Hikojiro Matsumura

Mr. Takazawa, an elderly invalid who is cared for at his home by Haruko, a young nursing student, is chosen by the Japanese Ministry of Public Welfare to test the Z-001, a computerized hospital bed with robotic features that allegedly displays more efficiency and skills than any human nurse, but Haruko mistrusts a machine unable to consider human feelings.

While visiting Japan, Big Bird wanders off from a guided tour bus in Tokyo, and is lost until a Japanese woman helps him get to where he needs to go. The woman, however, is hiding a secret.

Denizens of Lux have come to call it "The City" and treat it as a sentient force. Three factions vie for control of the city: the Organo, a strictly professional conglomerate with ties to the criminal underworld in the prosthetics business; the Union, a fanatical populist group interfering with Organo's affairs; and Racan, a marauding group of Texhnolyzed youths.

Kintaro Oe is a 25-year-old boy who left Tokyo University and now lives a simple life, traveling by bicycle to learn everything he can about the world.