Shigeru Tsuda

Shigeru Tsuda is the early–41st Century leader of the Anti-Grannies, an organization of Japanese citizens who feels oppressed by their lack of control over their own lives and believe that Japan’s fate belongs to its people and not to Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan.
=Invasion=
On March 22nd 4001, Shigeru Tsuda, a special ambassador from Japan, arrived in North Am looking for Magnus. While Tsuda inquired about Magnus’ whereabouts from a tenant of the milespire where he lived, Melany Nugent, the undersecretary of international affairs, caught up with him and apologized for failing to meet him at the airport. After Tsuda accepted her apology, he asked Melany to explain what had happened in North Am as, due to the privacy treaty between their countries, only sketchy reports had reached Japan.
After Melany told him that Magnus destroyed the Mainbrain that oversaw North Am’s normal robots after a power malfunction caused ten million robots to go out of control and crippled the city since robot workers had to be supervised directly by humans until it could be rebuilt, Tsuda told her that the experience would uplift her people. Tsuda, who was eager to meet Magnus, then told Melany that Magnus had done a great service to her people and that he wished to beg him to do the same for Japan.
The next day in the Goph levels, Melany urged Tsuda that they return to his hotel since she did not believe that they would find Magnus, but since she did not offer him a better way and he had to find him urgently, he refused and ordered the driver to continue. Unbeknownst to them, just then they flew over Magnus’ head.
After an altercation at Oinker’s bar between Magnus and Slagger caught his attention, Tsuda ordered Melany to land their vehicle there just as General Mimsy tried to arrest Magnus and almost incited a riot. In the hope that it would solve the dilemma, Tsuda offered Magnus the protection of diplomatic asylum if he agreed to return to Japan with him to advise them regarding a difficulty and he accepted his offer. While Tsuda was eager to leave, Slagger dared Magnus to have a drink or fight him again and they had to stay another day.
On March 24th 4001, at the Civic Center Skyport in North Am, a Ninjatron attacked Tsuda and Magnus while they were on their way to a ship, but Magnus defeated her. Once they were on their way to Japan on the ambassador’s personal transport, Tsuda told Magnus that those who sided with a robot that they had a problem with in his country had sent the Ninjatron to kill them, and that when the council met the next day they would give him the full story.
The next day on Shichito Island, at a council meeting of what Tsuda called the outcast legitimate government of Japan, Tsuda told Magnus that Japan was in the grip of a powerful and sinister oppressor, and that he might be their only hope. After Tsuda showed Magnus a holofilm that recounted how Grandmother replaced the government of Japan when she gained freewill, he said that, for centuries, they shrugged and did nothing while her control over their people increased every day, but that there was a movement to reassert human control over human affairs as they were tired of being kept like pets. Though the Anti-Grannies pleaded with Magnus to help them overthrow Grandmother and Rai, his advice to them was that they move.
That night in the council house, Chein-Lung, an arms dealer, tendered Tsuda a carcino–pod that would destroy Grandmother’s intellect but not the computer-lobes that ran her essential systems, like water, food, and ventilation that he had to smuggle into Japan. Unbeknownst to them, Magnus witnessed the exchange.
When Magnus confronted Chein-Lung on who he was and the source of the weapon that he was supplying to the Anti–Grannies, he claimed that he represented a reclusive Chinasian inventor with great sympathy for the Anti–Grannies’ noble cause, but Magnus did not believe him and accused him of being an alien or a traitor. Enraged, Chein–Lung tossed Magnus aside and then ran away while he tussled with a group of Ninjatrons.
As Magnus confronted the assassins, he warned Tsuda and the councilors that aliens that were poised to invade the Earth were using them to help them destroy Grandmother, but, blinded at the prospect of regaining their self–determination, liberty, and dignity for his people, Tsuda did not believe him and escaped.
Certain that Grandmother would not allow a known Anti–Grannie inside Japan, Tsuda rammed an air car into the outer shell of the city to deliver the pod into the host body before Magnus warned her.
Category: Rai
Category: Characters