BATMAAAAN!
I don't own GitS or Batman. Plz review.
It takes three months after (after that incident) that Togusa realizes that he ought to be miserable. After all, he's living in America now, the newly re-United States; with imperialists crushed by the old-school government, the American Empire wiped away. America, the land of the enemy according to Batou (always so bitter and angry and "How do you know they're all like that?" Togusa wants to ask, but he doesn't say anything, just closes his mouth and tries to ignore all the awful, awful things Batou says about 'America' and 'Lady Liberty'...).
But here he is, in the center of the West, and it's nothing like what he thought. The people are loud and rude, and don't know a damn thing about keeping their illnesses to themselves (coughing on each other, honestly, no surgical masks at all, what the world is coming to)(1) and their language, English, so harsh and inconsistent...
He isn't miserable. In fact, he is dangerously close to being happy.
Here, there are no obvious prosthetics growing out of human bodies -- cyber-technology was key in the Second Civil War, the one that resulted in America being split into three parts; not many citizens trust it, especially with those three parts so newly brought back together. Very few get prosthetics for fashion, for vanity, for wanting to one-up the other guy.
It's refreshing. There are so many naturals here, that for the first time Togusa doesn't feel that absurd desire to -- (run, hide, they're all beasts and predators, get away before they eat you up.)
He's complimented on his hair color, his eye color, teased gently about the haircut. The lady cops at the station have been taking turns, trying to see who can get him to come out on a date. And all he can think of to say is "Gomen, I can't, my cat you see --" and that always makes them laugh.
His cat, ha ha. And they really believed him, ha ha.
"Batman, he has a new sidekick now, some freak in black and gold --"
"What -- Catman? That what they're calling him?"
After a week of hearing that kind of talk in the break room, Togusa found some red paint, and used it on the outside of Gotham PD headquarters.
"The
name is 'Luipaard.'"
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(1) To keep sickness from spreading, the Japanese will cover their lower faces with surgical masks when ill.