Vanishing Point

***Vanishing Point*** ("*Shoushitsu-ten*" in Japanese) is an action mystery drama anime conceived by Ryan Nurse and Animatron Studios, and currently in the writing phase. Set in a near-future Tokyo, the show centers around Kiyoko Inoue, an 18-year-old girl who was kidnapped and experimented on by the villainous Shinsuke Corporation, developing amnesia and strange invisibility powers as a result. Together with two other test subjects, she is rescued by private detective Kamui Matsuda, and the four set about trying to track down the other Shinsuke test subjects and uncover the truth behind the experiments.

## Synopsis

Kiyoko Inoue awakes to find herself locked in a strange cell with no memory of who she is or how she got there. A short time later, a man masquerading as a guard arrives and frees her. As the facility's alarms go off, another inmate - also amnesiac and with super-strength - takes advantage of the chaos to make her own escape, freeing a third inmate, Hanako Kobayashi, in the process. As the four make their escape, the fake guard identifies himself as Kamui Matsuda, a private detective hired to investigate Kiyoko's disappearance. He tells Kiyoko who she is and where she is - a facility owned by the military contractor Shinsuke Corp., whose City Patrol mecha have supplanted the Tokyo police force. Kiyoko is also discovered to have a superpower - invisibility. The escapees set out to discover why the girls were kidnapped, how they obtained their powers, and what Shinsuke plans for them: at the same time, they attempt to track down the twelve other test subjects that came before them.

## Characters

### Main characters

* Kiyoko Inoue: The nominal main character of the series. A shy girl, rattled by the sudden events surrounding her, she has the power to render herself and any object she is holding completely invisible.
* Kamui Matsuda: A private detective who was hired by Kiyoko's family to investigate her disappearance, and the show's male lead.
* Cobra: A muscular girl with super-strength who escaped with the others from Shinsuke's research facility. Unable to recall her name or past, her name comes from a prominent tattoo of a snake on her right arm. Unlike Kiyoko, she is determined to recover her lost memories and remember who she is.
* Hanako Kobayashi: An innocent 18-year-old girl who was rescued from Shinsuke before she could be subjected to their experiments. Over the course of the series, she slowly matures into a young woman.
* Tetsuya Kobayashi: Hanako's older brother, who joins the group partway through the series. He is rather protective of his younger sister.

### Shinsuke Corp.

* Satoru Oeyama: The CEO of Shinsuke Corporation and the primary antagonist of the series. He is behind the plot to kidnap and experiment on the girls, but his motivations for doing so are unknown.
* Dr. Morgan Oeyama: A research scientist at the Shinsuke facility, and Satoru's daughter.
* Keizuke Yoshimoto: The captain of the City Patrol, who pilots a custom "Black Phoenix" mecha. He perpetually wears sunglasses, even while piloting his mecha, and has a cool, calm demeanour.
* Tian: A mysterious guard and City Patrol mecha pilot who appears to be assisting the escapees.
* Rika Uematsu: Satoru's secretary. She wants no part of Shinsuke's schemes, but is unable to back out.

