The Zaibatsu Project
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Zaibatsu Project |
| Author(s): | Nekotsuki |
| Date(s): | August 2006 (date first instalment was published to Livejournal) - present |
| Length: | 74,632 words |
| Genre: | Cyberpunk AU |
| Fandom: | Rurouni Kenshin |
| External Links: | Livejournal (last updated 2015): https://zaibatsuproject.livejournal.com/ Fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3149233/19/The-Zaibatsu-Project |
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The Zaibatsu Project is an ongoing Rurouni Kenshin cyberpunk AU fanfic by Nekotsuki. It was originally published to Livejournal beginning in August 2006, and Fanfiction.net beginning in September 2006. It is still ongoing, and was last updated in November 2019.
The story's summary on Fanfiction.net reads:
In the year 2029, modern day street samurai and brilliant programmer Himura Kenshin returns to the ugly world of street politics and corporate war in an effort to help an unconventional hacker find her brother. Influenced by Cyberpunk 2020. Definitely AU.
On AO3, where the story was cross-posted beginning in 2013, the fic has a different, slightly more detailed summary:
Heavily influenced by the game system Cyberpunk 2020. Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction AU, set circa 2030, where almost all net interaction is virtual and information is power. This will tell the tale of Himura Kenshin, modern day street samurai and former brilliant programmer for a leading zaibatsu, before tragedy involving his greatest achievement - the black ice sentry, Battousai - drove him into seclusion. Now, years later, he will return to the ugly world of street politics and corporate war in an effort to help an unconventional netrunner find her brother.
The runner's name is Kamiya Kaoru, and she is the only person to have encountered the Battousai program and survived. But not for long, if the corporation has anything to say about it...
The fic was also briefly cross-posted to Dreamwidth in 2012, but only one update was added there, and previous chapters were not back-posted. Currently, the fic is updated on Fanfiction.net and AO3.
Author Nekotsuki has emphasised that the fic is "vastly AU"[1] and doesn't follow any semblance of a canon plot, with familiar characters popping up in "unfamiliar roles". A wide variety of characters, both major and minor, from the Rurouni Kenshin series feature in the fanfic. On AO3, the fic is tagged with the canon ship Kenshin/Kaoru, but this relationship is very much a slow build, with action and adventure being the main focus of the plot.
Plot & Storytelling
The story's main focus is young hacker Kamiya Kaoru's attempt to free her brother, Myoujin Yahiko, from the clutches of Sumitomo, a massive and all-powerful zaibatsu (corporation), as well as Zaibatsu employee Himura Kenshin's attempts to avoid being drawn back in to the corporation's clutches and negotiate its power politics following a period of self-imposed exile. Friends and associates of both Kenshin and Kaoru are drawn into the events that unfold when Kaoru attempts to hack into the Sumitomo mainframe to find her brother's whereabouts - and encounters the deadly black ice programme, Battousai, programmed by Kenshin himself.
The narrative is told from a variety of different perspectives, advancing each character's strand of the plot. Major roles are played by Kaoru and Kenshin as well as Yahiko, Sagara Sanosuke, Shinomori Aoshi, Makamachi Misao, Takani Megumi and villains such as Makoto Shishio and Seta Soujiro.
Due to the fact that the fic was originally written for Livejournal, it has a slightly unconventional narrative style, with traditional prose chapters broken up by other types of narrative like chat logs, fragments of dialogue, and world-building interludes. Nekotsuki has noted that this style of storytelling doesn't translate quite so well in chaptered form on websites like Fanfiction.net and AO3.[2]
Update Schedule
References
- ^ Testing, Testing ... by whiteadelphi, zaibatsuproject.livejournal.com. Published June 13 2006 (Accessed December 29, 2019).
- ^ The author's notes to The Zaibatsu Project: Chapter 11 read, This chapter's short and suffers a lot for its original formatting on LJ, given my predilection for writing different story formats halfway through for the hell of it. Squished into chapters it doesn't work quite so well, but the section after this is very long, so I present to you... one vaguely mangled, short and weird chapter. The author's notes for the same chapter on AO3 note: Due to the original publication of this story on LJ, formats were mixed and matched for sections just for the hell of it (i.e. the snippets bit we just had and the chat log much earlier on, etc) - when it comes to turning that into chapters, though, considering the huge chapter incoming after this one, the pace leaves a lot to be desired.