Eve Tokimatsuri (時祭 イヴ Tokimatsuri Ivu) is a recurring character in the Megazone 23 animated series. She was designed by animator Haruhiko Mikimoto.
Contents |
The original Eve Tokimatsuri was born in the 24th Century on Earth. She was the personal assistant of the polymath Professor Ferdinand F. Heinkel. Prof. Heinkel and Eve were advocates of the Earth Reclamation Project. The project involved the construction of the Megazone generation ships that would ferry the survivors of a global holocaust that ravaged the Earth.
Prof. Heinkel constructed a computer program named EVE that would be dedicated to the nurturing and preservation of the human survivors aboard the Megazones. EVE was essential in deceiving the inhabitants of each Megazone into thinking that they still lived on Earth during particular eras in Earth History (e.g. Megazone 23 was modelled after Tokyo circa 1980-1985). The program was integrated into the Bahamut supercomputers that governed each Megazone. The EVE program's visual interface was modelled after Eve Tokimatsuri's likeness.
When Prof. Heinkel was assassinated in the year 2353, Eve Tokimatsuri elected to enter a cryogenic slumber on Earth. She is stored near the foundations of Eden City (Megazone 33) - the only Megazone that did not take flight to the stars.
Somewhere between the 24th and 29th centuries, the EVE program aboard Megazone 23 achieved a state of self-awareness. She presented herself to the citizens of the Megazone as a charismatic singer / talk show hostess. During the events of the first Megazone 23 movie, she is in a struggle to maintain her autonomy from the military, who uses her likeness and voice as a propaganda tool in the war effort against the Dezalg - an offshoot of the human race descended from Mars colonists.
Eve becomes aware of Shogo Yahagi - a young motorcyclist who steals an experimental transformable mecha known as the Proto-Garland. Eve uses the Proto-Garland's communication system to contact Shogo. She reveals to him the whole history of the Megazones and their departure from Earth five centuries before. She implores him to help stop the military from overriding her core programming. When Shogo is defeated in one-on-one combat with Major B. D., she helps him to regain consciousness by singing through the communication link aboard the damaged Garland.
The sequel takes place six months after the first movie. It depicts the EVE program still rebelling against the military's plans to subvert all the Megazone's resources for war. She sends intermittent transmissions via radio and television to contact "Operator 7G" - her term for Shogo. The military has subverted enough of her program to generate propaganda media using her likeness. Shogo and his new companions - the biker/squatter gang Trash - are nostalgic for the antebellum Eve, who sang songs of love and peace. Shogo is determined to raid the Bahamut tower and communicate directly with Eve. When Shogo and Trash execute the raid, Shogo's girlfriend Yui Takanaka is critically wounded. Shogo carries Yui to a hidden chamber within Bahamut where Eve makes contact with the heroes of the story. Eve urges Shogo to place Yui in an alcove where Eve can tend to Yui's wounds. While Yui recuperates. Eve guides Shogo through a holographic dreamscape where she tries to determine Shogo's nature, values and his reasons for defying the military. Eve praises Shogo's basic goodness and announces that Megazone 23 is completing its return trajectory toward Earth. Eve liaises with a defense weapon based on the Moon called ADAM (another creation of Prof. Heinkel). ADAM determines Megazone 23 and the Dezalg mothership that pursues it are hostile forces and proceeds to dismantle and destroy the two generation ships. As Megazone 23 disintegrates, Eve sings a mournful dirge for the people who die aboard the ship. Eve manages to save a handful of survivors - Shogo, Yui and members of the Trash gang - by gathering them into the Bahamut tower. The tower serves as an escape capsule, that jettisons the survivors from the dying Megazone and deposits them on a revived, re-greened Earth.
The final movie takes place several centuries - possibly a full millennium - after the events of the second Megazone 23 movie. The original Eve Tokimatsuri is revived from her slumber beneath Eden City by Eiji Takanaka. She allies herself with Eiji as the two conspire to dismantle the "System" - a Bahamut that governs Eden City. Eve, Eiji and their compatriots manage to prevail over the System and its plan to banish the human race to the stars once more. Eve elects to depart the Earth on a one-way mission to the Moon to dismantle the ADAM system once and for all - freeing the human race from cybernetic overlords of any kind.
In the first movie, Eve appears as a fifteen-year old girl with long platinum blond hair. She wears a variety of stage costumes. When the military subverts Eve for use as a propaganda tool, she appears with brunette hair cut short and wears military garb.
In the second movie, Eve's mane is colored pastel green. Her wardrobe varies, but in her hidden chamber within Bahamut her holographic avatar wears a loose fitting robe reminiscent of a Sybilline oracle.
In the third movie, the original Eve has close-cropped, platinum blond hair. She appears in two versions, one virtual, who alternates between an all-blue jumpsuit, and a white tie-fastened shirt and orange tribal-patterned pants, and a 'real' version who wears a dark tunic with a severely short skirt and tall black boots. Notably, The version of Eve from the first two movies appears, within the Bahamut chamber, in the same robes as before, but with her hairstyle and color changed to match Eve's,
She also appears in a new variant in Megazone 23: Aoi Garland.