### Test Subjects

* Rei: Test Subject #3, code-named "Obsidian". Rei has the power to shapeshift herself. She escaped from the Shinsuke facility prior to the start of the show, and has been launching vengeful attacks on the City Patrol ever since, believing Shinsuke took her life away from her.
* Mizuki Sato: Test Subject #10, code-named "Emerald". A famous idol and actress, Mizuki recovered her memories shortly after her kidnap, but cannot recall the incident itself. She has the power to hypnotize others, which she sometimes misuses due to her childishness. She eats a lot.
* "Amethyst": Test Subject #2. Given the power to drain the life force of others, Amethyst was deemed dangerous and flawed and was "discarded". She now lives in an abandoned house that it thought to be haunted.
* "Diamond": Test Subject #4. She has the power to heal others; but despite this, she works as a mechanic. She refuses to believe that her powers were given to her for evil purposes, and that Shinsuke are planning anything untoward.
* "Topaz": Test Subject #5. She has the power to stretch her body, and works as a cheerleader for a local baseball team.
* "Ruby": Test Subject #6. She has the power to fly. Her conditioning did not quite work properly, and after reading a magical girl manga, she has reverted to a chuunibyou phase where she calls herself "Ruby, Saviour of Tokyo", dressing like a magical girl and attempting to fight crime.
* "Jade": Test Subject #7. She has the power to grow and heal plants. Shinsuke's experiments seem to have reverted her to a childlike state, and she freely and inquisitively wanders the beaches on the outskirts of Tokyo.
* "Garnet": Test Subject #8. A high school track athlete who has power over fire.
* "Quartz": Test Subject #9. She has power over electricity, and can create electromagnetic fields. Her powers are too strong, however, and she must wear metal bracers on her arms and legs to stop her from shocking herself.
* "Beryl": Test Subject #11. She has the power to slow down time, speeding herself up in the process. She works as an office lady, and refuses to misuse her powers.
* Sayoko Yoshida: Test Subject 12, code-named "Alexandra". She has the power to move objects using her mind. Having recovered her true memories, she now works at a maid café.

## Development

*Vanishing Point* went through numerous conceptual changes before taking its present form. Nurse's original concept, inspired by the Flash game *Reverb*, was of a third-person stealth action game with open-world elements. The player, controlling an unnamed female who would later become Kiyoko, would attempt to explore the facility without being spotted, making use of Kiyoko's limited invisibility powers, and find documents explaining who she is, where she is, how she came to be there, and the origins of her powers. This was swiftly scrapped, as Nurse considered it too difficult for him to implement.

*Vanishing Point* was then converted into a top-down 2D adventure game with visual novel elements, similar to *Another Code: Two Memories* (and, indeed, to *Reverb*, its original inspiration). This game was to be made in PowerPoint, and would feature a branching storyline, with the player's choices determining how many of the characters managed to escape and how much of the truth was revealed. At this stage, the series was somewhat more light-hearted than its final incarnation, with several subtle parodies of anime tropes - some of these, such as Keizuke and his City Patrol mecha division, were retained in the final series.

The anime version of *Vanishing Point* was originally conceived as a sequel, picking up after the group's presumed escape at the end of the game, but soon became a joint adaptation and sequel. Nurse began scripting the anime adaptation in February 2012, and after condensing the entire game's plot into a single episode, he eventually decided to scrap the game altogether, turning the storyline into an original anime. The story has since gone through several rewrites, and presently, only the first two episodes are completed.

## Content

### Published Content

Two separate draft scripts of the show's first episode, "Fade In", have been published to Nurse's deviantART profile. The first, uploaded on 27 February 2012, was the first original literary work to be published by Nurse. The second, revised draft was published on 13 August 2013, in two parts.

As of 13 April 2015, *Vanishing Point* has had seven posts written as part of Project 20:15, totaling 8,874 words. Like all Project 20:15 posts, these are written in prose format, whereas the show itself will be written in script format.

### Planned Content

*Vanishing Point* is currently planned to consist of two parts. The main anime itself will consist of 22 episodes, and will be followed by a series of OVAs collectively named *Vanishing Point: Addendum*, which will conclude the personal arcs of several characters, most notably Hanako. The exact number of *Addenda* is currently unknown, but there will be at least three.

The series' planned theme song for all 22 episodes is the Hatsune Miku song "Border", making it one of the few projects with a defined theme song.

## Appearances in other media

*When Worlds Collide* will feature Kiyoko, Cobra and Rei as playable characters, Quartz, Ruby, Amethyst and Topaz as support characters, and three stages based on the series ("Tokyo Backstreet", "Tokyo Dockyard", and "Shinsuke HQ"). There will also be 24 Figurines based on *Vanishing Point*, more than any other series, and over 10% of the game's total Figurines (currently 215).