back.
A 52-page preview is available
on Šejić's Pixiv account, along with several other preview and promotional images.
Achilles Shieldmaidens contains examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Invasion: Earth is invaded and swiftly occupied by the mysterious Ur during the prologue chapter.
- An Arm and a Leg: Berserker is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by an Ur mech during the invasion, and Sofia Gagarin's left arm is taken off at the shoulder from the weapon passing through her cockpit.
- Behemoth Battle: It's a mecha comic, so battles between giant robots are pretty much a given.
- Disney Death: The narration during the prologue leads us to believe that Sofia died in a Last Stand in Neo Manhattan during the Alien Invasion. Badly wounded? Yes. Dead? No: she's the pilot of the Achilles that saves Artemis and Max at the start of chapter 1.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Said verbatim by Nia when she and Jane do a midair dance during the New Year's Day celebration at the start of the comic.Jane: Whoa! You're not kidding about the gusts!
Nia: It's alright. I got you. Now, let's give them a show!
Jane: You got it! May I have this dance then?
Nia: I mean, since you're the only one around...
Jane: Nia, I'm the best one around!
Nia: A distinction without difference! - Humongous Mecha: Lying down for transport, an Achilles is the length of a rail car, and the animal-like Ur mechs are no smaller.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Lampshaded: "It's a giant mecha with tits and you have a crush on the pilot! Your opinion is irrelevant!"
- Only in It for the Money: Invoked by the Shieldmaidens' recruiter, Colonel Max Nichols, who specifically wanted pilot candidates who needed the job and therefore "wouldn't blow their chance by talking about the program." Emily Doyle grew up poor and the job pays well. Nia Davis says something similar when asked why she wanted to join, though she also says she caught the bug from her father, a mecha test pilot.
- Signed Up for the Dental: Invoked by the Shieldmaidens' recruiter, Colonel Max Nichols, who specifically wanted pilot candidates who needed the job and therefore "wouldn't blow their chance by talking about the program." Rosa Ibanez and Jane Willis both cite the "Rank 4 medical coverage": Rosa because she needs genetic surgery before she starts a family due to a gene mutation, and Jane to cover her gender reassignment surgery.
- Super Robot Genre: Blurs the line a bit with Real Robot: much like Pacific Rim, the Achilles were created by a multinational coalition, the Global Defense Initiative, but the mechs overall pretty much run on Rule of Cool and technobabble.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Humongous Mecha in the series have to feel like an extension of the pilot's body in order to work properly, but since they're designed to a masculine form factor, this causes problems for Jane Willis, a trans woman. In one incident her neurostim ran out mid-fight, so she improvised by digging into the old trauma from her Trans Tribulations, and tricked Aphelion's self-repair mechanisms into remodeling it into a feminine form. She renames the mecha Ophelia.
- Trans Tribulations: Exploited by Jane: she used the traumatic memories from her gender dysphoria to force Aphelion to remodel itself into a feminine form she could pilot more effectively.
